Second-line treatment in advanced gastric cancer : Data from the Spanish AGAMENON registry

Second-line treatments boost overall survival in advanced gastric cancer (AGC). However, there is a paucity of information as to patterns of use and the results achieved in actual clinical practice. The study population comprised patients with AGC in the AGAMENON registry who had received second-line. The objective was to describe the pattern of second-line therapies administered, progression-free survival following second-line (PFS-2), and post-progression survival since first-line (PPS). 2311 cases with 2066 progression events since first-line (89.3%) were recorded; 245 (10.6%) patients died during first-line treatment and 1326/2066 (64.1%) received a second-line. Median PFS-2 and PPS were 3.1 (95% CI, 2.9-3.3) and 5.8 months (5.5-6.3), respectively. The most widely used strategies were monoCT (56.9%), polyCT (15.0%), ramucirumab+CT (12.6%), platinum-reintroduction (8.3%), trastuzumab+CT (6.1%), and ramucirumab (1.1%). PFS-2/PPS medians gradually increased in monoCT, 2.6/5.1 months; polyCT 3.4/6.3 months; ramucirumab+CT, 4.1/6.5 months; platinum-reintroduction, 4.2/6.7 months, and for the HER2+ subgroup in particular, trastuzumab+CT, 5.2/11.7 months. Correlation between PFS since first-line and OS was moderate in the series as a whole (Kendall's τ = 0.613), lower in those subjects who received second-line (Kendall's τ = 0.539), especially with ramucirumab+CT (Kendall's τ = 0.413). This analysis reveals the diversity in second-line treatment for AGC, highlighting the effectiveness of paclitaxel-ramucirumab and, for a selected subgroup of patients, platinum reintroduction; both strategies endorsed by recent clinical guidelines

Highly-parallelized simulation of a pixelated LArTPC on a GPU

The rapid development of general-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) is allowing the implementation of highly-parallelized Monte Carlo simulation chains for particle physics experiments. This technique is particularly suitable for the simulation of a pixelated charge readout for time projection chambers, given the large number of channels that this technology employs. Here we present the first implementation of a full microphysical simulator of a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) equipped with light readout and pixelated charge readout, developed for the DUNE Near Detector. The software is implemented with an end-to-end set of GPU-optimized algorithms. The algorithms have been written in Python and translated into CUDA kernels using Numba, a just-in-time compiler for a subset of Python and NumPy instructions. The GPU implementation achieves a speed up of four orders of magnitude compared with the equivalent CPU version. The simulation of the current induced on 10^3 pixels takes around 1 ms on the GPU, compared with approximately 10 s on the CPU. The results of the simulation are compared against data from a pixel-readout LArTPC prototype

Estimation of the runoff of the hills of the city of Portoviejo-Ecuador to assess the degree of flooding in the region

Portoviejo, capital of the province of Manabi is one of the oldest cities on the Ecuadorian coast. It is characterized by a stable temperate climate with an average annual temperature of around 24°C, with annual rainfall patterns of up to 500 mm. It is a city located in a valley, with average height of 40 m. It is surrounded by hills that have heights that reach up to 280 meters above sea level, which potentiates that the continuous runoffs that occur in the rainy season causes problems related to landslides and floods in the lower part. In the present work an estimation of the runoff coming from the hills located in the northeastern areas of the city where the parishes and citadels Progreso, Cevallos, San Pablo and Briones are located. The capacity of conduction of existing rainwater collectors in comparison with the runoff values obtained is also analyzed. The results obtained constitute an approximation of runoff values for return periods of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 years, which are an input for the repowering of existing works and for the design of infrastructure works complementary to the control of floods and landslides in the area. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd

PRISM (Polarized Radiation Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission): an extended white paper

Contains fulltext : 126057.pdf (preprint version ) (Open Access