Pilot phase III immunotherapy study in early-stage breast cancer patients using oxidized mannan-MUC1 [ISRCTN71711835]

INTRODUCTION: Mucin 1 (MUC1) is a high molecular weight glycoprotein overexpressed on adenocarcinoma cells and is a target for immunotherapy protocols. To date, clinical trials against MUC1 have included advanced cancer patients. Herein, we report a trial using early stage breast cancer patients and injection of oxidized mannan-MUC1. METHOD: In a randomized, double-blind study, 31 patients with stage II breast cancer and with no evidence of disease received subcutaneous injections of either placebo or oxidized mannan-MUC1, to immunize against MUC1 and prevent cancer reoccurrence/metastases. Twenty-eight patients received the full course of injections of either oxidized mannan-MUC1 or placebo. Survival and immunological assays were assessed. RESULTS: After more than 5.5 years had elapsed since the last patient began treatment (8.5 years from the start of treatment of the first patient), the recurrence rate in patients receiving the placebo was 27% (4/15; the expected rate of recurrence in stage II breast cancer); those receiving immunotherapy had no recurrences (0/16), and this finding was statistically significant (P = 0.0292). Of the patients receiving oxidized mannan-MUC1, nine out of 13 had measurable antibodies to MUC1 and four out of 10 had MUC1-specific T cell responses; none of the placebo-treated patients exhibited an immune response to MUC1. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that, in early breast cancer, MUC1 immunotherapy is beneficial, and that a larger phase III study should be undertaken

Ohio Route Fifty joint sealant experiment

"April 2002."; Includes bibliographical references (p. 337-341).; Final report.; Prepared in cooperation with Ohio Department of Transportation and U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration under state job no. 14668(0); Harvested from the web on 1/13/06This is the third and Final Report for a research project that entailed the construction and evaluation to date of a stretch of a four-lane highway near Athens, Ohio. The main purpose of this project has been to evaluate concrete pavement performance in connection with various sealant types and joint configurations in the Wet-Freeze climatic zone. A detailed description of previous work conducted from Fall 1996 to March 2000 can be found in Hawkins (1999) and in Sander (2002).This is the third and Final Report for a research project that entailed the construction and evaluation to date of a stretch of a four-lane highway near Athens, Ohio. The main purpose of this project has been to evaluate concrete pavement performance in connection with various sealant types and joint configurations in the Wet-Freeze climatic zone. A detailed description of previous work conducted from Fall 1996 to March 2000 can be found in Hawkins (1999) and in Sander (2002)

Design And Concrete Material Requirements For Ultra-thin Whitetopping

The objectives of this research were to provide the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) with an ultrathin whitetopping (UTW) thickness design method and guidelines for UTW design, concrete material selection, and construction practices. A new mechanistic-empirical design method was proposed based on a modified version of the American Concrete Pavement Association (ACPA) design method for UTW. This proposed guide calculates the required UTW thickness based on traffic level, pavement layer geometry, climate, materials, and the pre-existing HMA condition. Laboratory testing of UTW concrete mixtures suggested many proportions and constituents can be successfully used as long as consideration is made to minimize the concrete???s drying shrinkage (e.g., limited cement content) and maintain the concrete- HMA bond. The laboratory testing coupled with previous fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC) slab tests suggested that structural fibers should be utilized in future UTW projects in order to reduce the required slab thickness without increasing the concrete strength, limit the crack width, expand the required slab size, and to extend the functional service life of fractured slabs and potentially extend the performance of non-reinforced concrete joints. A residual strength ratio was proposed to characterize the performance of any FRC mixture to be used in UTW systems. This residual strength ratio can be calculated based on measured parameters from ASTM C 1609-07 and has been incorporated into the design guide to account for the structural benefits of using FRC. Finally, recommendations for saw-cut timing and construction techniques are also presented in this report.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

