90 research outputs found
A Command Governor Approach to Plasma Shape Control
No full textThe paper deals with the application of the socalled Command Governor (CG) approach to the shape control of plasmas in thermonuclear fusion reactors. A primal internal loop controlling the plasma-wall gaps is designed first and a CG device is then tuned to modify, whenever necessary, the reference to the primal loop, taking into account constraints due to voltages saturations on the converters, currents limitations in the active coils, force limits on the mechanical structures, minimum clearance between the plasma and the vacuum chamber wall, maximum induced forces on coils. The reference signal modification is accomplished through an online optimization procedure which embodies plasma model forecasts computed along a finite time virtual receding horizon as usual in model predictive paradigms. The ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) tokamak is assumed as a case study. Numerical simulations are carried out on a numerical nonlinear model taking into account almost a hundred of constraints
Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin immunoexpression in colorectal carcinoma: A stage-specific prognostic factor?
No full textTNM post-surgical staging is considered to be one of the most powerful prognosticators for colorectal carcinoma. Although patient survival mostly decreases concomitantly to stage increase, in a percentage of cases TNM stage appears only to express the anatomic extent of the neoplasia with no correlation with clinical outcome. Thais, the identification of additional prognostic markers for colorectal cancer is required. Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) is a 25-kDa protein that appears to play an important role in colorectal cancer progression. In order to evaluate whether NGAL expression may be considered as a predictor of colorectal cancer progression, we analyzed its correlation with clinicopathological characteristics, as well as with patient progression-free survival in a series of surgically resected colorectal carcinomas. A variable NGAL immunoexpression was found in 24 out of the 64 analyzed cases. When only the positive cases were considered, a significant association was found between a high NGAL expression and the presence of distant metastases or high tumor stage. In addition, the presence of NGAL was a significant negative prognostic marker correlated with a shorter progression-free survival in stage I colorectal carcinoma, but not in the remaining TNM stages. If our findings are confirmed in more extensive analyses on stage I colorectal carcinoma, NGAL assessment may be used in order to select those patients with a higher progression risk and to submit them to adjuvant therapies useful to prevent adverse outcome
Multivariate Multi-Scale Permutation Entropy for Complexity Analysis of Alzheimer’s Disease EEG
No full textAn original multivariate multi-scale methodology for assessing the complexity of physiological signals is proposed. The technique is able to incorporate the simultaneous analysis of multi-channel data as a unique block within a multi-scale framework. The basic complexity measure is done by using Permutation Entropy, a methodology for time series processing based on ordinal analysis. Permutation Entropy is conceptually simple, structurally robust to noise and artifacts, computationally very fast, which is relevant for designing portable diagnostics. Since time series derived from biological systems show structures on multiple spatial-temporal scales, the proposed technique can be useful for other types of biomedical signal analysis. In this work, the possibility of distinguish among the brain states related to Alzheimer’s disease patients and Mild Cognitive Impaired subjects from normal healthy elderly is checked on a real, although quite limited, experimental database
Correction to: Brivaracetam use in clinical practice: a Delphi consensus on its role as first add‐on therapy in focal epilepsy and beyond
Get PDFThe original article contains an error. In the Consensus Collaborators Group, author name has been inverted during the publication. Family name was captured first instead of the given name. The corrected names as follows: Consensus Collaborators Group: Daniela Audenino, Giovanni Boero, Vittoria Cianci, Mario Coletti Moja, Eduardo Cumbo, Filippo Dainese, Giuseppe Didato, Elisa Fallica, Alfonso Giordano, Emilio Le Piane, Mariangela Panebianco, Marta Piccioli, Pietro Pignatta, Monica Puligheddu, Patrizia Pulitano, Federica Ranzato, Rosaria Renna, Eleonora Rosati, Stella Vergine. The original article has been corrected
Correction to: Brivaracetam use in clinical practice: a Delphi consensus on its role as first add-on therapy in focal epilepsy and beyond (Neurological Sciences, (2024), 10.1007/s10072-024-07485-w)
No full textThe original article contains an error. In the Consensus Collaborators Group, author name has been inverted during the publication. Family name was captured first instead of the given name. The corrected names as follows: Consensus Collaborators Group: Daniela Audenino, Giovanni Boero, Vittoria Cianci, Mario Coletti Moja, Eduardo Cumbo, Filippo Dainese, Giuseppe Didato, Elisa Fallica, Alfonso Giordano, Emilio Le Piane, Mariangela Panebianco, Marta Piccioli, Pietro Pignatta, Monica Puligheddu, Patrizia Pulitano, Federica Ranzato, Rosaria Renna, Eleonora Rosati, Stella Vergine. The original article has been corrected
. 76 Año 26 (2019) mayo-agosto. Dimensión Antropológica
No full text- Introducción. Mover enfoques, otras perspectivas de lectura de los antiguos textos novohispanos por Clementina Battcock. - Los tlatoque en la Decimatercia relación de Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl por Yukitaka Inoue Okubo. - El relato cosmogónico del Códice Vaticano A. Una reflexión en torno a la tecnología sacrificial y la dinámica cronológica por Ana Díaz Álvarez. - Los textos cristianos en lengua náhuatl del periodo novohispano: fuentes para la historia cultural por Berenice Alcántara Rojas. - Fuentes de las instancias locales del gobierno novohispano: los cabildos y la jurisdicción de Actopan, siglo XVIII por Annia González Torres. - De neófitos a cristianos. Los indios a través de una fuente eclesiástica: 1527-1728 por Berenise Bravo Rubio. - Biografía y archivos: fray Baltasar de Covarrubias, obispo novohispano del siglo XVII por Patricia Escandón. - Los indios del Museo Nacional de Antropología: una mirada paralela por Haydeé López Hernández. - Beatriz Caiuby Labate y Clancy Cavnar (eds.) Peyote. History, Tradition, Politics, and Conservation por Carlo Bonfiglioli. - José Eduardo Zárate Hernández. La celebración de la infancia. El culto al Niño Jesús en el área purhépecha por Claudia Tomic Hernández Rivera
Clomiphene citrate effect in obese men with low serum testosterone treated with metformin due to dysmetabolic disorders: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study.
