Mutations and amplification of oncogenes in endometrial cancer

Alterations in oncogenes are critical steps in the development of endometrial cancer. To investigate the potential clinical relevance of the amplification of the oncogenes c-erbB2, c-myc, and int-2 and the mutation of K-ras in endometrial cancer, 112 tumors were examined using PCR-based fluorescent DNA technology. Amplification of the three oncogenes and the mutation of K-ras were correlated with age, tumor size, lymph node status, metastases, stage, histological types, grade, steroid hormone receptor expression (estrogen receptor, ER; progesterone receptor, PgR), family history of cancer, previous history of cancer or precursor lesions, and previous history of hormone replacement therapy. Oncogene amplification of c-erbB2 was detected in 18.9%, of c-myc in 2.7% and of int-2 in 4.2%, and K-ras mutation in 11.6%. No significant correlations could be detected between amplification of c-erbB2 and any of the other parameters. Mutation of K-ras is associated with positive expression of PgR. This might indicate that mutation and activation of K-ras are involved in the development of hormonal independence in endometrial cancer

Lecture Notes on Computerized Tomography

These lecture notes give an introduction to the mathematics of computer(ized) tomography (CT). Treated are the imaging principle of X-ray tomography, the Radon transform as mathematical model for the measurement process and its properties, the ill-posedness of the underlying mathematical reconstruction problem and classical reconstruction techniques. The required background from Fourier analysis is also briefly summarized.Comment: Lecture note

The fossil phase in the life of a galaxy group

We investigate the origin and evolution of fossil groups in a concordance ΛCDM cosmological simulation. We consider haloes with masses between 1 × 1013 and 5 × 1013h−1M⊙, and study the physical mechanisms that lead to the formation of the large gap in magnitude between the brightest and the second most bright group member, which is typical for these fossil systems. Fossil groups are found to have high dark matter concentrations, which we can relate to their early formation time. The large magnitude gaps arise after the groups have built up half of their final mass, due to merging of massive group members. We show that the existence of fossil systems is primarily driven by the relatively early infall of massive satellites, and that we do not find a strong environmental dependence for these systems. In addition, we find tentative evidence for fossil group satellites falling in on orbits with typically lower angular momentum, which might lead to a more efficient merger on to the host. We find a population of groups at higher redshifts that go through a ‘fossil phase': a stage where they show a large magnitude gap, which is terminated by renewed infall from their environmen

The Fossil Phase in the Life of a Galaxy Group

We investigate the origin and evolution of fossil groups in a concordance LCDM cosmological simulation. We consider haloes with masses between (1-5)\times10^{13} \hMsun and study the physical mechanisms that lead to the formation of the large gap in magnitude between the brightest and the second most bright group member, which is typical for these fossil systems. Fossil groups are found to have high dark matter concentrations, which we can relate to their early formation time. The large magnitude-gaps arise after the groups have build up half of their final mass, due to merging of massive group members. We show that the existence of fossil systems is primarily driven by the relatively early infall of massive satellites, and that we do not find a strong environmental dependence for these systems. In addition, we find tentative evidence for fossil group satellites falling in on orbits with typically lower angular momentum, which might lead to a more efficient merger onto the host. We find a population of groups at higher redshifts that go through a ``fossil phase'': a stage where they show a large magnitude-gap, which is terminated by renewed infall from their environment.Comment: 9 pages and 8 figures, submitted to MNRA

Follow-up for breast cancer - the patients' view

Background: International and national guidelines (S3 guideline) for the surveillance of post-treatment breast cancer patients recommend a clinical follow-up including routine history and physical examination and regular mammograms. The practice of a clinical follow-up has been often discussed, but has been proven not to be inferior when compared to an intensified follow-up in randomized trials. Patients and Methods: The present manuscript reports the patients' view on the basis of a survey including 2000 patients with a history of breast cancer. Results: A total of 452 patients (22.6%) answered the questionnaire. The median age was 62 years (range 23-85 years). More than 80% of the patients were disease-free at the time of the survey. The need for surveillance was affirmed by the majority of patients (>95%), and one third stated that there was a need for more technical efforts during follow-up. In contrast to the follow-up guidelines, the results of the present survey indicated that most of the regularly scheduled follow-up visits were expanded using extensive laboratory and imaging procedures. Conclusion: This survey shows that the majority of physicians obviously do not accept the present follow-up guidelines. A new surveillance study investigating the efficacy of an intensified surveillance based on the improved possibilities of modern diagnostics and endocrine, immunotherapeutic, chemotherapeutic and interventional treatment options is warranted

