Computer simulation of glioma growth and morphology

Despite major advances in the study of glioma, the quantitative links between intra-tumor molecular/cellular properties, clinically observable properties such as morphology, and critical tumor behaviors such as growth and invasiveness remain unclear, hampering more effective coupling of tumor physical characteristics with implications for prognosis and therapy. Although molecular biology, histopathology, and radiological imaging are employed in this endeavor, studies are severely challenged by the multitude of different physical scales involved in tumor growth, i.e., from molecular nanoscale to cell microscale and finally to tissue centimeter scale. Consequently, it is often difficult to determine the underlying dynamics across dimensions. New techniques are needed to tackle these issues. Here, we address this multi-scalar problem by employing a novel predictive three-dimensional mathematical and computational model based on first-principle equations (conservation laws of physics) that describe mathematically the diffusion of cell substrates and other processes determining tumor mass growth and invasion. The model uses conserved variables to represent known determinants of glioma behavior, e.g., cell density and oxygen concentration, as well as biological functional relationships and parameters linking phenomena at different scales whose specific forms and values are hypothesized and calculated based on in vitro and in vivo experiments and from histopathology of tissue specimens from human gliomas. This model enables correlation of glioma morphology to tumor growth by quantifying interdependence of tumor mass on the microenvironment (e.g., hypoxia, tissue disruption) and on the cellular phenotypes (e.g., mitosis and apoptosis rates, cell adhesion strength). Once functional relationships between variables and associated parameter values have been informed, e.g., from histopathology or intra-operative analysis, this model can be used for disease diagnosis/prognosis, hypothesis testing, and to guide surgery and therapy. In particular, this tool identifies and quantifies the effects of vascularization and other cell-scale glioma morphological characteristics as predictors of tumor-scale growth and invasion

A Study on the Dynamic Behaviour of Lightweight Gears

This paper investigates the dynamic effects of mass reduction on a pair of spur gears. A one-Degree-of-Freedom (DOF) model of a mechanical oscillator with clearance-type nonlinearity and linear viscous damping is used to perform the investigations. One-dimensional (1D) gear pair models aim at studying the torsional gear vibrations around the rotational axes and can be used to simulate either gear whine or gear rattle phenomena. High computational efficiency is reached by using a spring-damper element with variable stiffness to model the gear meshing process. The angle-dependent mesh stiffness function is computed in a preparation phase through detailed Finite Element (FE) simulations and then stored in a lookup table, which is then interpolated during the dynamic simulation allowing for high computational efficiency. Nonlinear contact effects and influence of material discontinuities due to lightweighting are taken into account by FE simulations with high level of detail. Finally, the influence of gear body topology is investigated through a sensitivity analysis, in which analytical functions are defined to describe the time-varying mesh stiffness

Automatic Extraction of Disease Risk Factors from Medical Publications

We present a novel approach to automating the identification of risk factors for diseases from medical literature, leveraging pre-trained models in the bio-medical domain, while tuning them for the specific task. Faced with the challenges of the diverse and unstructured nature of medical articles, our study introduces a multi-step system to first identify relevant articles, then classify them based on the presence of risk factor discussions and, finally, extract specific risk factor information for a disease through a question-answering model. Our contributions include the development of a comprehensive pipeline for the automated extraction of risk factors and the compilation of several datasets, which can serve as valuable resources for further research in this area. These datasets encompass a wide range of diseases, as well as their associated risk factors, meticulously identified and validated through a fine-grained evaluation scheme. We conducted both automatic and thorough manual evaluation, demonstrating encouraging results. We also highlight the importance of improving models and expanding dataset comprehensiveness to keep pace with the rapidly evolving field of medical research.Comment: BioNLP@ACL2024, 12 page

The Prognostic Effect of VEGF Expression in Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Cervix Treated with Radiation Therapy Alone

We investigated the relationship between vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression and clinical outcome in squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix treated with radiotherapy alone. The immunohistochemical study was performed for forty-two paraffin embedded specimens with anti-VEGF mouse monoclonal antibody. Staining was defined as positive for VEGF when more than 10% of the tumor cells were stained from 500 cells counted. Positive VEGF expression was observed in twenty-one among forty-two patients. VEGF expression according to stage (p=0.101), lymph node status (p=0.621), parametrial invasion (p=0.268), and age (p=0.5) revealed no significant difference. But the VEGF expression was significantly higher in tumors larger than 4 cm (p=0.031). Five year survival rates according to VEGF expression status were 89% for VEGF negative group and 47% for VEGF positive group (p=0.02). FIGO stage (p=0.007), tumor size (p=0.025) and the duration of external beam radiation therapy (p=0.006) were also significant prognostic factors for overall survival. We suggest that VEGF expression may be a prognotic factor of the cervix cancer patients treated with radiation therapy alone

Влияние фосфатных связующих на физико-механические свойства периклазохромитовых огнеупоров