Fineness of densified microsilica and dispersion in concrete mixes

"August 2006"--T.p., "June 2006"--Technical rept. documentaion page.; On cover: Volume 1 of 2, but v. 2 published as: Effect of larger sized coarse aggregates and of microsilica on environmental properties of Portland cement concrete pavements and structures, which is also v. 2 of Effect of larger sized coarse aggregates on mechancial properties of Portland cement concrete pavements and structures.; "State Job No.: 14800(0)."; "FHWA/OH-2006/17"--Technical rept. documentation page.; Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-120).; Final report.; Performed in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration, sponsored by the Ohio Dept. of Transportation, Office of Research and Development; Harvested from the web on 12/8/06Microsilica has proved to be an excellent admixture for Portland cement concrete. Addition of microsilica to a concrete mix usually results in significant improvements in strength, durability and permeability. American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) C 1240 requires wet-sieved microsilica to pass a no. 325 sieve with no more than 10% retained. Densified microsilica samples submitted to ODOT sometimes do not meet this specification as the sieving process may not be able to break the bonds formed due to the densification. The primary objective of this investigation is to determine whether densified microsilica provides adequate performance in concrete even if it fails the no. 325 sieve test. This research also addresses the following questions: (a) Does the specification requirement of having less than 10% microsilica retained on the no. 325 sieve after wet sieving ensure good concrete mix performance? (b) Do test results suggest alternative means of breaking down the densified micro silica prior to mixing.Microsilica has proved to be an excellent admixture for Portland cement concrete. Addition of microsilica to a concrete mix usually results in significant improvements in strength, durability and permeability. American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) C 1240 requires wet-sieved microsilica to pass a no. 325 sieve with no more than 10% retained. Densified microsilica samples submitted to ODOT sometimes do not meet this specification as the sieving process may not be able to break the bonds formed due to the densification. The primary objective of this investigation is to determine whether densified microsilica provides adequate performance in concrete even if it fails the no. 325 sieve test. This research also addresses the following questions: (a) Does the specification requirement of having less than 10% microsilica retained on the no. 325 sieve after wet sieving ensure good concrete mix performance? (b) Do test results suggest alternative means of breaking down the densified micro silica prior to mixing

Larger sized coarse aggregates in Portland cement concrete pavements and structures; Effect of larger sized coarse aggregates and of microsilica on environmental properties of Portland cement concrete pavements and structures

"State Job No.: 14803(0)"--Vol. 1, ""State Job Nos.: 14800(0) and 14803(0)"--Vol. 2.; "August 2006"--v. 1 t.p., "April 2006"--Vol. 1 technical rept. documentation page.; "August 2006"--v. 2 t.p., "June 2006"--Vol. 2 technical rept. documentation page.; Vol. 2 is also v. 2 of: Fineness of densified microsilica and dispersion in concrete mixes.; "FHWA/OH-2006/10A"--Vol. 1 technical rept. documentation page.; "FHWA/OH-2006/10B"--Vol. 2 technical rept. documentation page.; Includes bibliographical references.; Final report.; Performed in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration, sponsored by the Ohio Dept. of Transportation, Office of Research and Development; Harvested from the web on 12/11/06ODOT is continually searching for ways to improve the cost efficiency of Portland cement concrete without sacrificing concrete strength and stiffness. Because Portland cement is easily the most costly material used in normal concrete, limiting the amount of cement used is the quickest way to achieve cost effectiveness. In addition, limiting the cement content will also help to prevent dimensional instabilities in concrete such as shrinkage and creep. The use of larger sized coarse aggregates may be useful in limiting cement content, yet larger sized coarse aggregates may also decrease concrete strength by weakening the aggregate-cement paste bond. In many transportation structures, such as pavements, concrete strength is not critical, as dimensional stability, porosity, and durability play a more important role. It is possible, therefore, that larger sized coarse aggregates can reduce the cement content and improve these properties. Laboratory research is needed to determine if larger sized coarse aggregates can improve cement efficiency without reducing concrete strength.ODOT is continually searching for ways to improve the cost efficiency of Portland cement concrete without sacrificing concrete strength and stiffness. Because Portland cement is easily the most costly material used in normal concrete, limiting the amount of cement used is the quickest way to achieve cost effectiveness. In addition, limiting the cement content will also help to prevent dimensional instabilities in concrete such as shrinkage and creep. The use of larger sized coarse aggregates may be useful in limiting cement content, yet larger sized coarse aggregates may also decrease concrete strength by weakening the aggregate-cement paste bond. In many transportation structures, such as pavements, concrete strength is not critical, as dimensional stability, porosity, and durability play a more important role. It is possible, therefore, that larger sized coarse aggregates can reduce the cement content and improve these properties. Laboratory research is needed to determine if larger sized coarse aggregates can improve cement efficiency without reducing concrete strength

Larger sized coarse aggregates in Portland cement concrete pavements and structures

"State Job No.: 14803(0)"--Vol. 1, ""State Job Nos.: 14800(0) and 14803(0)"--Vol. 2.; "August 2006"--v. 1 t.p., "April 2006"--Vol. 1 technical rept. documentation page.; "August 2006"--v. 2 t.p., "June 2006"--Vol. 2 technical rept. documentation page.; Vol. 2 is also v. 2 of: Fineness of densified microsilica and dispersion in concrete mixes.; "FHWA/OH-2006/10A"--Vol. 1 technical rept. documentation page.; "FHWA/OH-2006/10B"--Vol. 2 technical rept. documentation page.; Includes bibliographical references.; Final report.; Performed in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration, sponsored by the Ohio Dept. of Transportation, Office of Research and Development; Harvested from the web on 12/11/06ODOT is continually searching for ways to improve the cost efficiency of Portland cement concrete without sacrificing concrete strength and stiffness. Because Portland cement is easily the most costly material used in normal concrete, limiting the amount of cement used is the quickest way to achieve cost effectiveness. In addition, limiting the cement content will also help to prevent dimensional instabilities in concrete such as shrinkage and creep. The use of larger sized coarse aggregates may be useful in limiting cement content, yet larger sized coarse aggregates may also decrease concrete strength by weakening the aggregate-cement paste bond. In many transportation structures, such as pavements, concrete strength is not critical, as dimensional stability, porosity, and durability play a more important role. It is possible, therefore, that larger sized coarse aggregates can reduce the cement content and improve these properties. Laboratory research is needed to determine if larger sized coarse aggregates can improve cement efficiency without reducing concrete strength.ODOT is continually searching for ways to improve the cost efficiency of Portland cement concrete without sacrificing concrete strength and stiffness. Because Portland cement is easily the most costly material used in normal concrete, limiting the amount of cement used is the quickest way to achieve cost effectiveness. In addition, limiting the cement content will also help to prevent dimensional instabilities in concrete such as shrinkage and creep. The use of larger sized coarse aggregates may be useful in limiting cement content, yet larger sized coarse aggregates may also decrease concrete strength by weakening the aggregate-cement paste bond. In many transportation structures, such as pavements, concrete strength is not critical, as dimensional stability, porosity, and durability play a more important role. It is possible, therefore, that larger sized coarse aggregates can reduce the cement content and improve these properties. Laboratory research is needed to determine if larger sized coarse aggregates can improve cement efficiency without reducing concrete strength

In the wild image retrieval and clustering for 3D cultural heritage landmarks reconstruction

One of the main characteristics of Internet era is the free and online availability of extremely large collections of images located on distributed and heterogeneous platforms over the web. The proliferation of millions of shared photographs spurred the emergence of new image retrieval techniques based not only on images' visual information, but on geo-location tags and camera exif data. These huge visual collections provide a unique opportunity for cultural heritage documentation and 3D reconstruction. The main difficulty, however, is that the internet image datasets are unstructured containing many outliers. For this reason, in this paper a new content-based image filtering is proposed to discard image outliers that either confuse or significantly delay the followed e-documentation tools, such as 3D reconstruction of a cultural heritage object. The presented approach exploits and fuses two unsupervised clustering techniques: DBSCAN and spectral clustering. DBSCAN algorithm is used to remove outliers from the initially retrieved dataset and spectral clustering discriminate the noise free image dataset into different categories each representing characteristic geometric views of cultural heritage objects. To discard the image outliers, we consider images as points onto a multi-dimensional manifold and the multi-dimensional scaling algorithm is adopted to relate the space of the image distances with the space of Gram matrices through which we are able to compute the image coordinates. Finally, structure from motion is utilized for 3D reconstruction of cultural heritage landmarks. Evaluation on a dataset of about 31,000 cultural heritage images being retrieved from internet collections with many outliers indicate the robustness and cost effectiveness of the proposed method towards a reliable and just-in-time 3D reconstruction than existing state-of-the-art techniques

