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Atrophic rhinitis is characterized by progressive nasal mucosal atrophy, nasal crusting, fetor, and enlargement of the nasal space with paradoxical nasal congestion. Among diseases responsible of secondary atrophic rhinitis, infective- and noninfective-granulomatous and autoimmune diseases may be advocated, even if they represent less than 1% of etiologies. This group of pathologies should be considered especially in patients without medical history of nasal surgery or radiation and in presence of systemic symptoms, such as low-grade fever, weight loss, and arthralgias. The most frequent autoimmune diseases resulting in atrophic rhinitis are granulomatosis with polyangiitis, sarcoidosis, and mucous membrane pemphigoid. Among granulomatous infections, tuberculosis and syphilis are the leading reported causes of this group of rhinosinusitis. In this chapter, we review the main autoimmune and granulomatous causes of atrophic rhinitis focusing on ENT and systemic clinical aspects and systemic therapies.

Background Gastric bypass surgery is a very effective treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes. However, very few eligible patients are offered surgery. Some patients also prefer less invasive approaches. We aimed to study the effects of the Sleeveballoon – a new device combining an intragastric balloon with a connecting sleeve, which covers the duodenal and proximal jejunal mucosa – on insulin sensitivity, glycemic control, body weight and body fat distribution. Methods We compared the effects of Sleeveballoon, Roux-en-Y Gastric-Bypass (RYGB) and sham-operation in 30 high-fat diet (HFD) fed Wistar rats. Whole body and hepatic insulin sensitivity and insulin signaling were studied. Transthoracic echocardiography was performed using a Vevo 2100 system (FUJIFILM VisualSonics Inc., Canada). Gastric emptying was measured using gastrografin. Findings Hepatic (P = .023) and whole-body (P = .011) insulin sensitivity improved in the Sleeveballoon and RYGB groups compared with sham-operated rats. Body weight reduced in both Sleeveballoon and RYGB groups in comparison to the sham-operated group (503.1 ± 8.9 vs. 614.4 ± 20.6 g, P = .006 and 490.0 ± 17.7 vs. 614.4 ± 20.6 g, P = .006, respectively). Ectopic fat deposition was drastically reduced while glycogen content was increased in both liver and skeletal muscle. Gastric emptying (T1/2) was longer (157.7 ± 29.2 min, P = .007) in the Sleeveballoon than in sham-operated rats (97.1 ± 26.3 min), but shorter in RYGB (3.5 ± 1.1 min, P

Aims: We present the second AGILE-GRID catalogue (2AGL) of γ-ray sources in the energy range 100 MeV-10 GeV. Methods: With respect to previous AGILE-GRID catalogues, the current 2AGL catalogue is based on the first 2.3 years of science data from the AGILE mission (the so-called pointing mode) and incorporates more data and several analysis improvements, including better calibrations at the event reconstruction level, an updated model for the Galactic diffuse γ-ray emission, a refined procedure for point-like source detection, and the inclusion of a search for extended γ-ray sources. Results: The 2AGL catalogue includes 175 high-confidence sources (above 4σ significance) with their location regions and spectral properties and a variability analysis with four-day light curves for the most significant. Relying on the error region of each source position, including systematic uncertainties, 122 sources are considered as positionally associated with known counterparts at different wavelengths or detected by other γ-ray instruments. Among the identified or associated sources, 62 are active galactic nuclei (AGNs) of the blazar class. Pulsars represent the largest Galactic source class, with 41 associated pulsars, 7 of which have detected pulsation; 8 supernova remnants and 4 high-mass X-ray binaries have also been identified. A substantial number of 2AGL sources are unidentified: for 53 sources no known counterpart is found at different wavelengths. Among these sources, we discuss a subclass of 29 AGILE-GRID-only γ-ray sources that are not present in 1FGL, 2FGL, or 3FGL catalogues; the remaining sources are unidentified in both 2AGL and 3FGL catalogues. We also present an extension of the analysis of 2AGL sources detected in the energy range 50-100 MeV. Full Tables 10 and 11 (the catalog) are only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (ftp://130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/627/A13

The Near Infrared Spectro-Photometer (NISP) on board the Euclid ESA mission will be developed and tested at various levels of integration by using various test equipment. The Electrical Ground Support Equipment (EGSE) shall be required to support the assembly, integration, verification and testing (AIV/AIT) and calibration activities at instrument level before delivery to ESA, and at satellite level, when the NISP instrument is mounted on the spacecraft. In the case of the Euclid mission this EGSE will be provided by ESA to NISP team, in the HW/SW framework called "CCS Lite", with a possible first usage already during the Warm Electronics (WE) AIV/AIT activities. In this paper we discuss how we will customize that "CCS Lite" as required to support both the WE and Instrument test activities. This customization will primarily involve building the NISP Mission Information Base (the CCS MIB tables) by gathering the relevant data from the instrument sub-units and validating these inputs through specific tools. Secondarily, it will imply developing a suitable set of test sequences, by using uTOPE (an extension to the TCL scripting language, included in the CCS framework), in order to implement the foreseen test procedures. In addition and in parallel, custom interfaces shall be set up between the CCS and the NI-IWS (the NISP Instrument Workstation, which will be in use at any level starting from the WE activities), and also between the CCS and the TCC (the Telescope Control and command Computer, to be only and specifically used during the instrument level tests).

The Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) is leading the ASTRI project within the ambitious Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the next generation of ground-based observatories for very high energy gamma-ray astronomy. In the framework of the small sized telescopes (SST), a first goal of the ASTRI project is the realization of an end-to-end prototype in dual-mirror configuration (2M) with the camera composed of a matrix of Silicon photo-multiplier sensors managed by innovative front-end and back-end electronics. The prototype, named ASTRI SST-2M, is installed in Italy at the INAF "M.G. Fracastoro" observing station located at Serra La Nave, 1735 m a.s.l. on Mount Etna, Sicily. As a second step, the ASTRI project is focused on the implementation of a mini-array composed at least of nine ASTRI telescopes and proposed to be placed at the CTA southern site. This paper outlines the design of the camera server software that will be installed on the ASTRI mini-array. The software is based on the version installed on the ASTRI SST-2M prototype operating in a single telescope configuration. The migration from single telescope to mini-array context has required additional interfaces in order to guarantee high interoperability with other software and hardware components. In the mini-array configuration each camera communicates with its own camera server via a dedicated high rate data link. The primary goal of the camera server is to acquire the bulk data, packet by packet, without any data loss and to timestamp each packet very precisely. During array operation, the camera server receives from the SoftWare Array Trigger (SWAT) the list of science events that participate in stereo triggered events. These science events, and all others that are flagged either by the camera as interleaved calibration or by the camera server as possible single-muon events, are sent to the Array DAQ. All remaining science events will be discarded. A suitable buffer is provided to perform this processing on all the incoming event packets. The camera server provides interfaces to the array control software to allow for monitoring and control during array operations. In this paper we present the design of the camera server software with particular emphasis on the external interfaces. In addition, we report the results of the first integration activities and performance tests.

International audience; Today the scientific community is facing an increasing complexity of the scientific projects, from both a technological and a management point of view. The reason for this is in the advance of science itself, where new experiments with unprecedented levels of accuracy, precision and coverage (time and spatial) are realised. Astronomy is one of the fields of the physical sciences where a strong interaction between the scientists, the instrument and software developers is necessary to achieve the goals of any Big Science Project. The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be the largest ground-based very high-energy gamma-ray observatory of the next decades. To achieve the full potential of the CTA Observatory, the system must be put into place to enable users to operate the telescopes productively. The software will cover all stages of the CTA system, from the preparation of the observing proposals to the final data reduction, and must also fit into the overall system. Scientists, engineers, operators and others will use the system to operate the Observatory, hence they should be involved in the design process from the beginning. We have organised a workgroup and a workflow for the definition of the CTA Top Level Use Cases in the context of the Requirement Management activities of the CTA Observatory. Scientists, instrument and software developers are collaborating and sharing information to provide a common and general understanding of the Observatory from a functional point of view. Scientists that will use the CTA Observatory will provide mainly Science Driven Use Cases, whereas software engineers will subsequently provide more detailed Use Cases, comments and feedbacks. The main purposes are to define observing modes and strategies, and to provide a framework for the flow down of the Use Cases and requirements to check missing requirements and the already developed Use-Case models at CTA sub-system level. Use Cases will also provide the basis for the definition of the Acceptance Test Plan for the validation of the overall CTA system. In this contribution we present the organisation and the workflow of the Top Level Use Cases workgroup.© (2016) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

The ASTRI mini-array, composed of nine small-size dual mirror (SST-2M) telescopes, has been proposed to be installed at the southern site of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), as a set of preproduction units of the CTA observatory. The ASTRI mini-array is a collaborative and international effort carried out by Italy, Brazil and South Africa and led by the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, INAF. We present the main features of the current implementation of the Mini-Array Software System (MASS) now in use for the activities of the ASTRI SST-2M telescope prototype located at the INAF observing station on Mt. Etna, Italy and the characteristics that make it a prototype for the CTA control software system. CTA Data Management (CTADATA) and CTA Array Control and Data Acquisition (CTA-ACTL) requirements and guidelines as well as the ASTRI use cases were considered in the MASS design, most of its features are derived from the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array Control software. The MASS will provide a set of tools to manage all onsite operations of the ASTRI mini-array in order to perform the observations specified in the short term schedule (including monitoring and controlling all the hardware components of each telescope and calibration device), to analyze the acquired data online and to store/retrieve all the data products to/from the onsite repository.

