Postmastectomy chest wall radiation of left-sided carcinoma breast - a dosimetric comparison between electrons and photons

Background: For carcinoma breast patients requiring post mastectomy radiation therapy (PMRT), tangential photon beam (PB) is commonly used technique. The physical nature of electrons results in sharp dose fall off and reduces organs at risk (OAR) doses. Aim of the present study is to compare the coverage of chest wall and doses received by OARs – heart and lung between electron and photon beam plans in left sided breast cancer patients requiring PMRT.Methods: This study was done in 22 left sided carcinoma breast patients treated at GSL Medical College between May to December 2017. Both tangential PB plans and electron beam (EB) plans were generated on simulation computed tomography (CT) for each patient and both plans were compared. A dose of 50 Gy was prescribed to planning target volume (PTV) in 25 fractions.Results: The PB plans provided superior homogeneity index (HI) and conformity index CI compared to the EB plans (p<0.05). There was significant difference in favour of electron-beam plans for mean heart dose (p=0.0312), V25 Gy (p=0.029), V45 Gy (p=0.001) and V20 Gy of left lung (p=0.042). There was no significant difference in mean lung dose.Conclusions: Dosimetric data from this study suggests that PMRT with the electron beam can reduce doses to the heart and left lung with acceptable target coverage. It needs further research in the clinical setting

Catalytic Social Entrepreneurship to Combat Desperate Poverty: A Systems Approach

Any credible agenda that seeks to eradicate global poverty must seek to correct the structural injustices and inequities that cause and perpetuate desperate endemic poverty. Such an agenda must aim not merely to aid the poor with grants, welfare and subsidies, but it must primarily seek to enhance the capabilities, skills, access and opportunities of the marginalized to participate on more equitable terms, in the dynamic process of overall economic growth. We apply a systems approach to poverty, the latter itself being a pernicious system. Eradication of global desperate poverty and its unjust structural causes can be done through two concurrent systems-thinking based strategies: (a) micro catalytic social entrepreneurship that leads to catalytic innovations that alleviate poverty, and (b) macro social catalytic political entrepreneurship that radically innovates legislation or designs macro-policy intervention systems that can effectively dismantle existing unjust structures of social injustice and inequities – the causes that perpetuate endemic global poverty. Using the theories of catalytic innovations and the bottom of the pyramid, we focus on solution (a) as being feasible, viable and doable and in the long run having the potential for eradicating global desperate poverty. We also provide two case studies where solution (b) was effectively implemented. The main proposition of the paper is that the use of both micro- and macro- catalyst can help alleviate poverty in the world.   Keywords: Micro catalyst, macro catalyst, global poverty, system approach, catalytic innovation, macro-policy intervention

Phi-Meson Production at RHIC, Strong Color Fields and Intrinsic Transverse Momenta

We investigate the effects of strong color fields and of the associated enhanced intrinsic transverse momenta on the phi-meson production in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC. The observed consequences include a change of the spectral slopes, varying particle ratios, and also modified mean transverse momenta. In particular, the composition of the production processes of phi mesons, that is, direct production vs. coalescence-like production, depends strongly on the strength of the color fields and intrinsic transverse momenta and thus represents a sensitive probe for their measurement.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Nanomedicine: towards development of patient-friendly drug-delivery systems for oncological applications

The focus on nanotechnology in cancer treatment and diagnosis has intensified due to the serious side effects caused by anticancer agents as a result of their cytotoxic actions on normal cells. This nonspecific action of chemotherapy has awakened a need for formulations capable of definitive targeting with enhanced tumor-killing. Nanooncology, the application of nanobiotechnology to the management of cancer, is currently the most important area of nanomedicine. Currently several nanomaterial-based drug-delivery systems are in vogue and several others are in various stages of development. Tumor-targeted drug-delivery systems are envisioned as magic bullets for cancer therapy and several groups are working globally for development of robust systems

On a (\beta,q)-generalized Fisher information and inequalities involving q-Gaussian distributions

In the present paper, we would like to draw attention to a possible generalized Fisher information that fits well in the formalism of nonextensive thermostatistics. This generalized Fisher information is defined for densities on $\mathbb{R}^{n}.$ Just as the maximum R\'enyi or Tsallis entropy subject to an elliptic moment constraint is a generalized q-Gaussian, we show that the minimization of the generalized Fisher information also leads a generalized q-Gaussian. This yields a generalized Cram\'er-Rao inequality. In addition, we show that the generalized Fisher information naturally pops up in a simple inequality that links the generalized entropies, the generalized Fisher information and an elliptic moment. Finally, we give an extended Stam inequality. In this series of results, the extremal functions are the generalized q-Gaussians. Thus, these results complement the classical characterization of the generalized q-Gaussian and introduce a generalized Fisher information as a new information measure in nonextensive thermostatistics.Comment: v2: corrected equation (A5

VIDÉO-MICROSCOPIE SANS LENTILLE POUR LA BIOLOGIE CELLULAIRE 2D ET 3D

International audienceL'étude de l'évolution et de l'organisation de populations de cellules cultivées in vitro intéresse les biologistes depuis plusieurs dizaines d'années. À ces fins, d'importants progrès ont été réalisés dans les méthodes d'imagerie à l'échelle microscopique. Cependant, certaines informations demeurent inaccessibles, notamment à l'échelle mésoscopique, en raison du champ de vue réduit, ainsi que la complexité et le coût pour réaliser des acquisitions hors incubateur en temps réel sur de longues périodes. En réponse à ces limitations, nous avons développé la vidéo-microscopie sans lentille, en plaçant directement les cellules vivantes sur un capteur numérique en regard d'une illumination cohérente selon le principe de l'holographie en ligne. Cette technique permet l'observation d'une culture cellulaire sur un large champ de vue (24 mm² soit plusieurs dizaines de milliers de cellules), et ce à l'intérieur même de l'incubateur, autorisant de surcroît des acquisitions dynamiques couvrant des périodes allant de quelques jours à plusieurs semaines. À partir des images holographiques brutes acquises, nous pouvons remonter aux images refocalisées par reconstruction numérique jusqu'à une résolution de 2µm. Le traitement de ces images donne accès à des niveaux d'information quantifiables allant de la cellule unique à l'organisation inter-individus de la population. Avec des premières études sur des cultures standard de cellules sur substrat 2D, nous sommes aujourd'hui en mesure, avec notre dispositif et la force de l'imagerie holographique, d'explorer et d'étudier la vie cellulaire en 3D, nous rapprochant un peu plus de la réalité physiologique des phénomènes biologiques

A prospective study of consecutive emergency medical admissions to compare a novel automated computer-aided mortality risk score and clinical judgement of patient mortality risk

YesObjectives: To compare the performance of a validated automatic computer-aided risk of mortality (CARM) score versus medical judgement in predicting the risk of in-hospital mortality for patients following emergency medical admission. Design: A prospective study. Setting: Consecutive emergency medical admissions in York hospital. Participants: Elderly medical admissions in one ward were assigned a risk of death at the first post-take ward round by consultant staff over a 2-week period. The consultant medical staff used the same variables to assign a risk of death to the patient as the CARM (age, sex, National Early Warning Score and blood test results) but also had access to the clinical history, examination findings and any immediately available investigations such as ECGs. The performance of the CARM versus consultant medical judgement was compared using the c-statistic and the positive predictive value (PPV). Results: The in-hospital mortality was 31.8% (130/409). For patients with complete blood test results, the c-statistic for CARM was 0.75 (95% CI: 0.69 to 0.81) versus 0.72 (95% CI: 0.66 to 0.78) for medical judgements (p=0.28). For patients with at least one missing blood test result, the c-statistics were similar (medical judgements 0.70 (95% CI: 0.60 to 0.81) vs CARM 0.70 (95% CI: 0.59 to 0.80)). At a 10% mortality risk, the PPV for CARM was higher than medical judgements in patients with complete blood test results, 62.0% (95% CI: 51.2 to 71.9) versus 49.2% (95% CI: 39.8 to 58.5) but not when blood test results were missing, 50.0% (95% CI: 24.7 to 75.3) versus 53.3% (95% CI: 34.3 to 71.7). Conclusions: CARM is comparable with medical judgements in discriminating in-hospital mortality following emergency admission to an elderly care ward. CARM may have a promising role in supporting medical judgements in determining the patient's risk of death in hospital. Further evaluation of CARM in routine practice is required.Supported by the Health Foundation, National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Yorkshire and Humberside Patient Safety Translational Research Centre (NIHR YHPSTRC)