QCD Processes at the LHC

The study of QCD processes at the LHC will serve two main goals. First the predictions of QCD will be tested and precision measurements will be performed. Second QCD processes represent a major part of the background to other Standard Model processes and signals of new physics at the LHC and thus need to be understood precisely in the new kinematic region available here. Furthermore, the production cross-sections for almost all processes are controlled by QCD.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures in eps, talk given at XXXI International Symposium on Multiparticle Dynamics, Sept 1-7, 2001, Datong China. URL http://ismd31.ccnu.edu.cn

Clinical Performance of Dental Implants Following Sinus Floor Augmentation : A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Clinical Trials with at Least 3 Years of Follow-up

Purpose: The purpose of this systematic review was to assess the survival of implants placed in augmented sinuses on a medium-to long-term basis, and identify factors affecting implant survival such as surgical technique, bone grafts, and timing of implant placement. Materials and Methods: A literature search up to July 2016 was performed to identify prospective clinical studies on sinus floor augmentation in conjunction with implant placement with a minimum follow-up of 3 years. Meta-analytic methods were implemented to calculate implant survival rates and relative risks (RR) for failure and the effect of surgical technique, use of bone graft, graft type, use of membrane, mean residual bone height, and timing of implant insertion. Results: A total of 17 clinical trials (1 randomized and 16 prospective nonrandomized) were included, which pertained to 637 patients (at least 48% male) and 1,610 implants placed after sinus floor augmentation with the osteotome (transalveolar) or lateral window approach. The pooled implant survival rate at 3 to 6 years of follow-up was 97.7% (17 studies; 95% CI = 94.4% to 99.7%) with high heterogeneity. Smoking was associated with significantly worse implant survival (2 studies; RR = 4.8; 95% CI = 1.2 to 19.4; P < .05). However, evidence of influencing factors varied from very low to moderate after adopting the GRADE approach, due to risk of bias, imprecision, inconsistency, and small-study effects. Conclusion: Current evidence suggests that implants in augmented sinuses have high survival rates, with smoking playing a potentially important negative role in their prognosis. Both indirect and direct maxillary sinus floor augmentation seem to have a low frequency of manageable complications

A quality assurance and quality control (QA QC) procedure of the monitored drift tubes (MDT) for the BIS-chambers of the ATLAS muon spectrometer

The ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is designed to study the products of proton collisions at energies up to 14 TeV. One of its subdetectors is a high-resolution Muon spectrometer, designed to exploit the physics potential of the collisions. It consists of 1206 Monitored Drift Tube (MDT) chambers, which have to pass very strict quality criteria. For this purpose dedicated setups have been developed and automated at the National Technical University of Athens. In the present report the results of testing about 10,000 drift tubes are presented. These criteria comprise the anode wire mechanical tension, the high voltage dark current, the anode wire displacement, and the gas leak rate of the endplugs and the cylindrical drift tube. 11 Refs

Cardiac Tissue Characterization and the Diagnostic Value of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance in Systemic Connective Tissue Diseases

ObjectiveAccurate diagnosis of cardiovascular involvement in connective tissue diseases (CTDs) remains challenging. We hypothesized that cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) demonstrates cardiac lesions in symptomatic CTD patients with normal echocardiography. MethodsCMR from 246 CTD patients with typical cardiac symptoms (TCS; n = 146, group A) or atypical cardiac symptoms (ATCS; n = 100, group B) was retrospectively evaluated. Group A included 9 patients with inflammatory myopathy (IM), 35 with sarcoidosis, 30 with systemic sclerosis (SSc), 14 with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), 10 with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and 48 with small vessel vasculitis. Group B included 25 patients with RA, 20 with SLE, 20 with sarcoidosis, 15 with SSc, 10 with IM, and 10 with small vessel vasculitis. CMR was performed by 1.5T; left ventricular ejection fraction, T2 ratio (edema imaging), and late gadolinium enhancement (LGE; fibrosis imaging) were evaluated. Acute and chronic lesions were characterized as LGE positive plus T2 ratio &gt;2 and T2 ratio 2, respectively. According to LGE, lesions were characterized as diffuse subendocardial, subepicardial, and subendocardial/transmural due to vasculitis, myocarditis, and myocardial infarction, respectively. A stress study by dobutamine echocardiography or stress, nuclear, or adenosine CMR was performed in CTD patients with negative rest CMR. ResultsAbnormal CMR was identified in 32% (27% chronic) and 15% (12% chronic) of patients with TCS and ATCS, respectively. Lesions due to vasculitis, myocarditis, and myocardial infarction were evident in 27.4%, 62.6%, and 9.6% of CTD patients, respectively. Stress studies in CTD patients with negative CMR revealed coronary artery disease in 20%. ConclusionCMR in symptomatic CTD patients with normal echocardiography can assess disease acuity and identify vasculitis, myocarditis, and myocardial infarction

C3-targeted therapy in periodontal disease: moving closer to the clinic

Complement plays a key role in immunosurveillance and homeostasis. When dysregulated or overactivated, complement can become a pathological effector, as seen in several inflammatory disorders, including periodontal disease. Recently, clinical correlative studies and preclinical mechanistic investigations have collectively demonstrated that complement is hyperactivated during periodontitis and that targeting its central component (C3) provides therapeutic benefit in nonhuman primates (NHPs). The preclinical efficacy of a C3-targeted drug candidate combined with excellent safety and pharmacokinetic profiles supported its use in a recent Phase IIa clinical study in which C3 inhibition resolved gingival inflammation in patients with periodontal disease. We posit that C3-targeted intervention might represent a novel and transformative host-modulation therapy meriting further investigation in Phase III clinical trials for the treatment of periodontitis