The NISP instrument on board the Euclid ESA mission will be developed and tested at different levels of integration using various test equipment which shall be designed and procured through a collaborative and coordinated effort. The NISP Instrument Workstation (NI-IWS) will be part of the EGSE configuration that will support the NISP AIV/AIT activities from the NISP Warm Electronics level up to the launch of Euclid. One workstation is required for the NISP EQM/AVM, and a second one for the NISP FM. Each workstation will follow the respective NISP model after delivery to ESA for Payload and Satellite AIV/AIT and launch. At these levels the NI-IWS shall be configured as part of the Payload EGSE, the System EGSE, and the Launch EGSE, respectively. After launch, the NI-IWS will be also re-used in the Euclid Ground Segment in order to support the Commissioning and Performance Verification (CPV) phase, and for troubleshooting purposes during the operational phase. The NI-IWS is mainly aimed at the local storage in a suitable format of the NISP instrument data and metadata, at local retrieval, processing and display of the stored data for on-line instrument assessment, and at the remote retrieval of the stored data for off-line analysis on other computers. We describe the design of the IWS software that will create a suitable interface to the external systems in each of the various configurations envisaged at the different levels, and provide the capabilities required to monitor and verify the instrument functionalities and performance throughout all phases of the NISP lifetime.

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the new generation very high-energy gamma-ray observatory, will improve the flux sensitivity of the current Cherenkov telescopes by an order of magnitude over a continuous range from about 10 GeV to above 100 TeV. With tens of telescopes distributed in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, the large effective area and field of view coupled with the fast pointing capability make CTA a crucial instrument for the detection and understanding of the physics of transient, short-timescale variability phenomena (e.g. Gamma-Ray Bursts, Active Galactic Nuclei, gamma-ray binaries, serendipitous sources). The key CTA system for the fast identification of flaring events is the Real-Time Analysis (RTA) pipeline, a science alert system that will automatically detect and generate science alerts with a maximum latency of 30 seconds with respect to the triggering event collection and ensure fast communication to/from the astrophysics community. According to the CTA design requirements, the RTA search for a true transient event should be performed on multiple time scales (from minutes to hours) with a sensitivity not worse than three times the nominal CTA sensitivity. Given the CTA requirement constraints on the RTA efficiency and the fast response ability demanded by the transient science, we perform a preliminary evaluation of the RTA sensitivity as a function of the CTA high-level technical performance (e.g. effective area, point spread function) and the observing time. This preliminary approach allows the exploration of the complex parameter space defined by the scientific and technological requirements, with the aim of defining the feasibility range of the input parameters and the minimum background rejection capability of the RTA pipeline., In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherlands. All CTA contributions at arXiv:1508.05894

The planned Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), a future ground-based Very-High-Energy (VHE) gamma-ray observatory, will be the largest project of its kind. It aims to provide an order of magnitude increase in sensitivity compared to currently operating VHE experiments and open access to guest observers. These features, together with the thirty years lifetime planned for the installation, impose severe constraints on the data model currently being developed for the project. In this contribution we analyze the challenges faced by the CTA data model development and present the requirements imposed to face them. While the full data model is still not completed we show the organization of the work, status of the design, and an overview of the prototyping efforts carried out so far. We also show examples of specific aspects of the data model currently under development., In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherlands. All CTA contributions at arXiv:1508.05894

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next generation observatory for the study of very high-energy gamma rays from about 20 GeV up to 300 TeV. Thanks to the large effective area and field of view, the CTA observatory will be characterized by an unprecedented sensitivity to transient flaring gamma-ray phenomena compared to both current ground (e.g. MAGIC, VERITAS, H.E.S.S.) and space (e.g. Fermi) gamma-ray telescopes. In order to trigger the astrophysics community for follow-up observations, or being able to quickly respond to external science alerts, a fast analysis pipeline is crucial. This will be accomplished by means of a Real-Time Analysis (RTA) pipeline, a fast and automated science alert trigger system, becoming a key system of the CTA observatory. Among the CTA design key requirements to the RTA system, the most challenging is the generation of alerts within 30 seconds from the last acquired event, while obtaining a flux sensitivity not worse than the one of the final analysis by more than a factor of 3. A dedicated software and hardware architecture for the RTA pipeline must be designed and tested. We present comparison of OpenCL solutions using different kind of devices like CPUs, Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) and Field Programmable Array (FPGA) cards for the Real-Time data reduction of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) triggered data., Comment: In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherlands. All CTA contributions at arXiv:1508.05894

