Search results for " Monitoring"

Sustainable Development and Technological Impact on CO2 Reducing Conditions in Romania

2015

Climate change is a reality all over the world, and its complexity is increasing. Therefore, sustainability has become a national and international concern, ingrained in many organizational processes. The ability of organizations to respond to sustainability concerns is sometimes hindered by the complexity of integrating sustainability into business models and by the need to rethink their strategic directions. In Romania, sustainable development has become a priority for businesses, but even though companies are showing some concern, there are yet to demonstrate any full commitment (they are mainly concerned with areas such as society and the environment). This paper assesses Romania’s invo…

Improved limit on the directly measured antiproton lifetime

2017

Continuous monitoring of a cloud of antiprotons stored in a Penning trap for 405 days enables us to set an improved limit on the directly measured antiproton lifetime. From our measurements we extract a storage time of $3.15\times {10}^{8}$ equivalent antiproton-seconds, resulting in a lower lifetime limit of ${\tau }_{\bar{{\rm{p}}}}\gt 10.2\,{\rm{a}}$ with a confidence level of $68 \% $. This result improves the limit on charge-parity-time violation in antiproton decays based on direct observation by a factor of 7.

A systematic review and combined analysis of therapeutic drug monitoring studies for longacting risperidone

2017

Introduction: This systematic review of therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) identifies three long-acting injectable (LAI) risperidone formulations. Areas covered: Limited data is available on two formulations (RBP-7000 and in Situ Microparticle), but 20 TDM articles on the microsphere formulation were found. Risperidone TDM includes the serum concentrations of risperidone and its active metabolite, 9-hydroxyrisperidone, used for calculating: 1) the risperidone/9-hydroxyrisperidone (R/9-OH-R) ratio (a measure of CYP2D6; values >1 are indicative of a CYP2D6 poor metabolizer) and 2) the total risperidone concentration-to-dose (C/D) ratio (a measure of risperidone clearance with a normal value…

A comparison between calanchi landforms in central and southern Italy

2010

A chamber to test the response of radon detectors to changing environmental conditions.

2011

Radon risk assessment is carried out with accurate measurements with active or passive instrumentation. All radon detectors must be calibrated and tested using a radon chamber containing a known concentration of radon produced by specific sources of 226Ra. Some of the chambers can also be used to test the response of detectors as a function of environmental conditions. In this case, it can be inferred a calibration curve with respect to changing of the parameter considered. For this aim, a new chamber radon was designed and realized to perform both calibration of instruments and to study the detector response in a large range of variation of the environmental parameters (pressure, 700 - 110…

Recommendations from the iSBTc-SITC/FDA/NCI Workshop on Immunotherapy Biomarkers

2011

Abstract Purpose: To facilitate development of innovative immunotherapy approaches, especially for treatment concepts exploiting the potential benefits of personalized therapy, there is a need to develop and validate tools to identify patients who can benefit from immunotherapy. Despite substantial effort, we do not yet know which parameters of antitumor immunity to measure and which assays are optimal for those measurements. Experimental Design: The iSBTc-SITC (International Society for Biological Therapy of Cancer-Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer), FDA (Food and Drug Administration), and NCI (National Cancer Institute) partnered to address these issues for immunotherapy of cancer. Here…

Improved inter-observer agreement of an expert review panel in an oncology treatment trial--Insights from a structured interventional process.

2015

Abstract Purpose Oncologic imaging is a key for successful cancer treatment. While the quality assurance (QA) of image acquisition protocols has already been focussed, QA of reading and reporting offers still room for improvement. The latter was addressed in the context of a prospective multicentre trial on fluoro-deoxyglucose (FDG)–positron-emission tomography (PET)/CT-based chemoradiotherapy for locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Material and methods An expert panel was prospectively installed performing blinded reviews of mediastinal NSCLC involvement in FDG–PET/CT. Due to a high initial reporting inter-observer disagreement, the independent data monitoring committee (I…

Relationship between recruitment and mother plant vitality in the alien species Acacia cyclops A. Cunn. ex G. Don

2014

Acacia cyclops is a widespread invader in Mediterranean-climate regions. However, although its naturalization in the Mediterranean Basin dates back only a few years ago, and the invasion process has not been studied hitherto. We investigated seedlings recruitment strategy adopted by A. cyclops in a small island (Lampedusa, Italy) where its natural regeneration was strictly confined under mother plants canopy. Healthy plants (DCP), plants at incipient senescence (SCP) and dead plants (DP) were distinguished according to vitality and canopy status. Living plants were also characterized in relation to leaf C and N isotope composition. Regeneration pattern (seedlings and saplings abundance) was…

Leaf reflectance variation along a vertical crown gradient of two deciduous tree species in a Belgian industrial habitat

2015

Abstract: The reflectometry of leaf asymmetry is a novel approach in the bio-monitoring of tree health in urban or industrial habitats. Leaf asymmetry responds to the degree of environmental pollution and reflects structural changes in a leaf due to environmental pollution. This paper describes the boundary conditions to scale up from leaf to canopy level reflectance, by describing the variability of adaxial and abaxial leaf reflectance, hence leaf asymmetry, along the crown height gradients of two tree species. Our findings open a research pathway towards bio-monitoring based on the airborne remote sensing of tree canopies and their leaf asymmetric properties. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All ri…

Nitrogen and phosphorus budgets in experimental grasslands of variable diversity.

2007

Previous research has shown that plant diversity influences N and P cycles. However, the effect of plant diversity on complete ecosystem N and P budgets has not yet been assessed. For 20 plots of artificially established grassland mixtures differing in plant diversity, we determined N and P inputs by bulk and dry deposition and N and P losses by mowing (and subsequent removal of the biomass) and leaching from April 2003 to March 2004. Total deposition of N and P was 2.3 +/- 0.1 and 0.2 +/- 0.01 g m(-2) yr(-1), respectively. Mowing was the main N and P loss. The net N and P budgets were negative (-6.3 +/- 1.1 g N and -1.9 +/- 0.2 g P m(-2) yr(-1)). For N, this included a conservative estimat…