Although surgical resection has been an important alternative treatment for patients with intractable epilepsy related to focal cortical dysplasia (FCD), the prognostic relevance of the degree of ...pathologic severity is controversial and there has been only limited information regarding the prognostic factors involved in the surgical treatment of refractory epilepsy in patients with FCD.
We undertook the present study to assess whether the pathologic subtypes of FCD affect surgical outcomes in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. We also studied the prognostic roles of clinical factors and various diagnostic modalities in the surgical treatment.
A total of 166 consecutive patients were included. By univariate analysis, incomplete resection of epileptogenic area (p < 0.001), mild pathologic features (p = 0.01), and the presence of secondary tonic clonic seizures (2GTCS) (p = 0.05) were associated with poor surgical outcomes. There was a strong tendency for patients with severe pathologic features to have MRI abnormalities (p < 0.001). Incomplete resection of epileptogenic area (p < 0.001) and mild pathologic features (p = 0.02) were poor independent outcome predictors on multivariate analysis. The results of MRI, scalp EEG, fluorodeoxyglucose-PET, and ictal SPECT were not associated with surgical outcomes.
Our study shows that there is a strong tendency for patients with severe pathologic features to have MRI abnormalities, and patients with incomplete resection, mild pathologic features, or the presence of secondary tonic clonic seizures have a high chance of a poorer surgical outcome.
Solid waste management (SWM) is an integral part of an environmental management system. SWM approaches have been modified into a more practical and effective option to establish sustainability based ...on the “reduce”, “reuse”, and “recycle” (3R) principles. This review provides an overview of a wide range of existing SWM strategies with the following key objectives: (i) to comprehensively describe current technologies, strategic innovations, and monitoring tools, (ii) to provide an overview of prevailing waste management scenarios across different countries, (iii) to identify the roles of life cycle assessment (LCA) and other modeling tools in SWM, and (iv) to showcase feasible approaches for sustainable recycling and utilization of solid wastes. The current review finds that geographical positions and economic status of nations are important to dictate waste characteristics. A number of economic and LCA models have been described to facilitate future workers vis-à-vis organizations for the selection of appropriate waste management algorithms and for the evaluation of their eventual performance. In addition, this paper showcases various innovative solutions that have been reported for the achievement of smart and sustainable waste management plans in many countries.
•A domain transferable, Twitter specific lexicon for sentiment analysis is proposed.•The approach produces more accurate results than competing lexicons.•Five datasets are used to show domain ...transferability with excellent results.
The Twitter messaging service has become a platform for customers and news consumers to express sentiments. Accurately capturing these sentiments has been challenging for researchers. The traditional approaches to Twitter Sentiment Analysis (TSA) include dictionary-based and use supervised machine learning tools for sentiment classification. This research follows the supervised machine learning approach. A major challenge for the machine learning approach is feature selection, which is often domain dependent. We address this specific challenge and present a novel approach to identify a lexicon set unique to TSA. We show that this Twitter Specific Lexicon Set (TSLS) is small, and most importantly, is domain transferable. This identification process generates a collection of vectorized tweets for input to machine learning tools. In traditional approaches, this vectorization often results in a highly sparse input matrix which produces low accuracy measures. In this research, we hierarchically reduce the feature set to a small set of seven “meta features” to reduce sparsity. We show that TSA based on these features can produce highly accurate results using a dynamic architecture for neural networks (DAN2) and SVM (machine learning tools) as measured by recall, precision, and F1 metrics (the harmonic average of precision and recall). Our results show that a Twitter Generic Feature Set (TGFS) derived from two datasets (@JustinBieber and @Starbucks) is domain transferable and when combined with only a few Twitter Domain Specific Features (TDSF) (less than 3%), can produce excellent sentiment classification values. We evaluate the effectiveness and transferability of the TGFS across three new and distinct domains (@GovChristie, @SouthwestAir, and @VerizonWireless).
