Nail changes secondary to docetaxel chemotherapy : a case report

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Atom localization via phase and amplitude control of the driving field

Journals published by the American Physical Society can be found at http://publish.aps.org/Control of amplitude and phase of the driving field in an atom-field interaction leads towards the strong line narrowing and quenching in the spontaneous emission spectrum. We exploit this fact for the atom localization scheme and achieve a much better spatial resolution in the conditional position probability distribution of the atom. Most importantly the quenching in the spontaneous emission manifests itself in reducing the periodicity in the conditional position probability distribution and hence the uncertainty in a particular position measurement of the single atom by a factor of 2

Quantum beat laser as a source of entangled radiation

Journals published by the American Physical Society can be found at http://publish.aps.org/We consider a quantum beat laser [Scully and Zubairy, Phys. Rev. A 35 752 (1987)] as a source of entangled radiation. The system essentially consists of three-level atoms inside a doubly resonant cavity such that coherence is introduced by driving the upper two levels with a strong classical field of Rabi frequency Omega. We study the dynamics of this system for different values of Rabi frequencies in the presence of cavity losses. It is shown that entanglement can be generated in this system for different initial states of the field in the two modes

Mimosa pudica L.: a comparative study via in vitro analysis and GC Q-TOF MS profiling on conventional and supercritical fluid extraction using food grade ethanol

The present study compared conventional (maceration) extraction (EtOHconv) and supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) methods as a mean of comparing conventional and green process for a weed namely Mimosa pudica L. to obtain a safe antidiabetic natural agent. In vitro analysis comprised of two different assays, antioxidant assay (determination of total phenolic content, total flavonoid content, and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl assay) and antidiabetic assay (inhibition of αamylase and α-glucosidase). GC Q-TOF MS profiling for both extracts was done after derivetisation to confirm the presence of bioactive compounds. SFE was performed at 40 MPa pressure, 60 °C temperature and 5 mL/min CO2 flow rate using 30 % ethanol (co-solvent) for 2 h. EtOHconv prepared using 95 % ethanol through conventional method (maceration) showed a good in vitro antioxidant potential and digestive enzymes inhibitory effect compared to supercritical fluid extract. α-amylase and α-glucosidase inhibitory activities for EtOHconv at 1 mg/mL were 30.08 % (±5.23) and 38.29 % (±2.52), whereas for standard acarbose it was 28.24 % (±13.66) and 36.93 % (±2.70), respectively. Supercritical fluid extract showed less potent in vitro antioxidant and digestive enzymes inhibitory effects (15.67±4.03- α-amylase, 28.36±2.01- α-glucosidase). GC Q-TOF MS analysis was done to confirm the presence of bioactive compounds in both the extracts. Although EtOHconv showed better results, SFE was found to contain more bioactive compounds associated with various pharmacological effects especially antioxidative as per GC Q-TOF MS results. SFE being a clean and green technology could be employed in future with more focus on method development and optimization to reproduce better and safe bioactive products from the neglected weed M. pudica

α-glucosidase inhibitors isolated from Mimosa pudica L.

The aim of the study was to isolate digestive enzymes inhibitors from Mimosa pudica through a bioassay-guided fractionation approach. Repeated silica gel and sephadex LH 20 column chromatographies of bioactive fractions afforded stigmasterol, quercetin and avicularin as digestive enzymes inhibitors whose IC50 values as compared to acarbose (351.02 ± 1.46 μg mL−1) were found to be as 91.08 ± 1.54, 75.16 ± 0.92 and 481.7 ± 0.703 μg mL−1, respectively. In conclusion, M. pudica could be a good and safe source of digestive enzymes inhibitors for the management of diabetes in future

Enrichment, in vitro, and quantification study of antidiabetic compounds from neglected weed Mimosa pudica using supercritical CO2 and CO2-Soxhlet

