Exercise medicine in men with prostate cancer: breaking barriers to increase participation

Exercise intervention studies in men with prostate cancer have shown well documented improvements in objective and self-reported outcomes [1] with higher levels of physical activity also associated with reduced prostate cancer specific and overall mortality [2]. Recently, exercise has been proposed as a medicine in the setting of oncology with initial recommendations presented to guide clinicians in directing and referring patients to undertake exercise programs during/following treatments [3

PBP4: A New Perspective on Staphylococcus aureus β-Lactam Resistance.

β-lactam antibiotics are excellent drugs for treatment of staphylococcal infections, due to their superior efficacy and safety compared to other drugs. Effectiveness of β-lactams is severely compromised due to resistance, which is widespread among clinical strains of Staphylococcus aureus. β-lactams inhibit bacterial cells by binding to penicillin binding proteins (PBPs), which perform the penultimate steps of bacterial cell wall synthesis. Among PBPs of S. aureus, PBP2a has received the most attention for the past several decades due to its preeminent role in conferring both high-level and broad-spectrum resistance to the entire class of β-lactam drugs. Studies on PBP2a have thus unraveled incredible details of its mechanism of action. We have recently identified that an uncanonical, low molecular weight PBP of S. aureus, PBP4, can also provide high-level and broad-spectrum resistance to the entire class of β-lactam drugs at a level similar to that of PBP2a. The role of PBP4 has typically been considered not so important for β-lactam resistance of S. aureus, and as a result its mode of action remains largely unknown. In this article, we review our current knowledge of PBP4 mediating β-lactam resistance in S. aureus

An estimate of \Omega_m without priors

Using mean relative peculiar velocity measurements for pairs of galaxies, we estimate the cosmological density parameter $\Omega_m$ and the amplitude of density fluctuations $\sigma_8$. Our results suggest that our statistic is a robust and reproducible measure of the mean pairwise velocity and thereby the $\Omega_m$ parameter. We get $\Omega_m = 0.30^{+0.17}_{-0.07}$ and $\sigma_8 = 1.13^{+0.22}_{-0.23}$. These estimates do not depend on prior assumptions on the adiabaticity of the initial density fluctuations, the ionization history, or the values of other cosmological parameters.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, slight changes to reflect published versio

Exercise intervention and sexual function in advanced prostate cancer: a randomised controlled trial.

ObjectivesTreatments for prostate cancer such as androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), surgery and radiation therapy can adversely affect sexual, urinary and bowel function. Preliminary research has demonstrated the efficacy of exercise to preserve sexual function in men with localised prostate cancer receiving ADT, though this has yet to be investigated in a metastatic setting. We examined the effects of a 12-week exercise programme comprising resistance, aerobic and flexibility training on sexual health and function in men with advanced prostate cancer.MethodsPatients with prostate cancer (70.0±8.4 year; body mass index 28.7±4.0 kg/m2) with bone metastases (rib/thoracic spine, 66.7%; lumbar spine, 43.9%; pelvis, 75.4%; femur, 40.4%; humerus, 24.6%; other sites, 70.2%) were randomly assigned to supervised exercise 3 days/week (n=28) or usual care (n=29). Sexual health and function were assessed using the International Index of Erectile Function, the Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite and the EORTC-PR25 at baseline and 12 weeks.ResultsPatients attended 89% of planned sessions and there were no adverse events. After adjusting for baseline values, there was no significant difference between groups for any measure of sexual function and activity (p>0.05). Additionally, there was no significant difference between groups for urinary and bowel function assessed by the EORTC-PR25 (p>0.05).ConclusionsA short-term programme of supervised exercise does not appear to enhance indices of sexual health and function in men with advanced prostate cancer. Limitations of the intervention included the conservative modular exercise programme, which deliberately avoided loading bone metastatic sites.Trial registration numberACTRN12611001158954

Amnestically induced persistence in random walks

We study how the Hurst exponent $\alpha$ depends on the fraction $f$ of the total time $t$ remembered by non-Markovian random walkers that recall only the distant past. We find that otherwise nonpersistent random walkers switch to persistent behavior when inflicted with significant memory loss. Such memory losses induce the probability density function of the walker's position to undergo a transition from Gaussian to non-Gaussian. We interpret these findings of persistence in terms of a breakdown of self-regulation mechanisms and discuss their possible relevance to some of the burdensome behavioral and psychological symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figs, subm. to Phys. Rev. Let