Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2016-06-14"
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- Intraperitoneal bevacizumab for control of malignant ascites due to advanced-stage gastrointestinal cancers: A multicentre double-blind, placebo-controlled phase II study - AIO SUP-0108Publication . Jordan, K; Luetkens, T; Gog, C; Killing, B; Arnold, D; Hinke, A; Stahl, M; Freier, W; Rüssel, J; Atanackovic, D; Hegewisch-Becker, SPURPOSE: Malignant ascites is debilitating for patients with advanced cancer. As shown previously, tumour cell production of vascular endothelial growth factor might be a major cause of the formation of malignant ascites. Intraperitoneal bevacizumab could therefore be an option for symptom control in refractory ascites. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients with advanced gastrointestinal cancer and malignant ascites who had undergone paracentesis at least twice within the past 4 weeks were randomly assigned in a 2:1 ratio to intraperitoneal bevacizumab (400 mg absolute) or placebo after paracentesis. During the 8-week treatment period, a minimum interval of 14 d was kept between the applications of the study drug. Primary end-point was paracentesis-free survival (ParFS). RESULTS: Fifty-three patients (median age 63 years) were randomised. Forty-nine patients received at least one study drug application and qualified for the main analysis. The proportion of patients with at least one common toxicity criteria grade III-V event was similar with 20/33 (61%) on bevacizumab and 11/16 (69%) on placebo. Median ParFS was 14 d (95% confidence interval [CI]: 11-17) in the bevacizumab arm and 10.5 d (95% CI: 7-21) on placebo (hazard ratio 0.74, 95% CI: 0.40-1.37; P = 0.16). The longest paracentesis-free period was 19 d on bevacizumab (range 6-66 d) and 17.5 d in the placebo arm (range 4-42) (P = 0.85). Median overall survival was 64 d (95% CI: 45-103) on bevacizumab compared to 31.5 d (95% CI: 20-117) on placebo (P = 0.31). CONCLUSION: Intraperitoneal bevacizumab was well tolerated. Overall, treatment did not result in a significantly better symptom control of malignant ascites. However, patients defined by specific immune characteristics may benefit.
- Regulatory T and B cells in asthmatic women: variations from pregnancy to postpartum Treg and Breg: pregnancy to postpartumPublication . Martins, C; Lima, J; Nunes, G; Borrego, LMBACKGROUND: Allergic asthma and rhinitis are common in pregnancy. The immune mechanisms underlying the effects of pregnancy in asthma and vice-versa are not completely understood. OBJECTIVES: This work aimed to study the evolution of regulatory T and B cells in asthmatic pregnant women, from late pregnancy till postpartum. METHODS: Four groups of women were enrolled for this study: third trimester pregnant women, asthmatic (n=24) and healthy (n=43), and non-pregnant women, asthmatic (n=33) and healthy (n=35). Pregnant women were also evaluated postpartum (>6 weeks after delivery). Blood samples were taken from each woman and flow cytometry was used to characterize circulating regulatory T and B cells. Foxp3 expression was assessed within CD4DimCD25Hi regulatory T cells. RESULTS: In asthmatic and healthy pregnant women, regulatory T cells did not oscillate significantly from pregnancy to postpartum, but CD24HiCD38Hi regulatory B cells, decreased in pregnancy, rose significantly postpartum. Foxp3 expression in regulatory T cells was also impaired during pregnancy in asthmatic and healthy pregnant women, recovering postpartum. Nevertheless, asthmatic pregnant women presented higher Foxp3 expression than healthy pregnant women (p=0.007), probably due to the use of control medication. CONCLUSIONS: Women with controlled asthma present variations in regulatory cell subsets during pregnancy and postpartum. The similar pattern observed for Foxp3 expression and CD24HiCD38Hi regulatory B cells during this period corroborates the interaction established between regulatory T and B cells in immune responses. Considering the immunomodulatory potential of these immune mediators, more studies are needed to evaluate their relation with asthma and rhinitis complications in pregnancy.
- Tackling the quality of non-prescription medicines dispensing in pharmacies by combining a Balanced Score Card with change management: interim findingsPublication . Veiga, Paulo; Lapão, Luís V.; Cavaco, Afonso M.; Guerreiro, Mara P.
- Measurement of the Radiation Energy in the Radio Signal of Extensive Air Showers as a Universal Estimator of Cosmic-Ray EnergyPublication . Pierre Auger collaboration (449 authors); Abreu, Pedro; Andringa, Sofia; Assis, Pedro; Blanco, Alberto; Brogueira, Pedro; Cazon, Lorenzo; Conceição, Ruben; Diogo, Francisco; Espadanal, Joao; Lopes, Luis; Pimenta, Mário; Santos, Eva; Sarmento, Raul; Tomé, BernardoWe measure the energy emitted by extensive air showers in the form of radio emission in the frequency range from 30 to 80 MHz. Exploiting the accurate energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory, we obtain a radiation energy of 15.8±0.7(stat)±6.7(syst) MeV for cosmic rays with an energy of 1 EeV arriving perpendicularly to a geomagnetic field of 0.24 G, scaling quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy. A comparison with predictions from state-of-the-art first-principles calculations shows agreement with our measurement. The radiation energy provides direct access to the calorimetric energy in the electromagnetic cascade of extensive air showers. Comparison with our result thus allows the direct calibration of any cosmic-ray radio detector against the well-established energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory.
