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Coordination-driven [2+2] metallo-macrocycles isomers: conformational control and photophysical properties
No full textIn recent years, fluorescent supramolecular materials have received significant attention due to their wide application prospects. However, the relationship between the conformation of supramolecules and their photophysical properties remains an open question. In this study, two rhomboidal metallacycle isomers, SA and SB, self-assembled with trans- and cis-isomers of tetraphenylethylene-based ditopic pyridyl ligands (LA and LB), and a 120° di-platinum (II) acceptor were prepared. Compared with metallacycle SB constructed by cis- tetraphenylethylene (TPE)-based ligand LB, the curved rhomboidal metallacycle SA constructed with trans-TPE-based ligand LA can restrict molecular motions of the aromatic groups on TPE and exhibits better light-emitting properties. Moreover, curved SA also exhibited better fluorescence stability than isomer SB towards molecules with strongly electron-withdrawing groups. This work provides a new platform to explore the relationship between conformation and the corresponding photophysical properties
Metabolism and cancer-select topics
No full textMetabolism and cancer intersect in multiple ways. Cancer has unique metabolic properties, including an inordinate reliance on anaerobic glycolysis (the Warburg effect). From an evolutionary standpoint, increased cancer incidence is associated with increased metabolic rates across species. Epidemiological data prove that a group of overlapping metabolic alterations, including obesity, type 2 diabetes Mellitus, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and metabolic syndrome, constitute predisposing risk factors for cancer development in multiple anatomical sites. The molecular pathways underpinning this association involve hyperinsulinemia, hyperglycemia, sex hormones, adipokines, chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, and altered immune response
Digital health technology and hypertension management: a qualitative analysis of patient and specialist provider preferences on data tracking
No full textAim: Digital health for hypertension management holds potential for improving the quality of care but requires long-term patient engagement to track health data. We explored patient and hypertension specialist perceptions of clinical utility for data tracking including standardized patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), home blood pressure (BP) measurement, and other health metrics.Methods: Participants reviewed general health status, patient satisfaction, and hypertension-specific PROMs. Semi-structured focus groups (n = 15) with nine patients with hypertension and six hypertension specialists were audio-recorded and thematically analyzed.Results: Key themes identified from patients included: (1) comfort and appreciation of home BP monitoring but only during important periods of hypertension care; (2) preference for tracking new symptoms and medication side effects; (3) patients perceived tracking other health measures including general PROMs, diet and exercise as less relevant to their care; and (4) visually represented BP trends evaluating associations with changes in other health parameters were perceived as useful. Key themes identified by hypertension specialists included: (1) concerns about patient digital literacy; (2) utilizing visual representations of long-term BP data trends for patient empowerment; and (3) unclear relevance of tracking medication adverse effects, PROMs, and other non-BP health metrics.Conclusion: Patients and hypertension specialists had similar perspectives for most aspects of data monitoring but differed in preference for a few aspects that were germane to patients, including monitoring medication adverse effects and symptoms. Including views on data tracking from both patients and providers are essential for designing digital tools to optimize hypertension management
Domain knowledge-guided interpretive machine learning: formula discovery for the oxidation behavior of ferritic-martensitic steels in supercritical water
No full textA general formula with high generalization and accurate prediction power is highly desirable for science, technology and engineering. In addition to human beings, artificial intelligence algorithms show great promise for the discovery of formulas. In this study, we propose a domain knowledge-guided interpretive machine learning strategy and demonstrate it by studying the oxidation behavior of ferritic-martensitic steels in supercritical water. The oxidation Cr equivalent is, for the first time, proposed in the present work to represent all contributions of alloying elements to oxidation, derived by our domain knowledge and interpretive machine learning algorithms. An open-source tree classifier for linear regression algorithm is also, for the first time, developed to materialize the formula with collected data. This algorithm effectively captures the linear correlation between compositions, testing environments and oxidation behaviors from the data. The sure independence screening and sparsifying operator algorithm finally assembles the information derived from the tree classifier for linear regression algorithm, resulting in a general formula. The general formula with the determined parameters has the power to predict, quantitatively and accurately, the oxidation behavior of ferritic-martensitic steels with multiple alloying elements exposed to various supercritical water environments, thereby providing guidance for the design of anti-oxidation steels and hence promoting the development of power plants with improved safety. The present work demonstrates the power of domain knowledge-guided interpretive machine learning with respect to the data-driven discovery of physics-informed formulas and the acceleration of materials informatics development