Only a few clinical trials have been conducted in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer after failure of first-line gemcitabine-based chemotherapy. Therefore, there is no current consensus on the ...treatment of these patients. We conducted a randomised phase II study of the modified FOLFIRI.3 (mFOLFIRI.3; a regimen combining 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), folinic acid, and irinotecan) and modified FOLFOX (mFOLFOX; a regimen combining folinic acid, 5-FU, and oxaliplatin) regimens as second-line treatments in patients with gemcitabine-refractory pancreatic cancer.
The primary end point was the 6-month overall survival rate. The mFOlFIRI.3 regimen consisted of irinotecan (70 mg m(-2); days 1 and 3), leucovorin (400 mg m(-2); day 1), and 5-FU (2000 mg m(-2); days 1 and 2) every 2 weeks. The mFOLFOX regimen was composed of oxaliplatin (85 mg m(-2); day 1), leucovorin (400 mg m(-2); day 1), and 5-FU (2000 mg m(-2); days 1 and 2) every 2 weeks.
Sixty-one patients were randomised to mFOLFIRI.3 (n=31) or mFOLFOX (n=30) regimen. The six-month survival rates were 27% (95% confidence interval (CI)=13-46%) and 30% (95% CI=15-49%), respectively. The median overall survival periods were 16.6 and 14.9 weeks, respectively. Disease control was achieved in 23% (95% CI=10-42%) and 17% patients (95% CI=6-35%), respectively. The number of patients with at least one grade 3/4 toxicity was identical (11 patients, 38%) in both groups: neutropenia (7 patients under mFOLFIRI.3 regimen vs 6 patients under mFOLFOX regimen), asthaenia (1 vs 4), vomiting (3 in both), diarrhoea (2 vs 0), and mucositis (1 vs 2).
Both mFOLFIRI.3 and mFOLFOX regimens were tolerated with manageable toxicity, offering modest activities as second-line treatments for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, previously treated with gemcitabine.
Summary
We determined whether suppression of sclerostin levels by estrogen treatment was mediated by anti-resorptive effect. Raloxifene, but not bisphosphonates, suppressed circulating sclerostin ...concentration, suggesting that sclerostin may mediate the action of estrogen on bone metabolism, independently of their anti-resorptive effects.
Introduction
Circulating sclerostin concentrations are higher in postmenopausal than in premenopausal women, and estrogen treatment suppresses sclerostin levels in both men and women. We determined whether anti-resorptives may suppress the circulating sclerostin levels.
Methods
We conducted a retrospective observational study. Eighty postmenopausal women were treated with raloxifene for 19.4 ± 7.7 months (
n
= 16), bisphosphonates for 19.2 ± 6.7 months (
n
= 32), or were untreated (
n
= 32) for 17.1 ± 4.6 months. Plasma sclerostin concentrations were measured before and after treatment.
Results
Plasma sclerostin levels after treatment were significantly lower in the raloxifene than in the control group (55.8 ± 23.4 pmol/l vs. 92.1 ± 50.4 pmol/l,
p
= 0.046), but were similar between the bisphosphonate and control groups. Relative to baseline, raloxifene treatment markedly reduced plasma sclerostin concentration (−40.7 ± 22.8%,
p
< 0.001), with respect to both control (−7.5 ± 29.1%) and bisphosphonate (−3.1 ± 35.2%) groups. Changes in bone-specific alkaline phosphatase and osteocalcin levels showed reverse associations with sclerostin concentration changes in the raloxifene (
γ
= −0.505,
p
= 0.017) and control (
γ
= −0.410,
p
= 0.020) groups.
Conclusions
Raloxifene, but not bisphosphonates, significantly suppressed circulating sclerostin concentration, suggesting that sclerostin may mediate the action of estrogen on bone metabolism, independently of their anti-resorptive effects.
A long-standing paradigm in astrophysics is that collisions- or mergers-of two neutron stars form highly relativistic and collimated outflows (jets) that power Y-ray bursts of short (less than two ...seconds) duration. The observational support for this model, however, is only indirect. A hitherto outstanding prediction is that gravitational-wave events from such mergers should be associated with Y-ray bursts, and that a majority of these bursts should be seen off-axis, that is, they should point away from Earth. Here we report the discovery observations of the X-ray counterpart associated with the gravitational-wave event GW170817. Although the electromagnetic counterpart at optical and infrared frequencies is dominated by the radioactive glow (known as a 'kilonova') from freshly synthesized rapid neutron capture (r-process) material in the merger ejecta, observations at X-ray and, later, radio frequencies are consistent with a short Y-ray burst viewed off-axis. Our detection of X-ray emission at a location coincident with the kilonova transient provides the missing observational link between short Y-ray bursts and gravitational waves from neutron-star mergers, and gives independent confirmation of the collimated nature of the Y-ray-burst emission.
