Method and system for environmentally adaptive fault tolerant computing

A method and system for adapting fault tolerant computing. The method includes the steps of measuring an environmental condition representative of an environment. An on-board processing system's sensitivity to the measured environmental condition is measured. It is determined whether to reconfigure a fault tolerance of the on-board processing system based in part on the measured environmental condition. The fault tolerance of the on-board processing system may be reconfigured based in part on the measured environmental condition

Breast cancer histology and receptor status characterization in Asian Indian and Pakistani women in the U.S. - a SEER analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recent reports suggest increase in estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) negative breast cancer yet little is known about histology or receptor status of breast cancer in Indian/Pakistani women.in the U.S.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We examined the United States National Cancer Institute's Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Cancer program to assess: a) frequency of breast cancer by age, b) histologic subtypes, c) receptor status of breast cancer and, d) survival in Indians/Pakistanis compared to Caucasians. There were 360,933 breast cancer cases diagnosed 1988-2006. Chi-Square analyses and Cox proportional hazards models, to estimate relative risks for breast cancer mortality after adjusting for confounders, were performed using Statistical Analysis Software 9.2.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among Asian Indian/Pakistani breast cancer patients, 16.2% were < 40 yrs. old compared to 6.23% in Caucasians (p < 0.0001). Asian Indian women had more invasive ductal carcinoma (69.1 vs. 65.7%, p < 0.0001), inflammatory cancer (1.4% vs. 0.8, p < 0.0001) and less invasive lobular carcinoma (4.2% vs. 8.1%, p < 0.0001) than Caucasians. Asian Indian/Pakistani women had more ER/PR negative breast cancer (30.6% vs. 21.8%, p = 0.0095) than Caucasians. Adjusting for stage at diagnosis, age, tumor grade, nodal status, and histology, Asian Indian/Pakistani women's survival was similar to Caucasians, while African Americans' was worse.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Asian Indian/Pakistani women have higher frequency of breast cancer (particularly in age < 40), ER/PR negative invasive ductal and inflammatory cancer than Caucasians.</p

Chemoprevention of Colon Cancer: Current Status and Future Prospects

Colorectal cancer is an important public health problem in the western world. Although some progress has been made in the prevention and management of this disease, colon cancer still remains one of the most common types of epithelial malignancies in both genders and is essentially incurable when it reaches the most advanced stages. Given the substantial morbidity and mortality associated with colorectal malignancies and their treatment, cancer prevention in its many forms emerges as a very attractive approach. Colorectal cancer chemoprevention refers to the administration of natural or synthetic compounds to block, reverse, delay or prevent the development of invasive large bowel neoplasms. The ultimate goal of implementing a chemopreventive intervention in the general, or alternatively, in an at-risk population is to decrease the incidence rate of the specific cancer being targeted. This article reviews the present status of colorectal cancer chemoprevention. Current insights into the molecular and genetic models of human colorectal carcinogenesis, preclinical models for efficacy testing as well as into promising biomarkers for colorectal chemoprevention are provided. The developmental status of many promising agents is also discussed emphasizing the epidemiological evidence, preclinical information substantiating an anticarcinogenic effect, their postulated mechanism of action and the status of human clinical development. Our perspective of the future prospects in this scientific area is also provided and has been predicated primarily on the firm belief that the proper integration of advances in the biology of colon carcinogenesis, experimental therapeutics and clinical trial methodology will be critical for the success of this promising field.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44533/1/10555_2004_Article_5098328.pd

Detection of Mutated K- ras DNA in Urine, Plasma, and Serum of Patients with Colorectal Carcinoma or Adenomatous Polyps

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72277/1/annals.1448.027.pd

Relativistic Heavy--Ion Collisions in the Dynamical String--Parton Model

We develop and extend the dynamical string parton model. This model, which is based on the salient features of QCD, uses classical Nambu-Got\=o strings with the endpoints identified as partons, an invariant string breaking model of the hadronization process, and interactions described as quark-quark interactions. In this work, the original model is extended to include a phenomenological quantization of the mass of the strings, an analytical technique for treating the incident nucleons as a distribution of string configurations determined by the experimentally measured structure function, the inclusion of the gluonic content of the nucleon through the introduction of purely gluonic strings, and the use of a hard parton-parton interaction taken from perturbative QCD combined with a phenomenological soft interaction. The limited number of parameters in the model are adjusted to $e^+e^-$ and $p$--$p$ data. Utilizing these parameters, the first calculations of the model for $p$--$A$ and $A$--$A$ collisions are presented and found to be in reasonable agreement with a broad set of data.Comment: 26 pages of text with 23 Postscript figures placed in tex

The Origin of the Wigner Energy

Surfaces of experimental masses of even-even and odd-odd nuclei exhibit a sharp slope discontinuity at N=Z. This cusp (Wigner energy), reflecting an additional binding in nuclei with neutrons and protons occupying the same shell model orbitals, is usually attributed to neutron-proton pairing correlations. A method is developed to extract the Wigner term from experimental data. Both empirical arguments and shell-model calculations suggest that the Wigner term can be traced back to the isospin T=0 part of nuclear interaction. Our calculations reveal the rather complex mechanism responsible for the nuclear binding around the N=Z line. In particular, we find that the Wigner term cannot be solely explained in terms of correlations between the neutron-proton J=1, T=0 (deuteron-like) pairs.Comment: 10 RevTeX pages, 3 Postscript figures include

Removal of High-Molecular-Weight DNA by Carboxylated Magnetic Beads Enhances the Detection of Mutated K-ras DNA in Urine

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75249/1/annals.1448.019.pd

Flaxseed-Derived Enterolactone Is Inversely Associated with Tumor Cell Proliferation in Men with Localized Prostate Cancer

Enterolactone and enterodiol, mammalian lignans derived from dietary sources such as flaxseed, sesame seeds, kale, broccoli, and apricots, may impede tumor proliferation by inhibiting activation of nuclear factor kappa B (NF?B) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). We examined the associations between urinary enterolactone and enterodiol with prostatic tumor expression of NF?B, VEGF, and Ki67 among 147 patients with prostate cancer who participated in a presurgical trial of flaxseed supplementation (30?g/day) for ?30 days. Urinary enterolignans and tissue biomarkers were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography and immunohistochemistry, respectively. After supplementation, we observed significant correlations between intakes of plant lignan and urinary concentrations of total enterolignans (?=0.677, P<.0001), enterolactone (?=0.676, P<.0001), and enterodiol (?=0.628, P<.0001). Importantly, we observed that total urinary enterolignans and enterolactone were significantly and inversely correlated with Ki67 in the tumor tissue (?=?0.217, P=.011, and ?=?0.230, P=.007, respectively), and a near-significant inverse association was observed for enterodiol (?=?0.159, P=.064). An inverse association was observed between enterolactone and VEGF (?=?0.143, P=.141), although this did not reach statistical significance. We did not observe an association between enterolignans and NF?B. In conclusion, flaxseed-derived enterolignans may hinder cancer cell proliferation via VEGF-associated pathways.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/140111/1/jmf.2012.0159.pd