Only a fraction of molecular cancer markers identified in the scientific literature have found clinical use. Specifically, few predictors of invasiveness are established in diagnostics. Meta-analysis ...is a valuable tool for biomarker validation. Here, we evaluate Osteopontin as a marker for tumor aggressiveness (grade, stage, early progression) and patient survival.
Publications through 2008 with the keywords 'osteopontin AND cancer' were retrieved. Titles and abstracts were screened for studies presenting original data on human subjects. This left 228 publications for data extraction. We applied categorical data analysis for testing the relationship between Osteopontin and a clinical variable.
Osteopontin ranks correlated with lower overall and disease-free/relapse-free survival in all tumors combined, as well as in lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, head and neck cancer, and liver cancer. Further, Osteopontin levels correlated with tumor grade and stage for all tumors combined and for several individual tumor types. Osteopontin levels were significantly associated with the early progression of eight cancers, independent in one, and inversely correlated in two.
Osteopontin is significantly associated with survival in several forms of cancer. Osteopontin levels are also markers for stage, grade, and early tumor progression in multiple cancers, reflecting a common molecular underpinning for distinct clinical measures. Osteopontin has value as a clinical tumor progression marker.
In the pursuit of surpassing the energy density of conventional lithium ion cells, significant efforts have been made to develop lithium metal cells. However, many reports in the literature utilize ...Li-metal cells with significant excess lithium, resulting in a dramatically reduced practical energy density. In contrast, anode-free cells do not utilize excess lithium; instead, a lithium metal anode is formed in-situ from the stored lithium within the positive electrode during the first charge. Here, we evaluate anode-free lithium metal pouch cells (NMC532||Cu) with operando pressure measurements constrained to different stack pressures between 75-2205 kPa with two different electrolytes, 1M LiPF6 FEC:DEC (1:2) and 1M LiPF6 FEC:TFEC (1:2). Increasing the initial average pressure from 75-2200 kPa was found to generally improve cycle life, with the most significant benefits achieved up to 1200 kPa. Cells containing FEC:TFEC electrolyte exhibited a superior initial performance compared to FEC:DEC cells, as evidenced by cycling data and SEM analysis of the lithium morphology. Although generally beneficial, we found that the effect of increased pressure on the performance of cells with different solvent systems was not equal, indicating that the physical properties of electrolyte play an important roll in cells constrained to higher pressures between 1200-2200 kPa.
The upgrading of biomass‐derived compounds has arisen in recent years as a very promising research field in both academia and industry. In this sense, a lot of new processes and products have been ...developed, often involving levulinic acid as a starting material or intermediate. In the last few years, though, other scaffolds have been receiving growing attention, especially, angelica lactones. Considering these facts and the emergent applications of said molecules, in this review we will discuss their preparation and applications; the use of these frameworks as starting materials in organic synthesis to produce potential bioactive compounds will be covered, as will their use as a foundation to highly regarded compounds such as liquid alkanes with prospective use as fuels and polymers.
A useful platform: Herein, we discuss the preparation and applications of angelica lactones as biomass‐derived platform chemicals. The use of these frameworks as starting materials in organic synthesis to produce potential bioactive compounds will be covered, as will their use as a foundation to highly regarded compounds such as liquid alkanes with prospective use as fuels and polymers.
Biomass burning (BB) is a large source of primary and secondary organic aerosols (POA and SOA). This study addresses the physical and chemical evolution of BB organic aerosols. Firstly, the evolution ...and lifetime of BB POA and SOA signatures observed with the Aerodyne Aerosol Mass Spectrometer are investigated, focusing on measurements at high-latitudes acquired during the 2008 NASA ARCTAS mission, in comparison to data from other field studies and from laboratory aging experiments. The parameter f60, the ratio of the integrated signal at m/z 60 to the total signal in the organic component mass spectrum, is used as a marker to study the rate of oxidation and fate of the BB POA. A background level of f60~0.3% ± 0.06% for SOA-dominated ambient OA is shown to be an appropriate background level for this tracer. Using also f44 as a tracer for SOA and aged POA and a surrogate of organic O:C, a novel graphical method is presented to characterise the aging of BB plumes. Similar trends of decreasing f60 and increasing f44 with aging are observed in most field and lab studies. At least some very aged BB plumes retain a clear f60 signature. A statistically significant difference in f60 between highly-oxygenated OA of BB and non-BB origin is observed using this tracer, consistent with a substantial contribution of BBOA to the springtime Arctic aerosol burden in 2008. Secondly, a summary is presented of results on the net enhancement of OA with aging of BB plumes, which shows large variability. The estimates of net OA gain range from ΔOA/ΔCO(mass) = −0.01 to ~0.05, with a mean ΔOA/POA ~19%. With these ratios and global inventories of BB CO and POA a global net OA source due to aging of BB plumes of ~8 ± 7 Tg OA yr−1 is estimated, of the order of 5 % of recent total OA source estimates. Further field data following BB plume advection should be a focus of future research in order to better constrain this potentially important contribution to the OA burden.
