The impact of article processing charges on libraries and what is being done to help

Following significant growth in gold open access publishing, Katie Shamash looks at the available APC data and picks out some key insights. APCs are now an increasingly significant portion of institutions’ overall spend, with the quickly narrowing gap between gold open access APCs and those of hybrid journals representing an additional concern. Moreover, the administrative difficulties that can lead to underreporting of APC expenditure demonstrate the importance of opening up the data and promoting a fully transparent marketplace

Comment on 'Anti-tumour activity of abiraterone and diethylstilboestrol when administered sequentially to men with castration-resistant prostate cancer'

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Oral ethinylestradiol in castration resistent prostate cancer: 10 year experience

To describe our 10-year experience with the use of oral ethinylestradiol in the treatment of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. METHODS: From February 2000 to April 2010, 116 patients with a metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer were prospectively submitted to oral ethinylestradiol monotherapy. Inclusion criteria were: diagnosis of castration-resistant prostate cancer after failure of at least two lines of androgen deprivation therapy and radiological evidence of metastases. Exclusion criteria were: symptomatic cases with a European Cooperative Oncology Group score >2 and severe or uncontrolled cardiovascular diseases. At inclusion in the study, all patients discontinued the previous androgen deprivation therapy and started oral ethinylestradiol at the daily dose of 1 mg. Aspirin (100 mg/daily) was concomitantly given. RESULTS: The median ethinylestradiol therapy duration was 15.9 months (range 8-36 months), whereas the median follow up of patients was 28 months (range 13-36 months). During ethinylestradiol therapy, a confirmed prostate-specific antigen response was found in 79 patients (70.5%). The median time to prostate-specific antigen progression was 15.10 months (95% confidence interval 13.24-18.76 months). A toxicity requiring treatment cessation was observed in 26 patients (23.2%) at a median time of 16 months (mainly thromboembolism). CONCLUSIONS: Our 10-year experience shows that ethinylestradiol provides a prostate-specific antigen response in a high percentage of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Cardiovascular toxicity can be managed through accurate patient selection, close follow up and a concomitant anticoagulation therapy

The cone of Betti diagrams over a hypersurface ring of low embedding dimension

We give a complete description of the cone of Betti diagrams over a standard graded hypersurface ring of the form k[x,y]/, where q is a homogeneous quadric. We also provide a finite algorithm for decomposing Betti diagrams, including diagrams of infinite projective dimension, into pure diagrams. Boij--Soederberg theory completely describes the cone of Betti diagrams over a standard graded polynomial ring; our result provides the first example of another graded ring for which the cone of Betti diagrams is entirely understood.Comment: Minor edits, references update

Shapes of free resolutions over a local ring

We classify the possible shapes of minimal free resolutions over a regular local ring. This illustrates the existence of free resolutions whose Betti numbers behave in surprisingly pathological ways. We also give an asymptotic characterization of the possible shapes of minimal free resolutions over hypersurface rings. Our key new technique uses asymptotic arguments to study formal Q-Betti sequences.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure; v2: sections have been reorganized substantially and exposition has been streamline

Accelerated BEP : a phase I trial of dose-dense BEP for intermediate and poor prognosis metastatic germ cell tumour

Background: We used bleomycin, etoposide, cisplatin (BEP), the most effective regimen in the treatment of germ cell tumours (GCTs) and increased dose-density by using pegfilgrastim to shorten cycle length. Our aim was to assess safety and tolerability. Methods: Sixteen male patients with intermediate or poor prognosis metastatic GCT were treated with four cycles of 3-day BEP with G-CSF on a 14-day cycle for a planned relative dose-density of 1.5 compared with standard BEP. Results: Eleven intermediate and five poor prognosis patients were treated. In all, 14 of 16 patients completed the study treatment. Toxicities were comparable to previous studies using standard BEP, except for mucositis and haematological toxicity that were more severe. The overall relative dose-density for all 16 patients was mean 1.38 (range 0.72–1.5; median 1.46). Complete response was achieved after chemotherapy alone in two patients (13%) and following chemotherapy plus surgery in nine additional patients (56%). Four patients (25%) had a partial response and normalised their marker levels. At a median follow-up of 4.4 years (range 2.1–6.8) the estimated 5-year progression-free survival probability is 81% (95% CI 64–100%). Conclusion: Accelerated BEP is tolerable without major additional toxicity. A randomised controlled trial will be required to obtain comparative efficacy data

Cosmopolitical technologies and the demarcation of screen space at Cine Kurumin

“Our fight today is to demarcate our space on the screen, when we can no longer demarcate our lands.” I cite Ailton Krenak, one of Brazil’s most influential Indigenous leaders, at his keynote address at the opening of the Cine Kurumin film festival in Salvador, Brazil, to engage with cinematic languages on the margins of dominant media. I experience the festival as an active immersion into imaginaries that forward the process of “decoloniality” (Mignolo). As Sueli Maxakali articulated during a roundtable of Indigenous women filmmakers, the Shaman must dream in order to choose the name of the films made in her community. The production processes of these films were conceived outside the structures of any capitalist market economy; rather, the festival offered an alternate space to take a deliberate leap into expressive audio and oral visual experiences, cultures, languages, politics, and imaginaries resisting ongoing violence entrenched in capital and coloniality. Through a discussion of the festival curation, roundtable discussion, and through a film analysis, I elaborate how the sacred, spiritual, and social are constituent elements of cosmopolitical visions. I argue that film and video as cosmopolitical technologies are unsettling established conceptions of nature and culture, of politics and representation both on and off-screen. Witnessing the Cine Kurumin festival – the totality of the experience becomes an immersive and transformative space for decolonizing the imaginary while disturbing hegemonic political, conceptual, and representational agendas