A novel biweekly multidrug regimen of gemcitabine, oxaliplatin, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), and folinic acid (FA) in pretreated patients with advanced colorectal carcinoma

Previous results suggest that GEM affects 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) metabolism and pharmacokinetics in cancer patients, while combined with oxaliplatin, levo-folinic acid, and 5-FU (GOLF regimen), at doses achievable in cancer patients, determines high cytotoxic and proapoptotic antitumour activity in colon cancer cells in vitro. On these bases we designed a phase I–II clinical trial testing the GOLF regimen in patients with metastatic colorectal carcinoma, who had received at least a prior line of chemotherapy. In total, 29 patients (20 males and nine females) enrolled in the study received every 2 weeks, gemcitabine (patients #1–3 received 600 mgm2; patients # 4–6 received 850 mgm2; while patients # 7–29 received 1000 mgm2) on the day 1, levo-folinic acid (100 mgm2) on the days 1 and 2; 5-fluorouracil (400 mgm2) in bolus injection, followed by a 22-h continuous infusion (800 mgm2) on the days 1 and 2, and oxaliplatin (85 mgm2), 6 h after the 5-FU bolus on day 2. The most frequent side effect was grade I–II haematological toxicity. In total, 28 patients were evaluable for response: three achieved a complete response, nine a partial response, 10 had a stable disease, and six progressed. The average time to progression and overall survival of the patients was, respectively, 7.26 and 22 months. Our GOLF combination is well tolerated and seems promising for the treatment of advanced colorectal cancer

Cooking pots, tableware, and the changing sounds of sociability in Italy, 1300–1700

This article considers how the sounds produced by the preparation and consumption of meals in Italy changed between around 1300 and 1700. It argues that by focusing on sound, and by using ecological approaches, we can rediscover obscured connections between different categories of material objects. By examining material and textual evidence for three categories of objects associated with cooking and dining – metalwork, ceramics, and glass – the article traces changes in the material cultures of kitchen and table, and the clear impact these changes had on domestic soundscapes. It considers these sound-producing objects as agents of social interaction, exploring the social relationships they constructed, and the role sound played in those relationships. The article then focuses on the practices of cooking and dining, and the way they shaped the sound of objects. Finally, the article situates objects and social practices within the spatial context of the home, tracing an increasing impetus to manage and control specific types of sound in relation to gender. In the discourse on hospitality, noise came to signify a badly-managed, and therefore morally dubious, household, while silence testified to decorous and authoritative domestic management

Scaling techniques for gradient projection-type methods in astronomical image deblurring

The aim of this paper is to present a computational study on scaling techniques in gradient projectiontype (GP-type) methods for deblurring of astronomical images corrupted by Poisson noise. In this case, the imaging problem is formulated as a non-negatively constrained minimization problem in which the objective function is the sum of a fit-to-data term, the Kullback\u2013Leibler divergence, and a Tikhonov regularization term. The considered GP-type methods are formulated by a common iteration formula, where the scaling matrix and the step-length parameter characterize the different algorithms. Within this formulation, both first-order and Newton-like methods are analysed, with particular attention to those implementation features and behaviours relevant for the image restoration problem. The numerical experiments show that suited scaling strategies can enable the GP methods to quickly approximate accurate reconstructions and then are useful for designing effective image deblurring algorithms

“Numerical Analysis: Methods and Mathematical Software”

Supported by the 1998–2000 MURST Projec

MRItool: a MATLAB tool for functional Magnetic Resonance Images reconstruction

This report concerns the work made on functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) reconstruction, financed by the MURST Project "Numerical Analysis: Methods and Mathematical Software", 1997-1999. The final product is a Matlab package with graphical interface, MRITool, that implements the reconstruction methods analysed and that is available from the URL http://dm.unife.it/~mritool. The work, made in collaboration between mathematicians and other researchers working at the Department of Nuclear Medicine of the Careggi Hospital, was mainly motivated by the fact that the reconstruction method available on the Philips MRI system at the Hospital was not completely satisfactory. In fact, it is known in literature that this method, the Keyhole method, can produce artifacts in the reconstructed MRI images. Our research started by investigating some alternative methods proposed in literature and the MROTool software is the mean to analyse the results obtained with the medicians. With the toolbox it is possible to test the methods on data sets acquired by the 1.5T wholebody Philips system at the Careggi Hospital. The results obtained are encouraging and we are going on in the research. We are studying some changies in the methods, in order to have better reconstructed images and more computational efficiency

Numerical methods and software for functional Magnetic Resonance Images reconstruction

In this paper we present the research performed on functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging reconstruction (fMRI). In this kind of application in the medical area, undersampled sets of data are acquired in the frequency{phase space at successive time instants. The Fourier techniques produce images of low quality. Hence, some dierent image reconstruction methods are considered: the Keyhole method and the RIGR (Reduced{encoding Imaging by Generalized Series Reconstruction) method with one or two reference images. The solution of the ill{posed linear ( )Indirizzo dell'autore: Dipartimento di Fisiopatologia Clinica, Universita di Firenze. Email: [email protected]. ( )Indirizzo dell'autore: Dipartimento di Matematica, Universita di Bologna. E-mail: piccolom @dm.unibo.it. ( )Indirizzo dell'autore: Dipartimento di Fisiopatologia Clinica, Universita di Firenze. Email: [email protected]. ( y )Indirizzo dell'autore: Dipartimento di Matematica, Universita di Bologna. E-mai..

Super-resolution of thermal images using an automatic total variation based method

The relatively poor spatial resolution of thermal images is a limitation for many thermal remote sensing applications. A possible solution to mitigate this problem is super-resolution, which should preserve the radiometric content of the original data and should be applied to both the cases where a single image or multiple images of the target surface are available. In this perspective, we propose a new super-resolution algorithm, which can handle either single or multiple images. It is based on a total variation regularization approach and implements a fully automated choice of all the parameters, without any training dataset nor a priori information. Through simulations, the accuracy of the generated super-resolution images was assessed, in terms of both global statistical indicators and analysis of temperature errors at hot and cold spots. The algorithm was tested and applied to aerial and terrestrial thermal images. Results and comparisons with state-of-the-art methods confirmed an excellent compromise between the quality of the high-resolution images obtained and the required computational time

Numerical methods and software for functional Magnetic Resonance Images reconstruction

In this paper we present the research performed on functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging reconstruction (fMRI). In this kind of application in the medical area, undersampled sets of data are acquired in the frequency{phase space at successive time instants. The Fourier techniques produce images of low quality. Hence, some dierent image reconstruction methods are considered: the Keyhole method and the RIGR (Reduced{encoding Imaging by Generalized Series Reconstruction) method with one or two reference images. The solution of the ill{posed linear ( )Indirizzo dell'autore: Dipartimento di Fisiopatologia Clinica, Universita di Firenze. Email: [email protected]. ( )Indirizzo dell'autore: Dipartimento di Matematica, Universita di Bologna. E-mail: piccolom @dm.unibo.it. ( )Indirizzo dell'autore: Dipartimento di Fisiopatologia Clinica, Universita di Firenze. Email: [email protected]. ( y )Indirizzo dell'autore: Dipartimento di Matematica, Universita di Bologna. E-mai..