Search

This paper describes the shaking table tests carried out at the European Centre for Training and Research in Earthquake Engineering (EUCENTRE) to investigate the seismic behaviour of four configurations of stacked concrete blocks, commonly used at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) as a shielding barrier against different types of radiation. The blocks used for these configurations have been designed to guarantee an adequate level of protection to radiation and, at the same time, to be easily transported and managed for different installations. The block configuration specimens have been tested using the acceleration time-histories of two different earthquakes occurred in the Mediterranean region. Each configuration has been tested several times with acceleration amplitude increments until rigid kinematisms are triggered. This paper presents the test setup and inputs, the related experimental readings and the main results obtained by these tests. The two main mechanisms observed at the interfaces between the blocks during the tests were sliding and rocking. The data collected at the end of the experimental campaign constitute an important source to calibrate different discrete-system-models, in order to study the seismic response of block configurations used for radiation protection in particle physics research institutions.

The Perrot spring (1305 m a.s.l.), located on the right side of the Chalamy Stream, inside the Monte Avic Natural Park (Aosta Valley, NW Italy), is an important source of drinking water for Champdepraz municipality.The spring is placed on a large slope characterized by the presence of debris covers of various origin (glacial, fluvial and landslide) above the bedrock (serpentinised peridotites and metabasites of the Zermatt-Saas Zone, Penninic Domain) which crops out only in the upper part of the basin.The water source is fed by rainwater infiltrating and flowing into the shallow deposits, with a permeability by porosity, and into the most fractured portion of the substrate. The water emerges at the contact between the topographic surface and impermeable or semi-permeable basal lithologies (unfractured crystalline rocks and glacio-lacustrine deposits).The aim of this study is to delineate the recharge processes of the spring and the definition of the recharge area extension that is very important for its conservation.In this view, an analysis of groundwater spring parameters (e.g. daily discharge, temperature and electrical conductivity) were conducted for the years 2018-2020.The flow rate ranges between 22 and 47 L/s with two maxima, one in spring and one in autumn; the electrolytic conductivity varies between 60 and 75 S/cm. The variation of groundwater temperature is very low, between 4.9°C and 5.5°C. The low discharge and temperature variations suggest a relatively high average share of the supply area and a sufficiently deep flow circuit.The analysis of these data shows the presence of two contributions to the spring supply: a spring contribution from snowmelt, characterized by a low INCREASE in flow rate, and an autumn contribution from rainwater infiltration.Moreover, sampling campaigns were also carried out in the entire Chalamy stream basin in August 2021 and January, July, September 2022. In particular, water from lakes, rivers, spring and rainwater was sampled.During the field campaigns, pH, electrical conductivity and temperature were measured in situ. Chemical analysis of major ions and stable isotopes (δ2H and δ18O) were then conducted on water samples.The chemical analyses show a groundwater chemistry coherent with the regional geology: the hydrochemical facies is bicarbonate-sodium, the main cations are Ca2+ and Mg2+ and the anions HCO3-. Finally, isotopic analyses of precipitation and spring water suggest a recharge elevation of around 2,500 m a.s.l.

The seismic vulnerability of masonry infills has been observed persistently during post seismic surveys, and their seismic behaviour has been investigated for decades due to its complexity involving different aspects that need to be addressed and the diversity of existing masonry infill typologies. Despite the copious experimental studies conducted, only a few of them had the opportunity to analyse different aspects of the same masonry typology due to the reduced number of specimens usually involved in a testing campaign. The out-of-plane response of masonry infills, and the reduction of the out-of-plane resistance of the infill panels due to the damage caused by in-plane deformations, are usually the most critical aspects regarding life safety. Furthermore, the out-of-plane experimental tests on masonry infills have almost always been conducted through pseudo-static tests with different loading techniques (4 point loading, central loading, constant pressure with airbags or other systems), meanwhile a complete experimental campaign on existing masonry infills through dynamic tests on a shaking table has not taken place yet. Within this framework, an experimental campaign focusing on non-ductile infill specimens made of horizontally hollowed weak clay units representing one of the most common infill systems present in Italy, is currently ongoing at the Eucentre Foundation of Pavia. In the present paper, the results from the first phase of the ongoing study will be discussed. In the scope of this research program, in-plane cyclic tests and out-of-plane dynamic tests are conducted on full-scale infill panels built inside single storey single bay composite steel/reinforced concrete frames, along with tests of characterization of the masonry materials. The first phase of tests included five specimens, four of them built with all edges bonded to the frame and one specimen with free vertical edges. The four specimens with the same boundary conditions were used to characterize the pure in-plane behaviour, the pure out-of-plane behaviour, and the out-of-plane behaviour with previous in-plane damage. The specimen with the vertical edges free was subjected to pure out-of-plane excitation to explore the one-way bending/arching behaviour of infills.

The cut sets of a graph are special sets of vertices whose removal disconnects the graph. They are fundamental in the study of binomial edge ideals, since they encode their minimal primary decomposition. We introduce the class of accessible graphs as the graphs with unmixed binomial edge ideal and whose cut sets form an accessible set system. We prove that the graphs whose binomial edge ideal is Cohen-Macaulay are accessible and we conjecture that the converse holds. We settle the conjecture for large classes of graphs, including chordal and traceable graphs, providing a purely combinatorial description of Cohen-Macaulayness. The key idea in the proof is to show that both properties are equivalent to a further combinatorial condition, which we call strong unmixedness., accepted in Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics

We explore the dependence of the Betti numbers of monomial ideals on the characteristic of the field. A first observation is that for a fixed prime p either the i-th Betti number of all high enough powers of a monomial ideal differs in characteristic 0 and in characteristic p or it is the same for all high enough powers. In our main results, we provide constructions and explicit examples of monomial ideals all of whose powers have some characteristic-dependent Betti numbers or whose asymptotic regularity depends on the field. We prove that, adding a monomial on new variables to a monomial ideal allows to spread the characteristic dependence to all powers. For any given prime p, this produces an edge ideal such that all its powers have some Betti numbers that are different over $$\mathbb {Q}$$ Q and over $$\mathbb {Z}_p$$ Z p . Moreover, we show that, for every $$r \ge 0$$ r ≥ 0 and $$i \ge 3$$ i ≥ 3 there is a monomial ideal I such that some coefficient in a degree $$\ge r$$ ≥ r of the Kodiyalam polynomials $${\mathfrak {P}}_3(I),\ldots ,{\mathfrak {P}}_{i+r}(I)$$ P 3 ( I ) , … , P i + r ( I ) depends on the characteristic. We also provide a summary of related results and speculate about the behavior of other combinatorially defined ideals.

Structural variants (SVs) are genomic rearrangements that involve at least 50 nucleotides and are known to have a serious impact on human health. While prior short-read sequencing technologies have often proved inadequate for a comprehensive assessment of structural variation, more recent long reads from Oxford Nanopore Technologies have already been proven invaluable for the discovery of large SVs and hold the potential to facilitate the resolution of the full SV spectrum. With many long-read sequencing studies to follow, it is crucial to assess factors affecting current SV calling pipelines for nanopore sequencing data. In this brief research report, we evaluate and compare the performances of five long-read SV callers across four long-read aligners using both real and synthetic nanopore datasets. In particular, we focus on the effects of read alignment, sequencing coverage, and variant allele depth on the detection and genotyping of SVs of different types and size ranges and provide insights into precision and recall of SV callsets generated by integrating the various long-read aligners and SV callers. The computational pipeline we propose is publicly available at https://github.com/davidebolo1993/EViNCe and can be adjusted to further evaluate future nanopore sequencing datasets.

Eosinophilia represents a group of diseases with heterogeneous pathobiology and clinical phenotypes. Among the alterations found in primary Eosinophilia, gene fusions involving PDGFRα, PDGFRβ, FGFR1 or JAK2 represent the biomarkers of WHO-defined “myeloid and lymphoid neoplasms with eosinophilia”. The heterogeneous nature of genomic aberrations and the promiscuity of fusion partners, may limit the diagnostic accuracy of current cytogenetics approaches. To address such technical challenges, we exploited a nanopore-based sequencing assay to screen patients with primary Eosinophilia. The comprehensive sequencing approach described here enables the identification of genomic fusion in 60 h, starting from DNA purified from whole blood.

Copy number variants (CNVs) play important roles in the pathogenesis of several genetic syndromes. Traditional and molecular karyotyping are considered the first-tier diagnostic tests to detect macroscopic and cryptic deletions/duplications. However, their time-consuming and laborious experimental protocols protract diagnostic times from 3 to 15 days. Nanopore sequencing has the ability to reduce time to results for the detection of CNVs with the same resolution of current state-of-the-art diagnostic tests. Nanopore sequencing was compared to molecular karyotyping for the detection of pathogenic CNVs of seven patients with previously diagnosed causative CNVs of different sizes and cellular fractions. Larger chromosomal anomalies included trisomy 21 and mosaic tetrasomy 12p. Among smaller CNVs, two genomic imbalances of 1.3 Mb, a small deletion of 170 kb, and two mosaic deletions (1.2 Mb and 408 kb) were tested. DNA was sequenced and data generated during runs were analyzed in online mode. All pathogenic CNVs were identified with detection time inversely proportional to size and cellular fraction. Aneuploidies were called after only 30 minutes of sequencing, whereas 30 hours were needed to call small CNVs. These results demonstrate the clinical utility of our approach that allows the molecular diagnosis of genomic disorders within a 30-minute to 30-hour time frame and its easy implementation as a routinary diagnostic tool.