- Forward–backward asymmetry of Drell–Yan lepton pairs in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 8$ $\,\mathrm{TeV}$Publication . CMS collaboration (2305 authors); Hollar, Jonathan; Calpas, Betty; Nayak, Aruna; Bargassa, Pedrame; Beirão Da Cruz E Silva, Cristóvão; Di Francesco, Agostino; Faccioli, Pietro; Ferreira Parracho, Pedro Guilherme; Gallinaro, Michele; Leonardo, Nuno; Lloret Iglesias, Lara; Nguyen, Federico; Rodrigues Antunes, Joao; Seixas, Joao; Toldaiev, Oleksii; Vadruccio, Daniele; Varela, Joao; Vischia, Pietro; David Tinoco Mendes, Andre; Silva, Pedro; Musella, Pasquale; Pela, JoaoA measurement of the forward–backward asymmetry ${A}_{\mathrm{FB}}$ of oppositely charged lepton pairs ( $\mu \mu $ and $\mathrm{e}\mathrm{e}$ ) produced via $\mathrm{Z}/\gamma ^*$ boson exchange in pp collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 8$ $\,\mathrm{TeV}$ is presented. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 $\,\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$ collected with the CMS detector at the LHC. The measurement of ${A}_{\mathrm{FB}}$ is performed for dilepton masses between 40 $\,\text {GeV}$ and 2 $\,\mathrm{TeV}$ and for dilepton rapidity up to 5. The ${A}_{\mathrm{FB}}$ measurements as a function of dilepton mass and rapidity are compared with the standard model predictions.
- Energy Estimation of Cosmic Rays with the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger ObservatoryPublication . Pierre Auger collaboration (450 authors); Abreu, Pedro; Andringa, Sofia; Assis, Pedro; Blanco, Alberto; Brogueira, Pedro; Cazon, Lorenzo; Conceição, Ruben; Diogo, Francisco; Espadanal, Joao; Lopes, Luis; Pimenta, Mário; Santos, Eva; Sarmento, Raul; Tomé, BernardoThe Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is part of the Pierre Auger Observatory and is used to detect the radio emission of cosmic-ray air showers. These observations are compared to the data of the surface detector stations of the Observatory, which provide well-calibrated information on the cosmic-ray energies and arrival directions. The response of the radio stations in the 30–80 MHz regime has been thoroughly calibrated to enable the reconstruction of the incoming electric field. For the latter, the energy deposit per area is determined from the radio pulses at each observer position and is interpolated using a two-dimensional function that takes into account signal asymmetries due to interference between the geomagnetic and charge-excess emission components. The spatial integral over the signal distribution gives a direct measurement of the energy transferred from the primary cosmic ray into radio emission in the AERA frequency range. We measure 15.8 MeV of radiation energy for a 1 EeV air shower arriving perpendicularly to the geomagnetic field. This radiation energy—corrected for geometrical effects—is used as a cosmic-ray energy estimator. Performing an absolute energy calibration against the surface-detector information, we observe that this radio-energy estimator scales quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy as expected for coherent emission. We find an energy resolution of the radio reconstruction of 22% for the data set and 17% for a high-quality subset containing only events with at least five radio stations with signal.
- Measurement of the relative width difference of the $B^0$-$\bar B^0$ system with the ATLAS detectorPublication . ATLAS collaboration (2855 authors); Aguilar-Saavedra, Juan Antonio; Amor Dos Santos, Susana Patricia; Anjos, Nuno; Araque, Juan Pedro; Cantrill, Robert; Carvalho, João; Castro, Nuno Filipe; Conde Muiño, Patricia; Da Cunha Sargedas De Sousa, Mario Jose; Fiolhais, Miguel; Galhardo, Bruno; Gomes, Agostinho; Gonçalo, Ricardo; Jorge, Pedro; Lopes, Lourenco; Machado Miguens, Joana; Maio, Amélia; Maneira, José; Oleiro Seabra, Luis Filipe; Onofre, António; Palma, Alberto; Pedro, Rute; Santos, Helena; Saraiva, João; Silva, José; Tavares Delgado, Ademar; Veloso, Filipe; Wolters, HelmutThis paper presents the measurement of the relative width difference ΔΓ$_{d}$ /Γ$_{d}$ of the $ {B}^0\hbox{-} {\overline{B}}^0 $ system using the data collected by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at $ \sqrt{s}=7 $ TeV and $ \sqrt{s}=8 $ TeV and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 25.2 fb$^{−1}$. The value of ΔΓ$_{d}$ /Γ$_{d}$ is obtained by comparing the decay-time distributions of B$^{0}$ → J/ψK$_{S}$ and B$^{0}$ → J/ψK$^{*0}$(892) decays. The result is ΔΓ$_{d}$ /Γ$_{d}$ = (−0.1±1.1 (stat.)± 0.9 (syst.)) × 10$^{−2}$. Currently, this is the most precise single measurement of ΔΓ$_{d}$ /Γ$_{d}$ . It agrees with the Standard Model prediction and the measurements by other experiments.
- The ATLAS Data Acquisition and High Level Trigger systemPublication . ATLAS TDAQ collaboration (659 authors); Anjos, N.; Conde Muiño, P.; Delgado, A.; Gonçalo, R.; Machado Miguéns, J.; Vaz Gil Lopes, L.This paper describes the data acquisition and high level trigger system of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, as deployed during Run 1. Data flow as well as control, configuration and monitoring aspects are addressed. An overview of the functionality of the system and of its performance is presented and design choices are discussed.