The need for social support in adult patients with cancer

Background: Patients with cancer experience many emotional and psychological burdens as they encounter different disease stages and receive treatments. Social support plays a crucial role in the patients' function, emotions, and symptoms. The present study aimed to evaluate the viewpoint of adult patients with cancer about the role of social support to caring for them, describe their common social support demands, and discuss their experience different components of social support current situation that are available for older adults with cancer. Methods: Samples were selected from all adult patients hospitalized for at least 24 hours in a cancer referral center to receive the appropriate treatments. Among them, 12 patients who accepted to participate in the study were interviewed using semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions. Data analysis was performed by the qualitative content analysis approach. Results: According to the patients’ experiences, major social support concepts could be categorized as emotional, informational, and instrumental supports. They believed that social support needed to be enhanced in these three aspects, which each of them consisted of different needs. Conclusion: Patients with cancer are demanding social support, which could improve their psychological well-being and their quality of life. The health care providers need to pay attention to this demand, identify this need, and support the patients, properly

Investigación termodinámica de prometazina, loratadina, cetirizina y buclizina como medicamentos antihistamínicos; monte carlo y estudios semi-empíricos

In this article, we discussed about four antihistamine drug called promethazine, loratadine, cetirizine and buclizine. Promethazine in this list is the only one in first generation antihistamine classification with CNS sedation effect and the other three belongs to second generation antihistamine group which are non-sedation and used to treat in many different anti-allergenic fields. In the following we optimized potential, kinetic and total energy of these molecules at body temperature (310 k˚) and environment temperature (298 k ˚) using Mont Carlo method in Amber force field in 500 ns. The quantum mechanics calculations and molecular structure of these molecules investigated using B3LYP level of theory with 6-31 G (d) as a basis set. Theoretical computations were performed to study thermodynamic parameters and frequency analysis. Electronic, thermal, zero point and gibs free energy and enthalpy were estimated in frequency analysis. Semi empirical computations were summarized to pm3 method and different energy parameters (total energy, Binding Energy, Isolated Atomic Energy, Electronic Energy, Core–Core Interaction and Heat of Formation.En este artículo, discutimos sobre cuatro medicamentos antihistamínicos llamados prometazina, loratadina, cetirizina y buclizina. La prometazina en esta lista es la única en la clasificación de antihistamínicos de primera generación con efecto de sedación del SNC y los otros tres pertenecen al grupo de antihistamínicos de segunda generación que no son sedantes y se usan para tratar en muchos campos antialérgicos diferentes. A continuación, optimizamos la energía potencial, cinética y total de estas moléculas a temperatura corporal (310 k˚) y temperatura ambiente (298 k ˚) utilizando el método Mont Carlo en el campo de fuerza ámbar en 500 ns. Los cálculos de la mecánica cuántica y la estructura molecular de estas moléculas se investigaron utilizando el nivel de teoría B3LYP con 6-31 G (d) como conjunto de bases. Se realizaron cálculos teóricos para estudiar los parámetros termodinámicos y el análisis de frecuencia. Electrónica, térmica, punto cero y energía libre de gibs y entalpía se estimaron en análisis de frecuencia. Los cálculos semiempíricos se resumieron en el método pm3 y diferentes parámetros de energía (energía total, energía de enlace, energía atómica aislada, energía electrónica, interacción núcleo-núcleo y calor de formación)

Epstein-Barr virus is not detected in mucosal lichen planus

Lichen planus (LP) is a chronic inflammatory, immunological, mucocutaneous disease can affect skin, genital and oral mucosa. Oral lichen planus (OLP) is the most common noninfectious, chronic inflammatory oral disease affecting 1-2% of the general adult population. World Health Organization (WHO) classifies OLP as a potentially malignant disorder. Epstein Barr virus or human herpesvirus-4, is a member of the herpes virus family and one of the most ubiquitous viruses known to human, infecting approximately 90% of the world?s adult population. The virus often infects B lymphocytes resulting in a wide spectrum of mucocutaneous and systemic diseases, ranging from mild lesions to aggressive malignancies. The aim of this study was to investigate expression of the EBV encoded RNAs EBER1 and EBER2 in oral and genital lichen planus and compare results with normal tissues in situ hybridization which is considered the golden standard for detection of EBER. A total of 68 biopsies, 25 oral LP, 26 genital LP, 10 oral controls and finally 7 genital controls were analysed using situ hybridization. All samples had RNA as shown by the control slide, whereas no case contained neither EBER1 nor EBER2. Based on results from our study EBV is not involved in aetiology of lichen planus

