Is progression-free survival associated with a better health-related quality of life in patients with lung cancer? : Evidence from two randomised trials with afatinib

Acknowledgements Medical writing assistance, supported financially by Boehringer Ingelheim, was provided by Suzanne Patel during the preparation of this article. Funding This study was supported by Boehringer Ingelheim.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Two-loop relation between the bare lattice coupling and the MSbar coupling in pure SU(N) gauge theories

We report the result of a computation of the relation between the renormalized coupling in the MSbar scheme of dimensional regularization and the bare coupling in the standard lattice formulation of the SU(N) Yang-Mills theory to two-loop order of perturbation theory and discuss some of its implications.Comment: 10 pages, postscript fil

The Faint End Slopes Of Galaxy Luminosity Functions In The COSMOS 2-Square Degree Field

We examine the faint-end slope of the rest-frame V-band luminosity function (LF), with respect to galaxy spectral type, of field galaxies with redshift z<0.5, using a sample of 80,820 galaxies with photometric redshifts in the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) field. For all galaxy spectral types combined, the LF slope, alpha, ranges from -1.24 to -1.12, from the lowest redshift bin to the highest. In the lowest redshift bin (0.02<z<0.1), where the magnitude limit is M(V) ~ -13, the slope ranges from ~ -1.1 for galaxies with early-type spectral energy distributions (SEDs), to ~ -1.9 for galaxies with low-extinction starburst SEDs. In each galaxy SED category (Ell, Sbc, Scd/Irr, and starburst), the faint-end slopes grow shallower with increasing redshift; in the highest redshift bin (0.4<z<0.5), the slope is ~ -0.5 and ~ -1.3 for early-types and starbursts respectively. The steepness of alpha at lower redshift could be qualitatively explained by large numbers of faint dwarf galaxies, perhaps of low surface brightness, which are not detected at higher redshifts.Comment: 24 pages including 5 figures, accepted to ApJ

Progress with the Prime Focus Spectrograph for the Subaru Telescope: a massively multiplexed optical and near-infrared fiber spectrograph

The Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) is an optical/near-infrared multi-fiber spectrograph with 2394 science fibers, which are distributed in 1.3 degree diameter field of view at Subaru 8.2-meter telescope. The simultaneous wide wavelength coverage from 0.38 μm to 1.26 μm, with the resolving power of 3000, strengthens its ability to target three main survey programs: cosmology, Galactic archaeology, and galaxy/AGN evolution. A medium resolution mode with resolving power of 5000 for 0.71 μm to 0.89 μm also will be available by simply exchanging dispersers. PFS takes the role for the spectroscopic part of the Subaru Measurement of Images and Redshifts (SuMIRe) project, while Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) works on the imaging part. HSC’s excellent image qualities have proven the high quality of the Wide Field Corrector (WFC), which PFS shares with HSC. The PFS collaboration has succeeded in the project Preliminary Design Review and is now in a phase of subsystem Critical Design Reviews and construction. To transform the telescope plus WFC focal ratio, a 3-mm thick broad-band coated microlens is glued to each fiber tip. The microlenses are molded glass, providing uniform lens dimensions and a variety of refractive-index selection. After successful production of mechanical and optical samples, mass production is now complete. Following careful investigations including Focal Ratio Degradation (FRD) measurements, a higher transmission fiber is selected for the longest part of cable system, while one with a better FRD performance is selected for the fiber-positioner and fiber-slit components, given the more frequent fiber movements and tightly curved structure. Each Fiber positioner consists of two stages of piezo-electric rotary motors. Its engineering model has been produced and tested. After evaluating the statistics of positioning accuracies, collision avoidance software, and interferences (if any) within/between electronics boards, mass production will commence. Fiber positioning will be performed iteratively by taking an image of artificially back-illuminated fibers with the Metrology camera located in the Cassegrain container. The camera is carefully designed so that fiber position measurements are unaffected by small amounts of high special-frequency inaccuracies in WFC lens surface shapes. Target light carried through the fiber system reaches one of four identical fast-Schmidt spectrograph modules, each with three arms. All optical glass blanks are now being polished. Prototype VPH gratings have been optically tested. CCD production is complete, with standard fully-depleted CCDs for red arms and more-challenging thinner fully-depleted CCDs with blue-optimized coating for blue arms. The active damping system against cooler vibration has been proven to work as predicted, and spectrographs have been designed to avoid small possible residual resonances

Re-evaluation of the mechanisms of dietary fibre and implications for macronutrient bioaccessibility, digestion and postprandial metabolism

The positive effects of dietary fibre on health are now widely recognised; however, our understanding of the mechanisms involved in producing such benefits remains unclear. There are even uncertainties about how dietary fibre in plant foods should be defined and analysed. This review attempts to clarify the confusion regarding the mechanisms of action of dietary fibre and deals with current knowledge on the wide variety of dietary fibre materials, comprising mainly of NSP that are not digested by enzymes of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. These non-digestible materials range from intact cell walls of plant tissues to individual polysaccharide solutions often used in mechanistic studies. We discuss how the structure and properties of fibre are affected during food processing and how this can impact on nutrient digestibility. Dietary fibre can have multiple effects on GI function, including GI transit time and increased digesta viscosity, thereby affecting flow and mixing behaviour. Moreover, cell wall encapsulation influences macronutrient digestibility through limited access to digestive enzymes and/or substrate and product release. Moreover, encapsulation of starch can limit the extent of gelatinisation during hydrothermal processing of plant foods. Emphasis is placed on the effects of diverse forms of fibre on rates and extents of starch and lipid digestion, and how it is important that a better understanding of such interactions with respect to the physiology and biochemistry of digestion is needed. In conclusion, we point to areas of further investigation that are expected to contribute to realisation of the full potential of dietary fibre on health and well-being of humans

The ecological footprint remains a misleading metric of global sustainability

Linus Blomqvist, Barry W. Brook, Erle C. Ellis, Peter M. Kareiva, Ted Nordhaus, Michael Shellenberge

Physician decision making in selection of second-line treatments in immune thrombocytopenia in children.

Immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) is an acquired autoimmune bleeding disorder which presents with isolated thrombocytopenia and risk of hemorrhage. While most children with ITP promptly recover with or without drug therapy, ITP is persistent or chronic in others. When needed, how to select second-line therapies is not clear. ICON1, conducted within the Pediatric ITP Consortium of North America (ICON), is a prospective, observational, longitudinal cohort study of 120 children from 21 centers starting second-line treatments for ITP which examined treatment decisions. Treating physicians reported reasons for selecting therapies, ranking the top three. In a propensity weighted model, the most important factors were patient/parental preference (53%) and treatment-related factors: side effect profile (58%), long-term toxicity (54%), ease of administration (46%), possibility of remission (45%), and perceived efficacy (30%). Physician, health system, and clinical factors rarely influenced decision-making. Patient/parent preferences were selected as reasons more often in chronic ITP (85.7%) than in newly diagnosed (0%) or persistent ITP (14.3%, P = .003). Splenectomy and rituximab were chosen for the possibility of inducing long-term remission (P < .001). Oral agents, such as eltrombopag and immunosuppressants, were chosen for ease of administration and expected adherence (P < .001). Physicians chose rituximab in patients with lower expected adherence (P = .017). Treatment choice showed some physician and treatment center bias. This study illustrates the complexity and many factors involved in decision-making in selecting second-line ITP treatments, given the absence of comparative trials. It highlights shared decision-making and the need for well-conducted, comparative effectiveness studies to allow for informed discussion between patients and clinicians