Focal Treatment of Prostate Cancer with Vascular-Targeted Photodynamic Therapy

Epidemiologic and pathologic features of prostate cancer have given rise to an interest in focal treatment for carefully selected patients. Prostate cancer remains highly prevalent, particularly in the U.S. and Europe. As screening programs have become more aggressive and widespread, a substantial proportion of men diagnosed with localized prostate cancer have disease characteristics associated with a low risk of progression. Treatments such as radical prostatectomy and radiation therapy can lead to durable recurrence-free survival in most patients, but carry variable risks of bowel, urinary, and sexual side effects. Few men and few urologists are comfortable leaving a potentially curable prostate cancer untreated. Focal therapy offers an attractive alternative for the patient faced with a choice between aggressive local intervention (radiation or surgery) and watchful waiting. Contemporary diagnostic biopsy strategies and imaging tools, and the development of predictive statistical models (nomograms), have led to improvements in tumor characterization and risk stratification, making focal therapy a viable treatment option for specific men. This article reviews the rationale and indications for focal therapy and highlights vascular-targeted photodynamic therapy (PDT) as one of many promising focal therapy techniques

Statistical Approach to Raman Analysis of Graphene-Related Materials: Implications for Quality Control

A statistical method to determine the number of measurements required from nanomaterials to ensure reliable and robust analysis is described. Commercial products utilizing graphene are in their infancy and recent investigations of commercial graphene manufacture have attributed this to the lack of robust metrology and standards by which graphene and related carbon materials can be measured and compared. Raman spectroscopy is known to be a useful tool in carbon nanomaterial characterization, but to provide meaningful information, in particular for quality control or management, multiple spectra are needed. Herein we present a statistical method to quantify the number of different spectra or other microscale measurements that should be taken to reliably characterize a graphene material. We have recorded a large number of Raman measurements and studied the statistical convergence of these data sets. We use a graphical approach to monitor the change in summary statistics and a Monte Carlo based bootstrapping method of data analysis to computationally resample the data demonstrating the effects of underanalyzing a material; for example, graphene nanoplatelets may require over 500 spectra before information about the exfoliation efficiency, particle size, layer number, and chemical functionalization is accurately obtained

Is the energy density of the ground state of the sine-Gordon model unbounded from below for beta^2 > 8 pi ?

We discuss Coleman's theorem concerning the energy density of the ground state of the sine-Gordon model proved in Phys. Rev. D 11, 2088 (1975). According to this theorem the energy density of the ground state of the sine-Gordon model should be unbounded from below for coupling constants beta^2 > 8 pi. The consequence of this theorem would be the non-existence of the quantum ground state of the sine-Gordon model for beta^2 > 8 pi. We show that the energy density of the ground state in the sine-Gordon model is bounded from below even for beta^2 > 8 pi. This result is discussed in relation to Coleman's theorem (Comm. Math. Phys. 31, 259 (1973)), particle mass spectra and soliton-soliton scattering in the sine-Gordon model.Comment: 22 pages, Latex, no figures, revised according to the version accepted for publication in Journal of Physics

Extreme Mass-Ratio Inspirals in the Effective-One-Body Approach: Quasi-Circular, Equatorial Orbits around a Spinning Black Hole

We construct effective-one-body waveform models suitable for data analysis with LISA for extreme-mass ratio inspirals in quasi-circular, equatorial orbits about a spinning supermassive black hole. The accuracy of our model is established through comparisons against frequency-domain, Teukolsky-based waveforms in the radiative approximation. The calibration of eight high-order post-Newtonian parameters in the energy flux suffices to obtain a phase and fractional amplitude agreement of better than 1 radian and 1 % respectively over a period between 2 and 6 months depending on the system considered. This agreement translates into matches higher than 97 % over a period between 4 and 9 months, depending on the system. Better agreements can be obtained if a larger number of calibration parameters are included. Higher-order mass ratio terms in the effective-one-body Hamiltonian and radiation-reaction introduce phase corrections of at most 30 radians in a one year evolution. These corrections are usually one order of magnitude larger than those introduced by the spin of the small object in a one year evolution. These results suggest that the effective-one-body approach for extreme mass ratio inspirals is a good compromise between accuracy and computational price for LISA data analysis purposes.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Predicting the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in Chinese people who have coronary heart disease and impaired glucose tolerance

Aims Robust diabetes risk estimates in Asian patients with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and coronary heart disease (CHD) are lacking. We developed a Chinese type 2 diabetes risk calculator using Acarbose Cardiovascular Evaluation (ACE) trial data. Methods There were 3105 placebo-treated ACE participants with requisite data for model development. Clinically relevant variables, and those showing nominal univariate association with new-onset diabetes (P <.10), were entered into BASIC (clinical variables only), EXTENDED (clinical variables plus routinely available laboratory results), and FULL (all candidate variables) logistic regression models. External validation was performed using the Luzhou prospective cohort of 1088 Chinese patients with IGT. Results Over median 5.0 years, 493 (15.9%) ACE participants developed diabetes. Lower age, higher body mass index, and use of corticosteroids or thiazide diuretics were associated with higher diabetes risk. C-statistics for the BASIC (using these variables), EXTENDED (adding male sex, fasting plasma glucose, 2-hour glucose, and HbA1c), and FULL models were 0.610, 0.757, and 0.761 respectively. The EXTENDED model predicted a lower 13.9% 5-year diabetes risk in the Luzhou cohort than observed (35.2%, 95% confidence interval 31.3%-39.5%, C-statistic 0.643). Conclusion A risk prediction model using routinely available clinical variables can be used to estimate diabetes risk in Chinese people with CHD and IGT.Peer reviewe

Information Content of Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking

We propose a measure of order in the context of nonequilibrium field theory and argue that this measure, which we call relative configurational entropy (RCE), may be used to quantify the emergence of coherent low-entropy configurations, such as time-dependent or time-independent topological and nontopological spatially-extended structures. As an illustration, we investigate the nonequilibrium dynamics of spontaneous symmetry-breaking in three spatial dimensions. In particular, we focus on a model where a real scalar field, prepared initially in a symmetric thermal state, is quenched to a broken-symmetric state. For a certain range of initial temperatures, spatially-localized, long-lived structures known as oscillons emerge in synchrony and remain until the field reaches equilibrium again. We show that the RCE correlates with the number-density of oscillons, thus offering a quantitative measure of the emergence of nonperturbative spatiotemporal patterns that can be generalized to a variety of physical systems.Comment: LaTeX, 9 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl

Oscillons: Resonant Configurations During Bubble Collapse

Oscillons are localized, non-singular, time-dependent, spherically-symmetric solutions of nonlinear scalar field theories which, although unstable, are extremely long-lived. We show that they naturally appear during the collapse of subcritical bubbles in models with symmetric and asymmetric double-well potentials. By a combination of analytical and numerical work we explain several of their properties, including the conditions for their existence, their longevity, and their final demise. We discuss several contexts in which we expect oscillons to be relevant. In particular, their nucleation during cosmological phase transitions may have wide-ranging consequences.Comment: 31 pages Revtex, 20 uufiles-encoded figures. Section "Possible Applications of Oscillons" slightly expande

An Attempt to Construct the Standard Model with Monopoles

We construct a model in which stable magnetic monopoles have magnetic charges that are identical to the electric charges on leptons and quarks and the colored monopoles are confined by strings in color singlets.Comment: 10 pages; LaTeX Added clarifying remarks, a Comment on the scattering of particles, acknowledgements and references. Version to be publishe