Studies on carbon stock in salt marsh sediments have increased since the review by Chmura et al. (2003). However, uncertainties exist in estimating global carbon storage in these vulnerable coastal ...habitats, thus hindering the assessment of their importance. Combining direct data and indirect estimation, this study compiled studies involving 143 sites across the Southern and Northern hemispheres, and provides an updated estimate of the global average carbon accumulation rate (CAR) at 244.7 g C m−2 yr−1 in salt marsh sediments. Based on region-specific CAR and estimates of salt marsh area in various geographic regions between 40° S to 69.7° N, total CAR in global salt marsh sediments is estimated at ~10.2 Tg C yr−1. Latitude, tidal range and elevation appear to be important drivers for CAR of salt marsh sediments, with considerable variation among different biogeographic regions. The data indicate that while the capacity for carbon sequestration by salt marsh sediments ranked the first amongst coastal wetland and forested terrestrial ecosystems, their carbon budget was the smallest due to their limited and declining global areal extent. However, some uncertainties remain for our global estimate owing to limited data availability.
Objectives: To investigate the clinical characteristics and outcomes of Takayasu's arteritis (TA) using standardized criteria for diagnosis, disease activity, and angiographic classification, and to ...identify the predictive factors for remission, angiographic progression, and mortality in patients with TA.
Methods: One hundred and eight patients who fulfilled the 1990 American College of Rheumatology (ACR) classification criteria for TA were studied. Their clinical features, laboratory findings, angiographic findings, and clinical outcomes were evaluated retrospectively. The disease activities were assessed using the National Institutes of Health (NIH) criteria for active disease, and the angiographic types were classified using the International TA Conference in Tokyo 1994 angiographic classification.
Results: Angiographic classification showed that type I was the most common, followed by types V and IV. Ninety-one patients had active disease at diagnosis, and remission was achieved in 81.3% of them. Among those who experienced remission and those who had stable disease at diagnosis, 28.6% experienced a relapse. A low erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) at diagnosis and treatment with glucocorticoid were found to be independent predictors for remission, and the stable disease activity at diagnosis was an independent predictor for the quiescence of vascular lesions on follow-up angiography. Survival rates were 92.9% at the fifth year and 87.2% at the tenth year, and the presence of two or more complications was a risk factor for mortality.
Conclusions: These findings could provide useful information on the clinical features, angiographic findings, and outcomes in TA, particularly on the assessment of patients at risk of a poor outcome.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
40.
Small-Diameter Silicon Nanowire Surfaces Ma, D. D. D.; Lee, C. S.; Au, F. C. K. ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
03/2003, Letnik:
299, Številka:
5614
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Small-diameter (1 to 7 nanometers) silicon nanowires (SiNWs) were prepared, and their surfaces were removed of oxide and terminated with hydrogen by a hydrofluoric acid dip. Scanning tunneling ...microscopy (STM) of these SiNWs, performed both in air and in ultrahigh vacuum, revealed atomically resolved images that can be interpreted as hydrogen-terminated Si (111)-(1 x 1) and Si (001)-(1 x 1) surfaces corresponding to$SiH_3$on Si (111) and$SiH_2$on Si (001), respectively. These hydrogen-terminated SiNW surfaces seem to be more oxidation-resistant than regular silicon wafer surfaces, because atomically resolved STM images of SiNWs were obtained in air after several days' exposure to the ambient environment. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy measurements were performed on the oxide-removed SiNWs and were used to evaluate the electronic energy gaps. The energy gaps were found to increase with decreasing SiNW diameter from 1.1 electron volts for 7 nanometers to 3.5 electron volts for 1.3 nanometers, in agreement with previous theoretical predictions.
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