The motion of a spin excitation across topologically nontrivial magnetic order exhibits a deflection that is analogous to the effect of the Lorentz force on an electrically charged particle in an ...orbital magnetic field. We used polarized inelastic neutron scattering to investigate the propagation of magnons (i.e., bosonic collective spin excitations) in a lattice of skyrmion tubes in manganese silicide. For wave vectors perpendicular to the skyrmion tubes, the magnon spectra are consistent with the formation of finely spaced emergent Landau levels that are characteristic of the fictitious magnetic field used to account for the nontrivial topological winding of the skyrmion lattice. This provides evidence of a topological magnon band structure in reciprocal space, which is borne out of the nontrivial real-space topology of a magnetic order.
Chemical components of organic aerosol (OA) selectively absorb light at short wavelengths. In this study, the prevalence, sources, and optical importance of this so-called brown carbon (BrC) aerosol ...component are investigated throughout the North American continental tropospheric column during a summer of extensive biomass burning. Spectrophotometric absorption measurements on extracts of bulk aerosol samples collected from an aircraft over the central USA were analyzed to directly quantify BrC abundance. BrC was found to be prevalent throughout the 1 to 12 km altitude measurement range, with dramatic enhancements in biomass-burning plumes. BrC to black carbon (BC) ratios, under background tropospheric conditions, increased with altitude, consistent with a corresponding increase in the absorption Aangstrom exponent (AAE) determined from a three-wavelength particle soot absorption photometer (PSAP). The sum of inferred BC absorption and measured BrC absorption at 365 nm was within 3 % of the measured PSAP absorption for background conditions and 22 % for biomass burning. A radiative transfer model showed that BrC absorption reduced top-of-atmosphere (TOA) aerosol forcing by ~ 20 % in the background troposphere. Extensive radiative model simulations applying this study background tropospheric conditions provided a look-up chart for determining radiative forcing efficiencies of BrC as a function of a surface-measured BrC : BC ratio and single scattering albedo (SSA). The chart is a first attempt to provide a tool for better assessment of brown carbon's forcing effect when one is limited to only surface data. These results indicate that BrC is an important contributor to direct aerosol radiative forcing.
At the liquid-gas phase transition in water, the density has a discontinuity at atmospheric pressure; however, the line of these first-order transitions defined by increasing the applied pressure ...terminates at the critical point
, a concept ubiquitous in statistical thermodynamics
. In correlated quantum materials, it was predicted
and then confirmed experimentally
that a critical point terminates the line of Mott metal-insulator transitions, which are also first-order with a discontinuous charge carrier density. In quantum spin systems, continuous quantum phase transitions
have been controlled by pressure
, applied magnetic field
and disorder
, but discontinuous quantum phase transitions have received less attention. The geometrically frustrated quantum antiferromagnet SrCu
(BO
)
constitutes a near-exact realization of the paradigmatic Shastry-Sutherland model
and displays exotic phenomena including magnetization plateaus
, low-lying bound-state excitations
, anomalous thermodynamics
and discontinuous quantum phase transitions
. Here we control both the pressure and the magnetic field applied to SrCu
(BO
)
to provide evidence of critical-point physics in a pure spin system. We use high-precision specific-heat measurements to demonstrate that, as in water, the pressure-temperature phase diagram has a first-order transition line that separates phases with different local magnetic energy densities, and that terminates at an Ising critical point. We provide a quantitative explanation of our data using recently developed finite-temperature tensor-network methods
. These results further our understanding of first-order quantum phase transitions in quantum magnetism, with potential applications in materials where anisotropic spin interactions produce the topological properties
that are useful for spintronic applications.
