The use of Polypropylene as support material for nano-TiO2 photocatalyst in the photodegradation of Alizarin Red S in water solutions under the action of visible light was investigated. The ...optimization of TiO2 pastes preparation using two commercial TiO2, Aeroxide P-25 and Anatase, was performed and a green low-cost dip-coating procedure was developed. Scanning electron microscopy, Atomic Force Microscopy and X-Ray Diffraction analysis were used in order to obtain morphological and structural information of as-prepared TiO2 on support material. Equilibrium and kinetics aspects in the adsorption and successive photodegradation of Alizarin Red S, as reference dye, are described using polypropylene-TiO2 films in the Visible/TiO2/water reactor showing efficient dyes degradation.
Diabet. Med. 29, 578–585 (2012)
Aims DN4 (Douleur Neuropathique en 4 Questions) is a screening tool for neuropathic pain consisting of interview questions (DN4‐interview) and physical tests. It has ...not formally been validated in diabetes. We evaluated the validity and diagnostic accuracy of DN4 and DN4‐interview in identifying neuropathic pain of painful diabetic polyneuropathy.
Methods In 158 patients with diabetes, the presence of diabetic polyneuropathy and neuropathic pain was assessed using scoring system for symptoms and signs, quantitative sensory testing, nerve conduction studies, pain history, numerical rating scale, and Short‐Form McGill Pain Questionnaire. Painful diabetic polyneuropathy was defined as the presence of diabetic polyneuropathy plus chronic neuropathic pain in the same area as neuropathic deficits. A blinded investigator performed DN4.
Results The DN4 score was significantly related to all the neurological and electrophysiological measurements and to Short‐Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (ρ = 0.58, P < 0.0001). DN4 and DN4‐interview scores showed a high diagnostic accuracy for painful diabetic polyneuropathy with areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.94 and 0.93, respectively. At the cut‐off of 4, DN4 displayed sensitivity of 80%, specificity of 92%, positive predictive value (PPV) of 82%, negative predictive value (NPV) of 91%, and likelihood ratio for a positive result (LR+) of 9.6. At the cut‐off of 3, DN4‐interview showed sensitivity and specificity of 84%, PPV of 71%, NPV of 92%, and LR+ of 5.3.
Conclusions This is the first validation study of DN4 for painful diabetic polyneuropathy, which supports its usefulness as both a screening tool for neuropathic pain in diabetes and a reliable component of the diagnostic work up for painful diabetic polyneuropathy.
Aliment Pharmacol Ther 2012; 35: 238–247
Summary
Background Metabolic factors have been associated with liver damage in patients with non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
Aims To test a new ...marker of adipose dysfunction, the visceral adiposity index (VAI), in NAFLD patients to assess whether or not it is associated with host factors, and to investigate a potential correlation with histological findings.
Methods One hundred and forty‐two consecutive NAFLD patients were evaluated by liver biopsy, and clinical and metabolic measurements, including insulin resistance with the homeostasis model assessment (HOMA), and VAI by using waist circumference, body mass index, triglycerides and HDL. Serum levels of TNFα, IL‐6, adiponectin and leptin were also assessed. All biopsies were scored for NAFLD activity score (NAS) and its components, and for staging (Kleiner).
Results By multiple linear regression analysis, VAI was independently associated with higher HOMA (P = 0.04), and fibrosis (P = 0.04). In addition, an independent association was found between higher VAI and lower adiponectin levels (P = 0.002). Higher HOMA (OR 1.149, 95% CI 1.003–1.316, P = 0.04), higher VAI (OR 1.446, 95% CI 1.023–2.043, P = 0.03), lobular inflammation (OR 3.777, 95% CI 1.771–8.051, P = 0.001), and ballooning (OR 2.884, 95% CI 1.231–6.757, P = 0.01) were correlated with significant fibrosis (F2–F4) on multiple logistic regression analysis. In particular, the prevalence of significant fibrosis progressively increased from patients with a VAI ≤ 2.1 and HOMA ≤ 3.4 (26%) to those with a VAI > 2.1 and HOMA > 3.4 (83%).
Conclusions In NAFLD patients, visceral adiposity index is an expression of both qualitative and quantitative adipose tissue dysfunction and, together with insulin resistance, is independently correlated with significant fibrosis.