Get PDFContextLow testosterone (T) levels are often found in obese men with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and overt type 2 diabetes (T2DM); however, the mechanisms underlying this condition and its correct therapy are still under debate.ObjectiveTo evaluate the effectiveness of clomiphene citrate (CC) in increasing endogenous T levels in obese men with low serum T and with IGT or T2DM treated with metformin (MET).DesignCross-over, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study.Methods24 obese men, aged 47.3 ±. 6.3 (range 35-55 years), with low T level (≤3 ng/mL) and naïve diagnosis of IGT or T2DM were included. Subjects were randomized to CC 25 mg/day or placebo (Plac) with MET 2 g/day for 3 months. After a 6-week wash-out period, subjects were moved to the alternative arm for additional 3 months. Clinical evaluation and blood exams performed prior to and at the end of treatment.ResultsOf 24 randomized, 21 were evaluable, classified as IGT (n = 11) or T2DM (n = 10). Compared to baseline levels, T levels increased significantly after 3 months of CC treatment (3.03±0.80 to 5.99±1.67 ng/mL PConclusionsA low dose of CC therapy was able to significantly increase serum T levels in all participants with mild modifications of clinical and metabolic parameters.Trial registrationEudraCT 2011-000439-10
Continuous shearlet frames and resolution of the wavefront set
No full textIn recent years directional multiscale transformations like the curvelet- or shearlet transformation have gained considerable attention. The reason for this is that these transforms are-unlike more traditional transforms like wavelets-able to efficiently handle data with features along edges. The main result in Kutyniok and Labate (Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 361:2719-2754, 2009) confirming this property for shearlets is due to Kutyniok and Labate where it is shown that for very special functions ψ with frequency support in a compact conical wegde the decay rate of the shearlet coefficients of a tempered distribution f with respect to the shearlet ψ can resolve the wavefront set of f. We demonstrate that the same result can be verified under much weaker assumptions on ψ, namely to possess sufficiently many anisotropic vanishing moments. We also show how to build frames for L2(ℝ2)from any such function. To prove our statements we develop a new approach based on an adaption of the Radon transform to the shearlet structure. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.The research for this paper has been carried out while the author was working at theCenter for Geometric Modeling and Scientific Visualization at KAUST, Saudi Arabia. We thank Hans-GeorgFeichtinger for several useful comments
Innovative design for FAST divertor compatible with remote handling, electromagnetic and mechanical analyses
No full textDivertor is a crucial component in Tokamaks, aiming to exhaust the heat power and particles fluxes com-ing from the plasma during discharges. This paper focuses on the optimization process of FAST divertor,aimed at achieving required thermo-mechanical capabilities and the remote handling (RH) compati-bility. Divertor RH system final layout has been chosen between different concept solutions proposedand analyzed within the principles of Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ). The design was aidedby kinematic simulations performed using Digital Mock-Up capabilities of Catia software. Considerableelectromagnetic (EM) analysis efforts and top-down CAD approach enabled the design of a final andconsistent concept, starting from a very first dimensioning for EM loads.In the final version here presented, the divertor cassette supports a set of tungsten (W) actively cooledtiles which compose the inner and outer vertical targets, facing the plasma and exhausting the main partof heat flux. W-tiles are assembled together considering a minimum gap tolerance (0.1–0.5 mm) to bemandatorily respected. Cooling channels have been re-dimensioned to optimize the geometry and thelayout of coolant volume inside the cassette has been modified as well to enhance the general efficiency
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