Ensuring Stability of Undermining Inclined Drainage Holes During Intensive Development of Multiple Gas-Bearing Coal Layers

At high rates of production face advance, requirements towards reliable operation of undermining drainage holes get raised. The issue of maintaining high intensity of gaseous seams development under naturally increasing gas content, mining depth and capacity of production equipment poses a problem. The greatest threat comes from the loss of hole stability in the bearing pressure affected zone (in front of the face) and in the intensive shift area of overhanging rock corbels (behind the face). Intensification of air leaks due to deformation of borehole channel leads to impoverishment of removed methane-air mixture and an increasing risk to disturb safe aerogas regime in the mining area. The paper describes a mechanism of how coal-face operations affect the state of underground holes and formation of overhanging rock corbels. A typification of basic kinds of borehole deformations is presented. Authors point out critical disadvantages of the most widely-used technological schemes of gaseous seams development under high load on the production face, which hinder normal operation of a gas drainage system. As a result of research, a dependency of shot hole number, as well as the distance between shot hole axes and the borehole, on the stress state of the borehole outline has been defined more precisely. Basing on that, a formula to calculate drilling parameters of the discharge hole system has been suggested. Implementation of these measures will allow to increase the efficiency of underground gas drainage and to maintain growing intensity of gaseous coal seam development

Non-invasive characterization of hybrid gelatin:poly-L-lactide electrospun scaffolds using second harmonic generation and multiphoton imaging

In this work we generated hybrid gelatin:poly-l-lactide electrospun scaffolds and implemented non-invasive methods to characterize them

ALPS-Like Phenotype Caused by ADA2 Deficiency Rescued by Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation

Adenosine deaminase 2 (ADA2) deficiency is an auto-inflammatory disease due to mutations in cat eye syndrome chromosome region candidate 1 (CECR1) gene, currently named ADA2. The disease has a wide clinical spectrum encompassing early-onset vasculopathy (targeting skin, gut and central nervous system), recurrent fever, immunodeficiency and bone marrow dysfunction. Different therapeutic options have been proposed in literature, but only steroids and anti-cytokine monoclonal antibodies (such as tumor necrosis factor inhibitor) proved to be effective. If a suitable donor is available, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) could be curative. Here we describe a case of ADA2 deficiency in a 4-year-old Caucasian girl. The patient was initially classified as autoimmune neutropenia and then she evolved toward an autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome (ALPS)-like phenotype. The diagnosis of ALPS became uncertain due to atypical clinical features and normal FAS-induced apoptosis test. She was treated with G-CSF first and subsequently with immunosuppressive drugs without improvement. Only HSCT from a 9/10 HLA-matched unrelated donor, following myeloablative conditioning, completely solved the clinical signs related to ADA2 deficiency. Early diagnosis in cases presenting with hematological manifestations, rather than classical vasculopathy, allows the patients to promptly undergo HSCT and avoid more severe evolution. Finally, in similar cases highly suspicious for genetic disease, it is desirable to obtain molecular diagnosis before performing HSCT, since it can influence the transplant procedure. However, if HSCT has to be performed without delay for clinical indication, related donors should be excluded to avoid the risk of relapse or partial benefit due to a hereditary genetic defect

13C urea breath test to identify Helicobacter pylori Infection in patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding admitted to the Emergency Department