An improved ViBe-based approach for moving object detection
No full textMoving object detection is a challenging task in the automatic monitoring field, which plays a crucial role in most video-based applications. The visual background extractor (ViBe) algorithm has been widely used to deal with this problem due to its high detection rate and low computational complexity. However, there are some shortcomings in the general ViBe algorithm, such as the ghost area problem and the dynamic background problem. To deal with these problems, an improved ViBe approach is presented in this paper. In the proposed approach, a mode background modeling method is used to accelerate the process of the ghost elimination. For the detection of moving object in dynamic background, a local adaptive threshold and update rate is proposed for the ViBe approach to detect foreground and update background. Furthermore, an improved shadow removal method is presented, which is based on the HSV color space combined with the edge detection method. Finally, some experiments were conducted, and the results show the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed approach
Characterizing and quantifying chemical ingredient use in consumer products between two separate databases and implications for environmental and human health exposure
No full textAssessing chemical exposure in home and personal care products (HPCPs) represents an important data need. Key challenges to the assessment are related to limited knowledge in quantifying and characterizing the weight-fraction inclusion level and functionality of chemicals in HPCPs. Publicly available tools have been developed to address these challenges, such as the Chemical and Products database (CPDat). This study aims to evaluate the relative performance of CPDat by comparing estimates of weight-fraction inclusion level and functionality to other relevant data sources. Specifically, estimates obtained from CPDat are evaluated and compared with estimates obtained from marketing analytic data, using Euromonitor Passport for 31 commonly used chemicals found in HPCPs. The results obtained from this exercise suggest relatively good agreement between each of the methods for 10 chemicals (ρ = 0.92; P-value =0.02). When considering all 31 chemical ingredients, however, the correlation observed is generally poor (ρ = 0.46; P-value = 0.1), which is attributed to differences in how the underlying data are obtained for each method. With an emphasis on obtaining data based on mining datasheets for individual products, the application of CPDat is suggested to be useful for higher tiers of assessment, with data obtained from marketing analytics providing valuable input to exposure-based screening models. The insight gained from this study can be used to help guide the appropriate use of data obtained from different sources within a tiered exposure assessment
Ambient air concentrations and risk assessment of selected organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) across five Middle Eastern countries
No full textThis paper presents data obtained from concurrently deployed polyurethane foam disk passive samplers in Kuwait, Turkey, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Oman between January and October 2018. The study’s main goal was to initiate a passive air sampling network across the Middle East to generate comparable data, which will help report obligations of the various countries and be used in protocol discussions. The ∑24OCP concentrations were highest in the samples collected from Kartaba in Lebanon (7780 pg·m-3), and the lowest concentration was recorded at the BUTAL site in the Bursa province of Turkey (7.27 pg·m-3). The mean ambient ∑24OCP concentrations on a country-specific basis over consecutive sampling campaigns were: Lebanon (1680 pg·m-3) > Bursa (Turkey) (78.7 pg·m-3) > Oman (55 pg·m-3) > Kuwait (42 pg·m-3) > Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (19.1 pg·m-3). The results show no cancer risk due to inhalation of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in ambient air. This study provides the first reliable measurements of the spatial variability in the atmospheric concentrations of OCPs across several Middle Eastern countries, providing a baseline for assessing time trends in air, one of the core matrices for the effectiveness evaluation of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
Final results of a 2:1 control-case observational study using interferon beta and interleukin-2, in addition to first-line hormone therapy, in estrogen receptor-positive, endocrine-responsive metastatic breast cancer patients
