Association of Serum Leptin with Prognostic Factors in Breast Cancer

Background: Nowadays, cytokines such as Leptin and adiponectin are introduced as prognostic factors which, according to some studies, are also associated with body mass index. This study aimed to determine serum leptin level and its relationship with prognostic factors in breast cancer patients.Methods: This case–control study was conducted in the oncology department of Tohid Hospital, Sanandaj, Iran, between 2019 and 2020. Hundred new cases of breast cancer patients with histological evidence were enrolled in this study. Additionally, 100 age-and BMI-matched healthy individuals were recruited as the control group. The serum leptin level was measured using the ELISA method.Results: Serum leptin levels were significantly higher in breast cancer patients compared to the control group (21.68 ± 9.16 vs 11.89 ± 4.45; p < 0.001). There was no significant relationship between plasma leptin levels with ER, PR, and HER2 expressions (p > 0.05). Also, no significant associations were noted between leptin levels and grading and disease staging (p > 0.05).Conclusion: The study found that leptin is higher in breast cancer patients than in healthy individuals, however, it did not prove that leptin is a predictive or prognostic factor.Keywords: leptin, breast cancer, staging, gradin

An Umbrella-Shaped Topology for Broadband MEMS Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvesting

While cantilever topologies offer high power responsiveness for MEMS vibration energy harvesting (VEH), they are less robust than multiply clamped or membrane topologies. This paper attempts to address this topological optimisation dilemma by attempting to achieve both high power density and robustness. The proposed umbrella-shaped topology constituents of a single central anchor while the membrane area extends outwards and is further enclosed by a ring of proof mass. Implemented on a 0.5 μm AlN on 10 μm doped Si process, a fabricated device (121 mm2 die area) recorded a peak power of 173 μW (1798 Hz and 0.56 g). The normalised power density compares favourably against the state-of-the-art cantilever piezoelectric MEMS VEH, while not sacrificing robustness. Furthermore, this device offers a broadband response, and it has experimentally demonstrated over 3 times higher band-limited noise induced power density than a cantilevered harvester fabricated using the same process

Probing nonlocal effects in metals with graphene plasmons

In this paper we analyze the effects of nonlocality on the optical properties of a system consisting of a thin metallic film separated from a graphene sheet by a hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) layer. We show that nonlocal effects in the metal have a strong impact on the spectrum of the surface plasmon-polaritons on graphene. If the graphene sheet is shaped into a grating, we show that the extinction curves can be used to shed light on the importance of nonlocal effects in metals. Therefore, graphene surface plasmons emerge as a tool for probing nonlocal effects in metallic nanostructures, including thin metallic films. As a byproduct of our study, we show that nonlocal effects lead to smaller losses for the graphene plasmons than what is predicted by a local calculation. We show that these effects can be very well mimicked using a local theory with an effective spacer thickness larger than its actual value.The authors thank Sébastien Nanot and Itai Epstein for valuable discussions and comments. E.J.C.D., Yu.V.B. and N.M.R.P. acknowledge support from the European Commission through the project GrapheneDriven Revolutions in ICT and Beyond (Ref. No. 785219), and from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) in the framework of the Strategic Financing UID/FIS/04650/2013. E.J.C.D. acknowledges FCT for the grant CFUM-BI-14/2016. D.A.I. acknowledges the FPI grant BES-2014-068504. F.H.L.K. acknowledges financial support from the Government of Catalonia trough the SGR grant (2014-SGR-1535), and from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, through the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2015-0522), support by Fundacio Cellex Barcelona, CERCA Programme / Generalitat de Catalunya and the Mineco grants Ramn y Cajal (RYC-2012-12281) and Plan Nacional (FIS201347161-P and FIS2014-59639-JIN). Furthermore, the research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement no.696656 Graphene Flagship, the ERC starting grant (307806, CarbonLight), and project GRASP (FP7-ICT-2013-613024-GRASP). N. A. M. is a VILLUM Investigator supported by VILLUM FONDEN (grant No. 16498). Center for Nano Optics is financially supported by the University of Southern Denmark (SDU 2020 funding). Center for Nanostructured Graphene is supported by the Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF103).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Effect of Different Levels of Crude Protein and Threonine on Performance and Immune system of Broiler Chickens during Starter and Grower Periods

This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of different levels of crude protein and threonine on performance, carcass characteristics and immune system of broiler chickens during starter (7-24) and grower (25-42) periods. A total of 288 male broiler chicks of Ross 308 strain were used in a completely randomized design with factorial arrangement (2×4) with three replicates in each treatment. Experimental diets were included two levels of protein (Ross 308 guideline recommendation and 5% lower than the recommendation) and four levels of threonine (90, 100, 110, 120 of NRC recommendation). At starter period, threonine levels had a significant effect on feed conversion ratio (

The Effect of Different Severities of Diet Dilution and Using a Supplemental Enzyme on Performance of Broiler Chickens

In this study the effect of diet dilution in 16-20 d of age and using a multi-enzyme (Endofeed-W) on performance, carcass characteristics and some blood parameters of broiler chickens (Cobb 500, commercial strain) was studied. This experiment was conducted as a factorial arrangement 2×3 in a completely randomized design with 3 replicates and 8 chicks in each replicate. Experimental diets contained 0, 20 and 40 percent rice hulls and 2 levels of enzyme (0, 500 mg/Kg). These diets contained 3000, 2400, 1800 Kcal/Kg metabolizable energy, and 21, 16.8 and 12.6 % crude protein, respectively. In other days of experiment, the chicks were fed in according to Cobb 500 rearing guideline. During feed restriction and whole period of rearing (1-44d), diet diluting up to 20% decreased feed conversion ratio (