Prognostic significance of primary-tumor extension, stage and grade of nuclear differentiation in patients with renal cell carcinoma

Surgery remains the preferred therapy for renal cell carcinoma. The various adjunctive or complementary therapies currently yield disappointing results. Identifying reliable prognostic factors could help in selecting patients most likely to benefit from postoperative adjuvant therapies. We reviewed the surgical records of 78 patients who had undergone radical nephrectomy with lymphadenectomy for renal cell carcinoma, matched for type of operation and histology. According to staging (TNM), 5.1% of the patients were classified as stage I, 51.3% as stage II, 29.5% as stage III and 14.5% as stage IV. Of the 78 patients 40 were T2N0 and 21 T3aN0. Tumor grading showed that 39.7% of the patients had well-differentiated tumors(G1), 41.1% moderately-differentiated (G2), and 19.2% poorly-differentiated tumors (G3). Overall actuarial survival at 5 and 10 years was 100% for stage 1; 91.3% at 5 years and 83.1% at 10 years for stage II; 45.5% and 34.1% for stage III; and 29.1% and nil for stage IV (stage II vs stage III p = 0.0001). Patients with tumors confined to the kidney (pT2N0) had better 5- and 10-year survival rates than patients with tumors infiltrating the perirenal fat (pT3aN0) (p = 0.000006). Survival differed according to nuclear grading (G1 vs G3 ; p = 0.000005; G2 vs G3; p = 0.0009). In conclusion our review identified tumor stage, primary-tumor extension, and the grade of nuclear differentiation as reliable prognostic factors in patients with renal cell carcinomas

Bluetooth Mesh Technology for the Joint Monitoring of Indoor Environments and Mobile Device Localization: A Performance Study

Bluetooth Mesh is a recent SIG standard enabling the deployment of multi-hop Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) over Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication links. The standard introduces many novel and interesting features in the Internet of Things (IoT) domain, such as the seamless integration among sensors and mobile and wearable devices, and the support for a wide range of different IoT application profiles. At the same time, fine-grained assessments of the performance are still needed to understand the potential of the technology. In this paper, we investigate the usage of Bluetooth Mesh solutions for the joint monitoring of indoor spaces and humans. Through the deployment of a test-bed, we evaluate the performance of Bluetooth Mesh WSNs under varying traffic loads and network sizes. In addition, by exploiting the short-range, multi-hop communications, we propose a procedure for the indoor localization of mobile devices and evaluate its accuracy. The results demonstrate that the technology supports reasonable delivery ratio under high traffic loads, however the network and localization performance sharply decreases when increasing the number of hops between the source and destination nodes

Pulsed Current Effect on the Hard Anodizing of an AlSi10Mg Aluminum Alloy Obtained via Additive Manufacturing

The hard anodizing treatments of cast Al-Si alloys are notoriously difficult. Indeed, their microstructural features hinder the growth of a uniform, compact, and defect-free anodic oxide. In this paper, AlSi10Mg samples, produced via Gravity Casting (GC) and Additive Manufacturing, i.e., Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF), were hard anodized in a sulfuric acid bath, in order to verify how the particular microstructure obtained via L-PBF affects the thickness, hardness, compactness, and defectiveness of the anodic oxide. Moreover, for the first time, Pulsed Direct Current (PDC) procedures were used to perform the hard anodizing treatments on additively manufactured AlSi10Mg alloy. Several combinations of temperature and electrical parameters, i.e., current density, frequency, and Duty Cycle, were tested. The anodized samples were characterized through optical microscopy analysis, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) analysis, and accelerated corrosion tests, i.e., Potentiodynamic Polarization (POL) and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) measurements. The PDC procedures allowed improvement of the compromise between evenness, compactness, and defectiveness. Among the attempted PDC procedures, a specific combination of electrical parameters and temperature allowed the best results to be obtained, i.e., the highest hardness and the lowest volumetric expansion values without compromising the oxide quality rating and the corrosion resistance behavior. However, none of the attempted PCD strategies allowed the hardness values obtained on samples produced via GC to be reached