Variants of Mixtures: Information Properties and Applications

In recent years, we have studied information properties of various types of mixtures of probability distributions and introduced a new type, which includes previously known mixtures as special cases. These studies are disseminated in different fields: reliability engineering, econometrics, operations research, probability, the information theory, and data mining. This paper presents a holistic view of these studies and provides further insights and examples. We note that the insightful probabilistic formulation of the mixing parameters stipulated by Behboodian (1972) is required for a representation of the well-known information measure of the arithmetic mixture. Applications of this information measure presented in this paper include lifetime modeling, system reliability, measuring uncertainty and disagreement of forecasters, probability modeling with partial information, and information loss of kernel estimation. Probabilistic formulations of the mixing weights for various types of mixtures provide the Bayes-Fisher information and the Bayes risk of the mean residual function

Membrane-less microfiltration using inertial microfluidics

Microfiltration is a ubiquitous and often crucial part of many industrial processes, including biopharmaceutical manufacturing. Yet, all existing filtration systems suffer from the issue of membrane clogging, which fundamentally limits the efficiency and reliability of the filtration process. Herein, we report the development of a membrane-less microfiltration system by massively parallelizing inertial microfluidics to achieve a macroscopic volume processing rates (~ 500 mL/min). We demonstrated the systems engineered for CHO (10–20 μm) and yeast (3–5 μm) cells filtration, which are two main cell types used for large-scale bioreactors. Our proposed system can replace existing filtration membrane and provide passive (no external force fields), continuous filtration, thus eliminating the need for membrane replacement. This platform has the desirable combinations of high throughput, low-cost, and scalability, making it compatible for a myriad of microfiltration applications and industrial purposes.Singapore. National Research Foundation (Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology)United States. Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (Grant DE-AR0000294

Increased expression of p16 in both oral and genital lichen planus

Lichen Planus, LP, is an inflammatory disease of possible autoimmune origin affecting mainly oral and genital mucosa and skin. According to the WHO oral LP is considered a potentially malignant disorders. The p16 tumour suppressor protein can act as an inhibitor of cyclin dependent kinases 4 and 6 and thus down regulate cell cycle progression. Since the discovery of p16 several studies have evaluated its expression in various forms of human cancers. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the expression of p16 in oral and genital LP and corresponding healthy mucosa. A total of 76 cases of oral LP (OLP), 34 cases of genital LP (GLP), 12 cases of healthy oral and 9 cases of healthy genital mucosa were analysed by the use of immunohistochemistry. Data showed p16 to be highly expressed in both oral and genital LP, higher than in oral (p=0.000), and genital controls (p=0.002). Results suggest that the over-expression of p16 seen in LP play a part in the histopathology of the disease

Geochemistry and petrogenesis of granitoid rocks in the Tarom-Hashtjin metallogenic province, western Alborz

