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- Elhai, M, et al.
(author)
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Outcomes of patients with systemic sclerosis treated with rituximab in contemporary practice: a prospective cohort study
- 2019
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In: Annals of the rheumatic diseases. - : BMJ. - 1468-2060 .- 0003-4967. ; 78:7, s. 979-987
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- To assess the safety and efficacy of rituximab in systemic sclerosis (SSc) in clinical practice.MethodsWe performed a prospective study including patients with SSc from the European Scleroderma Trials and Research (EUSTAR) network treated with rituximab and matched with untreated patients with SSc. The main outcomes measures were adverse events, skin fibrosis improvement, lung fibrosis worsening and steroids use among propensity score-matched patients treated or not with rituximab.Results254 patients were treated with rituximab, in 58% for lung and in 32% for skin involvement. After a median follow-up of 2 years, about 70% of the patients had no side effect. Comparison of treated patients with 9575 propensity-score matched patients showed that patients treated with rituximab were more likely to have skin fibrosis improvement (22.7 vs 14.03 events per 100 person-years; OR: 2.79 [1.47–5.32]; p=0.002). Treated patients did not have significantly different rates of decrease in forced vital capacity (FVC)>10% (OR: 1.03 [0.55–1.94]; p=0.93) nor in carbon monoxide diffusing capacity (DLCO) decrease. Patients having received rituximab were more prone to stop or decrease steroids (OR: 2.34 [1.56–3.53], p<0.0001). Patients treated concomitantly with mycophenolate mofetil had a trend for better outcomes as compared with patients receiving rituximab alone (delta FVC: 5.22 [0.83–9.62]; p=0.019 as compared with controls vs 3 [0.66–5.35]; p=0.012).ConclusionRituximab use was associated with a good safety profile in this large SSc-cohort. Significant change was observed on skin fibrosis, but not on lung. However, the limitation is the observational design. The potential stabilisation of lung fibrosis by rituximab has to be addressed by a randomised trial.
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- Marconi, A., et al.
(author)
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ANDES, the high resolution spectrograph for the ELT : science case, baseline design and path to construction
- 2022
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In: GROUND-BASED AND AIRBORNE INSTRUMENTATION FOR ASTRONOMY IX. - : SPIE - International Society for Optical Engineering. - 9781510653504 - 9781510653498
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The first generation of ELT instruments includes an optical-infrared high resolution spectrograph, indicated as ELT-HIRES and recently christened ANDES (ArmazoNes high Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph). ANDES consists of three fibre-fed spectrographs (UBV, RIZ, YJH) providing a spectral resolution of similar to 100,000 with a minimum simultaneous wavelength coverage of 0.4-1.8 mu m with the goal of extending it to 0.35-2.4 mu m with the addition of a K band spectrograph. It operates both in seeing- and diffraction-limited conditions and the fibre-feeding allows several, interchangeable observing modes including a single conjugated adaptive optics module and a small diffraction-limited integral field unit in the NIR. Its modularity will ensure that ANDES can be placed entirely on the ELT Nasmyth platform, if enough mass and volume is available, or partly in the Coude room. ANDES has a wide range of groundbreaking science cases spanning nearly all areas of research in astrophysics and even fundamental physics. Among the top science cases there are the detection of biosignatures from exoplanet atmospheres, finding the fingerprints of the first generation of stars, tests on the stability of Nature's fundamental couplings, and the direct detection of the cosmic acceleration. The ANDES project is carried forward by a large international consortium, composed of 35 Institutes from 13 countries, forming a team of more than 200 scientists and engineers which represent the majority of the scientific and technical expertise in the field among ESO member states.
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- Becker, M, et al.
(author)
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Predictors of disease worsening defined by progression of organ damage in diffuse systemic sclerosis: a European Scleroderma Trials and Research (EUSTAR) analysis
- 2019
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In: Annals of the rheumatic diseases. - : BMJ. - 1468-2060 .- 0003-4967. ; 78:9, s. 1242-1248
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Mortality and worsening of organ function are desirable endpoints for clinical trials in systemic sclerosis (SSc). The aim of this study was to identify factors that allow enrichment of patients with these endpoints, in a population of patients from the European Scleroderma Trials and Research group database.MethodsInclusion criteria were diagnosis of diffuse SSc and follow-up over 12±3 months. Disease worsening/organ progression was fulfilled if any of the following events occurred: new renal crisis; decrease of lung or heart function; new echocardiography-suspected pulmonary hypertension or death. In total, 42 clinical parameters were chosen as predictors for the analysis by using (1) imputation of missing data on the basis of multivariate imputation and (2) least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression.ResultsOf 1451 patients meeting the inclusion criteria, 706 had complete data on outcome parameters and were included in the analysis. Of the 42 outcome predictors, eight remained in the final regression model. There was substantial evidence for a strong association between disease progression and age, active digital ulcer (DU), lung fibrosis, muscle weakness and elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) level. Active DU, CRP elevation, lung fibrosis and muscle weakness were also associated with a significantly shorter time to disease progression. A bootstrap validation step with 10 000 repetitions successfully validated the model.ConclusionsThe use of the predictive factors presented here could enable cohort enrichment with patients at risk for overall disease worsening in SSc clinical trials.
