5,802 research outputs found
Patterns of Influenza Vaccination Coverage in the United States from 2009 to 2015
Background: Globally, influenza is a major cause of morbidity,
hospitalization and mortality. Influenza vaccination has shown substantial
protective effectiveness in the United States. We investigated state-level
patterns of coverage rates of seasonal and pandemic influenza vaccination,
among the overall population in the U.S. and specifically among children and
the elderly, from 2009/10 to 2014/15, and associations with ecological factors.
Methods and Findings: We obtained state-level influenza vaccination coverage
rates from national surveys, and state-level socio-demographic and health data
from a variety of sources. We employed a retrospective ecological study design,
and used mixed-model regression to determine the levels of ecological
association of the state-level vaccinations rates with these factors, both with
and without region as a factor for the three populations. We found that
health-care access is positively and significantly associated with mean
influenza vaccination coverage rates across all populations and models. We also
found that prevalence of asthma in adults are negatively and significantly
associated with mean influenza vaccination coverage rates in the elderly
populations. Conclusions: Health-care access has a robust, positive association
with state-level vaccination rates across different populations. This
highlights a potential population-level advantage of expanding health-care
access.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure
Exceptional and Anisotropic Transport Properties of Photocarriers in Black Phosphorus
We show that black phosphorus has room-temperature charge mobilities on the
order of 10 cmVs, which are about one order of magnitude
larger than silicon. We also demonstrate strong anisotropic transport in black
phosphorus, where the mobilities along the armchair direction are about one
order of magnitude larger than zigzag direction. A photocarrier lifetime as
long as 100 ps is also determined. These results illustrate that black
phosphorus is a promising candidate for future electronic and optoelectronic
applications.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Proteomics in biomarker discovery and drug development
Proteomics is a research field aiming to characterize molecular and cellular dynamics in protein expression and function on a global level. The introduction of proteomics has been greatly broadening our view and accelerating our path in various medical researches. The most significant advantage of proteomics is its ability to examine a whole proteome or sub-proteome in a single experiment so that the protein alterations corresponding to a pathological or biochemical condition at a given time can be considered in an integrated way. Proteomic technology has been extensively used to tackle a wide variety of medical subjects including biomarker discovery and drug development. By complement with other new technique advances in genomics and bioinformatics, proteomics has a great potential to make considerable contribution to biomarker identification and to revolutionize drug development process. This article provides a brief overview of the proteomic technologies and their application in biomarker discovery and drug development.postprin
Proteomics of buccal squamous cell carcinoma: The involvement of multiple pathways in tumorigenesis
Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the buccal mucosa is an aggressive oral cancer. It mainly occurs in Central and Southeast Asia, and is closely related to the practice of tobacco smoking and betel squid chewing. The high recurrence and low survival rates of buccal SCC require our continued efforts to understand the pathogenesis of the disease for designing better therapeutic strategies. We used proteomic technology to analyze buccal SCC tissues aiming at identifying tumor-associated proteins for the utilization as biomarkers or molecular targets. With the exception of alpha B-crystallin being substantially reduced, a number of proteins were found to be significantly over-expressed in cancer tissues. These increased proteins included glycolytic enzymes, heat-shock proteins, tumor antigens, cytoskeleton proteins, enzymes involved in detoxification and anti-oxidation systems, and proteins involved in mitochondrial and intracellular signaling pathways. These extensive protein variations indicate that multiple cellular pathways were involved in the process of tumorigenesis, and suggest that multiple protein molecules should be simultaneously targeted as an effective strategy to counter the disease. At least, SCC antigen, G protein, glutathione S-transferase, manganese superoxide dismutase, annexins, voltage-dependent anion channel, cyclophilin A, stratifin and galectin 7 are candidates for targeted proteins. The present findings also demonstrated that rich protein information can be produced by means of proteomic analysis for a better understanding of the oncogenesis and pathogenesis in a global way, which in turn is a basis for the rational designs of diagnostic and therapeutic methods.postprin
Proteomic characterization of the cytotoxic mechanism of gold (III) porphyrin 1a, a potential anticancer drug
There has been increasing interest in the potential applications of gold (III) complexes as anticancer drugs with higher cytotoxicity and fewer side effects than existing metal anticancer drugs. Our previous findings demonstrated that gold (III) porphyrin la preferentially induced apoptosis in a cancer cell line (SUNE1). In this study, we identified differentially expressed proteins related to the drug's cytotoxic action by comparing the protein alterations induced by gold (III) porphyrin la and cisplatin treatments. Several clusters of altered proteins were identified, including cellular structure and stress-related chaperone proteins, proteins involved in reactive oxygen species and enzyme proteins, translation factors, proteins that mediate cell proliferation or differentiation, and proteins participating in the internal degradation systems. Our results indicated that multiple factors leading to apoptosis were involved in drug cytotoxicity in SUNE1 cells. The balance between pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic signals determined the final fate of cancer cells. © 2006 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.postprin
Disorder enabled band structure engineering of a topological insulator surface
Three dimensional topological insulators are bulk insulators with
topological electronic order that gives rise to conducting
light-like surface states. These surface electrons are exceptionally resistant
to localization by non-magnetic disorder, and have been adopted as the basis
for a wide range of proposals to achieve new quasiparticle species and device
functionality. Recent studies have yielded a surprise by showing that in spite
of resisting localization, topological insulator surface electrons can be
reshaped by defects into distinctive resonance states. Here we use numerical
simulations and scanning tunneling microscopy data to show that these resonance
states have significance well beyond the localized regime usually associated
with impurity bands. At native densities in the model BiX (X=Bi, Te)
compounds, defect resonance states are predicted to generate a new quantum
basis for an emergent electron gas that supports diffusive electrical
transport
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