Risk of liver cancer in patients with hepatitis B or C

Key Messages1. Among hepatitis B virus carriers, infection with genotype C significantly increases the risk of developing hepatocellular cancer compared to those without this genotype.2. Among hepatitis C virus carriers, infection with genotype 1b increases the risk of hepatocellular cancer two fold compared to controls without this genotype.3. Such increased risk should be explained as risk over and above the existing risk associated with each infection.4. Hepatitis C virus genotypes1a and 2a are associated with decreased risk of hepatocellular cancer.published_or_final_versio

Do patients with non-ulcer dyspepsia respond differently to Helicobacter pylori eradication treatments from those with peptic ulcer disease? A systematic review

Aim: It is controversial whether patients with non-ulcer dyspepsia (NUD) respond differently to Helicobacter pylori (H pylori) eradication treatment than those with peptic ulcer disease (PUD). To review the evidence for any difference in H pylori eradication rates between PUD and NUD patients. Methods: A literature search for full articles and meeting abstracts to July 2004 was conducted. We included studies evaluating the efficacy of a proton pump inhibitor (P) or ranitidine bismuth citrate (RBC) plus two antibiotics of clarithromycin (C), amoxicillin (A), metronidazole (M), or P-based quadruple therapies for eradicating the infection. Results: Twenty-two studies met the criteria. No significant difference in eradication rates was found between PUD and NUD patients when treated with 7-d RBCCA, 10-d PCA or P-based quadruple therapies. When the 7-d PCA was used, the pooled H pylori eradication rate was 82.1% (431/525) and 72.6% (448/617) for PUD and NUD patients, respectively, yielding a RR of 1.15 (95%CI 1.01-1.29). However, the statistically significant difference was seen only in meeting abstracts, but not in full publications. Conclusion: There is no convincing evidence to suggest that NUD patients respond to H pylori eradication treatments differently from those with PUD, although a trend exists with the 7-d PCA therapy. © 2005 The WJG Press and Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.published_or_final_versio

Rapid detection of adulterated drugs in herbal dietary supplements by wooden-tip electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

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Head-to-head comparison of H2-receptor antagonists and proton pump inhibitors in the treatment of erosive esophagitis: A meta-analysis

Aim: To systematically evaluate the efficacy of H2-receptor antagonists (H2RAs) and proton pump inhibitors in healing erosive esophagitis (EE). Methods: A meta-analysis was performed. A literature search was conducted in PubMed, Medline, Embase, and Cochrane databases to include randomized controlled head-to-head comparative trials evaluating the efficacy of H2RAs or proton pump inhibitors in healing EE. Relative risk (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated under a random-effects model. Results: RRs of cumulative healing rates for each comparison at 8 wk were: high dose vs standard dose H2RAs, 1.17 (95%CI, 1.02-1.33); standard dose proton pump inhibitors vs standard dose H2RAs, 1.59 (95%CI, 1.44-1.75); standard dose other proton pump inhibitors vs standard dose omeprazole, 1.06 (95%CI, 0.98-1.06). Proton pump inhibitors produced consistently greater healing rates than H2RAs of all doses across all grades of esophagitis, including patients refractory to H2RAs. Healing rates achieved with standard dose omeprazole were similar to those with other proton pump inhibitors in all grades of esophagitis. Conclusion: H2RAs are less effective for treating patients with erosive esophagitis, especially in those with severe forms of esophagitis. Standard dose proton pump inhibitors are significantly more effective than H2RAs in healing esophagitis of all grades. Proton pump inhibitors given at the recommended dose are equally effective for healing esophagitis. © 2005 The WJG Press and Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.published_or_final_versio

