In this trial, the addition of six cycles of docetaxel to androgen-deprivation therapy resulted in longer median progression-free and overall survival than that with ADT alone in patients with ...metastatic prostate cancer.
Regressions of metastatic prostate cancer were first documented in the 1940s and were achieved with surgical castration; subsequently, androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) became the mainstay of therapy.
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Attempts to improve the efficacy or decrease the treatment burden of ADT have included the use of antiandrogens alone, intermittent dosing of ADT, and the use of an antiandrogen combined with medical or surgical castration.
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A meta-analysis revealed an increase in survival of 3 percentage points at 5 years with concurrent use of a nonsteroidal antiandrogen at the time of initiation of ADT.
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However, resistance to ADT occurs in most patients, with the . . .
Abstract Soft photonic liquid crystals with electrically responsive properties are among the most promising intelligent materials for optoelectronic applications. This work demonstrates an ultra‐fast ...electrically tunable dual‐mode laser by introducing dye‐doped chiral liquid crystals. Due to the strong chirality of the chiral liquid crystal, two self‐assembled structures form depending on the temperatures. One is the chiral nematic phase (N*) with a 1D helical structure; the other is the blue phases (BPs) with 3D cubic structures. By tuning the strength of an electric field, the dye‐doped chiral liquid crystals are operated in two different modes: a band‐edge laser and a random laser. In the band‐edge mode, due to the electrostriction effect of the BPs, the electric‐tuning range of the laser emission is from 537 to 645 nm, and the switching times are less than 20 ms. When the electric field goes beyond a threshold value to force the occurrence of the BPs‐chiral‐nematic transition, the band‐edge laser with elliptical polarization emission is switched to a random laser with an immediate unpolarization emission (0.9 ms). Furthermore, the reversibility of the effects mentioned above points out the potential applications of self‐assembled soft photonic materials, spanning from solid‐state lighting to bio‐imaging.
We conducted a multi-institutional study in Taiwan and a systematic review of the literature for reports of Guillain-Barré syndrome after coronavirus disease vaccination. This condition, mostly the ...classic form and the acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy subtype, has been reported in 39 cases and has occurred within 2 weeks of vaccine administration.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Purpose - Online trust is one of the key obstacles to vendors succeeding on the internet medium; a lack of trust is likely to discourage online consumers from participating in e-commerce. This ...research aims to investigate how online consumers develop their initial trust and purchase intentions. The research in conducted in the context of Taiwanese online bookstores.Design methodology approach - The research examines consumers' online initial trust by using four major categories of determinants: perceived technology, perceived risk, company competency, and trust propensity. It also investigates the impacts of both online initial trust and familiarity with online purchasing on purchase intention. The research model is statistically tested using the web sites of four online bookstores in Taiwan. The web site selected by each respondent is unfamiliar.Findings - It is found that perceived usefulness, perceived security, perceived privacy, perceived good reputation, and willingness to customise are the important antecedents to online initial trust. It is also discovered that different levels of trust propensity moderate perceptions toward the web site and online with respect to online initial trust, including perceived usefulness, perceived security, perceived privacy, perceived good reputation, and willingness to customise. Both online initial trust and familiarity with online purchasing have a positive impact on purchase intention.Originality value - The research provides insight into the development of online initial trust by consumers, and the relationships between online initial trust and purchase intention. The research model was created and then tested in the context of online bookshops in Taiwan.
Long-term visualization of the dynamic interactions between intracellular structures throughout the three-dimensional space of whole live cells is essential to better understand their functions, but ...this task remains challenging due to the limitations of existing three-dimensional fluorescence microscopy techniques, such as an insufficient axial resolution, low volumetric imaging rate and photobleaching. Here, we present the combination of a progressive deep-learning super-resolution strategy with a double-ring-modulated selective plane illumination microscopy design capable of visualizing the dynamics of intracellular structures in live cells for hours at an isotropic spatial resolution of roughly 100 nm in three dimensions at speeds up to roughly 17 Hz. Using this approach, we reveal the complex spatial relationships and interactions between endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondria throughout live cells, providing new insights into ER-mediated mitochondrial division. We also examined the motion of Drp1 oligomers involved in mitochondrial fission and revealed the dynamic interactions between Drp1 and mitochondria in three dimensions.
In nature, almost every organism ages and has a limited lifespan. Aging has been explored by biologists to be an important mechanism for maintaining diversity. In a social animal colony, aging makes ...the old leader of the colony become weak, providing opportunities for the other individuals to challenge the leadership position. Inspired by this natural phenomenon, this paper transplants the aging mechanism to particle swarm optimization (PSO) and proposes a PSO with an aging leader and challengers (ALC-PSO). ALC-PSO is designed to overcome the problem of premature convergence without significantly impairing the fast-converging feature of PSO. It is characterized by assigning the leader of the swarm with a growing age and a lifespan, and allowing the other individuals to challenge the leadership when the leader becomes aged. The lifespan of the leader is adaptively tuned according to the leader's leading power. If a leader shows strong leading power, it lives longer to attract the swarm toward better positions. Otherwise, if a leader fails to improve the swarm and gets old, new particles emerge to challenge and claim the leadership, which brings in diversity. In this way, the concept "aging" in ALC-PSO actually serves as a challenging mechanism for promoting a suitable leader to lead the swarm. The algorithm is experimentally validated on 17 benchmark functions. Its high performance is confirmed by comparing with eight popular PSO variants.
