Oxycodone for Cancer Pain in Adult Patients

Clinical Question: Is oxycodone associated with greater efficacy and fewer adverse events compared with alternative analgesics for cancer pain? Bottom Line: Oxycodone was not associated with superior cancer pain relief or fewer adverse effects compared with other strong opioids, such as morphine or oxymorphone. However, the quality of the evidence was low. Many patients with cancer experience moderate or severe pain requiring treatment with strong opioids. However, not all opioids are well tolerated by all patients. This JAMA Clinical Evidence Synopsis summarizes a published Cochrane review1 that examined the association of oxycodone (any formulation or route of administration) compared with placebo or an active drug (including alternative forms of oxycodone) for treating cancer pain in adults

Comparative analysis of the surface exposed proteome of two canine osteosarcoma cell lines and normal canine osteoblasts

BACKGROUND: Osteosarcoma (OSA) is the most common primary bone tumor of dogs and carries a poor prognosis despite aggressive treatment. An improved understanding of the biology of OSA is critically needed to allow for development of novel diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic tools. The surface-exposed proteome (SEP) of a cancerous cell includes a multifarious array of proteins critical to cellular processes such as proliferation, migration, adhesion, and inter-cellular communication. The specific aim of this study was to define a SEP profile of two validated canine OSA cell lines and a normal canine osteoblast cell line utilizing a biotinylation/streptavidin system to selectively label, purify, and identify surface-exposed proteins by mass spectrometry (MS) analysis. Additionally, we sought to validate a subset of our MS-based observations via quantitative real-time PCR, Western blot and semi-quantitative immunocytochemistry. Our hypothesis was that MS would detect differences in the SEP composition between the OSA and the normal osteoblast cells. RESULTS: Shotgun MS identified 133 putative surface proteins when output from all samples were combined, with good consistency between biological replicates. Eleven of the MS-detected proteins underwent analysis of gene expression by PCR, all of which were actively transcribed, but varied in expression level. Western blot of whole cell lysates from all three cell lines was effective for Thrombospondin-1, CYR61 and CD44, and indicated that all three proteins were present in each cell line. Semi-quantitative immunofluorescence indicated that CD44 was expressed at much higher levels on the surface of the OSA than the normal osteoblast cell lines. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the present study identified numerous differences, and similarities, in the SEP of canine OSA cell lines and normal canine osteoblasts. The PCR, Western blot, and immunocytochemistry results, for the subset of proteins evaluated, were generally supportive of the mass spectrometry data. These methods may be applied to other cell lines, or other biological materials, to highlight unique and previously unrecognized differences between samples. While this study yielded data that may prove useful for OSA researchers and clinicians, further refinements of the described techniques are expected to yield greater accuracy and produce a more thorough SEP analysis

Two Photon Radiation in W and Z Boson Production at the Tevatron Collider

We present a calculation of two photon radiation in W and Z boson production in hadronic collisions, based on the complete matrix elements for the processes q\bar q'\to\ell^\pm\nu\gamma\gamma and q\bar q\to\ell^+\ell^-\gamma\gamma, including finite charged lepton masses. In order to achieve stable numerical results over the full phase space, multiconfiguration Monte Carlo techniques are used to map the peaks in the differential cross section. Numerical results are presented for the Fermilab Tevatron.Comment: Revtex, 28 pages, 3 figure

Associated Higgs production with top quarks at the Large Hadron Collider: NLO QCD corrections

We present in detail the calculation of the O(alpha_s^3) inclusive total cross section for the process pp -> t-tbar-h, in the Standard Model, at the CERN Large Hadron Collider with center-of-mass energy sqrt(s_H)=14 TeV. The calculation is based on the complete set of virtual and real O(alpha_s) corrections to the parton level processes q-qbar -> t-tbar-h and gg -> t-tbar-h, as well as the tree level processes (q,qbar)g -> t-tbar-h-(q,qbar). The virtual corrections involve the computation of pentagon diagrams with several internal and external massive particles, first encountered in this process. The real corrections are computed using both the single and the two cutoff phase space slicing method. The next-to-leading order QCD corrections significantly reduce the renormalization and factorization scale dependence of the Born cross section and moderately increase the Born cross section for values of the renormalization and factorization scales above m_t.Comment: 70 pages, 12 figures, RevTeX4: one word changed in the abstract, one sentence reworded in the introduction. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Measurement of Hadron and Lepton-Pair Production at 130GeV < \sqrt{s} < 189 GeV at LEP

We report on measurements of e+e- annihilation into hadrons and lepton pairs. The data have been collected with the L3 detector at LEP at centre-of-mass energies between 130 and 189 GeV. Using a total integrated luminosity of 243.7 pb^-1, 25864 hadronic and 8573 lepton-pair events are selected for the measurement of cross sections and leptonic forward-backward asymmetries. The results are in good agreement with Standard Model predictions

NLO QCD corrections to top anti-top bottom anti-bottom production at the LHC: 2. full hadronic results

We present predictions for top anti-top bottom anti-bottom production at the LHC in next-to-leading order QCD. The precise description of this background process is a prerequisite to observe associated top anti-top Higgs production in the Higgs -> bottom anti-bottom decay channel and to directly measure the top-quark Yukawa coupling at the LHC. The leading-order cross section is extremely sensitive to scale variations. We observe that the traditional scale choice adopted in ATLAS simulations underestimates the top anti-top bottom anti-bottom background by a factor two and introduce a new dynamical scale that stabilizes the perturbative predictions. We study various kinematic distributions and observe that the corrections have little impact on their shapes if standard cuts are applied. In the regime of highly boosted Higgs bosons, which offers better perspectives to observe the top anti-top Higgs signal, we find significant distortions of the kinematic distributions. The one-loop amplitudes are computed using process-independent algebraic manipulations of Feynman diagrams and numerical tensor reduction. We find that this approach provides very high numerical stability and CPU efficiency.Comment: 42 pages, LaTeX, 44 postscript figure

First measurement of the BSB_S meson mass

If simplified, every information retrieval problem can be solved when the information need implied by its expression has been identified. We are interested in the criteria used in realising a good information retrieval problem expression. We have listed these criteria through some principles and maxims which first characterized the communication between two persons are applied. We choose to use the gricean maxims because they are the most favoured for this type of situation. Secondly, we have tried to identify some others principles that can be used to realise a good information retrieval problem expression. The principles by Grice can not resolve all forms of error associated with this particular form of communication. In our work, we defined three other principles namely: adhesion principle, reformulation principle, memorization principle. We give some examples of situations where the principles we have formulated are not applicable and the consequences. We present the possible applications of our new model: MIRABEL, which can help in the description of information retrieval problem from. It also compels its user to use essential good expression principle implicitly