332 research outputs found
Radiocarbon and U-Series Dating of the Endemic Deer Praemegaceros Cazioti (Depeìret) from 'Grotta Juntu', Sardinia
No full textRadiocarbon and U-series methods (230Th/U and 231Pa/235U) for absolute age determination have been applied to some fossil samples from Grotta Juntu, in North Eastern Sardinia (Italy). The remains belong to the endemic deer species Praemegaceros cazioti, which is here represented by an almost complete skeleton. The three dating methods lead to concordant ages of about 7500 years BP, indicating that the skeleton was maintained as closed system after burial. Taking into consideration these results, Praemegaceros cazioti from Grotta Juntu is now the youngest representative of this species in Sardinia
A constitutive model for the mechanical response of the folding of creased paperboard
No full textPaperboard is a widely used material in industrial processes, in particular for packaging purposes. Packages are obtained
through a forming process, in which a flat laminated sheet is converted into the final {3-D} solid. In the package forming process, it is common
practice to score the paperboard laminate with crease lines, in order to obtain folds with sharp edges and to minimize the initiation and
propagation of flaws during the subsequent folding procedures. In this work, a constitutive model for the mechanical response of crease lines is
proposed and validated on the basis of experimental tests available in the literature. The model has been implemented in an interface finite
element to be placed between adjacent shell elements and is intended for large-scale computations of package forming processes. For this reason,
the material model has been developed at the macroscopic scale in terms of generalized variables, aiming at computational effectiveness
ARTERIAL HYPERTENSION CORRELATES WITH CLINICAL OUTCOME IN COLORECTAL CANCER PATIENTS TREATED WITH FIRST-LINE BEVACIZUMAB
No full textBackground: Arterial hypertension occurring during antiangiogenic therapy has been correlated with the biological inhibition of the vascular endothelial growth factor-related pathway and may represent a possible clinical marker for treatment efficacy. The aim of our study was to retrospectively assess if grades 2-3 hypertension were associated with response to bevacizumab, progression-free survival (PFS) and survival in metastatic colorectal cancer patients treated with first-line bevacizumab. Patients and methods: Patients with histologically proven, metastatic colorectal cancer receiving bevacizumab as first-line therapy in combination with irinotecan and 5-fluorouracil were eligible for our analysis. Results: Thirty-nine metastatic colorectal cancer patients were eligible. Eight patients (20%) developed grades 2-3 hypertension. A partial remission was observed in six of eight cases with bevacizumab-related hypertension (75%) and in 10 of 31 (32%) patients with no hypertension (P = 0.04). Median PFS was 14.5 months for patients showing bevacizumab-related hypertension, while it was 3.1 months in those without hypertension (P = 0.04). Median overall survival was not reached in patients with hypertension while it was 15.1 months in the remaining cases (P = 0.11). Conclusions: Our data indicate that bevacizumab-induced hypertension may represent an interesting prognostic factor for clinical outcome in advanced colorectal cancer patients receiving first-line bevacizumab
Tailored therapy in patients treated with fluoropyrimidines: focus on the role of dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase
No full textFluoropyrimidines are widely used in the treatment of solid tumors, mainly gastrointestinal, head and neck and breast cancer. Dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) is the rate-limiting enzyme for catabolism of 5-FU and it is encoded by DPYD gene. To date, many known polymorphisms cause DPD deficiency and subsequent increase of 5-FU toxicity. In addition, reduced inactivation of 5-FU could lead to increased 5-FU intracellular concentration and augmented efficacy of this drugs. Therefore DPD expression, particularly intratumoral, has been investigated as predictive and prognostic marker in 5-FU treated patients. There also seems to be a tendency to support the correlation between DPD expression and response/survival in patients treated with fluoropyrimidine even if definitive conclusions cannot be drawn considering that some studies are conflicting. Therefore, the debate on intratumoral DPD expression as a potential predictor and prognostic marker in patients treated with fluoropyrimidines is still open. Four DPD-polymorphisms are the most relevant for their frequency in population and clinical relevance. Many studies demonstrate that treating a carrier of one of these polymorphisms with a full dose of fluoropyrimidine can expose patient to a severe, even life-threatening, toxicity. Severe toxicity is reduced if this kind of patients received a dose-adjustment after being genotyped. CPIC (Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium) is an International Consortium creating guidelines for facilitating use of pharmacogenetic tests for patient care and helps clinicians ensuring a safer drug delivery to the patient. Using predictive DPD deficiency tests in patients receiving 5FU-based chemotherapy, in particular for colorectal cancer, has proven to be a cost-effective strategy
Miro: a virtual private network for telehealth services
No full textThis paper sketches a software architecture fora TCP/IP-based telereporting activities that, thanks to its flexibility, can be exploited in many different operational realities and is able to incorporate different Intra/Internet-based teleconsulting services
Study of wound healing dynamics by single pseudo-particle tracking in phase contrast images acquired in time-lapse
No full textCellular contacts modify the way cells migrate in a cohesive group with respect to a free single cell. The resulting motion is persistent and correlated, with cells’ velocities self-aligning in time. The presence of a dense agglomerate of cells makes the application of single particle tracking techniques to define cells dynamics difficult, especially in the case of phase contrast images. Here, we propose an original pipeline for the analysis of phase contrast images of the wound healing scratch assay acquired in time-lapse, with the aim of extracting single particle trajectories describing the dynamics of the wound closure. In such an approach, the membrane of the cells at the border of the wound is taken as a unicum, i.e., the wound edge, and the dynamics is described by the stochastic motion of an ensemble of points on such a membrane, i.e., pseudo-particles. For each single frame, the pipeline of analysis includes: first, a texture classification for separating the background from the cells and for identifying the wound edge; second, the computation of the coordinates of the ensemble of pseudo-particles, chosen to be uniformly distributed along the length of the wound edge. We show the results of this method applied to a glioma cell line (T98G) performing a wound healing scratch assay without external stimuli. We discuss the efficiency of the method to assess cell motility and possible applications to other experimental layouts, such as single cell motion. The pipeline is developed in the Python language and is available upon request
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