In the wild image retrieval and clustering for 3D cultural heritage landmarks reconstruction

One of the main characteristics of Internet era is the free and online availability of extremely large collections of images located on distributed and heterogeneous platforms over the web. The proliferation of millions of shared photographs spurred the emergence of new image retrieval techniques based not only on images' visual information, but on geo-location tags and camera exif data. These huge visual collections provide a unique opportunity for cultural heritage documentation and 3D reconstruction. The main difficulty, however, is that the internet image datasets are unstructured containing many outliers. For this reason, in this paper a new content-based image filtering is proposed to discard image outliers that either confuse or significantly delay the followed e-documentation tools, such as 3D reconstruction of a cultural heritage object. The presented approach exploits and fuses two unsupervised clustering techniques: DBSCAN and spectral clustering. DBSCAN algorithm is used to remove outliers from the initially retrieved dataset and spectral clustering discriminate the noise free image dataset into different categories each representing characteristic geometric views of cultural heritage objects. To discard the image outliers, we consider images as points onto a multi-dimensional manifold and the multi-dimensional scaling algorithm is adopted to relate the space of the image distances with the space of Gram matrices through which we are able to compute the image coordinates. Finally, structure from motion is utilized for 3D reconstruction of cultural heritage landmarks. Evaluation on a dataset of about 31,000 cultural heritage images being retrieved from internet collections with many outliers indicate the robustness and cost effectiveness of the proposed method towards a reliable and just-in-time 3D reconstruction than existing state-of-the-art techniques

Modelling of Static and Moving Objects: Digitizing Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage

From the ancient library of Alexandria 2300 years ago, cultural collections have a common fundamental base; to gather, preserve and promote knowledge helping the intellectual and cognitive evolution of humanity. Nowadays the information revolution has given scientists, educators, researchers and individuals the ability not only to use a variety of digital libraries as a source of information but also to contribute to these libraries by uploading data that they create, leading to a massive production of digital data that we need to verify, manage, archive, preserve and reuse. Cultural heritage (CH) data is a category in digital libraries that needs our attention the most, because of their crucial role in helping us to interact with the past and learn, promote and preserve our cultural assets. Digital documentation of tangible and intangible heritage, data formats and standards, metadata and semantics, linked data, crowdsourcing and cloud, the use and reuse of data and copyright issues are the rising challenges that we try to address in this chapter, through literature research and best practice examples. At the end of this analysis, this chapter tries to predict the future of Digital Heritage Libraries, where 3D digital assets will be part of augmented, virtual and mixed reality experiences

Best management practices of archaeological study methods

"December 2002."; Includes bibliographical references (p. 146).; Final report.; Performed by University of Cincinnati, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering; prepared in cooperation with Ohio Department of Transportation and U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration under state job no.; Harvested from the web on 6/16/06For several decades, the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) allocated substantial funding to ascertain the location, extent, and significance of archaeological phenomena that would be affected by ground-disturbing undertakings. As archaeological survey data accumulated from such Phase I studies, however, questions arose regarding their usefulness for project-planning processes, particularly in settings involving transportation projects in their preliminary phases of development. This Final Report presents an analysis of information about Phase I pedestrian surveys that were conducted under the auspices of ODOT, either by ODOT personnel or contractors, between 1974-2001.For several decades, the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) allocated substantial funding to ascertain the location, extent, and significance of archaeological phenomena that would be affected by ground-disturbing undertakings. As archaeological survey data accumulated from such Phase I studies, however, questions arose regarding their usefulness for project-planning processes, particularly in settings involving transportation projects in their preliminary phases of development. This Final Report presents an analysis of information about Phase I pedestrian surveys that were conducted under the auspices of ODOT, either by ODOT personnel or contractors, between 1974-2001