Patients' preferences for the management of non-metastatic prostate cancer: discrete choice experiment

Objective To establish which attributes of conservative treatments for prostate cancer are most important to men. Design Discrete choice experiment. Setting Two London hospitals. Participants 129 men with non-metastatic prostate cancer, mean age 70 years; 69 of 118 (58%) with T stage 1 or 2 cancer at diagnosis. Main outcome measures Men's preferences for, and trade-offs between, the attributes of diarrhoea, hot flushes, ability to maintain an erection, breast swelling or tenderness, physical energy, sex drive, life expectancy, and out of pocket expenses. Results The men's responses to changes in attributes were all statistically significant. When asked to assume a starting life expectancy of five years, the men were willing to make trade-offs between life expectancy and side effects. On average, they were most willing to give up life expectancy to avoid limitations in physical energy (mean three months) and least willing to trade life expectancy to avoid hot flushes (mean 0.6 months to move from a moderate to mild level or from mild to none). Conclusions Men with prostate cancer are willing to participate in a relatively complex exercise that weighs up the advantages and disadvantages of various conservative treatments for their condition. They were willing to trade off some life expectancy to be relieved of the burden of troublesome side effects such as limitations in physical energy

Use of creative tools, technologies, processes and practices in the sectors of Art, Media, and Architecture: State-of the-Art and desired future scenarios

The aim of the paper is to analyse and present the preliminary findings of the EU FP7 funded CRe-AM project for the Art, Media, and Architecture sectors. This project bridges communities of technology providers and innovators with the creative industries, with the aim to build sector-specific dynamic roadmaps for the future of the European creative industries by examining the current state-of-the-art tools, technologies, processes, and practices supporting the creative process against the future scenarios envisioned by stakeholders in these sectors.This work was carried out as part of CRe-AM project, which is supported by European Commission (grant agreement n°612451)

Segmental aging underlies the development of a Parkinson phenotype in the AS/AGU rat

There is a paucity of information on the molecular biology of aging processes in the brain. We have used biomarkers of aging (SA β-Gal, p16Ink4a, Sirt5, Sirt6, and Sirt7) to demonstrate the presence of an accelerated aging phenotype across different brain regions in the AS/AGU rat, a spontaneous Parkinsonian mutant of PKCγ derived from a parental AS strain. P16INK4a expression was significantly higher in AS/AGU animals compared to age-matched AS controls (p < 0.001) and displayed segmental expression across various brain regions. The age-related expression of sirtuins similarly showed differences between strains and between brain regions. Our data clearly show segmental aging processes within the rat brain, and that these are accelerated in the AS/AGU mutant. The accelerated aging, Parkinsonian phenotype, and disruption to dopamine signalling in the basal ganglia in AS/AGU rats, suggests that this rat strain represents a useful model for studies of development and progression of Parkinson's disease in the context of biological aging and may offer unique mechanistic insights into the biology of aging

Spectroscopy of drums and quantum billiards: perturbative and non-perturbative results

We develop powerful numerical and analytical techniques for the solution of the Helmholtz equation on general domains. We prove two theorems: the first theorem provides an exact formula for the ground state of an arbirtrary membrane, while the second theorem generalizes this result to any excited state of the membrane. We also develop a systematic perturbative scheme which can be used to study the small deformations of a membrane of circular or square shapes. We discuss several applications, obtaining numerical and analytical results.Comment: 29 pages, 12 figures, 7 tabl

Atomic and electronic structure of ultra-thin Al/AlOx/Al interfaces

Interfaces between metals based on AlO$_{x}$ represent the most popular basis for Josephson junctions or, more recently, also for junctions exhibiting substantial tunneling magneto-resistance. We have performed a computational study of possible local geometric structures of such interfaces at the ab-initio DFT/GGA level of approximation to complement recent experimental data on ultra-thin AlO$_{x}$-based interfaces. We present two competing structures that we characterise with their electronic properties: fragmentation and interface energies.Comment: Presented at the ECOSS24, submitted to the proceeding - special issue of Surf. Scienc

Validation of the inverted adsorption structure for free-base tetraphenyl porphyrin on Cu(111)

Utilising normal incidence X-ray standing waves we rigourously scrutinise the “inverted model” as the adsorption structure of free-base tetraphenyl porphyrin on Cu(111). We demonstrate that the iminic N atoms are anchored at near-bridge adsorption sites on the surface displaced laterally by 1.1 ± 0.2 Å in excellent agreement with previously published calculations

Microscopic mechanism for mechanical polishing of diamond (110) surfaces

Mechanically induced degradation of diamond, as occurs during polishing, is studied using total--energy pseudopotential calculations. The strong asymmetry in the rate of polishing between different directions on the diamond (110) surface is explained in terms of an atomistic mechanism for nano--groove formation. The post--polishing surface morphology and the nature of the polishing residue predicted by this mechanism are consistent with experimental evidence.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Study of state-of-the-art static inverter design Final report, 6 Jan. - 6 Jun. 1966

Multiple purpose inverter design based on phase demodulated inverter circuit selected from state-of-the-art assessment of ten inverter circuit