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) using carbon dioxide (CO2) and liquid CO2 using Soxhlet (CO2-Soxhlet) extraction were employed to extract three (3) antidiabetic compounds viz. stigmasterol, quercetin, and avicularin from Mimosa pudica. Various extraction parameters were studied. Extracts were analyzed pharmacologically, qualitatively and quantitatively to ascertain enrichment levels. All three antidiabetic compounds were effectively enriched under optimized conditions of temperature 60°C, pressure 40 MPa, co-solvent ratio 30%, and CO2 flow rate of 5 ml min−1. SFE was found to be the better method for enrichment of the antidiabetic compounds than the CO2-Soxhlet method. Extraction conditions were seen to affect the enrichment of desired compounds

COVID-19: Third dose booster vaccine effectiveness against breakthrough coronavirus infection, hospitalisations and death in patients with cancer: A population-based study

Purpose: People living with cancer and haematological malignancies are at increased risk of hospitalisation and death following infection with acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Coronavirus third dose vaccine boosters are proposed to boost waning immune responses in immunocompromised individuals and increase coronavirus protection; however, their effectiveness has not yet been systematically evaluated. Methods: This study is a population-scale real-world evaluation of the United Kingdom’s third dose vaccine booster programme for cancer patients from 8th December 2020 to 7th December 2021. The cancer cohort comprises individuals from Public Health England’s national cancer dataset, excluding individuals less than 18 years. A test-negative case-control design was used to assess third dose booster vaccine effectiveness. Multivariable logistic regression models were fitted to compare risk in the cancer cohort relative to the general population. Results: The cancer cohort comprised of 2,258,553 tests from 361,098 individuals. Third dose boosters were evaluated by reference to 87,039,743 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) coronavirus tests. Vaccine effectiveness against breakthrough infections, symptomatic infections, coronavirus hospitalisation and death in cancer patients were 59.1%, 62.8%, 80.5% and 94.5% respectively. Lower vaccine effectiveness was associated with a cancer diagnosis within 12 months, lymphoma, recent systemic anti-cancer therapy (SACT) or radiotherapy. Lymphoma patients had low levels of protection from symptomatic disease. In spite of third dose boosters, following multivariable adjustment, individuals with cancer remain at increased risk of coronavirus hospitalisation and death compared to the population control (OR 3.38, 3.01 respectively. p<0.001 for both). Conclusions: Third dose boosters are effective for most individuals with cancer, increasing protection from coronavirus. However, their effectiveness is heterogenous, and lower than the general population. Many patients with cancer will remain at increased risk of coronavirus infections, even after 3 doses. In the case of patients with lymphoma, there is a particularly strong disparity of vaccine effectiveness against breakthrough infection and severe disease. Breakthrough infections will disrupt cancer care and treatment with potentially adverse consequences on survival outcomes. The data support the role of vaccine boosters in preventing severe disease, and further pharmacological intervention to prevent transmission and aid viral clearance to limit disruption of cancer care as the delivery of care continues to evolve during the coronavirus pandemic