LC-ESI-MS/MS identification of oleuropein as marker of Olea europaea L., leaves used as a bulking agent in ground oregano and sage

The identification of the secoiridoid oleuropein by LC-ESI-MS/MS (negative) is demonstrated for the quality control directed toward confirmation of the presence of Olea europaea L. leaves used as bulking agent in ground oregano and sage. The described operating conditions are useful for the simple qualitative identification of this marker of O. europaea L. leaves. No tolerance limits are defined for the presence of the above mentioned extraneous vegetable material in ground oregano and sage, the herbs which have been identified in various cases as adulterated with O. europaea L. leaves. Despite the importance of quality control of aromatic herbs, only a limited number of papers have been published on the identification of phenolic compounds as markers of adulteration. The proposed method is simple and suitable for rapid routine analysis

Identification of perflurooctanoic acid release from commercial coated cooking pans by liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry

Salts of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) can be used in the manufacture of fluoropolymers employed for coating pans; moreover, PFOA can be formed as a byproduct of thermolysis of the aforesaid fluoropolymers. This study was carried out to evaluate PFOA migration into food cooked in fluoropolymer-coated pans. The pans were purchased from a local retailer and subjected to cooking conditions. Used oil was extracted with a methanol/water solution and analyzed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS). We found that PFOA can enter cooked food during a container's first phases of use, not only in containers already abused by kitchen tools or otherwise scratched

Determination of furan by headspace solid-phase microextraction\u2013 gas chromatography\u2013mass spectrometry in balsamic vinegars of Modena (Italy)

An isotope dilution method for quantification of furan by internal standardization was adopted, using head space solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) technique, to evaluate various samples of \u2018\u2018aceto balsamico di Modena\u2019\u2019 (ABM), in order to verify if this seasoning may contribute to the intake of furans in the human diet. Matrix-matched calibration curves were adopted, and furan levels in the majority of the samples purchased on the Italian market ranged between 4 and 26 ng/g. Considering that furan levels in ABM derive from the heat-concentrated must of grapes and from the additive caramel E 150d often used in the production technology, the level of furan in the concentratedmust appears, in some samples, not to be the only important factor affecting the risk assessment of furan linked to the use of ABM

Headspace-SPME Analysis of Volatiles from Quince Whole Fruits

Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) combined with GC and GC/MS was used for analysis of the volatile compounds of quince (Cydonia oblonga Mill.). The whole fruits, representing two different ripening stages, were stored and analyzed one day after collection. More than 40 volatile compounds were identified. The relative percentage of acetates, with exception of (Z)-3-hexenyl acetate, increased in a parallel way with ripeness. Of the esters of higher organic acids, ethyl hexanoate and ethyl octanoate were present in the greatest quantity. Ethyl octanoate, which was present in the highest quantity, showed the highest increase with ripeness (from 6\u20138% to 15\u201318%), while ethyl hexanoate increased 3% to >4%. In contrast, the relative percentages of two sesquiterpenes, a-bergamotene and a-farnesene, clearly decreased with ripeness

Preliminary data on volatile composition of olive fruits of cv. "Simona" and possible relationship to resistance to fly oviposition

By characterizing the volatile compounds of the olive cultivar \u201cSimona\u201d from southern Italy (Apulia region), we identified a way to analyze characteristics possibly linked to this olive\u2019s well-known resistance to fly oviposition. The pool of volatile compounds in the unripe and ripe fruits was identified, and even if the relative amounts of these compounds tended to vary with ripening, the fly repellent action appeared to be related to the sesquiterpenes such as alpha-copaene, cycloisosativene, alpha-muurolene, beta-cubebene and hydrocarbons such as (E)-2-dodecene, undecane, tridecane, and 3-methyl undecane. In agreement with the concept that the collective pool of volatile substances can enhance olfactory pleasure/repulsion more than would the effects of a single compound, the pool of volatile compounds identified in this paper may be among the possible characteristic mixtures with repellent action against Bactrocera oleae. The selection of volatile compounds made by the cuticle and responsible of the headspace quality surrounding the whole olive fruit is also demonstrated to be markedly different from the headspace volatile compounds produced by the extracted oil