Response and Survival Estimates of Patients With Plasma Cell Myeloma in a Resource-Constrained Setting Using Protocols From High-Income Countries:A Single-Center Experience From Sri Lanka

There is a significant disparity in global cancer care and outcome between countries. Progress in the treatment of symptomatic plasma cell myeloma (PCM) in high-income countries is not seen in low- and middle-income countries. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is was a retrospective cohort study of all patients diagnosed with PCM between May 1, 2013, and September 30, 2021, at the first hemato-oncology center in Sri Lanka. We aimed to provide data on clinicopathologic characteristics, response, and survival estimates. RESULTS: A total of 79 patients with PCM received first-line therapy during the study period. The median age was 64 years, and approximately one third (33%) of patients were older than 70 years. There were 42 (53%) males and 37 females. Hypercalcemia, renal impairment, anemia, and bone disease were detected in 36.7%, 38%, 72.1%, and 81%, respectively. Thirty-nine, 34, and six patients received a combination of cyclophosphamide, thalidomide, and dexamethasone; bortezomib, thalidomide, and dexamethasone; and other treatments, respectively. The overall response rate (≥ partial response) was approximately 97% for both cyclophosphamide, thalidomide, and dexamethasone and bortezomib, thalidomide, and dexamethasone. Twenty-three (29%) of these patients died during the study period, but only 14 (18%) died due to PCM or associated sepsis. After a median follow-up of 40.6 months (range, 35.2-59.07 months), the median overall survival was 84.2 months (95% CI, 60.87 to not available). The 5-year estimated overall survival was 65%. CONCLUSION: To our knowledge, this is the only well-characterized study on long-term survival of patients with PCM in Sri Lanka. We have shown that it is possible to successfully apply Western treatment and supportive care protocols to the local population. These published data will help to benchmark and improve the treatment and develop blood cancer care in the local setting

VADER: Probing the Dark Side of Dimorphos with LICIACube LUKE

The ASI cubesat LICIACube has been part of the first planetary defense mission DART, having among its scopes to complement the DRACO images to better constrain the Dimorphos shape. LICIACube had two different cameras, LEIA and LUKE, and to accomplish its goal, it exploited the unique possibility of acquiring images of the Dimorphos hemisphere not seen by DART from a vantage point of view, in both time and space. This work is indeed aimed at constraining the tridimensional shape of Dimorphos, starting from both LUKE images of the nonimpacted hemisphere of Dimorphos and the results obtained by DART looking at the impacted hemisphere. To this aim, we developed a semiautomatic Computer Vision algorithm, named VADER, able to identify objects of interest on the basis of physical characteristics, subsequently used as input to retrieve the shape of the ellipse projected in the LUKE images analyzed. Thanks to this shape, we then extracted information about the Dimorphos ellipsoid by applying a series of quantitative geometric considerations. Although the solution space coming from this analysis includes the triaxial ellipsoid found by using DART images, we cannot discard the possibility that Dimorphos has a more elongated shape, more similar to what is expected from previous theories and observations. The result of our work seems therefore to emphasize the unique value of the LICIACube mission and its images, making even clearer the need of having different points of view to accurately define the shape of an asteroid.This work was supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) within the LICIACube project (ASI-INAF agreement AC No. 2019-31-HH.0) and by the DART mission, NASA contract 80MSFC20D0004

The Dimorphos ejecta plume properties revealed by LICIACube

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) had an impact with Dimorphos (a satellite of the asteroid Didymos) on 26 September 20221. Ground-based observations showed that the Didymos system brightened by a factor of 8.3 after the impact because of ejecta, returning to the pre-impact brightness 23.7 days afterwards2. Hubble Space Telescope observations made from 15 minutes after impact to 18.5 days after, with a spatial resolution of 2.1 kilometres per pixel, showed a complex evolution of the ejecta3, consistent with other asteroid impact events. The momentum enhancement factor, determined using the measured binary period change4, ranges between 2.2 and 4.9, depending on the assumptions about the mass and density of Dimorphos5. Here we report observations from the LUKE and LEIA instruments on the LICIACube cube satellite, which was deployed 15 days in advance of the impact of DART. Data were taken from 71 seconds before the impact until 320 seconds afterwards. The ejecta plume was a cone with an aperture angle of 140 ± 4 degrees. The inner region of the plume was blue, becoming redder with increasing distance from Dimorphos. The ejecta plume exhibited a complex and inhomogeneous structure, characterized by filaments, dust grains and single or clustered boulders. The ejecta velocities ranged from a few tens of metres per second to about 500 metres per second.This work was supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in the LICIACube project (ASI-INAF agreement AC no. 2019-31-HH.0) and by the DART mission, NASA contract 80MSFC20D0004. M.Z. acknowledges Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for granting the University of Bologna a licence to an executable version of MONTE Project Edition software. M.Z. is grateful to D. Lubey, M. Smith, D. Mages, C. Hollenberg and S. Bhaskaran of NASA/JPL for the discussions and suggestions regarding the operational navigation of LICIACube. G.P. acknowledges financial support from the Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES, France). A.C.B. acknowledges funding by the NEO-MAPP project (grant agreement 870377, EC H2020-SPACE-2019) and by the Ministerio de Ciencia Innovación (PGC 2018) RTI2018-099464-B-I00. F.F. acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Ambizione (grant no. 193346). J.-Y.L. acknowledges the support from the NASA DART Participating Scientist Program (grant no. 80NSSC21K1131). S.D.R. and M.J. acknowledge support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (project no. 200021_207359)

Variations in color and reflectance on the surface of asteroid (101955) Bennu

Visible-wavelength color and reflectance provide information about the geologic history of planetary surfaces. We present multispectral images (0.44 to 0.89 microns) of near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu. The surface has variable colors overlain on a moderately blue global terrain. Two primary boulder types are distinguishable by their reflectance and texture. Space weathering of Bennu surface materials does not simply progress from red to blue (or vice versa). Instead, freshly exposed, redder surfaces initially brighten in the near-ultraviolet (become bluer at shorter wavelengths), then brighten in the visible to near-infrared, leading to Bennu’s moderately blue average color. Craters indicate that the timescale of these color changes is ~105 years. We attribute the reflectance and color variation to a combination of primordial heterogeneity and varying exposure ages

Ejecta Evolution Following a Planned Impact into an Asteroid: The First Five Weeks

The impact of the DART spacecraft into Dimorphos, moon of the asteroid Didymos, changed Dimorphos' orbit substantially, largely from the ejection of material. We present results from twelve Earth-based facilities involved in a world-wide campaign to monitor the brightness and morphology of the ejecta in the first 35 days after impact. After an initial brightening of ~1.4 magnitudes, we find consistent dimming rates of 0.11-0.12 magnitudes/day in the first week, and 0.08-0.09 magnitudes/day over the entire study period. The system returned to its pre-impact brightness 24.3-25.3 days after impact through the primary ejecta tail remained. The dimming paused briefly eight days after impact, near in time to the appearance of the second tail. This was likely due to a secondary release of material after re-impact of a boulder released in the initial impact, through movement of the primary ejecta through the aperture likely played a role.Comment: 16 pages, 5 Figures, accepted in the Astrophysical Journal Letters (ApJL) on October 16, 202

Ejecta Evolution Following a Planned Impact into an Asteroid: The First Five Weeks

The impact of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft into Dimorphos, moon of the asteroid Didymos, changed Dimorphos’s orbit substantially, largely from the ejection of material. We present results from 12 Earth-based facilities involved in a world-wide campaign to monitor the brightness and morphology of the ejecta in the first 35 days after impact. After an initial brightening of ∼1.4 mag, we find consistent dimming rates of 0.11–0.12 mag day−1 in the first week, and 0.08–0.09 mag day−1 over the entire study period. The system returned to its pre-impact brightness 24.3–25.3 days after impact though the primary ejecta tail remained. The dimming paused briefly eight days after impact, near in time to the appearance of the second tail. This was likely due to a secondary release of material after re-impact of a boulder released in the initial impact, though movement of the primary ejecta through the aperture likely played a role

Achievement of the planetary defense investigations of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission was the first to demonstrate asteroid deflection, and the mission's Level 1 requirements guided its planetary defense investigations. Here, we summarize DART's achievement of those requirements. On 2022 September 26, the DART spacecraft impacted Dimorphos, the secondary member of the Didymos near-Earth asteroid binary system, demonstrating an autonomously navigated kinetic impact into an asteroid with limited prior knowledge for planetary defense. Months of subsequent Earth-based observations showed that the binary orbital period was changed by –33.24 minutes, with two independent analysis methods each reporting a 1σ uncertainty of 1.4 s. Dynamical models determined that the momentum enhancement factor, β, resulting from DART's kinetic impact test is between 2.4 and 4.9, depending on the mass of Dimorphos, which remains the largest source of uncertainty. Over five dozen telescopes across the globe and in space, along with the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids, have contributed to DART's investigations. These combined investigations have addressed topics related to the ejecta, dynamics, impact event, and properties of both asteroids in the binary system. A year following DART's successful impact into Dimorphos, the mission has achieved its planetary defense requirements, although work to further understand DART's kinetic impact test and the Didymos system will continue. In particular, ESA's Hera mission is planned to perform extensive measurements in 2027 during its rendezvous with the Didymos–Dimorphos system, building on DART to advance our knowledge and continue the ongoing international collaboration for planetary defense