Effects of a high-dose 24-h infusion of tranexamic acid on death and thromboembolic events in patients with acute gastrointestinal bleeding (HALT-IT): an international randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Background: Tranexamic acid reduces surgical bleeding and reduces death due to bleeding in patients with trauma. Meta-analyses of small trials show that tranexamic acid might decrease deaths from gastrointestinal bleeding. We aimed to assess the effects of tranexamic acid in patients with gastrointestinal bleeding. Methods: We did an international, multicentre, randomised, placebo-controlled trial in 164 hospitals in 15 countries. Patients were enrolled if the responsible clinician was uncertain whether to use tranexamic acid, were aged above the minimum age considered an adult in their country (either aged 16 years and older or aged 18 years and older), and had significant (defined as at risk of bleeding to death) upper or lower gastrointestinal bleeding. Patients were randomly assigned by selection of a numbered treatment pack from a box containing eight packs that were identical apart from the pack number. Patients received either a loading dose of 1 g tranexamic acid, which was added to 100 mL infusion bag of 0·9% sodium chloride and infused by slow intravenous injection over 10 min, followed by a maintenance dose of 3 g tranexamic acid added to 1 L of any isotonic intravenous solution and infused at 125 mg/h for 24 h, or placebo (sodium chloride 0·9%). Patients, caregivers, and those assessing outcomes were masked to allocation. The primary outcome was death due to bleeding within 5 days of randomisation; analysis excluded patients who received neither dose of the allocated treatment and those for whom outcome data on death were unavailable. This trial was registered with Current Controlled Trials, ISRCTN11225767, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01658124. Findings: Between July 4, 2013, and June 21, 2019, we randomly allocated 12 009 patients to receive tranexamic acid (5994, 49·9%) or matching placebo (6015, 50·1%), of whom 11 952 (99·5%) received the first dose of the allocated treatment. Death due to bleeding within 5 days of randomisation occurred in 222 (4%) of 5956 patients in the tranexamic acid group and in 226 (4%) of 5981 patients in the placebo group (risk ratio [RR] 0·99, 95% CI 0·82–1·18). Arterial thromboembolic events (myocardial infarction or stroke) were similar in the tranexamic acid group and placebo group (42 [0·7%] of 5952 vs 46 [0·8%] of 5977; 0·92; 0·60 to 1·39). Venous thromboembolic events (deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism) were higher in tranexamic acid group than in the placebo group (48 [0·8%] of 5952 vs 26 [0·4%] of 5977; RR 1·85; 95% CI 1·15 to 2·98). Interpretation: We found that tranexamic acid did not reduce death from gastrointestinal bleeding. On the basis of our results, tranexamic acid should not be used for the treatment of gastrointestinal bleeding outside the context of a randomised trial

Experimental and Numerical Simulations of a Solar Air Heater for Maximal Value Addition to Agricultural Products

Agriculture is the backbone of Pakistan&rsquo;s economy. Currently, the agricultural sector is facing many challenges, especially post-harvest losses, which result in lower yield and profitability. These losses may be reduced by developing indigenous post-harvest processing technologies, such as drying out of agricultural products to enhancement of their sustainability and reduce transportation costs. The country has the advantage of an abundant amount of solar insulation, which can be effectively utilized to operate post-harvest machinery, particularly solar heaters and dryers. Currently, conventional solar heaters face challenges due to lower efficiencies. Therefore, in this study, a solar air heater (SAH), having a size 1220 &times; 610 &times; 65 mm, was designed and developed to be connected to a milk powder spray drying system for converting raw milk to powder. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) were used to anticipate air flow and temperature distribution across the SAH to evaluate optimal performance parameters. An air mass flow rate of 0.01 kgs&minus;1 was required, with the CFD predicting an outlet temperature of 82 &deg;C compared with the experimental observation of 73 &deg;C. The pressure drop across the SAH was recorded to be 0.0000434 bar at this flow rate, which is negligible, with the SAH operating near ambient pressure. The overall heat loss coefficient for convection was 2.27 W. m &minus;2&middot;K&minus;1. The energy losses from the SAH were 37% and the useful energy was 63% of the total energy provided to the SAH. The breakeven point of SAH at a minimum of 4 h of daily usage was 3700 h or 2.5 years. The solar air heater used as a preheater for a spray dryer can save 30 PKR&middot;kWh&minus;1of energy

Evolution of Stereotactic Ablative Radiotherapy in Lung Cancer and Birmingham’s (UK) Experience

Stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) has taken a pivotal role in early lung cancer management particularly in the medically inoperable patients. Retrospective studies have shown this to be well tolerated with comparable results to surgery and no significant increase in toxicity. Paucity of randomized evidence has dictated initiation of several trials to provide good quality evidence to steer future practice. This review summaries salient developments in lung SABR, comparisons to surgery and other platforms and our local experience at University Hospitals Birmingham, UK of lung SABR since its initiation in June 2013