Learning and Matching Multi-View Descriptors for Registration of Point Clouds

Critical to the registration of point clouds is the establishment of a set of accurate correspondences between points in 3D space. The correspondence problem is generally addressed by the design of discriminative 3D local descriptors on the one hand, and the development of robust matching strategies on the other hand. In this work, we first propose a multi-view local descriptor, which is learned from the images of multiple views, for the description of 3D keypoints. Then, we develop a robust matching approach, aiming at rejecting outlier matches based on the efficient inference via belief propagation on the defined graphical model. We have demonstrated the boost of our approaches to registration on the public scanning and multi-view stereo datasets. The superior performance has been verified by the intensive comparisons against a variety of descriptors and matching methods

Linear Confinement for Mesons and Nucleons in AdS/QCD

By using a new parametrization of the dilaton field and including a cubic term in the bulk scalar potential, we realize linear confinement in both meson and nucleon sectors within the framework of soft-wall AdS/QCD. At the same time this model also correctly incorporate chiral symmetry breaking. We compare our resulting mass spectra with experimental data and find good agreement between them.Comment: 14 pages, published version in JHE

Holographic Approach to Regge Trajectory and Rotating D5 brane

We study the Regge trajectories of holographic mesons and baryons by considering rotating strings and D5 brane, which is introduced as the baryon vertex. Our model is based on the type IIB superstring theory with the background of asymptotic $AdS_5\times S^5$. This background is dual to a confining supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory (SYM) with gauge condensate, $$, which determines the tension of the linear potential between the quark and anti-quark. Then the slope of the meson trajectory ($\alpha'_{M}$) is given by this condensate as $\alpha'_{M}=1/\sqrt{\pi }$ at large spin $J$. This relation is compatible with the other theoretical results and experiments. For the baryon, we show the importance of spinning baryon vertex to obtain a Regge slope compatible with the one of $N$ and $\Delta$ series. In both cases, mesons and baryons, the trajectories are shifted to large mass side with the same slope for increasing current quark mass.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figure

Structural and magnetic phase diagram of CeFeAsO1-xFx and its relationship to high-temperature superconductivity

We use neutron scattering to study the structural and magnetic phase transitions in the iron pnictides CeFeAsO1-xFx as the system is tuned from a semimetal to a high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductor through Fluorine (F) doping x. In the undoped state, CeFeAsO develops a structural lattice distortion followed by a stripe like commensurate antiferromagnetic order with decreasing temperature. With increasing Fluorine doping, the structural phase transition decreases gradually while the antiferromagnetic order is suppressed before the appearance of superconductivity, resulting an electronic phase diagram remarkably similar to that of the high-Tc copper oxides. Comparison of the structural evolution of CeFeAsO1-xFx with other Fe-based superconductors reveals that the effective electronic band width decreases systematically for materials with higher Tc. The results suggest that electron correlation effects are important for the mechanism of high-Tc superconductivity in these Fe pnictides.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figure

Note on New KLT relations

In this short note, we present two results about KLT relations discussed in recent several papers. Our first result is the re-derivation of Mason-Skinner MHV amplitude by applying the S_{n-3} permutation symmetric KLT relations directly to MHV amplitude. Our second result is the equivalence proof of the newly discovered S_{n-2} permutation symmetric KLT relations and the well-known S_{n-3} permutation symmetric KLT relations. Although both formulas have been shown to be correct by BCFW recursion relations, our result is the first direct check using the regularized definition of the new formula.Comment: 15 Pages; v2: minor correction

Star Formation in Galaxies Along the Hubble Sequence

Observations of star formation rates (SFRs) in galaxies provide vital clues to the physical nature of the Hubble sequence, and are key probes of the evolutionary properties of galaxies. The focus of this review is on the broad patterns in the star formation properties of galaxies along the Hubble sequence, and their implications for understanding galaxy evolution and the physical processes that drive the evolution. Star formation in the disks and nuclear regions of galaxies are reviewed separately, then discussed within a common interpretive framework. The diagnostic methods used to measure SFRs are also reviewed, and a self-consistent set of SFR calibrations is presented as an aid to workers in the field.Comment: 41 pages, with 9 figures. To appear in Volume 36 of the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysic