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Rituximab in combination with high-dose methylprednisolone for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
We observed that high-dose methylprednisolone (HDMP) and rituximab was well tolerated and had promising activity when used in combination to treat patients with fludarabine-refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). This prompted us to evaluate the use of these agents in frontline therapy. A total of 28 patients with a median age of 65 years enrolled in this study. Patients received HDMP at 1 g/m(2) each day for 3 days during each of the three 4-week cycles together with rituximab and prophylactic antimicrobial therapy. The treatment was well tolerated with few adverse events of grade III or higher. The overall response rate was 96% (N=27). Nine patients (32%) achieved a complete remission (CR), two of which were without detectable minimal residual disease (MRD). Six patients with MRD received consolidation with alemtuzumab; five of these patients achieved an MRD-negative CR. With over 3 years of follow-up median progression-free survival was 30.3 months with only 39% of patients requiring additional therapy, and an overall survival was 96%. This study demonstrates that HDMP and rituximab is an effective nonmyelosuppressive treatment combination for patients with CLL that warrants consideration particularly for patients with limited myeloid reserve that might not tolerate standard treatment regimens
The Rayleigh-Brillouin Spectrum in Special Relativistic Hydrodynamics
In this paper we calculate the Rayleigh-Brillouin spectrum for a relativistic
simple fluid according to three different versions available for a relativistic
approach to non-equilibrium thermodynamics. An outcome of these calculations is
that Eckart's version predicts that such spectrum does not exist. This provides
an argument to question its validity. The remaining two results, which differ
one from another, do provide a finite form for such spectrum. This raises the
rather intriguing question as to which of the two theories is a better
candidate to be taken as a possible version of relativistic non-equilibrium
thermodynamics. The answer will clearly require deeper examination of this
problem.Comment: 13 pages, no figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Structure formation in the presence of relativistic heat conduction: corrections to the Jeans wave number with a stable first order in the gradients formalism
The problem of structure formation in relativistic dissipative fluids was
analyzed in a previous work within Eckart's framework, in which the heat flux
is coupled to the hydrodynamic acceleration, additional to the usual
temperature gradient term. It was shown that in such case, the pathological
behavior of fluctuations leads to the disapperance of the gravitational
instability responsible for structure formation. In the present work the
problem is revisited now using a constitutive equation derived from
relativistic kinetic theory. The new relation, in which the heat flux is not
coupled to the hydrodynamic acceleration, leads to a consistent first order in
the gradients formalism. In this case the gravitational instability remains,
and only relativistic corrections to the Jeans wave number are obtained. In the
calculation here shown the non-relativistc limit is recovered, opposite to what
happens in Eckart's case.Comment: 10 pages, no figure
Synthesis, physicochemical and photophysical characterization of 4-(1-Pyrenyl)-Butyl-α-d-mannopyranoside
IndexaciĂłn: Web of Science; Scopus; Scielo.Glycolipids are biomolecules composed of a lipid chain (lipophilic) and a monosaccharide or oligosaccharide as hydrophilic group. Their chemical structure and biological role make them undoubtedly good candidates for a large and continuously growing number of biotechnological applications. Mannose is a carbohydrate present on membrane glycolipids of a wide number of pathogenic microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and viruses) and specifically recognized by several lectins. We synthesized a mannose derivative linked through a short methylene chain to a pyrene moiety which behaves as a surfactant, able to aggregate, and retains the photophysical properties of pyrene: showing comparable absorption and emission spectra, having lower fluorescence quantum yield and the ability to form excimer, and finally the ability to produce O-2((1)Delta(g)) with high quantum yields. Thus, this novel molecule would open future applications for detection (fluorescence) or inactivation (singlet oxygen) of bacterial pathogens, viruses, tumor cells, or particular cells.http://ref.scielo.org/pcn4d
Maternal Geohelminth Infections Are Associated with an Increased Susceptibility to Geohelminth Infection in Children: A Case-Control Study
Background: Children of mothers infected with soil-transmitted helminths (STH) may have an increased susceptibility to STH infection.
Methods and Findings: We did a case-control study nested in a birth cohort in Ecuador. Data from 1,004 children aged 7
months to 3 years were analyzed. Cases were defined as children with Ascaris lumbricoides and/or Trichuris trichiura, controls without. Exposure was defined as maternal infection with A. lumbricoides and/or T. trichiura, detected during the third
trimester of pregnancy. The analysis was restricted to households with a documented infection to control for infection risk. Children of mothers with STH infections had a greater risk of infection compared to children of uninfected mothers (adjusted OR 2.61, 95% CI: 1.88–3.63, p,0.001). This effect was particularly strong in children of mothers with both STH infections (adjusted OR: 5.91, 95% CI: 3.55–9.81, p,0.001). Newborns of infected mothers had greater levels of plasma IL-10 than those of uninfected mothers (p = 0.033), and there was evidence that cord blood IL-10 was increased among newborns who became infected later in childhood (p = 0.060).
Conclusion: Our data suggest that maternal STH infections increase susceptibility to infection during early childhood, an effect that was associated with elevated IL-10 in cord plasma
Interaction energy functional for lattice density functional theory: Applications to one-, two- and three-dimensional Hubbard models
The Hubbard model is investigated in the framework of lattice density
functional theory (LDFT). The single-particle density matrix with
respect the lattice sites is considered as the basic variable of the many-body
problem. A new approximation to the interaction-energy functional
is proposed which is based on its scaling properties and which recovers exactly
the limit of strong electron correlations at half-band filling. In this way, a
more accurate description of is obtained throughout the domain of
representability of , including the crossover from weak to strong
correlations. As examples of applications results are given for the
ground-state energy, charge-excitation gap, and charge susceptibility of the
Hubbard model in one-, two-, and three-dimensional lattices. The performance of
the method is demonstrated by comparison with available exact solutions, with
numerical calculations, and with LDFT using a simpler dimer ansatz for .
Goals and limitations of the different approximations are discussed.Comment: 25 pages and 8 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Modeling Plain Vacuum Drying by Considering a Dynamic Capillary Pressure
A coupled drying model for wood is proposed by introducing a dynamic capillary pressure. The pressures of non-wetting phase, the wetting phase, and the capillary pressure at equilibrium has been considered as non-static; this approach includes a two-scale
model. According to numerical results, liquid, water vapor and air dynamics in the chamber have strong interactions with re-homogenization in the surface, controlled by capillary
forces. The results at 60–100 bar and 70 °C are discussed. The phenomenological one-dimensional drying model is solved by using the COMSOL’s coefficient form and a global equation format. A good description of drying kinetics, moisture redistribution, and mass fluxes is obtained. A comprehensible transition at the fiber saturation point is well simulated
The Simple Non-degenerate Relativistic Gas: Statistical Properties and Brownian Motion
This paper shows a novel calculation of the mean square displacement of a
classical Brownian particle in a relativistic thermal bath. The result is
compared with the expressions obtained by other authors. Also, the
thermodynamic properties of a non-degenerate simple relativistic gas are
reviewed in terms of a treatment performed in velocity space.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure
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