Experimental and clinical evidence demonstrate that progesterone hormone and its nuclear receptor, the Progesterone Receptor (PR), play critical role in controlling mammary gland tumorigenesis and ...breast cancer development. Hormonal therapy (Tomaxifen) is the frontline treatment for hormone-dependent breast cancers. Progesterone hormone induces its action on the target cells by binding with its Progesterone receptor (PgR) therefore any genetic variations, which might induce alienation in the progesterone receptor, can result in an increased susceptibility of gynecological cancers. Alu insertion (PROGINS) mutation in PgR gene is reported to be associated with an increased risk of ovarian cancer and a decreased risk of breast cancer. However, its association with breast cancer risk remains inconclusive. Therefore, we investigated the association of PROGINS allele and its link with breast cancer risk.
This case control study was performed on 200 subjects in which 100 were breast cancer cases and 100 gender matched healthy controls.The mutation was detected by using mutation specific PCR and results were confirmed by direct Sanger sequencing.
A clinically significant difference was reported in genotype distribution of PROGINs allele among the cases and gender-matched healthy controls (P<0. 032). Genotype frequencies of A1/A1, A1/A2, A2/A2 reported in cases was 81%, 19% (18% & 1%) and in matched healthy controls were 93%, 7% (6% & 1%). The higher frequency of PROGINs allele (19%) was observed in cases than the healthy controls (7%). The findings indicated that PgR variants (CC vs CT) increased the risk of Breast cancer in codominant inheritance model with OR= 3.44, 95% CI =1. 30-9.09, P<0.021) whereas nonsignificant association was found for CC vs TT genotypes with OR=1.14, 95% CI=0.07-18.658, P=0. 92. However, subgroup analysis revealed that CT + TT vs CC genotype increased the risk of breast cancer in dominant inheritance model tested OR = 3. 11, 95% CI = (1.24-7.79), P = 0.015). A nonsignificant association for PgR (CC+CT) vs TT) genotypes were reported in breast cancer OR = 1. 0, 95% CI= (0. 061-16.21), P=1) in recessive inheritance model tested. However, analysis with clinicalpathological variables revealed that the PROGINs allele is significantly associated with the distant metastasis and advanced stage of the disease.
The mutation specific PCR was successfully developed as an alternative to Sanger sequencing for the cost-effective detection for PROGINS allele of progesterone receptor gene. A clinically significant correlation of PROGINs allele was reported with the distant metastasis and advanced stage of the disease. Taken together, these results demonstrated that PROGINS variant is associated with an increased susceptibility to Breast cancer, providing novel insights into the genetic etiology and underlying biology of Breast carcinogenesis. Further studies with large sample sizes are required to validate our findings.
•Interrelations among users and countries in water scarce areas are geo-temporally identified.•Water scarcity occurs mainly in isolated locations in the winter.•Water scarcity occurs on vastest areas ...in the summer due to irrigation.•Water scarcity should primarily be mitigated at national level.•International cooperation is key to mitigate water scarcity in certain countries.
Large-scale water scarcity indicators have been widely used to map and inform decision makers and the public about the use of river flows, a vital and limited renewable resource. However, spatiotemporal interrelations among users and administrative entities are still lacking in most large-scale studies. Water scarcity and interrelations are at the core of the water-ecosystem-energy-food nexus. In this paper, we balance water availability in the Black Sea catchment with requirements and consumptive use of key water users, i.e., municipalities, power plants, manufacturing, irrigation and livestock breeding, accounting for evaporation from major reservoirs as well as environmental flow requirements. We use graph theory to highlight interrelations between users and countries along the hydrological network. The results show that water scarcity occurs mainly in the summer due to higher demand for irrigation and reservoir evaporation in conjunction with relatively lower water resources, and in the fall-winter period due to lower water resources and the relatively high demand for preserving ecosystems and from sectors other than irrigation. Cooling power plants and the demands of urban areas cause scarcity in many isolated locations in the winter and, to a far greater spatial extent, in the summer with the demands for irrigation. Interrelations in water scarcity-prone areas are mainly between relatively small, intra-national rivers, for which the underlying national and regional governments act as key players in mitigating water scarcity within the catchment. However, many interrelations exist for larger rivers, highlighting the need for international cooperation that could be achieved through a water-ecosystem-energy-food nexus.
