5,941 research outputs found
Análisis multivariante de los horizontes orgánico-minerales de los suelos del Parque Natural de Sierra Mágina (Jaén)
Soils are described normally using a great number of properties (variables). This generates a great quantity of data not easily understandable in a direct way. Consequently, multivariate analysis is necessary to support and confirm impressions and interpretations of investigations in field and laboratory. In the present work we quantify, through multivariate analysis, the relative influence of the different factors of soil formation that act on the soil system. We have studied 203 organo-mineral horizons, sampled to a depth between 0 and 25 cm of soils in the Sierra Mágina natural park (Jaén, Spain). The studied soils are from calcareous rocks. Five factors were found to be significant and showed that the organic carbon accumulation, decarbonatation and the argillization/rubefacction, as internal variables, and the hill slope, as external variable, they are those which explain a greater percentage of the natural variability of the soil system
Immunotherapy of lung cancer: An update
In Germany lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-associated death in men. Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation may enhance survival of patients suffering from lung cancer but the enhancement is typically transient and mostly absent with advanced disease; eventually more than 90% of lung cancer patients will die of disease. New approaches to the treatment of lung cancer are urgently needed. Immunotherapy may represent one new approach with low toxicity and high specificity but implementation has been a challenge because of the poor antigenic characterization of these tumors and their ability to escape immune responses. Several different immunotherapeutic treatment strategies have been developed. This review examines the current state of development and recent advances with respect to non-specific immune stimulation, cellular immunotherapy ( specific and non-specific), therapeutic cancer vaccines and gene therapy for lung cancer. The focus is primarily placed on immunotherapeutic cancer treatments that are already in clinical trial or well progressed in preclinical studies. Although there seems to be a promising future for immunotherapy in lung cancer, presently there is not standard immunotherapy available for clinical routine
Diagnostic procedures for non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC): recommendations of the European Expert Group
Background There is currently no Europe-wide consensus on the appropriate preanalytical measures and workflow to optimise procedures for tissue-based molecular testing of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). To address this, a group of lung cancer experts (see list of authors) convened to discuss and propose standard operating procedures (SOPs) for NSCLC. Methods Based on earlier meetings and scientific expertise on lung cancer, a multidisciplinary group meeting was aligned. The aim was to include all relevant aspects concerning NSCLC diagnosis. After careful consideration, the following topics were selected and each was reviewed by the experts: surgical resection and sampling; biopsy procedures for analysis; preanalytical and other variables affecting quality of tissue; tissue conservation; testing procedures for epidermal growth factor receptor, anaplastic lymphoma kinase and ROS proto-oncogene 1, receptor tyrosine kinase (ROS1) in lung tissue and cytological specimens; as well as standardised reporting and quality control (QC). Finally, an optimal workflow was described. Results Suggested optimal procedures and workflows are discussed in detail. The broad consensus was that the complex workflow presented can only be executed effectively by an interdisciplinary approach using a well-trained team. Conclusions To optimise diagnosis and treatment of patients with NSCLC, it is essential to establish SOPs that are adaptable to the local situation. In addition, a continuous QC system and a local multidisciplinary tumour-type-oriented board are essential
Extreme Type-II Superconductors in a Magnetic Field: A Theory of Critical Fluctuations
A theory of critical fluctuations in extreme type-II superconductors
subjected to a finite but weak external magnetic field is presented. It is
shown that the standard Ginzburg-Landau representation of this problem can be
recast, with help of a novel mapping, as a theory of a new "superconductor", in
an effective magnetic field whose overall value is zero, consisting of the
original uniform field and a set of neutralizing unit fluxes attached to
fluctuating vortex lines. The long distance behavior is related to
the anisotropic gauge theory in which the original magnetic field plays the
role of "charge". The consequences of this "gauge theory" scenario for the
critical behavior in high temperature superconductors are explored in detail,
with particular emphasis on questions of 3D XY vs. Landau level scaling,
physical nature of the vortex "line liquid" and the true normal state, and
fluctuation thermodynamics and transport. A "minimal" set of requirements for
the theory of vortex-lattice melting in the critical region is also proposed
and discussed.Comment: 28 RevTeX pages, 4 .ps figures; appendix A added, additional
references, streamlined Secs. IV and V in response to referees' comment
Structure and dynamics of nanoconfined water and aqueous solutions
This review is devoted to discussing recent progress on the structure, thermodynamic, reactivity, and dynamics of water and aqueous systems confined within different types of nanopores, synthetic and biological. Currently, this is a branch of water science that has attracted enormous attention of researchers from different fields interested to extend the understanding of the anomalous properties of bulk water to the nanoscopic domain. From a fundamental perspective, the interactions of water and solutes with a confining surface dramatically modify the liquid's structure and, consequently, both its thermodynamical and dynamical behaviors, breaking the validity of the classical thermodynamic and phenomenological description of the transport properties of aqueous systems. Additionally, man-made nanopores and porous materials have emerged as promising solutions to challenging problems such as water purification, biosensing, nanofluidic logic and gating, and energy storage and conversion, while aquaporin, ion channels, and nuclear pore complex nanopores regulate many biological functions such as the conduction of water, the generation of action potentials, and the storage of genetic material. In this work, the more recent experimental and molecular simulations advances in this exciting and rapidly evolving field will be reported and critically discussed
Rotating Micro-Spheres for adsorption monitoring at a fluid interface
Hypothesis: A broad range of phenomena, such as emulsification and emulsion stability, foam formation or liquid evaporation, are closely related to the dynamics of adsorbing colloidal particles. Elucidation of the mechanisms implied is key to a correct design of many different types of materials. Experiments: Microspheres forced to rotate near a fluid interface exhibit a roto-translational hydrodynamic mechanism that is hindered by capillary torques as soon as the particles protrude the interface. Under these conditions, the time evolution in the ratio of moving spheres provides a direct description of the adsorption kinetics, while microscopy monitoring of particle acceleration\deceleration informs about the adsorption\desorption dynamics. In this work, the proposed strategy is applied at an air/water interface loaded with spherical magnetic particles negatively charged, forced to rotate by the action of a rotating magnetic field. Findings: The proposed method enables the adsorption/desorption dynamics to be followed during the earliest phase of the process, when desorption of a small fraction of particles is detected, as well as to estimate approximated values of the adsorption/desorption constants. The results obtained show that the addition of a monovalent salt or a cationic (anionic) surfactant promotes (inhibits) both adsorption and formation of permanent bonds between particles. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Search for CP violation in decays
A model-independent search for direct CP violation in the Cabibbo suppressed
decay in a sample of approximately 370,000 decays is
carried out. The data were collected by the LHCb experiment in 2010 and
correspond to an integrated luminosity of 35 pb. The normalized Dalitz
plot distributions for and are compared using four different
binning schemes that are sensitive to different manifestations of CP violation.
No evidence for CP asymmetry is found.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Measurement of charged particle multiplicities in collisions at TeV in the forward region
The charged particle production in proton-proton collisions is studied with
the LHCb detector at a centre-of-mass energy of TeV in different
intervals of pseudorapidity . The charged particles are reconstructed
close to the interaction region in the vertex detector, which provides high
reconstruction efficiency in the ranges and
. The data were taken with a minimum bias trigger, only requiring
one or more reconstructed tracks in the vertex detector. By selecting an event
sample with at least one track with a transverse momentum greater than 1 GeV/c
a hard QCD subsample is investigated. Several event generators are compared
with the data; none are able to describe fully the multiplicity distributions
or the charged particle density distribution as a function of . In
general, the models underestimate the charged particle production
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