The Ursinus Weekly, June 4, 1917

Wonderful concert by Music Society • Seniors entertained by alumni club • Baccalaureate theme brotherhood of man • Unveiling of portraits impressive ceremony • Senior programs in literary societies • Real Christian work for next year • Successful season for college quartet • Pupils\u27 recital • A letter from Fort Niagarahttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/2596/thumbnail.jp

Does the Robotic Platform Reduce Morbidity Associated With Combined Radical Surgery and Adjuvant Radiation for Early Cervical Cancers?

Open radical hysterectomy followed by adjuvant radiation for cervical cancer has been associated with significant rates of morbidity. Radical hysterectomy is now often performed robotically. We sought to examine if the robotic platform decreased the morbidity associated with radical hysterectomy followed by adjuvant radiation

Successful en bloc venous resection with reconstruction and subsequent radiotherapy for 2 consecutive recurrences of intravenous leiomyoma—a case report

Abstract Background Intravenous leiomyomas are a rare variant of uterine leiomyoma. Although histologically benign, these tumors are associated with a poor prognosis due to propensity for metastasis, high recurrence rate, difficulty of obtaining complete resection, and frequent extension into and along major veins. Case presentation We describe a 43-year-old patient initially presenting with lower abdominal pain. Clinical examination revealed a large right pelvic mass that was shown by computed tomography (CT) to surround the right external iliac vein, right common iliac vein and distal inferior vena cava. The patient had a history of total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral ovarian cystectomies for uterine leiomyoma approximately 3 years prior to her presentation. Her past surgical history also included removal of an ovarian endometriosis cyst and right hydrosalpinx. The patient underwent an exploratory laparotomy. Operative findings included complete occlusion of the right iliac vessels and distal vena cava by a large tumor that filled the pelvis and extended to the level of the right kidney. The mass was resected en bloc with the involved veins and synthetic vascular grafts were placed. This highly technical procedure was complicated by hemorrhage requiring a total of 32 units of red blood cells and 2.0 L of plasma. Pathologic examination confirmed intravenous leiomyoma. On Immunohistochemical staining, the tumor cells were positive for CD32, CD34, Vimentin and smooth muscle actin. Eight months after this procedure, the patient again presented with an abdominal mass. She was diagnosed with a pelvic recurrence and noted to have intravascular extension into the left iliac vein and inferior vena cava. For this tumor she underwent radiation treatment with three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (total dose 4500 cGy). The tumor gradually decreased in size during follow-up and became undetectable by CT. Conclusions Surgical excision is the mainstay of treatment of intravenous leiomyoma. Radiation therapy may be an effective alternative in patients with unresectable disease or poor surgical candidates

Clergy work-related satisfactions in parochial ministry: the influence of personality and churchmanship

The aim of this study was to test several hypotheses that clergy work-related satisfaction could be better explained by a multidimensional rather than a unidimensional model. A sample of 1071 male stipendiary parochial clergy in the Church of England completed the Clergy Role Inventory, together with the short-form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Factor analysis of the Clergy Role Inventory identified five separate clergy roles: Religious Instruction, Administration, Statutory Duties (conducting marriages and funerals), Pastoral Care, and Role Extension (including extra-parochial activities). Respondents also provided an indication of their predispositions on the catholic-evangelical and liberal-conservative dimensions. The significant associations of the satisfactions derived from each of the roles with the demographic, personality, and churchmanship variables were numerous, varied, and, with few exceptions, small in magnitude. Separate hierarchical regressions for each of the five roles indicated that the proportion of total variance explained by churchmanship was, in general, at least as great as that explained by personality, and was greater for three roles: Religious Instruction, Statutory Duties, and Role Extension. It was concluded that clergy satisfactions derived from different roles are not uniform and that churchmanship is at least as important as personality in accounting for clergy work satisfaction