Propriétés spectrophotométriques du noyau de la comète 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko observée par la sonde ROSETTA

This thesis is based on the spectrophotometric properties of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, using the OSIRIS instrument of Rosetta space mission. Composed of two scientific cameras to observe the nucleus and the coma of the comet, OSIRIS images are acquired with multiple filters, that span the near-UV to near-IR wavelength range. They were used to study the spectrophotometric curves of the exposed bright features that appeared on the surface of the cometary nucleus, leading to a comparative study, that was carried out in collaboration with the VIRTIS spectro-imager aboard Rosetta, that demonstrated, that these exposures are related to H2O ice, using its absorption band located at 2 microns. The thesis further details a spectrophotometric study of the Khonsu region in the southern latitudes of the comet, where the seasonal variation of the spectral slope of different types of terrains is explored. Finally, the results of an extended survey of exposed bright features are presented. More than 50 individual features are presented under four morphologies along with an albedo calculation, suggesting that different activity sources are responsible for their appearance on the nucleus.Cette thèse s'inscrit dans le cadre de la mission spatiale Rosetta et porte sur les propriétés spectrophotométriques de la comète 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko à l’aide de l’instrument OSIRIS. Cet instrument est composé de deux caméras pour les observations du noyau et de la coma de la comète. Elles permettent d’acquérir des images avec des filtres qui opèrent dans la gamme du proche UV au proche IR. Dans un premier temps, j'ai analysé les courbes spectrophotométriques des taches claires qui sont apparues sur le noyau de la comète. Une étude comparative de celles-ci grâce aux données du spectro-imageur VIRTIS a ainsi permis de constater que les taches claires sont liées à la glace de H2O. Dans un second temps, j’ai entrepris une étude spectrophotométrique de la région Khonsu, qui a mis en évidence les variations saisonnières de la pente spectrale de différents terrains. Par la suite, j’ai élargi mon analyse des taches à tout le noyau de la comète. J’ai détecté plus de 50 taches claires dues à la présence de glace de H2O et j’ai produit une carte pour repérer leurs emplacements sur le noyau, afin d’étudier plus en détail leur répartition et leur évolution au cours de temps. Ceci m’a permis d’identifier quatre types de taches regroupés en fonction de leur morphologie et de constater qu'elles sont dues à différentes sources d'activité cométaire

Study of the photometric properties of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko with the OSIRIS instrument of the Rosetta spacecraft

The ROSETTA mission is the cornerstone mission of the European Space Agency devoted to the study of the minor bodies of the Solar System. Its primary objective is to perform an extensive study of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (hereafter 67P/CG). Launched on the 2nd of March 2004, the spacecraft overflew the asteroids 2837 Steins in 2008 and 21 Lutetia in 2010. Since its encounter with 67P/CG in July 2014, the spacecraft has been escorting the nucleus thus allowing to study it with cameras, spectrometers, dust analysers and radio science experiments. The spacecraft will continue its escort at least until December 2015. We present the results on the photometric properties of the nucleus derived from disk-averaged and disk-resolved images of the OSIRIS instrument acquired in 2014-2015 including the close fly-by data acquired on the 14th of February 2015

Surface compositional variation on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by OSIRIS data

Since the Rosetta mission arrived at the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67/P C-G) on July 2014, the comet nucleus has been mapped by both OSIRIS (Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System, [1]) NAC (Narrow Angle Camera) and WAC (Wide Angle Camera) acquiring a huge quantity of surface’s images at different wavelength bands, under variable illumination conditions and spatial resolution, and producing the most detailed maps at the highest spatial resolution of a comet nucleus surface. 67/P C-G’s nucleus shows an irregular bi-lobed shape of complex morphology with terrains showing intricate features [2, 3] and a heterogeneity surface at different scales