Cancer incidence in Golestan province: Report of an ongoing population-based cancer registry in Iran between 2004 and 2008

Background: Golestan Province, at the western end of the Asian esophageal cancer (EC) belt in northeastern Iran, was reported to have one of the highest worldwide rates of EC in the 1970s. We have previously shown a declining incidence of EC in Golestan during the last decades. This study reports additional new results from the Golestan Population-based Cancer Registry (GPCR). Methods: The GPCR collected data from newly diagnosed (incident) cancer cases from all 68 public and private diagnostic and therapeutic centers in Golestan Province. CanReg-4 software was used for data entry and analysis based on the guidelines of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Age-standardized incidence rates (ASR) of cancers were calculated using the 2000 world standard population. Results: From 2004 through 2008, 9007 new cancer cases were reported to the GPCR. The mean (SD) age was 55.5 (18.6) years, and 54 were diagnosed in men. The ASRs of all cancers were 175.3 and 141.1 per 100,000 person-years for males and females, respectively. Cancers of the stomach (ASR:30.7), esophagus (24.3), and lung (15.4) were the most common cancers in males. In females, breast cancer (ASR:26.9) was followed by malignancies of the esophagus (19.1) and stomach (12.4). The diagnosis of cancer was based on histopatho- logical reports in 71 and on death certificate only in 9 ofcases. Conclusions: The EC incidence rate continues to decline in Golestan, while the incidence rates of stomach, colorectal, and breast cancers continue to increase

Cancer registry in Iran: A brief overview

Cancer registry is an important tool for any successful cancer control program. The first formal cancer related data from Iran were published in 1956. In 1969, observations documenting a high incidence of esophageal cancer in the Caspian Littoral, urged researchers to set up the first population-based cancer registry in this region. This cancer registry was established jointly by University of Tehran and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). In 1976, another cancer registry started its activities in Fars Province. In 1984, the Parliament passed a bill mandating the report of all tissues "diagnosed or suspected as cancer tissue" to the Ministry of Health. While only 18% of all estimated cancer cases were reported in first reports, this rate increased to 81% in 2005 In 1998, Tehran Population-Based Cancer Registry started to collect data from cases of cancer referred to the treatment and diagnostic facilities throughout the Tehran metropolis. Digestive Disease Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, established four new population-based cancer registries in Northern Iran and another in Kerman Province in the south. These five provinces have a total population of about 9.5 million, and constitute about 16% of the total population of Iran. While the pathology-based cancer registration is in place, we hope that the addition of the population-based cancer registries, and establishment of new registries in poorly-covered areas, will improve cancer reporting in the country

Towards pattern-based reliability certification of services

On Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs), the mechanism for run-time discovery and selection of services may conflict with the need to make sure that business process instances satisfy their reliability requirements. In this paper we describe a certification scheme based on machine-readable reliability certificates that will enable run-time negotiation. Service reliability is afforded by means of reliability patterns. Our certificates describe the reliability mechanism implemented by a service and the reliability pattern used to implement such a mechanism. Digital signature is used to associate the reliability claim contained in each certificate with the party (service supplier or accredited third-party) taking responsibility for it

Candidate gene association study of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma in a high-risk region in Iran

There is a region with a high risk for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) in the northeast of Iran. Previous studies suggest that hereditary factors play a role in the high incidence of cancer in the region. We selected 22 functional variants (and 130 related tagSNPs) from 15 genes that have been associated previously with the risk of ESCC. We genotyped a primary set of samples from 451 Turkmens (197 cases and 254 controls). Seven of 152 variants were associated with ESCC at the P = 0.05 level; these single nucleotide polymorphisms were then studied in a validation set of 549 cases and 1,119 controls, which included both Turkmens and non-Turkmens. The association observed for a functional variant in ADH1B was confirmed in the validation set, and that of a tagSNP in MGMT, the association was borderline significant in the validation set, after correcting for multiple testing. The other 5 variants that were associated in the primary set were not significantly associated in the validation set. The histidine allele at codon 48 of ADH1B gene was associated with a significantly decreased risk of ESCC in the joint data set (primary and validation set) under a recessive model (odds ratio, 0.41; 95 confidence interval, 0.29-0.76; P = 4 × 10⁻⁴). The A allele of the rs7087131 variant of MGMT gene was associated with a decreased risk of ESCC under a dominant model (odds ratio, 0.79; 95 confidence interval, 0.64-0.96; P = 0.02). These results support the hypothesis that genetic predisposition plays a role in the high incidence of ESSC in Iran. ©2009 American Association for Cancer Research