JQ1 suppresses tumor growth via PTEN/PI3K/AKT pathway in endometrial cancer

Overexpression of c-Myc is associated with worse outcomes in endometrial cancer, indicating that c-Myc may be a promising target for endometrial cancer therapy. A novel small molecule, JQ1, has been shown to block BRD4 resulting in inhibition of c-Myc expression and tumor growth. Thus, we investigated whether JQ1 can inhibit endometrial cancer growth in cell culture and xenograft models. In PTEN-positive endometrial cancer cells, JQ1 significantly suppressed cell proliferation via induction of G1 phase arrest and apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner, accompanied by a sharp decline in cyclin D1 and CDK4 protein expression. However, PTEN-negative endometrial cancer cells exhibited intrinsic resistance to JQ1, despite significant c-Myc inhibition. Moreover, we found that PTEN and its downstream PI3K/AKT signaling targets were modulated by JQ1, as evidenced by microarray analysis. Silencing of PTEN in PTEN-positive endometrial cancer cells resulted in resistance to JQ1, while upregulation of PTEN in PTEN-negative endometrial cancer cells increased sensitivity to JQ1. In xenografts models of PTEN-positive and PTEN-knock-in endometrial cancer, JQ1 significantly upregulated the expression of PTEN, blocked the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway and suppressed tumor growth. These effects were attenuated in PTEN-negative and PTEN-knockdown xenograft models. Thus, JQ1 resistance appears to be highly associated with the status of PTEN expression in endometrial cancer. Our findings suggest that targeting BRD4 using JQ1 might serve as a novel therapeutic strategy in PTEN-positive endometrial cancers

Exploiting physico-chemical properties in string kernels

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>String kernels are commonly used for the classification of biological sequences, nucleotide as well as amino acid sequences. Although string kernels are already very powerful, when it comes to amino acids they have a major short coming. They ignore an important piece of information when comparing amino acids: the physico-chemical properties such as size, hydrophobicity, or charge. This information is very valuable, especially when training data is less abundant. There have been only very few approaches so far that aim at combining these two ideas.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We propose new string kernels that combine the benefits of physico-chemical descriptors for amino acids with the ones of string kernels. The benefits of the proposed kernels are assessed on two problems: MHC-peptide binding classification using position specific kernels and protein classification based on the substring spectrum of the sequences. Our experiments demonstrate that the incorporation of amino acid properties in string kernels yields improved performances compared to standard string kernels and to previously proposed non-substring kernels.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In summary, the proposed modifications, in particular the combination with the RBF substring kernel, consistently yield improvements without affecting the computational complexity. The proposed kernels therefore appear to be the kernels of choice for any protein sequence-based inference.</p> <p>Availability</p> <p>Data sets, code and additional information are available from <url>http://www.fml.tuebingen.mpg.de/raetsch/suppl/aask</url>. Implementations of the developed kernels are available as part of the Shogun toolbox.</p

Gynecologic Oncologist Views Influencing Referral to Outpatient Specialty Palliative Care

Early specialty palliative care is underutilized for patients with advanced gynecologic malignancies. We sought to understand how gynecologic oncologists’ views influence outpatient specialty palliative care referral to help inform strategies for improvement

Does prior antithrombotic therapy influence recurrence and bleeding risk in stroke patients with atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter?

The authors would like to thank the patients of the NNUH Stroke Register cohort and the data team of the Norfolk and Norwich University Stroke Services. NNUH Stroke Register is maintained by the NNUH Stroke Services.Peer reviewedPostprin

Everolimus exhibits anti-tumorigenic activity in obesity-induced ovarian cancer

Everolimus inhibits mTOR kinase activity and its downstream targets by acting on mTORC1 and has anti-tumorigenic activity in ovarian cancer. Clinical and epidemiologic data find that obesity is associated with worse outcomes in ovarian cancer. In addition, obesity leads to hyperactivation of the mTOR pathway in epithelial tissues, suggesting that mTOR inhibitors may be a logical choice for treatment in obesity-driven cancers. However, it remains unclear if obesity impacts the effect of everolimus on tumor growth in ovarian cancer. The present study was aimed at evaluating the effects of everolimus on cytotoxicity, cell metabolism, apoptosis, cell cycle, cell stress and invasion in human ovarian cancer cells. A genetically engineered mouse model of serous ovarian cancer fed a high fat diet or low fat diet allowed further investigation into the inter-relationship between everolimus and obesity in vivo. Everolimus significantly inhibited cellular proliferation, induced cell cycle G1 arrest and apoptosis, reduced invasion and caused cellular stress via inhibition of mTOR pathways in vitro. Hypoglycemic conditions enhanced the sensitivity of cells to everolimus through the disruption of glycolysis. Moreover, everolimus was found to inhibit ovarian tumor growth in both obese and lean mice. This reduction coincided with a decrease in expression of Ki-67 and phosphorylated-S6, as well as an increase in cleaved caspase 3 and phosphorylated-AKT. Metabolite profiling revealed that everolimus was able to alter tumor metabolism through different metabolic pathways in the obese and lean mice. Our findings support that everolimus may be a promising therapeutic agent for obesity-driven ovarian cancers