Stereotactic radiotherapy for ultra-central lung oligometastases in non-small-cell lung cancer

Background: Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) in ultra-central (UC) lung tumors, defined in the presence of planning target volume (PTV) overlap or direct tumor abutment to the central bronchial tree or esophagus, may be correlated to a higher incidence of severe adverse events. Outcome and toxicity in oligometastatic (≤3 metastases) non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients receiving SBRT for UC tumors were evaluated. Methods: Oligometastatic NSCLC patients treated with SBRT for UC were retrospectively reviewed. Local control (LC), distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were calculated. Incidence and grade of toxicity were evaluated. Statistical analysis was performed to assess the impact of clinical and treatment-related variables on outcome and toxicity occurrence. Results: Seventy-two patients were treated to a median biologically effective dose (BED) of 105 (75–132) Gy10 . Two-year LC, DMFS, PFS, and OS were 83%, 46%, 43%, and 49%. BED>75 Gy10 was correlated to superior LC (p = 0.02), PFS (p = 0.036), and OS (p < 0.001). Grade ≥3 toxicity rate was 7%, including one fatal esophagitis. No variables were correlated to DMFS or to occurrence of overall and grade ≥3 toxicity. Conclusions: SBRT using dose-intensive schedules improves outcome in NSCLC patients. Overall toxicity is acceptable, although rare but potentially fatal toxicities may occur

Parallel symbolic state-space exploration is difficult, but what is the alternative?

State-space exploration is an essential step in many modeling and analysis problems. Its goal is to find the states reachable from the initial state of a discrete-state model described. The state space can used to answer important questions, e.g., "Is there a dead state?" and "Can N become negative?", or as a starting point for sophisticated investigations expressed in temporal logic. Unfortunately, the state space is often so large that ordinary explicit data structures and sequential algorithms cannot cope, prompting the exploration of (1) parallel approaches using multiple processors, from simple workstation networks to shared-memory supercomputers, to satisfy large memory and runtime requirements and (2) symbolic approaches using decision diagrams to encode the large structured sets and relations manipulated during state-space generation. Both approaches have merits and limitations. Parallel explicit state-space generation is challenging, but almost linear speedup can be achieved; however, the analysis is ultimately limited by the memory and processors available. Symbolic methods are a heuristic that can efficiently encode many, but not all, functions over a structured and exponentially large domain; here the pitfalls are subtler: their performance varies widely depending on the class of decision diagram chosen, the state variable order, and obscure algorithmic parameters. As symbolic approaches are often much more efficient than explicit ones for many practical models, we argue for the need to parallelize symbolic state-space generation algorithms, so that we can realize the advantage of both approaches. This is a challenging endeavor, as the most efficient symbolic algorithm, Saturation, is inherently sequential. We conclude by discussing challenges, efforts, and promising directions toward this goal

A preliminary dictionary of Maori gainwords compiled on historical principles

This thesis is a preliminary dictionary of Maori gainwords compiled on historical principles. It will serve as the starting point for a fully fledged historical dictionary of Maori gainwords. The sources are a selection of all those Maori language publications printed between the dates 1815 and 1899. A large number of source items were photocopied from other institutions, and the binding and subsequent availability of these was not always in the order wished for. The research therefore has its limitations (clearly indicated by the use of the word 'preliminary' in the thesis title). Full coverage of all printed Maori publications between 1815 and 1899 has not been possible. Despite this, this preliminary dictionary offers a good indication of the extent of new gainword vocabulary introduced within the time frame. This thesis suggests that the terms loanword and borrowing should be replaced by the new term gainword or gain, and that the process by which new items of vocabulary enter a language should be known as gaining .. 'Gaining' is a positive process, and the word 'gainword' is normally devoid of any negative connotations or implications of cultural imperialism. This thesis is the first extended scholarly research into Maori gainword lexicography. Although 'preliminary', the dictionary is the first devoted solely to Maori gainwords - previous dictionaries of Maori have had gainwords as appendices, or have listed small numbers of gainwords in their general corpus. This dictionary builds on those earlier dictionaries by giving gainwords their own dictionary. This thesis will indicate that nearly all new items of vocabulary introduced into Maori language during the period researched were introduced by English-speaking Pakeha. English-speaking (and some few French-speaking) Pakeha controlled the printed word for some considerable time - up until the first Maori-controlled publication, Te Hokioi in 1861, in fact most gainwords were therefore imposed. The frequency count for Maori-driven gains done for this thesis will give only some slight indication of Maori use and acceptance of gains between 1815 and 1899

