First operation in SPIDER and the path to complete MITICA.

The requirements of ITER neutral beam injectors (1 MeV, 40 A negative deuterium ion current for 1 h) have never been simultaneously attained; therefore, a dedicated Neutral Beam Test Facility (NBTF) was set up at Consorzio RFX (Padova, Italy). The NBTF includes two experiments: SPIDER (Source for the Production of Ions of Deuterium Extracted from Rf plasma), the full-scale prototype of the source of ITER injectors, with a 100 keV accelerator, to investigate and optimize the properties of the ion source; and MITICA, the full-scale prototype of the entire injector, devoted to the issues related to the accelerator, including voltage holding at low gas pressure. The present paper gives an account of the status of the procurements, of the timeline, and of the voltage holding tests and experiments for MITICA.

[Contamination by disinfection byproducts (DPBs) and microbiological quality of dialysis water: a study in an Italian hospital dialysis service].

Maintaining a high standard of quality of dialysis fluid has been shown to be difficult. For this reason, an evaluation of the microbiological quality (total bacterial count at 22 degrees C and 37 degrees C, pyrogenic Pseudomonas, Staphylococcus, Acinetobacter and Enterobacteriaceae) and contamination by disinfection byproducts, of dialysis fluids was carried out in a hospital dialysis service in Arezzo (Italy). The analysis was carried out in different points of the water treatment system used for the preparation of dialysis fluids.

[Determination of urinary estriol in pregnancy. II. Normal levels with the gas-chromatographic method].

We carried the values of the oestrioluria received examining n o 755 samples of urine of women with normal pregnancies using the gas-chromatographic method. The gas-chromatographic method makes possible a "fascia" of normal values superimposable to those received from others AA. with the colorimetric method in the first months of pregnancy, where we have a major tendency to the dispersion of the values in the last months of pregnancy.

[Determination of urinary estriol in pregnancy. I. Comparison of the gas-chromatographic and colorimetric methods].

The gas-chromatographic method is confronted with the amply used colorimetric method in the determination of the urinary oestriol. The two methods give practically the some results, even so the gas-chromatographic is to be preferred for its specificity, for salvaging accuracy, and for the possibility to receive hormonal profiles with only one determination.