Here we analyze the trends of rainfall and the frequency of rainy days over the Brazilian Cerrado between 1960 and 2021 in four distinct periods according to the seasonal patterns over the region. We ...also evaluated trends in evapotranspiration, atmospheric pressure, winds, and atmospheric humidity over the Cerrado to elucidate the possible reasons for the detected trends. We recorded a significant reduction in rainfall and frequency of rainy days in the northern and central Cerrado regions for all periods except at the beginning of the dry season. The most pronounced negative trends were recorded during the dry season and the beginning of the wet season, where we recorded reductions of up to 50% in total rainfall and the number of rainy days. These findings are associated with the intensification of the South Atlantic Subtropical Anticyclone, which has been shifting atmospheric circulation and raising regional subsidence. Moreover, during the dry season and the beginning of the wet season, there was a reduction in regional evapotranspiration, which also potentially contributed to the rainfall reduction. Our results suggest an expansion and intensification of the dry season in the region, potentially bringing broad environmental and social impacts that transcend the Cerrado boundaries.
The cross sections of e+e-→π+π-hc at center-of-mass energies from 3.896 to 4.600 GeV are measured using data samples collected with the BESIII detector operating at the Beijing Electron Positron ...Collider. The cross sections are found to be of the same order of magnitude as those of e+e-→π+π- J/ψ and e+e-→π+π-ψ (2S), but the line shape is inconsistent with the Y states observed in the latter two modes. Two structures are observed in the e+e- → π+π- hc cross sections around 4.22 and 4.39 GeV / c 2 , which we call Y ( 4220 ) and Y ( 4390 ) , respectively. A fit with a coherent sum of two Breit-Wigner functions results in a mass of (4218.4 $+5.5\atop{-4.5 ± 0.9) MeV/c2 and a width of 66.0$+12.3\atop-8.3$±0.4 MeV for the Y (4220), and a mass of (4391.5 $+6.3\atop-16.8$ ± 1.0) MeV/c2 and a width of (139.5$+16.2\atop-20.6 ± 0.6) MeV for the Y (4390), where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second ones systematic. The statistical significance of Y ( 4220 ) and Y(4390) is 10σ over one structure assumption.
Herpesviruses establish a well-adapted balance with their host's immune system. Despite this co-evolutionary balance, infections can lead to severe disease including neurological disorders in their ...natural host. In horses, equine herpesvirus 1 (EHV-1) causes respiratory disease, abortions, neonatal foal death and myeloencephalopathy (EHM) in ~10 % of acute infections worldwide. Many aspects of EHM pathogenesis and protection from EHM are still poorly understood. However, it has been shown that the incidence of EHM increases to >70 % in female horses >20 years of age. In this study we used old mares as an experimental equine EHV-1 model of EHM to identify host-specific factors contributing to EHM. Following experimental infection with the neuropathogenic strain EHV-1 Ab4, old mares and yearling horses were studied for 21 days post-infection. Nasal viral shedding and cell-associated viremia were assessed by quantitative PCR. Cytokine/chemokine responses were evaluated in nasal secretions and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) by Luminex assay and in whole blood by quantitative real-time PCR. EHV-1-specific IgG sub-isotype responses were measured by ELISA. All young horses developed respiratory disease and a bi-phasic fever post-infection, but only 1/9 horses exhibited ataxia. In contrast, respiratory disease was absent in old mares, but all old mares developed EHM that resulted in euthanasia in 6/9 old mares. Old mares also presented significantly decreased nasal viral shedding but higher viremia coinciding with a single fever peak at the onset of viremia. According to clinical disease manifestation, horses were sorted into an EHM group (nine old horses and one young horse) and a non-EHM group (eight young horses) for assessment of host immune responses. Non-EHM horses showed an early upregulation of IFN-α (nasal secretions), IRF7/IRF9, IL-1β, CXCL10 and TBET (blood) in addition to an IFN-γ upregulation during viremia (blood). In contrast, IFN-α levels in nasal secretions of EHM horses were low and peak levels of IRF7, IRF9, CXCL10 and TGF-β (blood) coincided with viremia. Moreover, EHM horses showed significantly higher IL-10 levels in nasal secretions, peripheral blood mononuclear cells and CSF and higher serum IgG3/5 antibody titres compared to non-EHM horses. These results suggest that protection from EHM depends on timely induction of type 1 IFN and upregulation cytokines and chemokines that are representative of cellular immunity. In contrast, induction of regulatory or TH-2 type immunity appeared to correlate with an increased risk for EHM. It is likely that future vaccine development for protection from EHM must target shifting this 'at-risk' immunophenotype.
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