No full textAim: We conducted a pilot study that combines immunotherapy (cyclic interleukin-2 interferon-beta sequence) and hormone therapy (HT) to overcome endocrine resistance in metastatic breast cancer. Methods: The final results of a 2:1 control-case retrospective observational study are here shown following 22 additional months of postoperative follow-up and 6 further controls. There were 95 controls and 42 cases in total. The 95 controls were ER+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer patients who underwent first-line HT with aromatase inhibitors (AIs) or fulvestrant. Twenty-eight of them (28.9%) also received biological drugs including cyclin kinase inhibitors (CKIs). The 42 cases were ER+ metastatic breast cancer patients who received interferon beta-interleukin-2 immunotherapy in addition to first-line HT. Selective estrogen receptor modulators/down-regulators (SERMs/SERDs) were used for HT in 39 (92.9%) of them and AIs in the remaining 3.Results: Median progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were significantly longer in the 42 studied patients who received hormone immunotherapy (HIT) than in the 95 controls (median time 33 vs. 18 months, P = 0.002, and 81 vs. 62 months, P = 0.019). In the analysis adjusted for disease-free interval (DFI), hormone receptor, HER2 status, visceral involvement, AIs, and biological therapy, the PFS and OS hazard ratio (HR) further increased in favor of the 42 cases (P = 0.004 and P = 0.044 respectively). In the same ER+/HER2- metastatic breast cancer patients treated with both AIs and CKIs, a median PFS ranging from 25.3 to 28.18 months and a median OS of 37.5 months were observed. Conclusions: This study strongly suggests multi-center randomized clinical trials should be performed to enter our proposed immunotherapy into clinical practice
Combining oncolytic virus and radiation therapy for cancer management
No full textCancer has caused a tremendous burden in developing countries. Oncolytic virus (OV) therapy is an emerging modality with the potential to be a single or combination agent with radiation therapy (RT). Following entry of OV to the cell, OV will replicate and assemble before exiting from tumor cells. Construction of OV can be done by modifying the capsid, genome, and chemical material of viruses. Irradiation will induce double-strand breaks, and further integration of OV with DNA damage response pathway will interact with the MRE11-Rad50-Nbs1 complex to regulate the mobilization of E4 open reading frame 6, protein phosphatase 2A, poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase, apoptosis-inducing factor, and topoisomerase-IIβ-binding protein 1. Degradation of DNA-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunits via human simplex virus-1-infected cell polypeptide 0 will inhibit DNA repair. OV and RT have a synergistic interaction to cause viral oncolysis and upregulation of immune response. In the clinical setting, most studies have demonstrated that OV is a safe treatment with less toxicity. Moreover, OV + RT resulted in longer median survival (62.4 vs. 37.7 weeks) in malignant glioma
Safety and efficacy of DEM-TACE performed with drug-eluting microspheres smaller than 300 μm in patients with HCC and TIPS
No full textAim: Safety and efficacy evidence of drug-eluting-microspheres trans-arterial chemoembolization (DEM-TACE) in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and trans-jugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) is lacking. The aim of this retrospective study was to report the safety and efficacy of DEM-TACE procedures performed with microspheres smaller than 300 μm in patients with HCC and TIPS in a high-volume transplant center.Methods: Embolization was standardized by initiating DEM-TACE with microspheres smaller than 100 μm, and if stasis was not achieved, adjunctive embolization with 100-300 or 200 μm microspheres was administered. With regards to efficacy, the oncological response was evaluated and categorized according to mRECIST criteria at 1, 3-6, 9-12, and 15-18 months. Reporting the safety profile, detailed laboratory analysis was performed before, at 36-48 h, and 30-60 days after the procedure. Adverse events (AEs) were recorded; post-embolic syndrome was defined as the onset of fever/nausea/pain after the procedure. Late onset hepatobiliary complications were evaluated by follow-up imaging with computed tomography or magnetic resonance (CT/MR).Results: From December 2007 to November 2020, 17 HCC patients (25 HCC nodules) with patent TIPS underwent 20 DEM-TACE. Embolization was performed only with microspheres smaller than 100 μm in 3/20 DEM-TACE (15%); adjunctive embolization with 100-300 or 200 μm microspheres was required in 17/20 DEM-TACE (85%). Reported early AEs were post-embolic syndrome (9/20; 45%) all of grade 1-2, late AEs were asymptomatic acute liver bile duct injury (2/20; 10%), and in one case we observed hepatic abscess (1/20; 5%) resulting in death due to sepsis. With regards to efficacy, the oncological response was evaluated and categorized according to mRECIST criteria. Complete response (CR) at 1, 3-6, 9-12, and 15-18 months was 52%, 50%, 50%, and 50%, respectively. Objective response (CR + partial response) at 1, 3-6, 9-12, and 15-18 months was 95%, 71%, 70%, and 50%, respectively.Conclusion: DEM-TACE with drug-eluting-microspheres smaller than 300 μm can be performed in appropriately selected patients with TIPS
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