Inferring the distribution and abundance of a species from field records must deal with false‐negative and false‐positive errors. False‐negative errors occur if a species present goes undetected, ...while false‐positive errors are typically a consequence of species misidentification. False‐positive observations in studies of rare species may cause an overestimation of the distribution or abundance of the species and distort trend indices. We illustrate this issue with the monitoring of the Eurasian lynx in the Alps. We developed a three‐level classification of field records according to their reliability as inferred from whether they were validated or not. The first category (C1) represents ‘hard fact’ data (e.g. dead lynx); the second category (C2) includes confirmed data (e.g. tracks verified by an expert); and the third category (C3) are unconfirmed data (e.g. any kind of direct visual observation). For lynx, which is a comparatively well‐known species in the Alps, we use site‐occupancy modelling to estimate its distribution and show that the inferred lynx distribution is highly sensitive to presence sign category: it is larger if based on C3 records compared with the more reliable C1 and C2 records. We believe that the reason for this is a fairly high frequency of false‐positive errors among C3 records. This suggests that distribution records for many lesser‐known species may be similarly unreliable, because they are mostly or exclusively based on unconfirmed and thus soft data. Nevertheless, such soft data form a considerable part of species assessments as presented, for example in the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. However, C3 records can often not be discarded because they may be the only information available. When inferring the distribution of rare carnivores, especially for species with an expanding or shrinking range, we recommend a rigorous discrimination between fully reliable and un‐ or only partly reliable data, in order to identify possible methodological problems in the distribution maps related to false‐positive records.
Measurements of cross sections of inelastic and diffractive processes in proton–proton collisions at LHC energies were carried out with the ALICE detector. The fractions of diffractive processes in ...inelastic collisions were determined from a study of gaps in charged particle pseudorapidity distributions: for single diffraction (diffractive mass
M
X
<200 GeV/
c
2
)
, and
, respectively at centre-of-mass energies
; for double diffraction (for a pseudorapidity gap Δ
η
>3)
σ
DD
/
σ
INEL
=0.11±0.03,0.12±0.05, and
, respectively at
. To measure the inelastic cross section, beam properties were determined with van der Meer scans, and, using a simulation of diffraction adjusted to data, the following values were obtained:
mb at
and
at
. The single- and double-diffractive cross sections were calculated combining relative rates of diffraction with inelastic cross sections. The results are compared to previous measurements at proton–antiproton and proton–proton colliders at lower energies, to measurements by other experiments at the LHC, and to theoretical models.
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Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The interaction of
K
-
with protons is characterised by the presence of several coupled channels, systems like
K
¯
0
n and
π
Σ
with a similar mass and the same quantum numbers as the
K
-
p state. The ...strengths of these couplings to the
K
-
p system are of crucial importance for the understanding of the nature of the
Λ
(
1405
)
resonance and of the attractive
K
-
p strong interaction. In this article, we present measurements of the
K
-
p correlation functions in relative momentum space obtained in pp collisions at
s
=
13
Te, in p–Pb collisions at
s
NN
=
5.02
Te, and (semi)peripheral Pb–Pb collisions at
s
NN
=
5.02
Te. The emitting source size, composed of a core radius anchored to the
K
+
p correlation and of a resonance halo specific to each particle pair, varies between 1 and 2 fm in these collision systems. The strength and the effects of the
K
¯
0
n and
π
Σ
inelastic channels on the measured
K
-
p correlation function are investigated in the different colliding systems by comparing the data with state-of-the-art models of chiral potentials. A novel approach to determine the conversion weights
ω
, necessary to quantify the amount of produced inelastic channels in the correlation function, is presented. In this method, particle yields are estimated from thermal model predictions, and their kinematic distribution from blast-wave fits to measured data. The comparison of chiral potentials to the measured
K
-
p interaction indicates that, while the
π
Σ
–
K
-
p dynamics is well reproduced by the model, the coupling to the
K
¯
0
n channel in the model is currently underestimated.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae and/or non-USASCII text omitted; see image) Abstract A measurement of the transverse momentum spectra of jets in Pb-Pb collisions at ... = 2.76TeV is reported. Jets ...are reconstructed from charged particles using the anti-k ^sub T^ jet algorithm with jet resolution parameters R of 0.2 and 0.3 in pseudo-rapidity |eta| < 0.5. The transverse momentum p ^sub T^ of charged particles is measured down to 0.15 GeV/c which gives access to the low p ^sub T^ fragments of the jet. Jets found in heavy-ion collisions are corrected event-by-event for average background density and on an inclusive basis (via unfolding) for residual background fluctuations and detector effects. A strong suppression of jet production in central events with respect to peripheral events is observed. The suppression is found to be similar to the suppression of charged hadrons, which suggests that substantial energy is radiated at angles larger than the jet resolution parameter R = 0.3 considered in the analysis. The fragmentation bias introduced by selecting jets with a high p ^sub T^ leading particle, which rejects jets with a soft fragmentation pattern, has a similar effect on the jet yield for central and peripheral events. The ratio of jet spectra with R = 0.2 and R = 0.3 is found to be similar in Pb-Pb and simulated PYTHIA pp events, indicating no strong broadening of the radial jet structure in the reconstructed jets with R < 0.3. Figure not available: see fulltext.