Abstract
Time crystals are many-body states that spontaneously break translation symmetry in time the way that ordinary crystals do in space. While experimental observations have confirmed the ...existence of discrete or continuous time crystals, these realizations have relied on the utilization of periodic forces or effective modulation through cavity feedback. The original proposal for time crystals is that they would represent self-sustained motions without any external periodicity, but realizing such purely self-generated behavior has not yet been achieved. Here, we provide theoretical and experimental evidence that many-body interactions can give rise to an inherent time crystalline phase. Following a calculation that shows an ensemble of pumped four-level atoms can spontaneously break continuous time translation symmetry, we observe periodic motions in an erbium-doped solid. The inherent time crystal produced by our experiment is self-protected by many-body interactions and has a measured coherence time beyond that of individual erbium ions.
Ferroelectric materials have a variety of technological applications, as transducers, capacitors, sensors, etc. Great interest in molecular ferroelectrics has emerged because of their structural ...flexibility, tunability, and homochirality. However, the discoveries of molecular ferroelectrics are not abundant. The lack of chemical design is the main challenge in realizing new molecular ferroelectrics. Consequently, chemical design approaches, including the ideas of introducing quasi-spherical theory, homochirality, and H/F substitution, have been developed recently. Through these advanced methodologies, a wide range of ferroelectrics were successfully synthesized, changing the blind search into a targeted chemical design. In this Perspective, we aim to provide insight into the fundamental chemistry and physics of molecular ferroelectrics and propose the concept of “ferroelectrochemistry”, concerned with the targeted design and performance optimization of molecular ferroelectrics from the chemical point of view. We start with the basic theories used in the modification of chemical structures for new molecular ferroelectrics, such as the quasi-spherical theory. After that, we focus on the fundamentals of homochirality from the perspective of chemistry and advantages of introducing a homochiral molecule within the scope of ferroelectrics. Further, we explore another design strategy, H/F substitution, as an analogue of the H/D isotope effect. The introduction of a F atom usually does not change the polar point group but may induce a minor structural disruption that enhances physical properties such as Curie temperature and spontaneous polarization. We hope our comprehensive studies on the targeted design and performance optimization strategies for molecular ferroelectrics may build up and enrich the content of ferroelectrochemistry.
A triathlon, which consists of swimming, bicycling, and running, is a high-intensity and long-term form of exercise that can cause injuries such as muscular damage, inflammation, oxidative stress, ...and energy imbalance. Probiotics are thought to play an important role in disease incidence, health promotion, and nutrient metabolism, but only a few studies have focused on physiological adaptations to exercise in sports science. Previous studies indicated that Lactobacillus supplementation could improve oxidative stress and inflammatory responses. We investigate the effects of Lactobacillus plantarum PS128 supplementation on triathletes for possible physiological adaptation. The triathletes were assigned to one of two groups with different exercise intensity stimulations with different time-points to investigate the effects of body compositions, inflammation, oxidative stress, performance, fatigue, and injury-related biochemical indices. L. plantarum PS128 supplementation, combined with training, can significantly alleviate oxidative stress (such as creatine kinase, Thioredoxin, and Myeloperoxidase indices) after a triathlon (p < 0.05). This effect is possibly regulated by a 6⁻13% decrease of indicated pro-inflammation (TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-8) cytokines (p < 0.05) and 55% increase of anti-inflammation (IL-10) cytokines (p < 0.05) after intensive exercise stimulation. In addition, L. plantarum PS128 can also substantially increase 24⁻69% of plasma-branched amino acids (p < 0.05) and elevate exercise performance, as compared to the placebo group (p < 0.05). In conclusion, L. plantarum PS128 may be a potential ergogenic aid for better training management, physiological adaptations to exercise, and health promotion.
The serine/threonine kinase Akt plays a central role in cell proliferation, survival and metabolism, and its hyperactivation is linked to cancer progression. Here we report that Akt undergoes K64 ...methylation by SETDB1, which is crucial for cell membrane recruitment, phosphorylation and activation of Akt following growth factor stimulation. Furthermore, we reveal an adaptor function of histone demethylase JMJD2A, which is important for recognizing Akt K64 methylation and recruits E3 ligase TRAF6 and Skp2-SCF to the Akt complex, independently of its demethylase activity, thereby initiating K63-linked ubiquitination, cell membrane recruitment and activation of Akt. Notably, the cancer-associated Akt mutant E17K displays enhanced K64 methylation, leading to its hyper-phosphorylation and activation. SETDB1-mediated Akt K64 methylation is upregulated and correlated with Akt hyperactivation in non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), promotes tumour development and predicts poor outcome. Collectively, these findings reveal complicated layers of Akt activation regulation coordinated by SETDB1-mediated Akt K64 methylation to drive tumorigenesis.
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