A review of the international early recommendations for departments organization and cancer management priorities during the global COVID-19 pandemic: applicability in low- and middle-income countries.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a new virus that has never been identified in humans before. COVID-19 caused at the time of writing of this article, 2.5 million cases of infections in 193 countries with 165,000 deaths, including two-third in Europe. In this context, Oncology Departments of the affected countries had to adapt quickly their health system care and establish new organizations and priorities. Thus, numerous recommendations and therapeutic options have been reported to optimize therapy delivery to patients with chronic disease and cancer. Obviously, while these cancer care recommendations are immediately applicable in Europe, they may not be applicable in certain emerging and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In this review, we aimed to summarize these international guidelines in accordance with cancer types, making a synthesis for daily practice to protect patients, staff and tailor anti-cancer therapy delivery taking into account patients/tumour criteria and tools availability. Thus, we will discuss their applicability in the LMICs with different organizations, limited means and different constraints

Linkage Mapping of Stem Saccharification Digestibility in Rice

Rice is the staple food of almost half of the world population, and in excess 90% of it is grown and consumed in Asia, but the disposal of rice straw poses a problem for farmers, who often burn it in the fields, causing health and environmental problems. However, with increased focus on the development of sustainable biofuel production, rice straw has been recognized as a potential feedstock for non-food derived biofuel production. Currently, the commercial realization of rice as a biofuel feedstock is constrained by the high cost of industrial saccharification processes needed to release sugar for fermentation. This study is focused on the alteration of lignin content, and cell wall chemotypes and structures, and their effects on the saccharification potential of rice lignocellulosic biomass. A recombinant inbred lines (RILs) population derived from a cross between the lowland rice variety IR1552 and the upland rice variety Azucena with 271 molecular markers for quantitative trait SNP (QTS) analyses was used. After association analysis of 271 markers for saccharification potential, 1 locus and 4 pairs of epistatic loci were found to contribute to the enzymatic digestibility phenotype, and an inverse relationship between reducing sugar and lignin content in these recombinant inbred lines was identified. As a result of QTS analyses, several cell-wall associated candidate genes are proposed that may be useful for marker-assisted breeding and may aid breeders to produce potential high saccharification rice varieties

Diverse aging rates in ectothermic tetrapods provide insights for the evolution of aging and longevity

Comparative studies of mortality in the wild are necessary to understand the evolution of aging; yet, ectothermic tetrapods are underrepresented in this comparative landscape, despite their suitability for testing evolutionary hypotheses. We present a study of aging rates and longevity across wild tetrapod ectotherms, using data from 107 populations (77 species) of nonavian reptiles and amphibians. We test hypotheses of how thermoregulatory mode, environmental temperature, protective phenotypes, and pace of life history contribute to demographic aging. Controlling for phylogeny and body size, ectotherms display a higher diversity of aging rates compared with endotherms and include phylogenetically widespread evidence of negligible aging. Protective phenotypes and life-history strategies further explain macroevolutionary patterns of aging. Analyzing ectothermic tetrapods in a comparative context enhances our understanding of the evolution of aging.Animal science

Supplier selection using NSGA-II technique

In modern manufacturing industries, supplier selection is increasingly recognized as a critical decision in supply chain management. Supplier selection problem is a typical multiple criteria decision making problem involving a number of different and usually conflicting objectives. Because of that, modern supplier selection techniques imply solving of multi-objective optimization problems. In this paper supplier selection using evolutionary algorithm (NSGA-II method) is presented. Recent investigations show that quality and costs are among the most important selection factors. In this paper the authors used variance of quality and total costs as criteria for selection optimization. Results show that described methodology can be applicable for the practical purposes. Copyright © 2012, IGI Global

Recist criteria for radiological avaluation of response in treatment in solid tumors

Specific anticancer therapy is very complicated, expensive and toxic treatment. Terms as complete response, partial response, stable disease etc. are usually necessary in clinical trials for evaluation of treatment outcome, enabling the therapist to apply the most effective treatment

Overall railway infrastructure effectiveness as a quality factor for Serbia Railways

© 2016, Strojarski Facultet. All rights reserved. This paper analyzed the possibility of monitoring the parameter OEE for “Serbia Railways” JSC. Transpatternation of indicators and of pattern for OEE in order to make them appropriate for use in railway infrastructure is known as Overall Railway Infrastructure Effectiveness-ORIE. This work represented a model for calculation of ORIE. It is proven that the program, which works at Swedish railways, can be adapted in order to make it functional for infrastructure of “Serbia Railways” JSC. Also, this work includes conducted adaptation and proposal of ORIE patterns which will satisfy specific needs for calculation of values for “Serbia Railways” JSC. Using the case study, it is calculated for three railway relations in Section for infrastructure of Požarevac that the value of ORIE based on real data differs in rang from 47,95 % to 60,71 %

Genetic Variation of The BRCA1 and BRCA2 Genes in Macedonian Patients

The most significant and well characterized genetic risk factors for breast and/or ovarian cancer are germline mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. The BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations strikingly increase breast cancer risk, suggesting that polymorphisms in these genes are logical candidates in seeking to identify low penetrance susceptibility alleles. The aim of this study was to initiate a screen for BRCA1/2 gene mutations in order to identify the genetic variants in the Republic of Macedonia, and to evaluate the association of several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in these genes with breast cancer risk. In this study, we included 100 patients with invasive breast cancer from the Republic of Macedonia, classified according to their family history and 100 controls. The methodology included direct sequencing, single nucleotide primer extension method and multiplex ligation probe amplification (MLPA) analysis, all followed by capillary electrophoresis (CE) on an ABI PRISM™ 3130 Genetic Analyzer. We identified a total of seven carriers of mutations in the BRCA1/2 genes. None of the tested polymorphisms was associated with sporadic breast cancer risk, however, polymorphism rs8176267 in BRCA1 and N372H in BRCA2 showed an association with breast cancer risk in patients with at least one family member with breast cancer