SU DI UN CASO DI MALFORMAZIONE DOPPIA (CEFALOTORACOPAGIA) NEL VITELLO La cefalotoracopagia è una rara forma di mostruosità doppia in cui i gemelli si presentano congiunti a livello di testa e torace; colonna vertebrale, arti e pelvi sono invece separati e gli organi interni possono presentare gradi variabili di duplicazione. Casi di gemelli congiunti sono stati descritti in tutte le specie domestiche, con incidenza maggiore nel bovino. Il caso presentato riguarda gemelli congiunti di sesso femminile, estratti a termine di gravidanza, già morti, per mezzo di taglio cesareo che mostravano una sola testa normoconformata, un ulteriore padiglione auricolare, un abbozzo di stoma, due toraci fusi tramite due sterni, due colonne vertebrali, otto arti e due code. Gli organi interni erano rappresentati da una seconda laringe ectopica, un cuore, due polmoni trasposti, un unico canale esofago-tracheale, un fegato megalico, due apparati prestomacali, due abomasi, due intestini, due milze, due uteri, quattro reni e due vesciche. La presente documentazione si va ad aggiungere alle sporadiche segnalazioni sull’argomento rappresentando una variante morfologica non precedentemente descritta. Le cause eziopatogenetiche, così come l’ontogenesi di queste mostruosità, non sono state ancora del tutto chiarite. È convinzione degli autori però che solo la segnalazione di tali evenienze, e la conseguente percezione della loro reale incidenza, potranno incidere significativamente sui dati relativi alla prevalenza e, auspicabilmente, sull’individuazione delle cause. A CASE OF DOUBLE MALFORMATION (CEPHALOTHORACOPAGUS) IN A CALF The mechanism of the development of conjoined twins is not completely understood, and such far two main hypotheses can be considered: fission and fusion. The fission hypothesis proposes that conjoined twins arise from the incomplete division of a single fertilized ovum and thus they are the result of the failure of the separation of monozygotic twins; the fusion hypothesis proposes that conjoined twins arise from the re-fusion of two previously already separated monozygotic twins. Various authors have described the teratogenic influence of genetics and environmental (viruses, plants, drugs) factors suspected of causing duplication defects. The definition of the different aspects of this malformation is based on the localization of the conjunction: “craniopagus” is the conjunction of the heads, “cephalothoracopagus” of the entire upper part of the body, “thoracopagus” of the thorax, “omphalopagus” of the abdominal wall, “rachipagus” of the back, “pigopagus” of the sacral region, “ischiopagus” of the pelvic region. Parapagus is the term used to indicate a latero-lateral fusion. The aim of this study is to present an interesting case of conjoined twins in bovine. Morphological aspects, etiopathogenetic and possible classification of the conjoined twinning are also discussed. A stillborn female Holstein conjoined twins (twin 1 and twin 2) were referred for clinicopathological examination. External examination showed a single head linked by a unique atlanto-occipital joint to two separated vertebral columns. An additional auricular pinna and a primitive stoma were also present. Upper part of the twins bodies were joined through the fusion of the thoracic walls resulting in a four-sided thorax with two sterna. Four forelimbs were linked to this thorax. The conjunction of the trunk extended until the umbilical region; caudally, two identical and symmetrical bodies presenting four hindlimbs, two tails, two ani and two vulve normally developed were noticed. The dissection enabled to better understand the skeletal conformation. In particular, the left thoracic wall of twin 1 was linked to the right thoracic wall of twin 2 through one of the two sterna. The right thoracic wall of twin 1 was linked to the left thoracic wall of twin 2 through the other sternum. Within the thorax, a single heart, two transposed unaerated lungs (situs inversus) and a severe megaesofagus, fused with the trachea, were present. In the abdominal cavity a single but enlarged liver was present. Two umbilical veins, entering the body from a unique umbilical ring, divided before entering the liver. Each twin had its own rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum as well as its own jejunum, ileum, caecum, colon and rectum. The two mesojejunum were conjuncted. An ectopia of the spiral loops of the colon was also present in twin 2. Two spleens, two uteri, four kidneys and two bladders were also detected. The lack of reliable information on the prevalence of such kind of malformation motivated the Authors to present this case. The reporting of malformed calves constitutes an indispensable step for improving the knowledge and recognize the etiology of these diseases.