OBJECTIVE: Upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) is a cause of Emergency Department (ED) visits. Peptic ulcer secondary to H. pylori (HP) infection and/or to the use of NSAIDs is the most frequent cause. The aim of the study is to evaluate directly in the ED the prevalence of HP infection through Urea Breath test (UBT) in patients admitted to the ED for UGIB. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We enrolled 87 patients (58M/29F) with a mean age of 63.8 + 11.7 yrs with an active UGIB who performed EGDS and UBT. RESULTS: 34.4% of patients performing EGDS and UBT resulted positive to HP. Peptic ulcer was present in 20/30 (66.7%) of HP+ compared to 20/57 (35.1%) of HP- (p<0.001), and also gastritis and/or duodenitis were mostly present in HP+ (23.3% vs. 15.8%) (p<0.05). A biopsy was performed in only 31% of patients with a positive rate of 33.3%. In 78% we obtained a correspondence between UBT and biopsy results. Compared to biopsy result, we obtained for UBT a positive predictive value (PPV) of 71% and a negative predictive value (NPV) of 80%. Taking the UBT as a gold standard, we obtained for biopsies a PPV of 69% and a NPV of 85%. CONCLUSIONS: Our study confirms that the use of UBT directly in ED in patients with UGIB allows for a rapid, reliable and non-invasive diagnosis of HP infection as a causative agent for bleeding, thus permitting a right etiological treatment

A combined analysis technique for the search for fast magnetic monopoles with the MACRO detector

We describe a search method for fast moving ($\beta > 5 \times 10^{-3}$) magnetic monopoles using simultaneously the scintillator, streamer tube and track-etch subdetectors of the MACRO apparatus. The first two subdetectors are used primarily for the identification of candidates while the track-etch one is used as the final tool for their rejection or confirmation. Using this technique, a first sample of more than two years of data has been analyzed without any evidence of a magnetic monopole. We set a 90% CL upper limit to the local monopole flux of $1.5 \times 10^{-15} cm^{-2} s^{-1} sr^{-1}$ in the velocity range $5 \times 10^{-3} \le \beta \le 0.99$ and for nucleon decay catalysis cross section smaller than $\sim 1 mb$.Comment: 29 pages (12 figures). Accepted by Astroparticle Physic

Rapid clinical management of leishmaniasis in emergency department: A case report with clinical review of recent literature

Systemic or localized lympho-adenomegaly is a common cause of access to the emergency department (ED), and differential diagnosis is often complicated. The combination of anamnesis, physical examination, laboratory tests, and instrumental diagnosis are extremely important to orientate toward a rapid and correct therapy, even if a prompt discrimination of the etiology of this lymphadenomegaly is not often possible. Our aim with this review is to improve the management of a differential diagnosis between hematological and infective diseases as leishmaniasis in ED and suggest quick diagnostic techniques that might be useful for early identification. Together in the review, we describe a case report of a young man affected from visceral leishmaniasis who presented to our ED and was incorrectly addressed to the wrong ward for the study of his condition. Subsequently, we focus on the clinical presentation of visceral leishmaniasis and compare it to the most common differential diagnoses that are usually taken into account in the management of such patients

Search for massive rare particles with MACRO

Massive rare particles have been searched for in the penetrating cosmic radiation using the MACRO apparatus at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories. Liquid scintillators, streamer tubes and nuclear track detectors have been used to search for magnetic monopoles (MMs). Based on no observation of such signals, stringent flux limits are established for MMs as slow as a few 10^(-5)c. The methods based on the scintillator and on the nuclear track subdetectors were also applied to search for nuclearites. Preliminary results of the searches for charged Q-balls are also presented.Comment: 20 pages, 9 EPS figures included with epsfi

Neutrino astronomy with the MACRO detector

High energy gamma ray astronomy is now a well established field and several sources have been discovered in the region from a few GeV up to several TeV. If sources involving hadronic processes exist, the production of photons would be accompanied by neutrinos too. Other possible neutrino sources could be related to the annihilation of WIMPs at the center of galaxies with black holes. We present the results of a search for point-like sources using 1100 upward-going muons produced by neutrino interactions in the rock below and inside the MACRO detector in the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory. These data show no evidence for a possible neutrino point-like source or for possible correlations between gamma ray bursts and neutrinos. They have been used to set flux upper limits for candidate point-like sources which are in the range 10^-14-10^-15 cm-2 s-1.Comment: 37 pages, 15 figures, replacement due to a typo in tab. 6, AASLaTex, submitted to Ap