Reactivation of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a well-recognized complication in cancer patients with chronic HBV (hepatitis B surface antigen HBsAg positive) undergoing cytotoxic chemotherapy. ...In patients who have resolved HBV (HBsAg negative and antibody to hepatitis B core antigen anti-HBc +/- antibody to hepatitis B surface antigen anti-HBs positive), such incidence has been much less common until recent use of rituximab. In this study on HBsAg-negative/anti-HBc-positive lymphoma patients, the objectives were to determine the HBV reactivation rate in patients treated with rituximab-containing chemotherapy and to compare it with the rate in patients treated without rituximab.
Between January 2003 and December 2006, all patients diagnosed with CD20(+) diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) had HBsAg determined before anticancer therapy. They were treated with either cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (CHOP) alone or rituximab plus CHOP (R-CHOP). HBsAg-negative patients had anti-HBc determined; serum was stored for anti-HBs and HBV DNA. All patients were observed for HBV reactivation, which was defined as detectable HBV DNA with ALT elevation during and for 6 months after anticancer therapy.
Among 104 CD20(+) DLBCL patients, 80 were HBsAg negative. Of the latter, 46 patients (44.2%) were HBsAg negative/anti-HBc positive; 25 of these patients were treated with CHOP, and none had HBV reactivation. In contrast, among the 21 patients treated with R-CHOP, five developed HBV reactivation, including one patient who died of hepatic failure (P = .0148). Exploratory analysis identified male sex, absence of anti-HBs, and use of rituximab to be predictive of HBV reactivation.
Among HBsAg-negative/anti-HBc-positive DLBCL patients treated with R-CHOP, 25% developed HBV reactivation. Close monitoring until at least 6 months after anticancer therapy is required, with an alternative approach of prophylactic antiviral therapy to prevent this potentially fatal condition.
The prevalence of food allergy has increased over the last 20-30 years, including cow milk allergy (CMA) which is one of the most common causes of infant food allergy. International allergy experts ...met in 2019 to discuss broad topics in allergy prevention and management of CMA including current challenges and future opportunities. The highlights of the meeting combined with recently published developments are presented here. Primary prevention of CMA should start from pre-pregnancy with a focus on a healthy lifestyle and food diversity to ensure adequate transfer of inhibitory IgG- allergen immune complexes across the placenta especially in mothers with a history of allergic diseases and planned c-section delivery. For non-breastfed infants, there is controversy about the preventive role of partially hydrolyzed formulae (pHF) despite some evidence of health economic benefits among those with a family history of allergy. Clinical management of CMA consists of secondary prevention with a focus on the development of early oral tolerance. The use of extensive Hydrolysate Formulae (eHF) is the nutrition of choice for the majority of non-breastfed infants with CMA; potentially with pre-, probiotics and LCPUFA to support early oral tolerance induction. Future opportunities are, among others, pre- and probiotics supplementation for mothers and high-risk infants for the primary prevention of CMA. A controlled prospective study implementing a step-down milk formulae ladder with various degrees of hydrolysate is proposed for food challenges and early development of oral tolerance. This provides a more precise gradation of milk protein exposure than those currently recommended.
Despite the circumstantial and sometimes equivocal support, the hypothetic involvement of aluminum (Al) in the etiology and pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) has subsisted in neuroscience. ...There are very few other examples of scientific hypotheses on the pathogenesis of a disease that have been revisited so many times, once a new method that would allow a test of Al's accumulations in the brain of AD patients or a comparison between Al-induced and AD neuropathological signs has become available. Although objects of methodological controversies for scientists and oversimplification for lay spectators, several lines of evidence have strongly supported the involvement of Al as a secondary aggravating factor or risk factor in the pathogenesis of AD. We review evidence on the similarities and dissimilarities between Al-induced neurofibrillary degeneration and paired helical filaments from AD, the accumulation of Al in neurofibrillary tangles and senile plaques from AD, the neuropathological dissociation between AD and dialysis associated encephalopathy, and the epidemiological relations between Al in drinking water and the prevalence of AD. We also critically analyze the prospects of Al-amyloid cascade studies and other evolving lines of evidence that might shed insights into the link between Al and AD. The message between the lines of the following article is that the involvement of Al in the pathogenesis of AD should not be discarded, especially in these times when the amyloid dogma of AD etiology shows its myopia.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Superconducting bulks of MgB2 were obtained by an ex-situ two-temperature route applied to spark plasma sintering (SPS). Processing of samples was performed at lower temperatures than previously ...reported. Samples produced by the two-temperature route show a higher morphological uniformity, a higher density (above 98%), a higher Vickers hardness, and undesirable stronger microscale flux jumps, as indicated by magnetic relaxation measurements when compared to a sample obtained by the one-temperature route (95.3% relative density). At the same time, all sintered samples show approximately constant crystallite size, critical current density, irreversibility field, critical temperature, weight fraction of impurity phases (MgB4 and MgO), and the amount of carbon accidentally introduced during SPS processing.