Unbalanced Structural Variants (uSVs) play important roles in the pathogenesis of several genetic syndromes. Traditional and molecular karyotyping are considered the first-tier diagnostic tests to detect macroscopic and cryptic deletions/duplications. However, their time-consuming and laborious experimental protocols protract diagnostic times from three to fifteen days. Long read sequencing approaches, such as Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT), have the ability to reduce time to results for the detection of uSVs with the same resolution of current state-of-the-art diagnostic tests.Here we compared ONT to molecular karyotyping for the detection of pathogenic uSVs of 7 patients with previously diagnosed causative CNVs of different sizes and allelic fractions. Larger chromosomal anomalies included trisomy 21 and mosaic tetrasomy 12p. Among smaller CNVs we tested two reciprocal genomic imbalances in 7q11.23 (1.367 Mb), a 170 kb deletion encompassing NRXN1 and mosaic 6q27 (1.231 Mb) and 2q23.1 (408 kb) deletions. DNA libraries were prepared following ONT standard protocols and sequenced on the GridION device for 48 h. Data generated during runs were analysed in online mode, using NanoGLADIATOR.We were capable to identify all pathogenic CNVs with detection time inversely proportional to size and allelic fraction. Aneuploidies were called after only 30 minutes of sequencing, while 30 hours were needed to call CNVs < 500 kb also in mosaic state (44%). These results demonstrate the clinical utility of our approach that allows the molecular diagnosis of genomic disorders within a 30 minutes to 30 hours time-frame.

Astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) are exposed to the damaging effects of microgravity and cosmic radiation. One of the most critical and sensitive districts of an organism is the eye, particularly the retina, and > 50% of astronauts develop a complex of alterations designated as spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome. However, the pathogenesis of this condition is not clearly understood. In the current study, we aimed to explore the cellular and molecular effects induced in the human retinal pigment ARPE-19 cell line by their transfer to and 3-day stay on board the ISS in the context of an experiment funded by the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana. Treatment of cells on board the ISS with the well-known bioenergetic, antioxidant, and antiapoptotic coenzyme Q10 was also evaluated. In the ground control experiment, the cells were exposed to the same conditions as on the ISS, with the exception of microgravity and radiation. The transfer of ARPE-19 retinal cells to the ISS and their living on board for 3 days did not affect cell viability or apoptosis but induced cytoskeleton remodeling consisting of vimentin redistribution from the cellular boundaries to the perinuclear area, underlining the collapse of the network of intermediate vimentin filaments under unloading conditions. The morphological changes endured by ARPE-19 cells grown on board the ISS were associated with changes in the transcriptomic profile related to the cellular response to the space environment and were consistent with cell dysfunction adaptations. In addition, the results obtained from ARPE-19 cells treated with coenzyme Q10 indicated its potential to increase cell resistance to damage.

Contents The objective was to compare embryo yield and quality in lactating dairy cows superovulated (SO) with varying amounts of gonadotropins and FSH:LH ratios and inseminated with SexedULTRA (TM) sex-sorted semen. The SO treatments (n = 77) involved 3 protocols: groups F700 and F1000 were given total doses of 700 and 1,000 IU of Folltropin (FSH:LH ratio 49:1), respectively, whereas group F700P300 was given 700 IU of Folltropin + 300 IU of Pluset (FSH:LH ratio 1:1). Cows were artificially inseminated 3 times over a 10-hr interval with frozen-thawed SexedULTRA (TM) sex-sorted semen (total of 10 x 10(6) sex-sorted sperm), starting 18 hr after onset of oestrus, with embryos/ova recovered 7 d after oestrus. Total number of recovered structures and transferable embryos were lower (p < 0.05) in F700 (4.7 +/- 3.0 and 1.9 +/- 1.7, respectively; mean +/- SD) compared to F1000 (8.1 +/- 3.8 and 4.4 +/- 2.6) and F700P300 (8.5 +/- 6.4 and 4.5 +/- 3.3). Percentage of cows ovulating >50% of follicles >= 0.8 cm in diameter was lower (p < 0.05) in F700 (35.5%) than in F1000 (82.4%) and F700P300 (73.1%). Percentage of unfertilized oocytes was higher (p < 0.05) in F700 (45.0% vs. 27.7% for F1000 and 29.0% for F700P300) whereas percentage of morulae was higher (p < 0.05) in F1000 (19.3% vs. 8.7% for F700 and 12.2% for F700P300). Embryo quality was similar among groups (p > 0.05). In conclusion, embryo production in lactating dairy cows was improved by increasing total dose of gonadotropins from 700 to 1,000 IU, with SexedULTRA (TM) sex-sorted semen yielding satisfactory fertilization rates and embryo quality.

Background Tandem repeat sequences are widespread in the human genome, and their expansions cause multiple repeat-mediated disorders. Genome-wide discovery approaches are needed to fully elucidate their roles in health and disease, but resolving tandem repeat variation accurately remains a challenging task. While traditional mapping-based approaches using short-read data have severe limitations in the size and type of tandem repeats they can resolve, recent third-generation sequencing technologies exhibit substantially higher sequencing error rates, which complicates repeat resolution. Results We developed TRiCoLOR, a freely available tool for tandem repeat profiling using error-prone long reads from third-generation sequencing technologies. The method can identify repetitive regions in sequencing data without a prior knowledge of their motifs or locations and resolve repeat multiplicity and period size in a haplotype-specific manner. The tool includes methods to interactively visualize the identified repeats and to trace their Mendelian consistency in pedigrees. Conclusions TRiCoLOR demonstrates excellent performance and improved sensitivity and specificity compared with alternative tools on synthetic data. For real human whole-genome sequencing data, TRiCoLOR achieves high validation rates, suggesting its suitability to identify tandem repeat variation in personal genomes.

For any finite poset P we introduce a homogeneous space as a quotient of the general linear group with the incidence group of P. When P is a chain this quotient is a flag variety; for the trivial poset our construction gives a variety recently introduced in [20]. Moreover we provide decompositions for any set in a projective space, induced by the action of the incidence group of a suitable poset. In the classical cases of Grassmannians and flag varieties we recover, depending on the choice of the poset, the partition into Schubert cells and the matroid strata. Our general framework produces, for the homogeneous spaces corresponding to the trivial posets, a stratification by parking functions.

MinION and GridION X5 from Oxford Nanopore Technologies are devices for real-time DNA and RNA sequencing. On the one hand, MinION is the only real-time, low cost and portable sequencing device and, thanks to its unique properties, is becoming more and more popular among biologists; on the other, GridION X5, mainly for its costs, is less widespread but highly suitable for researchers with large sequencing projects. Despite the fact that Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ devices have been increasingly used in the last few years, there is a lack of high-performing and user-friendly tools to handle the data outputted by both MinION and GridION X5 platforms. Here we present NanoR, a cross-platform R package designed with the purpose to simplify and improve nanopore data visualization. Indeed, NanoR is built on few functions but overcomes the capabilities of existing tools to extract meaningful informations from MinION sequencing data; in addition, as exclusive features, NanoR can deal with GridION X5 sequencing outputs and allows comparison of both MinION and GridION X5 sequencing data in one command. NanoR is released as free package for R at https://github.com/davidebolo1993/NanoR.

Motivation The past few years have seen the emergence of nanopore-based sequencing technologies which interrogate single molecule of DNA and generate reads sequentially. Results In this paper, we demonstrate that, thanks to the sequentiality of the nanopore process, the data generated in the first tens of minutes of a typical MinION/GridION run can be exploited to resolve the alterations of a human genome at a karyotype level with a resolution in the order of tens of Mb, while the data produced in the first 6–12 h allow to obtain a resolution comparable to currently available array-based technologies, and thanks to a novel probabilistic approach are capable to predict the allelic fraction of genomic alteration with high accuracy. To exploit the unique characteristics of nanopore sequencing data we developed a novel software tool, Nano-GLADIATOR, that is capable to perform copy number variants/alterations detection and allelic fraction prediction during the sequencing run (‘On-line’ mode) and after experiment completion (‘Off-line’ mode). We tested Nano-GLADIATOR on publicly available (‘Off-line’ mode) and on novel whole genome sequencing dataset generated with MinION device (‘On-line’ mode) showing that our tool is capable to perform real-time copy number alterations detection obtaining good results with respect to other state-of-the-art tools. Availability and implementation Nano-GLADIATOR is freely available at https://sourceforge.net/projects/nanogladiator/. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

A natural extension of bipartite graphs are d-partite clutters, where d≥2 is an integer. For a poset P, Ene, Herzog and Mohammadi introduced the d-partite clutter CP,d of multichains of length d in P, showing that it is Cohen–Macaulay. We prove that the cover ideal of CP,d admits an xi-splitting, determining a recursive formula for its Betti numbers and generalizing a result of Francisco, Ha and Van Tuyl on the cover ideal of Cohen–Macaulay bipartite graphs. Moreover we prove a Betti splitting result for the Alexander dual of a Cohen–Macaulay simplicial complex. Interesting examples are given, in particular the first example of ideal that does not admit Betti splitting in any characteristic.