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- Di Marcantonio, P., et al.
(author)
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ANDES, the high resolution spectrograph for the ELT : project management and system engineering approaches for mastering its preliminary design phase
- 2022
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In: MODELING, SYSTEMS ENGINEERING, AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR ASTRONOMY X. - : SPIE - International Society for Optical Engineering. - 9781510653566 - 9781510653559
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- At the end of 2021, the ESO council approved the start of the construction phase for a High Resolution Spectrograph for the ELT, formerly known as ELT-HIRES, renamed recently as ANDES (ArmazoNes high Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph). The current initial schedule foresees a 9-years development aimed to bring the instrument on-sky soon after the first-generation ELT instruments. ANDES combines high spectral resolution (up to 100,000), wide spectral range (0.4 mu m to 1.8 mu m with a goal from 0.35 mu m to 2.4 mu m) and extreme stability in wavelength calibration accuracy (better than 0.02 m/s rms over a 10-year period in a selected wavelength range) with massive optical collecting power of the ELT thus enabling to achieve possible breakthrough groundbreaking scientific discoveries. The main science cases cover a possible detection of life signatures in exoplanets, the study of the stability of Nature's physical constants along the universe lifetime and a first direct measurement of the cosmic acceleration. The reference design of this instrument in its extended version (with goals included) foresees 4 spectrographic modules fed by fibers, operating in seeing and diffraction limited (adaptive optics assisted) mode carried out by an international consortium composed by 24 institutes from 13 countries which poses big challenges in several areas. In this paper we will describe the approach we intend to pursue to master management and system engineering aspects of this challenging instrument focused mainly on the preliminary design phase, but looking also ahead towards its final construction.
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- Driussi, F., et al.
(author)
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Fabrication, characterization and modeling of strained SOI MOSFETs with very large effective mobility
- 2007
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In: ESSDERC 2007. - 9781424411238 ; , s. 315-318
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Strained Silicon on insulators (sSOI) wafers with a supercritical thickness of 58 nm were produced using thin strain relaxed SiGe buffer layers, wafer bonding, selective etch back and epitaxial overgrowth. Raman spectroscopy revealed an homogeneous strain of 0.63 +/- 0.03% in the strained Si layer. Long channel n-type SOI-MOSFETs showed very large electron mobilities up to 1200 cm(2)/Vs in the strained Si devices. These values are more than two times larger than those of reference SOI n-MOSFETs. Mobility simulations with state of the art scattering models are then used to interpret the experiments.
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- Schmidt, M., et al.
(author)
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Mobility extraction in SOI MOSFETs with sub 1 nm body thickness
- 2009
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In: Solid-State Electronics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0038-1101 .- 1879-2405. ; 53:12, s. 1246-1251
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this work we discuss limitations of the split-CV method when it is used for extracting carrier mobilities in devices with thin silicon channels like FinFETs, ultra thin body silicon-on-insulator (UTB-SOI) transistors and nanowire MOSFETs. We show that the high series resistance may cause frequency dispersion during the split-CV measurements, which leads to underestimating the inversion charge density and hence overestimating mobility. We demonstrate this effect by comparing UTB-SOI transistors with both recessed-gate UTB-SOI devices and thicker conventional SOI MOSFETs. In addition, the intrinsic high series access resistance in UTB-SOI MOSFETs can potentially lead to an overestimation of the effective internal source/drain voltage, which in turn results in a severe underestimation of the carrier mobility. A specific MOSFET test structure that includes additional 4-point probe channel contacts is demonstrated to circumvent this problem, Finally, we accurately extract mobility in UTB-SOI transistors down to 0.9 nm silicon film thickness (four atomic layers) by utilizing the 4-point probe method and carefully choosing adequate frequencies for the split-CV measurements. It is found that in Such thin silicon film thicknesses quantum mechanical effects shift the threshold voltage and degrade mobility.
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| 14. |
- Schmidt, M., et al.
(author)
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Mobility Extraction of UTB n-MOSFETs down to 0.9 nm SOI thickness
- 2009
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In: ULIS 2009. - NEW YORK : IEEE. ; , s. 27-30
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this abstract, the impact of series resistance on mobility extraction in conventional and recessed-gate ultra thin body (UTB) n-MOSFETs is investigated. High series resistance leads to an overestimation of the internal source / drain voltage and influences the measurement of the gate to channel capacitance. A specific MOSFET design that includes additional channel contacts and recessed gate technology are used to successfully extract mobility down to 0.9 nm silicon film thickness (4 atomic layers). Quantum mechanical effects are found to shift the threshold voltage and degrade mobility at these extreme scaling limits.
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