Study of Thermodynamic Quantities in Generalized Gravity Theories

In this work, we have studied the thermodynamic quantities like temperature of the universe, heat capacity and squared speed of sound in generalized gravity theories like Brans-Dicke, Ho$\check{\text r}$ava-Lifshitz and $f(R)$ gravities. We have considered the universe filled with dark matter and dark energy. Also we have considered the equation of state parameters for open, closed and flat models. We have observed that in all cases the equation of state behaves like quintessence. The temperature and heat capacity of the universe are found to decrease with the expansion of the universe in all cases. In Brans-Dicke and $f(R)$ gravity theories the squared speed of sound is found to exhibit increasing behavior for open, closed and flat models and in Ho$\check{\text r}$ava-Lifshitz gravity theory it is found to exhibit decreasing behavior for open and closed models with the evolution of the universe. However, for flat universe, the squared speed of sound remains constant in Ho$\check{\text r}$ava-Lifshitz gravity.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figure

Thermodynamics of phantom energy in the presence of a Reissner-Nordstrom black hole

In this paper, we study the validity of the generalized second law (GSL) in phantom dominated universe in the presence of a Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m (RN) black hole. Our study is independent of the origin of the phantom like behavior of the considered universe. We also discuss the GSL in the neighborhood of transition from quintessence to phantom regime. We show that for a constant equation of state parameter, the GSL may be satisfied provided that the temperature is proportional to de Sitter temperature. It is shown that in models with (only) a transition from quintessence to phantom regime the generalized second law does not hold in the transition epoch. Next we show that if the phantom energy has a chemical potential, then the GSL will hold if the mass of black hole is above from a critical value.Comment: 5 pages, Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc

New mechanism to cross the phantom divide

Recently, type Ia supernovae data appear to support a dark energy whose equation of state $w$ crosses -1, which is a much more amazing problem than the acceleration of the universe. We show that it is possible for the equation of state to cross the phantom divide by a scalar field in the gravity with an additional inverse power-law term of Ricci scalar in the Lagrangian. The necessary and sufficient condition for a universe in which the dark energy can cross the phantom divide is obtained. Some analytical solutions with $w<-1$ or $w>-1$ are obtained. A minimal coupled scalar with different potentials, including quadratic, cubic, quantic, exponential and logarithmic potentials are investigated via numerical methods, respectively. All these potentials lead to the crossing behavior. We show that it is a robust result which is hardly dependent on the concrete form of the potential of the scalar.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figs, v3: several references added, to match the published versio

Generalized Second Law of Thermodynamics on the Event Horizon for Interacting Dark Energy

Here we are trying to find the conditions for the validity of the generalized second law of thermodynamics (GSLT) assuming the first law of thermodynamics on the event horizon in both cases when the FRW universe is filled with interacting two fluid system- one in the form of cold dark matter and the other is either holographic dark energy or new age graphic dark energy. Using the recent observational data we have found that GSLT holds both in quintessence era as well as in phantom era for new age graphic model while for holographic dark energy GSLT is valid only in phantom era.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure

The generalized second law of thermodynamics of the universe bounded by the event horizon and modified gravity theories

In this paper, we investigate the validity of the generalized second law of thermodynamics of the universe bounded by the event horizon. Here we consider homogeneous and isotropic model of the universe filled with perfect fluid in one case and in another case holographic model of the universe has been considered. In the third case the matter in the universe is taken in the form of non-interacting two fluid system as holographic dark energy and dust. Here we study the above cases in the Modified gravity, f(R) gravity.Comment: 9 page

Cosmological Evolution Across Phantom Crossing and the Nature of the Horizon

In standard cosmology, with the evolution of the universe, the matter density and thermodynamic pressure gradually decreases. Also in course of evolution, the matter in the universe obeys (or violates) some restrictions or energy conditions. If the matter distribution obeys strong energy condition (SEC), the universe is in a decelerating phase while violation of SEC indicates an accelerated expansion of the universe. In the period of accelerated expansion the matter may be either of quintessence nature or of phantom nature depending on the fulfilment of the weak energy condition (WEC) or violation of it. As recent observational evidences demand that the universe is going through an accelerated expansion so mater should be either quintessence or phantom in nature. In the present work we study the evolution of the universe through the phantom barrier (i.e. the dividing line between the quintessence and phantom era) and examine how apparent and event horizon change across the barrier. Finally, we investigate the possibility of occurrence of any singularity in phantom era.Comment: 7 pages and 4 figure