Binomial edge ideals are a noteworthy class of binomial ideals that can be associated with graphs, generalizing the ideals of 2-minors. For bipartite graphs we prove the converse of Hartshorne’s Connectedness Theorem, according to which if an ideal is Cohen–Macaulay, then its dual graph is connected. This allows us to classify Cohen–Macaulay binomial edge ideals of bipartite graphs, giving an explicit and recursive construction in graph-theoretical terms. This result represents a binomial analogue of the celebrated characterization of (monomial) edge ideals of bipartite graphs due to Herzog and Hibi (2005). Herzog J., Hibi T. Distributive lattices, bipartite graphs and Alexander duality J. Algebraic Combin., 22 (2005), pp. 289-302

A Betti splitting $I=J+K$ of a monomial ideal $I$ ensures the recovery of the graded Betti numbers of $I$ starting from those of $J,K$ and $J \cap K$. In this paper, we introduce this condition for simplicial complexes, and, by using Alexander duality, we prove that it is equivalent to a recursive splitting conditions on links of some vertices. The adopted point of view enables for relating the existence of a Betti splitting for a simplicial complex $\Delta$ to the topological properties of $\Delta$. Among other results, we prove that orientability for a manifold without boundary is equivalent to admit a Betti splitting induced by the removal of a single facet. Taking advantage of this topological approach, we provide the first example in literature admitting Betti splitting but with characteristic-dependent resolution. Moreover, we introduce the notion of splitting probability, useful to deal with results concerning existence of Betti splitting., Comment: Improved version

This paper summarizes the results of an experimen- tal program devoted to assessing the main structural characteristics and criticalities in the seismic response of typical reinforced precast concrete structures in Italy that were severely damaged by major earthquakes in May 2012. Two 3⁄4 scale two-bay, three-story precast concrete frames with and without cladding panels were subjected to a quasi-static cyclic top displacement his- tory consisting of symmetric stepwise increasing drift cycles. Pinned beam-column connections consisted of neoprene pads with vertical steel dowels working in shear. The flexibility of the cantilevered static scheme forced large displacement demand and incompatible transfer of the horizontal forces to occur in joints lack- ing shear and ductility capacity. In addition, displace- ment incompatibility between structural elements and cladding panels caused the premature failure of their connections. The results demonstrate the inadequate performance of this structural solution because of its beam-to-column and panel-to-structure connection systems, the responses of which reaffirm that this frame typology should not be used in areas of high seismic hazard because of its nearly elastic-fragile behavior.

We study the partially ordered set $P(a_1,\ldots, a_n)$ of all multidegrees $(b_1,\dots,b_n)$ of monomials $x_1^{b_1}\cdots x_n^{b_n}$ which properly divide $x_1^{a_1}\cdots x_n^{a_n}$. We prove that the order complex $\Delta(P(a_1,\dots,a_n))$ of $P(a_1,\ldots a_n)$ is (non-pure) shellable, by showing that the order dual of $P(a_1,\ldots,a_n)$ is $\mathrm{CL}$-shellable. Along the way, we exhibit the poset $P(4,4)$ as a new example of a poset with $\mathrm{CL}$-shellable order dual that is not $\mathrm{CL}$-shellable itself. For $n = 2$ we provide the rank of all homology groups of the order complex $\Delta \left( P(a_1,a_2) \right)$. Furthermore, we give a succinct formula for the Euler characteristic of $\Delta \left( P(a_1,a_2) \right)$.

Since eighties, 400 and 500 mm thick precast-prestressed concrete hollow core slabs, characterized by increasingly optimized cross-sections with non-circular voids, became very common. However, deeper slabs with long spans, which have to resist high line loads acting close to the supports, are subjected to initial web shear cracking and may fail at loads less than those predicted by traditional codes prescriptions. The shear strength capacity of these members without transverse reinforcement is evaluated through a campaign of detailed nonlinear finite element analyses, matching experimental test data collected from past programs. Constitutive models, based on nonlinear fracture mechanisms, are considered to numerically reproduce the experimental response of single span, simply supported, isolated hollow core units, highlighting web-shear failure mechanism, due to short development length and lack of transverse reinforcement. The adopted diffuse smeared fixed cracking constitutive model allows a reliable prediction of shear stress distributions and crack patterns for these members in their inelastic branch. The presence of a variable inclined strut is clearly evident. Peak shear stress is localized at the bottom side of the cross-section, rather than at the level of the centroid. The experienced brittle web-shear failure mechanism is governed by hollow core shapes with circular or non-circular voids, as evidenced by the evolution of the principal tensile strain distributions. Typically, less inclined, more rounded, diagonal crack, controlled by the smooth web width variation along depth, is opposed to a fairly constant variation of the fracture angle inclination, governed by the abrupt and irregular web width drop.

Single photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) have been recently studied as photodetectors for applications in space missions. In this presentation we report the results of radiation hardness test on large area SPAD (actual results refer to SPADs having 500 mu m diameter). Dark counts rate as low as few kHz at -10 degrees C has been obtained for the 500 mu m devices, before irradiation. We performed bulk damage and total dose radiation tests with protons and gamma-rays in order to evaluate their radiation hardness properties and their suitability for application in a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) space mission. With this aim SPAD devices have been irradiated using up to 20 krad total dose with gamma-rays and 5 krad with protons. The test performed show that large area SPADs are very sensitive to proton doses as low as 2 x 10(8) (1 MeV eq) n/cm(2) with a significant increase in dark counts rate (DCR) as well as in the manifestation of the "random telegraph signal" effect. Annealing studies at room temperature (RT) and at 80 degrees C have been carried out, showing a high decrease of DCR after 24-48 h at RT. Lower protons doses in the range 1-10 x 10(7) (1 MeV eq) n/cm(2) result in a lower increase of DCR suggesting that the large-area SPADs tested in this study are well suitable for application in low-inclination LEO, particularly useful for gamma-ray astrophysics. (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

We studied the dechanneling length of 150 GeV / c π − interacting with a short bent silicon crystal. Dechanneling length measures the rate and the strength of incoherent interactions of channeled particles in a crystal. The mechanism of dechanneling of negatively charged particles has been elucidated through simulation and experiment. It was found that the dechanneling length for negative particles is comparable to the nuclear dechanneling length for positive charges. Indeed, dechanneling of negative particles occurs as a result of incoherent interactions with the nuclei because the trajectories of such particles always intersect atomic planes, explaining the lower channeling efficiency for such particles. Obtained results can be useful for the design of crystals for manipulating high-energy negative particle beams through channeling.

The process of radiation of 120 GeV positrons moving in a channeling regime in (011) plane of a single crystal was considered. At the beginning on the basis of the theory of nonlinear oscillations, the trajectory of moving positrons at different initial conditions was derived. Then taking into account the nonlinearity of motion, the distribution function over oscillation amplitudes of channeling particles was found. After this, the intensity of radiation at different initial conditions was calculated with the help of two various methods. These results may be useful for comparison with experimental data at positron energies from 100 and more GeV.

The seismic performance of concentrically braced frame systems, with braces designed in order to buckle inelastically under a severe earthquake loading, mainly depends on the hysteretic response of the steel braces. As observed in past earthquakes and in experimental programs available in the literature, rectangular hollow section shape braces are more susceptible to early fatigue failures compared to other section shapes. This research, in particular, is focused on the evaluation of the hysteretic response of rectangular hollow section shape braces through appropriate low-cycle fatigue model implemented in a fiber-based element computer program. Firstly, the main influence regarding the number of integration points, number of subdivisions for single brace members, and initial camber on the local response of fiber-based inelastic beam-column element models based on force formulation is investigated. Secondly, the peak strain distribution is used to calibrate the input parameters of the low-cycle fatigue m...

The article presents the results on the investigation of the channeling and volume reflection effects in a bent silicon crystal with 13 GeV/c positive and negative hadrons (mainly π+, p and π−) at the CERN PS T9 line. In particular, this is the first study carried out on volume reflection at this energy providing a deflection angle of 69.4 ± 4.7 μrad and an efficiency of 92.7 ± 3.3%, with positive particles. The measurements have been carried out on a bent silicon strip crystal, using a high precision tracking system based on microstrip silicon detectors; this setup is allowed to trigger on the desired beam portion and to select the incoming particle angular range. The article presents a brief introduction on the bent crystal phenomena, the experimental setup and the results of the measurements.