PERBEDAAN TINGKAT PENGETAHUAN KESEHATAN REPRODUKSI PADA REMAJA MAHASISWA FAKULTAS KEDOKTERAN DAN FAKULTAS ILMU SOSIAL DAN ILMU POLITIK UNIVERSITAS DIPONEGORO

Background: The awareness of reproductive health are increasing, namely HIV/AIDS, unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion. This indicates that knowledge of reproductive health is important. This research aimed to identify reproductive health knowledge in adolescent difference, including aspects of anatomy and physiology of the reproductive system, gender and sexuality, pregnancy and risk of teenage pregnancy, contraception, and sexually transmitted diseases among students of the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences Diponegoro University. Methods: This research design was observational analytic with cross-sectional method, conducted from March until June 2011. The research subjects were students who meet the inclusion and exclusion criteria, collected by purposive random sampling method. Data was obtained from the questionnaire and analyzed with univariate and bivariate analysis. Univariate analysis was used to determine frequency distributions analysis and bivariate analysis used chi square test (x2) to identify significance. Results: Faculty of Medicine students of whom reproductive health knowledge level was categorized as good (55,1%), average (39,8%), and less (5,1%). Faculty of Social and Political Sciences students of whom reproductive health knowledge level was categorized as good (5%), average (67,3%), and less (27,6%). There are significant differences in reproductive health knowledge levels between students of those two faculty (p=0.000). Conclusion: The reproductive health knowledge level of Faculty of Medicine students is higher than Faculty of Social and Political Sciences students and significantly different. Keywords: adolescent, reproductive health knowledg

Resource management with X.509 inter-domain authorization certificates (InterAC)

Collaboration among independent administrative domains would require: i) confidentiality, integrity, non-repudiation of communication between the domains; ii) minimum and reversible modifications to the intra-domain pre-collaboration setup; iii) maintain functional autonomy while collaborating; and, iv) ability to quickly transform from post-collaboration to pre-collaboration stage. In this paper, we put forward our mechanism that satisfies above requirements while staying within industry standards so that the mechanism becomes practical and deployable. Our approach is based on X.509 certificate extension. We have designed a non-critical extension capturing users' rights in such a unique way that the need for collaboration or the post-collaboration stage does not require update of the certificate. Thus, greatly reducing the revocation costs and size of CRLs. Furthermore, rights amplification and degradation of users from collaborating domains into host domain can be easily performed. Thus, providing functional autonomy to collaborators. Initiation of collaboration among two domains require issuance of one certificate from each domain and revocation of these certificates ends the collaboration - ease of manageability. © 2010 Springer-Verlag

On the Integrity of Network Coding-based Anonymous P2P File Sharing Networks

Network coding is a class of routing algorithms offering increased throughput and improved robustness to random failures. With traditional routing, intermediate nodes in the network may only forward unmodified packets. With network coding, instead, intermediate nodes are allowed to forward linear combinations of received packets. Original data can be reconstructed after collecting sufficiently many linear combinations. Current file sharing systems offer either low overhead and high bandwidth with no privacy, or acceptable privacy at very low speed. Thanks to network coding, a general-purpose P2P network can obtain a privacy/performance tradeoff that may be considered reasonable in most real-world scenarios. In this paper we present an integrity strategy for network coding-based P2P anonymous systems, specifically designed to preserve the anonymity of peers. Our approach is significantly easier to implement than current solutions when anonymity is required. We implement the cryptographic algorithms on which our method is based and provide performance figures. We also define verification strategies which use batching for improved performances together with an efficiency analysis