The Impact of Digitization on Research and Libraries’ Roles

Digitization is a broad term used when describing turning written text, visual media, and audio into a format readable by a computer. It can mean anything from creating the original digitally or transferring a non-digital format into a digital one. This makes it a difficult topic because everyone has their own idea of what it means, and most of their definitions fall into the broad one. This paper will focus on written text being digitized in a variety of ways

The influence of phase-modulation on femtosecond time-resolved coherent Raman spectroscopy

The influence of phase-modulation on femtosecond time-resolved coherent Raman scattering is investigated theoretically and experimentally. The coherent Raman signal taken as a function of the spectral position shows unexpected temporal oscillations close to time zero. A theoretical analysis of the coherent Raman scattering process indicates that the femtosecond light pulses are amplitude and phase modulated. The pulses are asymmetric in time with more slowly decaying trailing wings. The phase of the pulse amplitude contains quadratic and higher-order contributions

The Role of LDH Serum Levels in Predicting Global Outcome in HCC Patients Undergoing TACE: Implications for Clinical Management

In many tumor types serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels is an indirect marker of tumor hypoxia, neo-angiogenesis and worse prognosis. However data about hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are lacking in the clinical setting of patients undergoing transarterial-chemoembolization (TACE) in whom hypoxia and neo-angiogenesis may represent a molecular key to treatment failure. Aim of our analysis was to evaluate the role of LDH pre-treatment levels in determining clinical outcome for patients with HCC receiving TACE. One hundred and fourteen patients were available for our analysis. For all patients LDH values were collected within one month before the procedure. We divided our patients into two groups, according to LDH serum concentration registered before TACE (first: LDH≤450 U/l 84 patients; second: LDH>450 U/l 30 patients). Patients were classified according to the variation in LDH serum levels pre- and post-treatment (increased: 62 patients vs. decreased 52 patients). No statistically significant differences were found between the groups for all clinical characteristics analyzed (gender, median age, performance status ECOG, staging systems). In patients with LDH values below 450 U/l median time to progression (TTP) was 16.3 months, whereas it was of 10.1 months in patients above the cut-off (p = 0.0085). Accordingly median overall survival (OS) was 22.4 months and 11.7 months (p = 0.0049). In patients with decreased LDH values after treatment median TTP was 12.4 months, and median OS was 22.1 months, whereas TTP was 9.1 months and OS was 9.5 in patients with increased LDH levels (TTP: p = 0.0087; OS: p<0.0001). In our experience, LDH seemed able to predict clinical outcome for HCC patients undergoing TACE. Given the correlation between LDH levels and tumor angiogenesis we can speculate that patients with high LDH pretreatment levels may be optimal candidates for clinical trial exploring a multimodality treatment approach with TACE and anti-VEGF inhibitors in order to improve TTP and OS

Towards new material biomarkers for fracture risk

Osteoporosis is a prevalent bone condition, characterised by low bone mass and increased fracture risk. Currently, the gold standard for identifying osteoporosis and increased fracture risk is through quantification of bone mineral density (BMD) using dual energy X-ray absorption (DEXA). However, the risk of osteoporotic fracture is determined collectively by bone mass, architecture and physicochemistry of the mineral composite building blocks. Thus DEXA scans alone inevitably fail to fully discriminate individuals who will suffer a fragility fracture. This study examines trabecular bone at both ultrastructure and microarchitectural levels to provide a detailed material view of bone, and therefore provides a more comprehensive explanation of osteoporotic fracture risk. Physicochemical characterisation obtained through X-ray diffraction and infrared analysis indicated significant differences in apatite crystal chemistry and nanostructure between fracture and non-fracture groups. Further, this study, through considering the potential correlations between the chemical biomarkers and microarchitectural properties of trabecular bone, has investigated the relationship between bone mechanical properties (e.g. fragility) and physicochemical material features