Coordination of distributed agents is required for problems arising in many areas, including multi-robot systems, networking and e-commerce. As a formal framework for such problems, we use the ...decentralized partially observable Markov decision process (DEC-POMDP). Though much work has been done on optimal dynamic programming algorithms for the single-agent version of the problem, optimal algorithms for the multiagent case have been elusive. The main contribution of this paper is an optimal policy iteration algorithm for solving DEC-POMDPs. The algorithm uses stochastic finite-state controllers to represent policies. The solution can include a correlation device, which allows agents to correlate their actions without communicating. This approach alternates between expanding the controller and performing value-preserving transformations, which modify the controller without sacrificing value. We present two efficient value-preserving transformations: one can reduce the size of the controller and the other can improve its value while keeping the size fixed. Empirical results demonstrate the usefulness of value-preserving transformations in increasing value while keeping controller size to a minimum. To broaden the applicability of the approach, we also present a heuristic version of the policy iteration algorithm, which sacrifices convergence to optimality. This algorithm further reduces the size of the controllers at each step by assuming that probability distributions over the other agents' actions are known. While this assumption may not hold in general, it helps produce higher quality solutions in our test problems.
Context:
The sexual dimorphism of the somatotroph axis has been documented, but whether the acromegaly-related metabolic alterations are gender-dependent has never been investigated.
Objective:
The ...aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of gender on the metabolic parameters in acromegaly.
Design:
We conducted a retrospective, comparative, multicenter study.
Patients:
The 307 newly diagnosed acromegalic patients included in the study were grouped by gender: 157 men (aged 48.01 ± 14.28 yr), and 150 women (aged 48.67 ± 14.95 yr; of which 77 were premenopausal and 73 postmenopausal).
Outcome Measurements:
We measured each component of the metabolic syndrome (MS), hemoglobin A1c, the areas under the curve (AUCs) of glucose and insulin during 2-h oral glucose tolerance test, basal insulin resistance using the homeostasis model assessment of the insulin resistance index, stimulated insulin sensitivity using the insulin sensitivity index, early insulin-secretion rate using the insulinogenic index, β-cell function relative to insulin sensitivity using the oral disposition index and the visceral adiposity index (VAI) as the surrogate of visceral fat function.
Results:
Women showed a higher prevalence of MS (P < 0.001), higher fasting insulin levels (P < 0.001), AUC for insulin (P = 0.002), homeostasis model assessment of the insulin resistance index (P < 0.001), and VAI (P < 0.001) and a lower insulin sensitivity index (P = 0.002) than men, whereas no difference was found in fasting glucose, AUC for glucose, hemoglobin A1c, insulinogenic index, and oral disposition index. In women, fasting glucose and fasting insulin showed a significant trend toward increase (P < 0.001) and decrease (P = 0.004), respectively, from the first to the fourth quartiles of age, whereas VAI showed a trend toward increase in both groups (P < 0.001). A significantly higher prevalence of MS (P < 0.001), increased waist circumference (P < 0.001), low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (P < 0.001), and overt diabetes mellitus (P < 0.001) was found in postmenopausal women compared with premenopausal women, as well as with men.
Conclusions:
The majority of metabolic features in acromegaly are gender-specific. Active acromegaly in women is strongly associated with higher visceral adiposity dysfunction, insulin resistance, and the features of MS. We suggest more accurate metabolic management in acromegalic women, especially in the postmenopausal years.
The dose conformation and the sparing of neighboring critical healthy structures are improved in carbon-ion beam radiotherapy in comparison to conventional photon radiotherapy. Inter and ...intrafractional plan adaptation strategies may preclude the quality assurance (QA) of the actually applied treatment plan before the treatment starts. Therefore, independent measurements of the positions of scanned pencil 12C ion beams are of interest in order to monitor the beam application during the treatment and the beam in the isocenter. In this work, secondary ions outgoing from a patient-like phantom are exploited for the assessment of the lateral pencil beam position in a clinic-like 12C treatment fraction. The experiment was performed at the Heidelberg Ion-Beam Therapy Center (HIT) in Germany. A carbon-ion treatment plan was used to treat a 100 cm3 tumor volume in the center of an Alderson head phantom. Two silicon pixel detectors based on the Timepix3 technology developed at CERN were operated in synchronization to detect and to track outgoing secondary ions. We established an analysis of the measured secondary ion track distribution which enabled us to follow the beam scanning movement of the carbon-ion pencil beam by assessing the lateral position of the single beam spots. The precision of the developed method was found to range from 0.84 mm to 2.59 mm. For beam energies greater than 197.58 MeV/n, the mean of absolute distances of the measured lateral pencil beam positions with respect to the pencil beam positions measured by the beam application system (averaged over each energy layer) were smaller than 2 mm. We conclude that the presented method has shown capabilities of monitoring the lateral pencil beam positions by means of secondary ions with precision and sensitivity of clinical interest.
Human enteric viruses are frequently associated with outbreaks or sporadic cases with a wide range of symptoms from mild to acute gastroenteritis, hepatitis, meningitis or paralysis. Most of these ...viruses are non-enveloped being highly resistant in the environment where may persist for long time. Viruses may be released in the environment through wastewaters causing contamination of crops by irrigation water. The purpose of the study is to assess the presence of human enteric viruses in urban sewages and to evaluate to which extent viruses could be released in the environment through treated wastewater.
In this study, the presence of human enteric viruses was evaluated in raw and reclaimed wastewaters.
During 2015, 146 sewage samples (98 collected at the inlet and 48 at the outlet of the collector sewers) from two Italian cities were tested by real-time reverse transcription-PCRs for norovirus (NoV GI, GII), group A rotavirus (RVA), and hepatitis E virus (HEV). For enteroviruses (EVs) detection, the isolation in cell culture, that enables to distinguish between poliovirus (PV) and non-polio enteroviruses (NPEVs), was followed by RT-PCR and sequencing.
NoV was the most prevalently detected in 59% of samples (5.3% inlets of the collector sewers and 45.8% outlets), followed by RVA recorded in 45.9% sewage samples (48% of influent and 41.7% of effluent samples). HEV was only detected in the inlet samples (4.8%). All 61 EV positive samples were typed as NPEVs and were identified in 43.1% of sewage samples (60.2% of influent and 8.3% of effluent samples). Forty-eight influents were initially collected and, 24 hours later, 48 effluents were collected from the same plants. Results showed residual RVA, NoV and EV in 37.5%, 29.2% and 6.3% of the 48 paired samples, respectively.
The use of urban sewages for surveillance of human pathogens is promising, allowing the evaluation of viral circulation in adult population independently from subjects’ age and disease severity. The presence of enteric viruses in effluents, is a concern since also infectious NEPVs were detected. This finding highlights the need of an effort to reduce the risk of releasing viruses in the environment.
1-Dodecylpyrrole (PyCH
3) and 12-(pyrrol-1-yl)dodecane-1-thiol (PySH) films have been successfully electrochemically polymerised on a nickel electrode from acetonitrile solutions containing the ...monomer and the lithium perchlorate as supporting electrolyte. The electrochemical study of the polymer growth has been carried out by cyclic voltammetry (CV) detecting the nickel dissolution during electropolymerisation. Several surface spectroscopic and microscopic techniques have been used to characterize the surface in term of chemical composition and polymer topography. The presence of unbound and unoxidised thiol groups at the PPySH surface has been evidenced together with a very strong adhesion to the nickel substrate. Furthermore,
N-substituted pyrrole derivatives exhibited some corrosion protection properties in neutral NaCl medium.
The androgen receptor (AR) is widely expressed in breast cancers and has been proposed as a therapeutic target in estrogen receptor alpha (ER) negative breast cancers that retain AR. However, ...controversy exists regarding the role of AR, particularly in ER + tumors. Enzalutamide, an AR inhibitor that impairs nuclear localization of AR, was used to elucidate the role of AR in preclinical models of ER positive and negative breast cancer.
We examined nuclear AR to ER protein ratios in primary breast cancers in relation to response to endocrine therapy. The effects of AR inhibition with enzalutamide were examined in vitro and in preclinical models of ER positive and negative breast cancer that express AR.
In a cohort of 192 women with ER + breast cancers, a high ratio of AR:ER (≥2.0) indicated an over four fold increased risk for failure while on tamoxifen (HR = 4.43). The AR:ER ratio had an independent effect on risk for failure above ER % staining alone. AR:ER ratio is also an independent predictor of disease-free survival (HR = 4.04, 95% CI: 1.68, 9.69; p = 0.002) and disease specific survival (HR = 2.75, 95% CI: 1.11, 6.86; p = 0.03). Both enzalutamide and bicalutamide inhibited 5-alpha-dihydrotestosterone (DHT)-mediated proliferation of breast cancer lines in vitro; however, enzalutamide uniquely inhibited estradiol (E2)-mediated proliferation of ER+/AR + breast cancer cells. In MCF7 xenografts (ER+/AR+) enzalutamide inhibited E2-driven tumor growth as effectively as tamoxifen by decreasing proliferation. Enzalutamide also inhibited DHT- driven tumor growth in both ER positive (MCF7) and negative (MDA-MB-453) xenografts, but did so by increasing apoptosis.
AR to ER ratio may influence breast cancer response to traditional endocrine therapy. Enzalutamide elicits different effects on E2-mediated breast cancer cell proliferation than bicalutamide. This preclinical study supports the initiation of clinical studies evaluating enzalutamide for treatment of AR+ tumors regardless of ER status, since it blocks both androgen- and estrogen- mediated tumor growth.
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