Way to increase the efficiency of a reactions: steady and unsteady state catalysis

In the lecture on the example of the process of benzene hydrogenation taking into account the presence of thiophene in the feed gas was discussed approaches to the developing of the unsteady state kinetic model and process optimization. On the base of the kinetic model the theoretical analysis of the reactor performance under unsteady state conditions and unsteady state was carried out.It is shown that for periodic reactor operation an average conversion was up to several times higher than the steady state value

First-order Goedel logics

First-order Goedel logics are a family of infinite-valued logics where the sets of truth values V are closed subsets of [0, 1] containing both 0 and 1. Different such sets V in general determine different Goedel logics G_V (sets of those formulas which evaluate to 1 in every interpretation into V). It is shown that G_V is axiomatizable iff V is finite, V is uncountable with 0 isolated in V, or every neighborhood of 0 in V is uncountable. Complete axiomatizations for each of these cases are given. The r.e. prenex, negation-free, and existential fragments of all first-order Goedel logics are also characterized.Comment: 37 page

Clinical aspects of Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuester-Hauser syndrome: recommendations for clinical diagnosis and staging

BACKGROUND: The Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuester-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome is a malformation of the female genitals (occurring in one in 4000 female live births) as a result of interrupted embryonic development of the Müllerian (paramesonephric) ducts. This retrospective study examined the issue of associated malformations, subtyping, and the frequency distribution of subtypes in MRKH syndrome. METHODS: Fifty-three MRKH patients were investigated using a newly developed standardized questionnaire. Together with the results of clinical and diagnostic examinations, the patients were classified into the three recognized subtypes [typical, atypical and MURCS (Müllerian duct aplasia, renal aplasia, and cervicothoracic somite dysplasia)]. RESULTS: The typical form was diagnosed in 25 patients (47%), the atypical form in 11 patients (21%), and the most marked form—the MURCS type—in 17 patients (32%). Associated malformations were notably frequent among the patients. Malformations of the renal system were the most frequent type of accompanying malformation, with 23 different malformations in 19 patients, followed by 18 different skeletal changes in 15 patients. CONCLUSIONS: In accordance with the literature, this study shows that associated malformations are present in more than a third of cases. Therefore, new basic guidelines for standard diagnostic classification involving patients with suspected MRKH are presente

Equivariant Neural Networks for Indirect Measurements

In the recent years, deep learning techniques have shown great success in various tasks related to inverse problems, where a target quantity of interest can only be observed through indirect measurements by a forward operator. Common approaches apply deep neural networks in a post-processing step to the reconstructions obtained by classical reconstruction methods. However, the latter methods can be computationally expensive and introduce artifacts that are not present in the measured data and, in turn, can deteriorate the performance on the given task. To overcome these limitations, we propose a class of equivariant neural networks that can be directly applied to the measurements to solve the desired task. To this end, we build appropriate network structures by developing layers that are equivariant with respect to data transformations induced by well-known symmetries in the domain of the forward operator. We rigorously analyze the relation between the measurement operator and the resulting group representations and prove a representer theorem that characterizes the class of linear operators that translate between a given pair of group actions. Based on this theory, we extend the existing concepts of Lie group equivariant deep learning to inverse problems and introduce new representations that result from the involved measurement operations. This allows us to efficiently solve classification, regression or even reconstruction tasks based on indirect measurements also for very sparse data problems, where a classical reconstruction-based approach may be hard or even impossible. We illustrate the effectiveness of our approach in numerical experiments and compare with existing methods.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure