Effect of nutritional interventions on nutritional status, quality of life and mortality in patients with head and neck cancer receiving (chemo)radiotherapy: a systematic review q

Head and neck cancer Radiotherapy s u m m a r y Background and aims: We performed a systematic review to examine the effect of nutritional interventions on nutritional status, quality of life (QoL) and mortality in patients with head and neck squamous cell cancer (HNSCC) receiving radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy. Methods: We searched Pubmed, EMBASE, CENTRAL and Cinahl from inception through January 3rd, 2012 to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from a broad range of nutritional interventions in patients with HNSCC during (chemo)radiotherapy. Two reviewers independently assessed study eligibility and risk of bias, and extracted data. Results: Of 1141 titles identified, 12 study reports were finally included, describing 10 different studies with 11 interventions. Four out of 10 studies examined the effects of individualized dietary counseling, and showed significant benefits on nutritional status and QOL compared to no counseling or general nutritional advice by a nurse (p < 0.05). Three studies on oral nutritional supplements (ONS) were inconsistent about the effect on nutritional status compared with no supplementation. One study showed that nasogastric tube feeding had beneficial effects on nutritional status compared to ONS, but not in all patient groups (p < 0.04). One study showed benefits of percutaneous endoscopic gastronomy (PEG) feeding on nutritional status shortly after RT compared with nasogastric feeding (p ¼ 0.001). Two studies showed that prophylactic PEG feeding was not superior over tube feeding if required. Conclusions: This review shows beneficial effects of individualized dietary counseling on nutritional status and QoL, compared to no counseling or standard nutritional advice. Effects of ONS and tube feeding were inconsistent

St. Patrick’s Day 2015 geomagnetic storm analysis based on Real Time Ionosphere Monitoring

A detailed analysis is presented for the days in March, 2015 surrounding St. Patrick’s Day 2015 geomagnetic storm, based on the existing real-time and near real-time ionospheric models (global or regional) within the group, which are mainly based on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and ionosonde data. For this purpose, a variety of ionospheric parameters is considered, including Total Electron Content (TEC), F2 layer critical frequency (foF2), F2 layer peak (hmF2), bottomside halfthickness (B0) and ionospheric disturbance W-index. Also, ionospheric high-frequency perturbations such as Travelling Ionospheric Disturbances (TIDs), scintillations and the impact of solar flares facing the Earth will be presented to derive a clear picture of the ionospheric dynamicsPostprint (published version

Tropospheric and ionospheric media calibrations based on global navigation satellite system observation data

Context: Calibration of radiometric tracking data for effects in the Earth atmosphere is a crucial element in the field of deep-space orbit determination (OD). The troposphere can induce propagation delays in the order of several meters, the ionosphere up to the meter level for X-band signals and up to tens of meters, in extreme cases, for L-band ones. The use of media calibrations based on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) measurement data can improve the accuracy of the radiometric observations modelling and, as a consequence, the quality of orbit determination solutions. Aims: ESOC Flight Dynamics employs ranging, Doppler and delta-DOR (Delta-Differential One-Way Ranging) data for the orbit determination of interplanetary spacecraft. Currently, the media calibrations for troposphere and ionosphere are either computed based on empirical models or, under mission specific agreements, provided by external parties such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. In order to become independent from external models and sources, decision fell to establish a new in-house internal service to create these media calibrations based on GNSS measurements recorded at the ESA tracking sites and processed in-house by the ESOC Navigation Support Office with comparable accuracy and quality. Methods: For its concept, the new service was designed to be as much as possible depending on own data and resources and as less as possible depending on external models and data. Dedicated robust and simple algorithms, well suited for operational use, were worked out for that task. This paper describes the approach built up to realize this new in-house internal media calibration service. Results: Test results collected during three months of running the new media calibrations in quasi-operational mode indicate that GNSS-based tropospheric corrections can remove systematic signatures from the Doppler observations and biases from the range ones. For the ionosphere, a direct way of verification was not possible due to non-availability of independent third party data for comparison. Nevertheless, the tests for ionospheric corrections showed also slight improvements in the tracking data modelling, but not to an extent as seen for the tropospheric corrections. Conclusions: The validation results confirmed that the new approach meets the requirements upon accuracy and operational use for the tropospheric part, while some improvement is still ongoing for the ionospheric one. Based on these test results, green light was given to put the new in-house service for media calibrations into full operational mode in April 2017

St. Patrick’s Day 2015 geomagnetic storm analysis based on Real Time Ionosphere Monitoring

A detailed analysis is presented for the days in March, 2015 surrounding St. Patrick’s Day 2015 geomagnetic storm, based on the existing real-time and near real-time ionospheric models (global or regional) within the group, which are mainly based on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and ionosonde data. For this purpose, a variety of ionospheric parameters is considered, including Total Electron Content (TEC), F2 layer critical frequency (foF2), F2 layer peak (hmF2), bottomside halfthickness (B0) and ionospheric disturbance W-index. Also, ionospheric high-frequency perturbations such as Travelling Ionospheric Disturbances (TIDs), scintillations and the impact of solar flares facing the Earth will be presented to derive a clear picture of the ionospheric dynamic