ASTRI (Astrofisica con Specchi a Tecnologia Replicante Italiana) is a Flagship Project financed by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, and led by INAF, the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics. Within this framework, INAF is currently developing an end‐to‐end prototype of a Small Size dual‐mirror Telescope. In a second phase the ASTRI project foresees the installation of the first elements of the array at CTA southern site, a mini-array of 7 telescopes. The ASTRI Camera DAQ Software is aimed at the Camera data acquisition, storage and display during Camera development as well as during commissioning and operations on the ASTRI SST-2M telescope prototype that will operate at the INAF observing station located at Serra La Nave on the Mount Etna (Sicily). The Camera DAQ configuration and operations will be sequenced either through local operator commands or through remote commands received from the Instrument Controller System that commands and controls the Camera. The Camera DAQ software will acquire data packets through a direct one-way socket connection with the Camera Back End Electronics. In near real time, the data will be stored in both raw and FITS format. The DAQ Quick Look component will allow the operator to display in near real time the Camera data packets. We are developing the DAQ software adopting the iterative and incremental model in order to maximize the software reuse and to implement a system which is easily adaptable to changes. This contribution presents the Camera DAQ Software architecture with particular emphasis on its potential reuse for the ASTRI/CTA mini-array.

ASTRI is an Italian flagship project whose first goal is the realization of an end-to-end telescope prototype, named ASTRI SST-2M, for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). The prototype will be installed in Italy during Fall 2014. A second goal will be the realization of the ASTRI/CTA mini-array which will be composed of seven SST-2M telescopes placed at the CTA Southern Site. The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) equipment necessary to drive the infrastructure for the ASTRI SST-2M prototype is being designed as a complete and stand-alone computer center. The design goal is to obtain basic ICT equipment that might be scaled, with a low level of redundancy, for the ASTRI/CTA mini-array, taking into account the necessary control, monitor and alarm system requirements. The ICT equipment envisaged at the Serra La Nave observing station in Italy, where the ASTRI SST-2M telescope prototype will operate, includes computers, servers and workstations, network devices, an uninterruptable power supply system, and air conditioning systems. Suitable hardware and software tools will allow the parameters related to the behavior and health of each item of equipment to be controlled and monitored. This paper presents the proposed architecture and technical solutions that integrate the ICT equipment in the framework of the Observatory Control System package of the ASTRI/CTA Mini- Array Software System, MASS, to allow their local and remote control and monitoring. An end-toend test case using an Internet Protocol thermometer is reported in detail.

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observatory will be one of the biggest ground-based very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray observatory. CTA will achieve a factor of 10 improvement in sensitivity from some tens of GeV to beyond 100 TeV with respect to existing telescopes. The CTA observatory will be capable of issuing alerts on variable and transient sources to maximize the scientific return. To capture these phenomena during their evolution and for effective communication to the astrophysical community, speed is crucial. This requires a system with a reliable automated trigger that can issue alerts immediately upon detection of gamma-ray flares. This will be accomplished by means of a Real-Time Analysis (RTA) pipeline, a key system of the CTA observatory. The latency and sensitivity requirements of the alarm system impose a challenge because of the anticipated large data rate, between 0.5 and 8 GB/s. As a consequence, substantial efforts toward the optimization of high-throughput computing service are envisioned. For these reasons our working group has started the development of a prototype of the Real-Time Analysis pipeline. The main goals of this prototype are to test: (i) a set of frameworks and design patterns useful for the inter-process communication between software processes running on memory; (ii) the sustainability of the foreseen CTA data rate in terms of data throughput with different hardware (e.g. accelerators) and software configurations, (iii) the reuse of non-real-time algorithms or how much we need to simplify algorithms to be compliant with CTA requirements, (iv) interface issues between the different CTA systems. In this work we focus on goals (i) and (ii).

We report the results of an extensive search in the AGILE data for a gamma-ray counterpart of the LIGO gravitational wave event GW150914. Currently in spinning mode, AGILE has the potential of covering with its gamma-ray instrument 80 % of the sky more than 100 times a day. It turns out that AGILE came within a minute from the event time of observing the accessible GW150914 localization region. Interestingly, the gamma-ray detector exposed about 65 % of this region during the 100 s time intervals centered at -100 s and +300 s from the event time. We determine a 2-sigma flux upper limit in the band 50 MeV - 10 GeV, $UL = 1.9 \times 10^{-8} \rm \, erg \, cm^{-2} \, s^{-1}$ obtained about 300 s after the event. The timing of this measurement is the fastest ever obtained for GW150914, and significantly constrains the electromagnetic emission of a possible high-energy counterpart. We also carried out a search for a gamma-ray precursor and delayed emission over timescales ranging from minutes to days: in particular, we obtained an optimal exposure during the interval -150 / -30 s. In all these observations, we do not detect a significant signal associated with GW150914. We do not reveal the weak transient source reported by Fermi-GBM 0.4 s after the event time. However, even though a gamma-ray counterpart of the GW150914 event was not detected, the prospects for future AGILE observations of gravitational wave sources are decidedly promising., Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures. Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters on April 1, 2016