The MICE experiment is being commissioned at RAL to demonstrate the feasibility of the muon ionization cooling technique for future applications such as the Neutrino Factory and the Muon Collider. The cooling will be evaluated by measuring the emittance before and after the cooling channel with two 4 T spectrometers; to distinguish muons from the background, a multi-detector particle identification system is foreseen: three Time of Flight stations, two Cherenkov counters and a calorimetric system consisting of a pre-shower layer and a fully active scintillator detector (EMR) are used to discriminate muons from pions and electrons. EMR consists of 48 planes of triangular scintillating bars coupled to WLS fibers readout by single PMTs on one side and MAPMTs on the other; each plane sensible area is 1 m 2. This article deals with a small scale prototype of the EMR detector which has been used to test the MAPMT frontend electronics based on the MAROC ASIC; the tests with cosmic rays using both an analog mode and a digital readout mode are presented. A very preliminary study on the cross talk problem is also shown. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION Five to 20% of patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN), including Essential Thrombocythemia (ET), Polycythemia Vera (PV) and Primary Myelofibrosis (PMF), transform to an aggressive secondary acute myeloid leukemia (sAML). While several studies reported the association of some mutations with the risk of leukemic transformation (Vannucchi AM et al, Leukemia 2013), the mechanisms that contribute to transformation from MPN to sAML remain largely poor characterized. METHODS. We collected annotated samples from 15 chronic-phase (CP) MPN patients (pts), 6 pts with accelerated phase (AP; PB blasts 10-19%) and 12 pts with sAML; for the latter, paired samples (chronic/blast phase-BP) were available. CP and BP samples were separated by a mean of 77 (12 to 216) months interval. We used Illumina whole exome sequencing (WES) to identify copy number variations (CNV) in all samples. In the paired samples set, we also performed long reads genome sequencing by the Oxford Nanopore technology, a uniform process that generates sequences randomly and independently, without classical sources of bias such as GC-content and mappability. Data analysis for CNV detection was performed by a novel devised computational package (Nano-GLADIATOR; Magi A, Bartalucci N et al, Genome Biology, submitted) allowing the analysis of individual samples without the need of paired-analysis. RESULTS. The mean number of CNV detected in CP, AP and BP samples was respectively 130.7±49, 132±42 and 177.4±61 (P=0.03 of BP vs CP). CNV were represented by gain of genomic material in 63.6%, 68.2% and 64.1% of CP, AP and BP. Considering the length of all CNV, expressed as base pairs (bp), we found that 96.8% of CNV in CP were focal alterations spanning 1Mb and >30Mb in BP samples were 14.4% (P=0.05) and 2.1% (P=0.04), and corresponding figures in AP were respectively 5.3% (ns vs CP, P=0.05 vs BP) and 0.7% (P=0.04 vs CP). Considering CNV >1Mb only, 53.7% were gains in CP compared with 68.1% in AP and 63.6% in BP, while losses were 46.3%, 31.9% and 36.4% respectively. Furthermore, alterations involving all the short (p) and long (q) -arm or the whole chromosome were found in 77% of BP compared to 36% of AP and 11% only of CP samples (P CONCLUSION All together, this data indicate that genomic instability is a hallmark of leukemic transformation of MPN and for the first time identify regions that may be recurrently associated with disease progression from CP to BP, potentially representing novel biomarkers. These finding require confirmation in larger series. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Experiments were performed at the CERN SPS with 120 GeV/c stored proton beams to assess the possibility of beam halo collimation assisted by bent crystals. A bent crystal was used to deflect horizontally by an angle of about 170 mu rad the beam halo protons in channeling states directing them into a 60 cm long tungsten absorber. The halo loss rate due to nuclear inelastic interactions of protons in the aligned crystal was up to five times smaller than for its amorphous orientation. Channeled fractions, (75 +/- 4)% and (85 +/- 5)% for the two tested silicon crystals, were measured by intercepting the deflected beam with another collimator located between the crystals and the absorber. The pixel detector (MEDIPIX) installed in a Roman pot inside the beam pipe was used to obtain visual images of the deflected beam. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Channeling in a short bent silicon crystal was investigated at the CERN SPS using 400-GeV/c protons with an angular spread much narrower than the critical channeling angle. Particle dechanneling due to multiple scattering on the atomic nuclei of the crystal was observed and its dechanneling length was measured to be about 1.5 mm. For a crystal with length comparable to such dechanneling length, an efficiency of 83.4% was recorded, which is close to the maximum value expected for a parallel beam and exceeds the previously known limitation of deflection efficiency for long crystals.

Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) is a radiotherapic technique exploiting the α particles produced after the irradiation of the isotope 10 of boron with thermal neutrons in the capture reaction B ( n , α ) 7 10 Li . It is used to treat tumours that for their features (radioresistance, extension, localization near vital organs) cannot be treated through conventional photon-beams radiotherapy. One of the main limitations of this technique is the lack of specificity (i.e. the ability of localizing in tumour cells, saving the healthy tissues) of the compounds used to carry the 10B isotope in the organs to be treated. This work, developed in the framework of the INFN PhoNeS project, describes the possibility of boron imaging performed exploiting the neutrons photoproduced by a linac (the Clinac 2100C/D of the S. Anna Hospital Radiotherapy Unit in Como, Italy) and detecting the α s with a non-depleted microstrip silicon detector: the result is a 1D scan of the boron concentration. Several boron doped samples have been analysed, from solutions of H 3 BO 3 (reaching a minimum detectable amount of 25 ng of 10B) to biological samples of urine containing BPA and BSH (the two molecules currently used for the clinical trials in BNCT) in order to build kinetic curves (showing the absolute 10B concentration as a function of time). Further measurements are under way to test the imaging system with 10BPA–Fructose complex perfused human lung samples.

Past experimental data are collected to review the essential parameters of the design of ductile concentrically braced frames subjected to earthquake loading. The initial buckling load, the effective length of a brace, the degradation of compression resistance under cyclic loading, and the out-of-plane brace deformation will be examined in this study. The proposed equations for these parameters in the current seismic provisions are compared to the experimental data. In addition, new design equations are proposed for each parameter and verified with the experimental data. The current research is limited to rectangular hollow sections (RHS) because of their ease of connection to existing frames and their high radius of gyration compared to the other sections, such as wide-flange and double-tee sections.