24,405 research outputs found
Current medical treatment of estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer
Approximately 80% of breast cancers (BC) are estrogen receptor (ER)-positive and thus endocrine therapy (ET) should be considered complementary to surgery in the majority of patients. The advantages of oophorectomy, adrenalectomy and hypophysectomy in women with advanced BC have been demonstrated many years ago, and currently ET consist of (i) ovarian function suppression (OFS), usually obtained using gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists (GnRHa), (ii) selective estrogen receptor modulators or down-regulators (SERMs or SERDs), (iii) aromatase inhibitors (AIs), or a combination of two or more drugs. For patients aged less than 50 years and ER+ BC, there is no conclusive evidence that the combination of OFS and SERMs (i.e. tamoxifen) or chemotherapy is superior to OFS alone. Tamoxifen users exhibit a reduced risk of BC, both invasive and in situ, especially during the first 5 years of therapy, and extending the treatment to 10 years further reduced the risk of recurrences. SERDs (i.e. fulvestrant) are especially useful in the neoadjuvant treatment of advanced BC, alone or in combination with either cytotoxic agents or AIs. There are two types of AIs: type I are permanent steroidal inhibitors of aromatase, while type II are reversible nonsteroidal inhibitors. Several studies demonstrated the superiority of the third-generation AIs (i.e. anastrozole and letrozole) compared with tamoxifen, and adjuvant therapy with AIs reduces the recurrence risk especially in patients with advanced BC. Unfortunately, some cancers are or became ET-resistant, and thus other drugs have been suggested in combination with SERMs or AIs, including cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 inhibitors (palbociclib) and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitors, such as everolimus. Further studies are required to confirm their real usefulness
Quantum metamaterial without local control
A quantum metamaterial can be implemented as a quantum coherent 1D array of
qubits placed in a transmission line. The properties of quantum metamaterials
are determined by the local quantum state of the system. Here we show that a
spatially-periodic quantum state of such a system can be realized without
direct control of the constituent qubits, by their interaction with the
initializing ("priming") pulses sent through the system in opposite directions.
The properties of the resulting quantum photonic crystal are determined by the
choice of the priming pulses. This proposal can be readily generalized to other
implementations of quantum metamaterials.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
D-brane Instantons as Gauge Instantons in Orientifolds of Chiral Quiver Theories
Systems of D3-branes at orientifold singularities can receive
non-perturbative D-brane instanton corrections, inducing field theory operators
in the 4d effective theory. In certain non-chiral examples, these systems have
been realized as the infrared endpoint of a Seiberg duality cascade, in which
the D-brane instanton effects arise from strong gauge theory dynamics. We
present the first UV duality cascade completion of chiral D3-brane theories, in
which the D-brane instantons arise from gauge theory dynamics. Chiral examples
are interesting because the instanton fermion zero mode sector is topologically
protected, and therefore lead to more robust setups. As an application of our
results, we provide a UV completion of certain D-brane orientifold systems
recently claimed to produce conformal field theories with conformal invariance
broken only by D-brane instantons.Comment: 50 pages, 32 figures. v2: version published in JHEP with references
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Self-induced tunable transparency in layered superconductors
We predict a novel nonlinear electromagnetic phenomenon in layered
superconducting slabs irradiated from one side by an electromagnetic plane
wave. We show that the reflectance and transmittance of the slab can vary over
a wide range, from nearly zero to one, when changing the incident wave
amplitude. Thus changing the amplitude of the incident wave can induce either
the total transmission or reflection of the incident wave. In addition, the
dependence of the superconductor transmittance on the incident wave amplitude
has an unusual hysteretic behavior with jumps. This remarkable nonlinear effect
(self-induced transparency) can be observed even at small amplitudes, when the
wave frequency is close to the Josephson plasma frequency .Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure
On Dimer Models and Closed String Theories
We study some aspects of the recently discovered connection between dimer
models and D-brane gauge theories. We argue that dimer models are also
naturally related to closed string theories on non compact orbifolds of \BC^2
and \BC^3, via their twisted sector R charges, and show that perfect
matchings in dimer models correspond to twisted sector states in the closed
string theory. We also use this formalism to study the combinatorics of some
unstable orbifolds of \BC^2.Comment: 1 + 25 pages, LaTeX, 11 epsf figure
The Lorentzian distance formula in noncommutative geometry
For almost twenty years, a search for a Lorentzian version of the well-known
Connes' distance formula has been undertaken. Several authors have contributed
to this search, providing important milestones, and the time has now come to
put those elements together in order to get a valid and functional formula.
This paper presents a historical review of the construction and the proof of a
Lorentzian distance formula suitable for noncommutative geometry.Comment: 16 pages, final form, few references adde
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