The Cenozoic magmatism is mainly concentrated in the Alborz magmatic arc, Urumieh-Dokhtar magmatic arc, Central and Eastern Iran. The Western Alborz magmatic arc known as Alborz-Azerbaijan is hosted numerous porphyry-epithermal deposits. It is divided into Ahar-Arasbaran in the north and Tarom-Hashtjin metallogenic province in the south. The Tarom-Hashtjin metallogenic province is associated with several epithermal mineral systems (Ghasemi Siani and Lentz, 2022) related to Cenozoic magmatism. It consists mainly of intrusive, subvolcanic rocks, as well as volcanic-sedimentary complexes with acidic to intermediate composition. These rocks with calc-alkaline to shoshonitic nature, are predominantly granite, granodiorite, basalt, andesite, dacite, rhyodacite, rhyolite, and related tuffs. Th main goal of the present paper is to review the available data combined with our new data on the granitoids widespread in the area. An attempt is made to present the lithological, geochemical, and geo-structural features of the magma generated in Tarom-Hashtjin metallogenic province.Regional GeologyThe Tarom-Hashtjin metallogenic province is limited by the Tabriz-Soltaniyeh (Northwestern part), Soltanieh-Takestan (Southeastern part), and Astara faults (Western part). Volcanic-pyroclastic rocks have been widely invaded by the Upper Eocene intrusive bodies (including Zaker, Marvarid, Koh-e-Tabar, Takestan, Zanjan, Tarom, Rudbar-Ahar, Vermarziar, and Goljin bodies). The epithermal deposits are classified as low sulfidation (LS), intermediate sulfidation (IS), and high sulfidation (HS).Material and methodsWhole rock and isotopic geochemical data obtained from 176 samples of granitoid rocks related to 17 deposits (including 4 epithermal deposits of low sulfidation (LS), 5 epithermal deposits of intermediate sulfidation (IS), 4 epithermal deposits of high sulfidation) (HS) and 4 magmatic iron oxide- apatite deposits (IOA)). The data was compiled using Microsoft Excel (Appendix 1) and contains major oxides, rare earth elements and isotopic data, rock type, sources, and associated epithermal deposits. The samples of hydrothermal altered granitoid rocks with LOI greater than 2 percent by weight were excluded from the data set. Also, Sr-Nd isotopic compositions for 33 whole rock samples and Pb isotopic compositions for 24 granitoid samples are presented in Appendix 2.Whole rocks chemistryGeochemistry of major elements: The amounts of some oxides including MgO, CaO, FeO, TiO2, and Al2O3 display negative  while the K2O content shows a positive correlation with increasing SiO2. The abundance of incompatible elements (i.e. Rb, Ba, Th, and Zr) increases slightly to moderately with increasing silica content. The amounts of P and Sr significantly decrease with increasing silica content. These granitoids are enriched in lithophile elements (LILE)(i.e. K, Rb, Th, U, Nd) and depleted in high field strength elements (HFSE) (i.e. Ta, Nb, Ti,) indicating the occurrence of magmatism associated with subduction and the characteristic of all magmas subjected to crustal contamination in subduction zones (Chappell and White, 1992; Wilson, 2007). Also, the investigated rocks are enriched in LREEs and depleted in HREEs (LREE/HREE = 1.14-10.34), a remarkable feature of magmas related to subduction zones (Wilson, 2007). The (La/Yb)N ratio ranges from 3.25 to 14.70 (ave.7.53).Isotope geochemistry: The studied granitoids are located in the ranges of magmas related to the subduction zone. These magmas are periodically contaminated by crustal materials. Most of the granitoid samples are placed within the depleted and enriched mantle array (Zindler and Hart, 1986).Discussion and ConclusionThe rocks under study associated with epithermal deposits in the Tarom-Hashtjin metallogenic province consist mainly of monzonitic, monzodioritic, quartz monzonitic, and granite belonging to high calc-alkaline to shoshonitic I type and metaluminous magmatism. They are characterized by Sr/Y (3.6 to 39.11), La/Yb (4.53 to 20.50) and high K2O values (with an average of 4.40 wt.%), consistent with calc-alkaline mantle melt contaminated by crustal materials (Chappell and White, 1992). Metaluminous and high calc-alkaline to shoshonitic igneous rocks are originated by partial melting of enriched lithospheric mantle metasomatized by fluids from the subducting slab. These granitoids also have Th values (average 15.17 g/t) higher than that of the rocks derived from primary mantle melt. Fluids and melts from the subducting oceanic crust metasomatized the mantle wedge above them causing a positive LILE and a negative HFSE anomalies.  Overall, the Tarom-Hashtjin metallogenic province is part of a back-arc extensional system arc behind the main Urumieh-Dokhtar main arc. Considering this, it seems that the extensional tectonic setting in the Lower to Middle Eocene was accompanied by convergence movements and was followed until the end of the Middle Eocene and Upper Eocene. This phase of extension occurred during the Eocene associated with slab rollback. The aforementioned tectonic movements can be associated with the processes of separation of the subducting plate or convective thinning of the lithosphere, causing the uplift of the asthenosphere and temperature disturbance in the metasomatism lithospheric mantle wedge. This disturbance gave rise to partial melting of the subducting slab and the lithospheric mantle wedge producing the primary potassic magma of the granitoid rocks under study. It suggests that primary source magmas were generated by partial melting of the mantle-wedge and were subsequently affected by both fractional crystallization and crustal assimilation during their magmatic evolution during Eocene magmas (37 to 42 Ma) in a back-arc basin