Index of pretreatment intensity predicts outcome of high-dose chemotherapy and autologous progenitor cell transplantation in chemosensitive relapse of Hodgkin's disease

Purpose To identify prognostic factors in patients with chemosensitive relapsed Hodgkin's disease treated by high-dose chemotherapy with autologous progenitor cell transplantation (HDC) and to compare the duration of treatment-free remission prior to HDC with the progression-free survival after HDC in individual patients. Patients and methods Forty-five consecutive patients were analyzed retrospectively. We devised an index of pretreatment intensity (IPTI) based number of different chemo- and radio-therapy regimens given between diagnosis and HDC and on the duration of disease. Results With a median follow-up of 47 months the post-transplant event-free survival (EFS) was 44% and the overall survival. (OAS) was 62% at four years. The IPTI allowed to discriminate between a low and a high-risk group with a four-year post-transplant EFS of 66% and 11% and a OAS of 87% and 28%, respectively (P = 0.0001). Of the 39 patients with sufficient follow-up after HDC, post-transplant EFS lasted on average ≥ 18.5 months longer than the pretransplant treatment-free remission. Conclusions HDC with the CBV regimen confers significant benefit to patients with chemosensitive relapsed Hodgkin's disease. The IPTI may help to select patients with a good response to HDC and to identify poor prognosis patients suitable for experimental protocols or palliative care onl

Hamiltonian equation of motion and depinning phase transition in two-dimensional magnets

Based on the Hamiltonian equation of motion of the $\phi^4$ theory with quenched disorder, we investigate the depinning phase transition of the domain-wall motion in two-dimensional magnets. With the short-time dynamic approach, we numerically determine the transition field, and the static and dynamic critical exponents. The results show that the fundamental Hamiltonian equation of motion belongs to a universality class very different from those effective equations of motion.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, have been accept by EP

Spectral plots and the representation and interpretation of biological data

It is basic question in biology and other fields to identify the char- acteristic properties that on one hand are shared by structures from a particular realm, like gene regulation, protein-protein interaction or neu- ral networks or foodwebs, and that on the other hand distinguish them from other structures. We introduce and apply a general method, based on the spectrum of the normalized graph Laplacian, that yields repre- sentations, the spectral plots, that allow us to find and visualize such properties systematically. We present such visualizations for a wide range of biological networks and compare them with those for networks derived from theoretical schemes. The differences that we find are quite striking and suggest that the search for universal properties of biological networks should be complemented by an understanding of more specific features of biological organization principles at different scales.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

Health Law: Cases, Materials and Problems

For more than two decades, Health Law: Cases, Materials and Problems has defined the field of health law, providing a balanced overview of law as it affects patients, professionals, institutions, and entities that deliver and finance U.S. health care. The 7th Edition of Health Law comprehensively reviews the provisions of the Affordable Care Act with topics such as the oversight of quality (including the latest developments in patient safety), cost control (including consumer-directed health care), guarantees of adequate access to services, exempt-organization tax issues, transactions and relationships among health care professionals and providers, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), and malpractice litigation. The Supreme Court decision in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius is carefully edited to present all the issues in the case.Written without a policy bias to fairly reflect all viewpoints, the book considers legal and ethical issues involving death, human reproduction, medical treatment decision making, and medical research. It also explores the government\u27s efforts to control costs and expand access through Medicare and Medicaid and examines government attempts to police anticompetitive activities, fraud, and abuse. Using carefully edited primary materials and effective classroom-tested problems, the book exposes students to the core issues in health law using the most recent judicial and statutory materials.https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/law_facbookdisplay/1168/thumbnail.jp

On "full" twisted Poincare' symmetry and QFT on Moyal-Weyl spaces

We explore some general consequences of a proper, full enforcement of the "twisted Poincare'" covariance of Chaichian et al. [14], Wess [50], Koch et al. [34], Oeckl [41] upon many-particle quantum mechanics and field quantization on a Moyal-Weyl noncommutative space(time). This entails the associated braided tensor product with an involutive braiding (or $\star$-tensor product in the parlance of Aschieri et al. [3,4]) prescription for any coordinates pair of $x,y$ generating two different copies of the space(time); the associated nontrivial commutation relations between them imply that $x-y$ is central and its Poincar\'e transformation properties remain undeformed. As a consequence, in QFT (even with space-time noncommutativity) one can reproduce notions (like space-like separation, time- and normal-ordering, Wightman or Green's functions, etc), impose constraints (Wightman axioms), and construct free or interacting theories which essentially coincide with the undeformed ones, since the only observable quantities involve coordinate differences. In other words, one may thus well realize QM and QFT's where the effect of space(time) noncommutativity amounts to a practically unobservable common noncommutative translation of all reference frames.Comment: Latex file, 24 pages. Final version to appear in PR

Robust synchronization of a class of coupled delayed networks with multiple stochastic disturbances: The continuous-time case

In this paper, the robust synchronization problem is investigated for a new class of continuous-time complex networks that involve parameter uncertainties, time-varying delays, constant and delayed couplings, as well as multiple stochastic disturbances. The norm-bounded uncertainties exist in all the network parameters after decoupling, and the stochastic disturbances are assumed to be Brownian motions that act on the constant coupling term, the delayed coupling term as well as the overall network dynamics. Such multiple stochastic disturbances could reflect more realistic dynamical behaviors of the coupled complex network presented within a noisy environment. By using a combination of the Lyapunov functional method, the robust analysis tool, the stochastic analysis techniques and the properties of Kronecker product, we derive several delay-dependent sufficient conditions that ensure the coupled complex network to be globally robustly synchronized in the mean square for all admissible parameter uncertainties. The criteria obtained in this paper are in the form of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) whose solution can be easily calculated by using the standard numerical software. The main results are shown to be general enough to cover many existing ones reported in the literature. Simulation examples are presented to demonstrate the feasibility and applicability of the proposed results

Bioethics: Health Case Law and Ethics

This book provides a rich body of materials for courses in bioethics and law. Primary legal sources, including judicial opinions, statutes, regulations and institutional policies, will give students insight into the strategies used by courts, legislatures, agencies and health care providers in addressing bioethics issues. The book also draws from interdisciplinary research in medicine, ethics, and law to provide students diverse critiques of legal and public policy issues in bioethics. Materials in this text are tightly edited and designed to create high quality and focused classroom discussion, and, the text includes classroom tested problems that will engage students more deeply on each issue.Bioethics: Health Care Law and Ethics begins with accessible introductory material on how to do ethics analysis. It then provides separate chapters on Reproduction and Birth (including current issues relating to abortion and contraception and issues related to assisted reproductive technologies); Legal, Social, and Ethical Issues in Genetics; Life and Death Decision-making; Regulation of Research Involving Human Subjects; Distributive Justice and Organ Transplantation; and Current Controversies in Public Health (including issues related to immunization practice).https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/law_facbookdisplay/1009/thumbnail.jp

Teacher\u27s Manual to Accompany Health Law: Cases, Materials and Problems

Copyright page and Table of Contents only.https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/law_facbookdisplay/1014/thumbnail.jp

International Encyclopaedia of Medical Laws (Supplement 14 United States of America)

Relating to the practice of medicine in the large sense, this subset of the IEL covers national and international medical law. Each national monograph contains, besides a general introduction, a description for the country in question of: the law related to the medical profession, such as access to the medical profession, illegal practice of medicine and control over the practice of medicine; the physician-patient relationship (the rights and duties of physicians and patients) and specific issues such as abortion and euthanasia; and, the national law dealing with the physician in relation to his colleagues, to other health care providers and the health care system.https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/law_facbookdisplay/1027/thumbnail.jp