This paper discusses a transmission-line modeling approach that incorporates available ambient temperature information. Several proposed line modeling techniques are studied and include distributed ...and lumped parameter models. In order to capture the nonuniformity of line parameters caused by temperature gradients, a model with multiple nonuniform segments is also proposed. An automated tool has been developed to obtain appropriate line model segmentation and parameter values of each segment, given a set of temperature measurements and their locations along the line.
Inequalities between men and women are common and well‐documented. Objective indexes show that men are better positioned than women in societal hierarchies—there is no single country in the world ...without a gender gap. In contrast, researchers have found that the women‐are‐wonderful effect—that women are evaluated more positively than men overall—is also common. Cross‐cultural studies on gender equality reveal that the more gender egalitarian the society is, the less prevalent explicit gender stereotypes are. Yet, because self‐reported gender stereotypes may differ from implicit attitudes towards each gender, we reanalysed data collected across 44 cultures, and (a) confirmed that societal gender egalitarianism reduces the women‐are‐wonderful effect when it is measured more implicitly (i.e. rating the personality of men and women presented in images) and (b) documented that the social perception of men benefits more from gender egalitarianism than that of women.
A Full Optimized Reaction Space (FORS) wavefunction is defined as the optimal configuration interaction wavefunction in a full space of N-electron configurations where all orbitals are optimized. A ...method is developed for generating configurational basis of such a full reaction space. The results of multi-configuration self-consistent-field (MCSCF) calculations using FORS wavefunctions are discussed for the low-lying electronic states of allene at planar geometries. Two possible augmentations to the FORS model are developed. The first is a semi-empirical correction method, termed the Intra- Atomic Correlation Correction (IACC) model where FORS wave- functions are expressed in terms of configurations, generated from localized molecular orbitals, which have the character of atomic states. With the help of these expansions, correlation corrections, available from atoms, are transferred to the molecular wavefunctions. The second augmentation consists of improving the FORS wave- function by the systematic inclusion of additional configurations involving orbitals outside the valence space. The effectiveness of both approaches is demonstrated by applications to a series of diatomic molecules. *USDOE Report IS-T 1153. This work was performed under Contract No. W-7405-eng-82 with the U.S. Department of Energy.
Total synthesis of bottromycin A2 can be accomplished through a diastereoselective Mannich reaction of a chiral sulfinamide, mercury-mediated intermolecular amidination, and cyclization of a ...constrained tetracyclic peptide. Exploitation of this process allowed the synthesis of several novel bottromycin analogs. The antimicrobial activity of these analogs was evaluated in vitro against Gram-positive bacteria, such as methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE). Structure–activity relationships were explored taking into consideration the unique three-dimensional structure of the compounds. Notably, one of the new analogs devoid of a methyl ester, which is known to lower the in vivo efficacy of bottromycin, exhibited antibacterial bioactivity comparable to that of vancomycin.
An improved synthesis process was developed for large-scale production of a highly porous material, Cu
3(BTC)
2(H
2O)
x
n
, i.e., polymeric copper(II) benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxylate with ...molecular-sieve character, denoted as Cu-BTC, where BTC denotes benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxylate. A series of sorption properties for nitrogen, oxygen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ethylene, ethane,
n-dodecane, and water were studied. A detailed investigation of sorption thermodynamics was performed for carbon dioxide by a sorption-isosteric method. The experimental results show that Cu-BTC can be used for separation of gas mixtures such as carbon dioxide–carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide–methane and ethylene–ethane mixtures. In addition, air can be purified effectively from carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, high-molecular weight hydrocarbons and moisture.
Numerous studies document that societal happiness is correlated with individualism, but the nature of this phenomenon remains understudied. In the current paper, we address this gap and test the ...reasoning that individualism correlates with societal happiness because the most common measure of societal happiness (i.e., country-level aggregates of personal life satisfaction) is individualism-themed. With the data collected from 13,009 participants across fifty countries, we compare associations of four types of happiness (out of which three are more collectivism-themed than personal life satisfaction) with two different measures of individualism. We replicated previous findings by demonstrating that societal happiness measured as country-level aggregate of personal life satisfaction is correlated with individualism. Importantly though, we also found that the country-level aggregates of the collectivism-themed measures of happiness do not tend to be significantly correlated with individualism. Implications for happiness studies and for policy makers are signaled.
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