We present results of a search for two hypothetical strange dibaryon states, i.e. the H-dibaryon and the possible Λn‾ bound state. The search is performed with the ALICE detector in central (0–10%) ...Pb–Pb collisions at sNN=2.76 TeV, by invariant mass analysis in the decay modes Λn‾→d‾π+ and H-dibaryon →Λpπ−. No evidence for these bound states is observed. Upper limits are determined at 99% confidence level for a wide range of lifetimes and for the full range of branching ratios. The results are compared to thermal, coalescence and hybrid UrQMD model expectations, which describe correctly the production of other loosely bound states, like the deuteron and the hypertriton.
The inclusive production cross sections at forward rapidity of Formula: see text, Formula: see text, Formula: see text(1S) and Formula: see text(2S) are measured in Formula: see text collisions at ...Formula: see text with the ALICE detector at the LHC. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.35 pbFormula: see text. Quarkonia are reconstructed in the dimuon-decay channel and the signal yields are evaluated by fitting the Formula: see text invariant mass distributions. The differential production cross sections are measured as a function of the transverse momentum Formula: see text and rapidity Formula: see text, over the ranges Formula: see text GeV/c for Formula: see text, Formula: see text GeV/c for all other resonances and for Formula: see text. The measured cross sections integrated over Formula: see text and Formula: see text, and assuming unpolarized quarkonia, are: Formula: see text Formula: see textb, Formula: see text Formula: see textb, Formula: see text nb and Formula: see text nb, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second one is systematic. The results are compared to measurements performed by other LHC experiments and to theoretical models.
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Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract We present the performance of a full-length prototype of the ALICE Forward Calorimeter (FoCal). The detector is composed of a silicon-tungsten electromagnetic sampling calorimeter with ...longitudinal and transverse segmentation (FoCal-E) of about 20 X 0 and a hadronic copper-scintillating-fiber calorimeter (FoCal-H) of about 5 λ int . The data were taken in various test beam campaigns between 2021 and 2023 at the CERN PS and SPS beam lines with hadron beams up to energies of 350 GeV, and electron beams up to 300 GeV. Regarding FoCal-E, we report a comprehensive analysis of its response to minimum ionizing particles across all pad layers, employing various operational modes including different pre-amplifier and bias voltage settings. The longitudinal shower profile of electromagnetic showers is measured with a layer-wise segmentation of 1 X 0 . As a projection to the performance of the final detector in electromagnetic showers, we demonstrate linearity in the full energy range, and show that the energy resolution fulfills the requirements for the physics needs. Additionally, the performance to separate two-showers events was studied by quantifying the transverse shower width. Regarding FoCal-H, we report a detailed analysis of the response to hadron beams between 60 and 350 GeV. The results are compared to simulations obtained with a Geant4 model of the test beam setup, which in particular for FoCal-E are in good agreement with the data. The energy resolution of FoCal-E was found to be lower than 3% at energies larger than 100 GeV. The response of FoCal-H to hadron beams was found to be linear, albeit with a significant intercept that is about factor 2 larger than in simulations. Its resolution, which is non-Gaussian and generally larger than in simulations, was quantified using the FWHM, and decreases from about 16% at 100 GeV to about 11% at 350 GeV. The discrepancy to simulations, which is particularly evident at low hadron energies, needs to be further investigated.
(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae and/or non-USASCII text omitted; see image) The ratios of yields of anti-baryons to baryons probes the mechanisms of baryon-number transport. Results for ..., ..., ... ...and ... in pp collisions at ..., measured with the ALICE detector at the LHC, are reported. Within the experimental uncertainties and ranges covered by our measurement, these ratios are independent of rapidity, transverse momentum and multiplicity for all measured energies. The results are compared to expectations from event generators, such as PYTHIA and HIJING/B, that are used to model the particle production in pp collisions. The energy dependence of ..., ..., ... and ..., reaching values compatible with unity for ..., complement the earlier ... measurement of ALICE. These dependencies can be described by exchanges with the Regge-trajectory intercept of ..., which are suppressed with increasing rapidity interval Δy. Any significant contribution of an exchange not suppressed at large Δy (reached at LHC energies) is disfavoured.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK