hTERT protein expression is independent of clinicopathological parameters and c-Myc protein expression in human breast cancer

Background Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein enzyme that synthesises telomeres after cell division and maintains chromosomal stability leading to cellular immortalization. Telomerase has been associated with negative prognostic indicators in some studies. The present study aims to detect any association between telomerase sub-units: hTERT and hTR and the prognostic indicators including tumour's size and grade, nodal status and patient's age. Methods Tumour samples from 46 patients with primary invasive breast cancer and 3 patients with benign tumours were collected. RT-PCR analysis was used for the detection of hTR, hTERT, and PGM1 (as a housekeeping) genes expression. Results The expression of hTR and hTERT was found in 31(67.4%) and 38 (82.6%) samples respectively. We observed a significant association between hTR gene expression and younger age at diagnosis (p = 0.019) when comparing patients ≤ 40 years with those who are older than 40 years. None of the benign tumours expressed hTR gene. However, the expression of hTERT gene was revealed in 2 samples. No significant association between hTR and hTERT expression and tumour's grade, stage and nodal status was seen. Conclusion The expression of hTR and hTERT seems to be independent of tumour's stage. hTR expression probably plays a greater role in mammary tumourogenesis in younger women (≤ 40 years) and this may have therapeutic implications in the context of hTR targeting strategies

The structure of tagetitoxin

Based on detailed analysis of newly acquired NMR data, we show that the previously revised structure of tagetitoxin is incorrect. A new structure of tagetitoxin is proposed which is consistent with the NMR and MS data

Experimental spectral coexistence investigation for cognitive radar

Cognitive radar offers the prospect of improved performance, or alternatively, the maintenance of existing performance under more challenging conditions, by better utilising the resources the radar system has available to it. This benefit is derived from the active control of the degrees of freedom available to the radar, based on the history of previous behaviours and the associated performance achieved, knowledge of the mission and environment, and the current perception provided by received signals. Waveform diversity is one of the degrees of freedom open to cognitive radar systems. This paper describes an experimental investigation of the use of restricted bandwidth chirps, notched chirps and notched phase coded waveforms to enable a cognitive radar to coexist with a primary user of the RF spectrum

Changes in Australian community perceptions of non-communicable disease prevention: a greater role for government?

BACKGROUND: Monitoring trends in community opinion can identify critical opportunities to implement upstream health policies or interventions. Our study examines change and demographic modifiers of change in community perceptions of government intervention for prevention of lifestyle-related chronic disease across two time points in Australia. METHODS: Data were drawn from the 2016 (n = 2052) and 2018 (n = 2601) waves of a nationally representative cross-sectional telephone survey, 'AUSPOPS'. Survey questions gauged perceptions of government intervention for health in general, peoples'/organizations' role in maintaining health (e.g., parents, government) and support for specific health interventions (e.g., taxing soft drink). Bivariate and multivariate regression models tested for change between the two surveys, adjusted for demographic characteristics. Models with interactions between survey wave and demographic variables tested for differential change. One-tailed variance ratio tests examined whether opinions had become more polarized in 2018 compared with 2016. RESULTS: The large, significant increase observed in the perceived size of the role that government has in maintaining people's health was uniform across demographic subpopulations. The role for employers and private health insurers was also perceived to be larger in 2018 compared with 2016, but the degree of change varied by gender, age and/or socioeconomic status. Support for some government interventions (e.g., taxing soft drinks) increased among specific demographic subgroups whilst exhibiting no overall change. Opinion was more polarized on general attitudes to government intervention for population health in 2018 compared to 2016, despite little change in central tendency. CONCLUSIONS: Opportunities may exist to implement government health-promoting policies (e.g., taxing soft drinks), although advocacy may be needed to address the concerns of less supportive subpopulations. Attitudes on government intervention in general may be becoming more polarized; future research examining the association of such changes with exposure to different information sources could inform communication strategies for future health policy change

Adaptive mutation using statistics mechanism for genetic algorithms

Copyright @ 2004 Springer-Verla

DETERMINATION OF THE THERMODYNAMIC PARAMETERS FOR TRANSFER OF ALKOXYPHENOLS FROM AQUEOUS-SOLUTION TO SDS MICELLES BY A TAYLOR-ARIS DIFFUSION TECHNIQUE

Using Taylor-Aris diffusion techniques, thermodynamic parameters have been measured for the transfer of a series of alkoxyphenols from water into SDS micelles. The results are compared with those for transfer to bulk organic solvents and to cells of Escherichia coli. The SDS micelles are found to be marginally more polar than n-octanol, but the results reveal significant differences between bulk solvents and the more ordered micellar pseudophase.87172741274

Using data from 'visible' populations to estimate the size and importance of 'hidden' populations in an epidemic: A modelling technique.

We used reported behavioural data from cisgender men who have sex with men and transgender women (MSM/TGW) in Bangalore, mainly collected from 'hot-spot' locations that attract MSM/TGW, to illustrate a technique to deal with potential issues with the representativeness of this sample. A deterministic dynamic model of HIV transmission was developed, incorporating three subgroups of MSM/TGW, grouped according to their reported predominant sexual role (insertive, receptive or versatile). Using mathematical modelling and data triangulation for 'balancing' numbers of partners and role preferences, we compared three different approaches to determine if our technique could be useful for inferring characteristics of a more 'hidden' insertive MSM subpopulation, and explored their potential importance for the HIV epidemic. Projections for 2009 across all three approaches suggest that HIV prevalence among insertive MSM was likely to be less than half that recorded in the surveys (4.5-6.5% versus 13.1%), but that the relative size of this subgroup was over four times larger (61-69% of all MSM/TGW versus 15%). We infer that the insertive MSM accounted for 10-20% of all prevalent HIV infections among urban males aged 15-49. Mathematical modelling can be used with data on 'visible' MSM/TGW to provide insights into the characteristics of 'hidden' MSM. A greater understanding of the sexual behaviour of all MSM/TGW is important for effective HIV programming. More broadly, a hidden subgroup with a lower infectious disease prevalence than more visible subgroups, has the potential to contain more infections, if the hidden subgroup is considerably larger in size

Entanglement-enhanced probing of a delicate material system

Quantum metrology uses entanglement and other quantum effects to improve the sensitivity of demanding measurements. Probing of delicate systems demands high sensitivity from limited probe energy and has motivated the field's key benchmark-the standard quantum limit. Here we report the first entanglement-enhanced measurement of a delicate material system. We non-destructively probe an atomic spin ensemble by means of near-resonant Faraday rotation, a measurement that is limited by probe-induced scattering in quantum-memory and spin-squeezing applications. We use narrowband, atom-resonant NOON states to beat the standard quantum limit of sensitivity by more than five standard deviations, both on a per-photon and per-damage basis. This demonstrates quantum enhancement with fully realistic loss and noise, including variable-loss effects. The experiment opens the way to ultra-gentle probing of single atoms, single molecules, quantum gases and living cells.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures; Nature Photonics, advance online publication, 16 December 201

Travelling on Graphs with Small Highway Dimension

We study the Travelling Salesperson (TSP) and the Steiner Tree problem (STP) in graphs of low highway dimension. This graph parameter was introduced by Abraham et al. [SODA 2010] as a model for transportation networks, on which TSP and STP naturally occur for various applications in logistics. It was previously shown [Feldmann et al. ICALP 2015] that these problems admit a quasi-polynomial time approximation scheme (QPTAS) on graphs of constant highway dimension. We demonstrate that a significant improvement is possible in the special case when the highway dimension is 1, for which we present a fully-polynomial time approximation scheme (FPTAS). We also prove that STP is weakly NP-hard for these restricted graphs. For TSP we show NP-hardness for graphs of highway dimension 6, which answers an open problem posed in [Feldmann et al. ICALP 2015]