У данній статті наведено та порівняно фізико-механічні властивості периклазо-хромітових матеріалів в залежності від різних типів фосфатних зв’язуючих та введення різних домішок. Визначено, що найбільш раціональним є введення триполіфосфату натрію.In given clause are resulted and the physycal-mechanical properties periclase-cgromite of materials are compared depending on different of types phosphate binding and introduction of the various additives. Is determined, that most rational is the introduction treepolyphosphate sodume

Eupatilin Inhibits Gastric Cancer Cell Growth by Blocking STAT3-Mediated VEGF Expression

Purpose: Eupatilin is an antioxidative flavone and a phytopharmaceutical derived from Artemisia asiatica. It has been reported to possess anti-tumor activity in some types of cancer including gastric cancer. Eupatilin may modulate the angiogenesis pathway which is part of anti-inflammatory effect demonstrated in gastric mucosal injury models. Here we investigated the anti-tumor effects of eupatilin on gastric cancer cells and elucidated the potential underlying mechanism whereby eupatilin suppresses angiogenesis and tumor growth. Materials and Methods: The impact of eupatilin on the expression of angiogenesis pathway proteins was assessed using western blots in MKN45 cells. Using a chromatin immunoprecipitation assay, we tested whether eupatilin affects the recruitment of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3), aryl hydrocarbon receptor nuclear translocator (ARNT) and hypoxia-inducible factor- (HIF-) to the human VEGF promoter. To investigate the effect of eupatilin on vasculogenesis, tube formation assays were conducted using human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). The effect of eupatilin on tumor suppression in mouse xenografts was assessed. Results: Eupatilin significantly reduced VEGF, ARNT and STAT3 expression prominently under hypoxic conditions. The recruitment of STAT3, ARNT and HIF- to the VEGF promoter was inhibited by eupatilin treatment. HUVECs produced much foreshortened and severely broken tubes with eupatilin treatment. In addition, eupatilin effectively reduced tumor growth in a mouse xenograft model. Conclusions: Our results indicate that eupatilin inhibits angiogenesis in gastric cancer cells by blocking STAT3 and VEGF expression, suggesting its therapeutic potential in the treatment of gastric cancer.ope

Irrigation of Celery (Apium Graveolens) Plants with Aquaculture Effluent AQE Using Hydroponic System and Surface Drip Irrigation

Aquaculture is fish farming that consist as one of the major fish productions, its basic farming in water. The discharge of aquaculture effluent is a main disadvantage of aquaculture farming. The aim of this work to investigated the effect of using AQE in irrigation of Celery (Apium graveolens) plants using hydroponic or aquaponic and surface drip irrigation system. The benefit of aquaculture effluent will help in protecting the environment and useful in irrigation a new product. Aquaculture bowel pool installed at Al-Quds University campus, its integrated with two system hydroponic and surface drip irrigation to investigation the effect of AQE irrigation in Celery (Apium graveolens) plants. The plant growth parameters (plant height, fresh and dry weight and both dry leaves and stems) for both surface drip irrigation and hydroponic systems demonstrated there are no significant difference between irrigation with FW and AQE. Further, the plant tissue analysis of Celery leaves and stems revealed no influence in irrigation with AQE as compared to FW. In addition, no accumulation of sodium or chloride ions in the plant tissues was detected showing no effect of both ions in plants. The results show that the growth parameters, the chemical and physical characteristics of the plant in the aquaponics water effluent AQE pipes are similar to those grown in FW. Furthermore, water characteristics of AQE and FW with commercial fertilizers (13 N:13 P:13 K) during the growing the season and at the end of season shows approximately the same characteristics. Thus, the irrigation with AQE will be same effect of using commercial fertilizer system in both surface drip irrigation of hydroponic system or aquaponic for Celery plants. The combination of surface drip irrigation process and hydroponic system with aquaculture system is useful technique to benefits from the application of AQE in irrigation. This irrigation method is considered to be cheap in construction, easy operation, a long lifespan and needs low maintenance requirements

Cerebrospinal fluid levels of proenkephalin and prodynorphin are differentially altered in Huntington’s and Parkinson’s disease

Background: Proenkephalin (PENK) and prodynorphin (PDYN) are peptides mainly produced by the striatal medium spiny projection neurons (MSNs) under dopaminergic signaling. Therefore, they may represent candidate biomarkers in Huntington’s disease (HD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD), two neurodegenerative diseases characterized by striatal atrophy and/or dysfunction. Methods: Using an in-house established liquid chromatography−tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) method in multiple reaction monitoring mode (MRM) we measured cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of PENK- and PDYN- derived peptides in patients with HD (n = 47), PD (n = 61), Alzheimer’s disease (n = 11), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (n = 14) and in 92 control subjects. Moreover, we investigated the possible associations between biomarkers and disease severity scales in HD and PD and the effect of dopaminergic therapy on biomarker levels in PD. Results: In HD, CSF PENK- and PDYN-derived peptide levels were significantly decreased compared to all other groups and were associated with disease severity scores. In PD, both biomarkers were within the normal range, but higher PDYN levels were found in dopamine-treated compared to untreated patients. In PD, both CSF PENK and PDYN did not correlate with clinical severity scales. Conclusions: CSF PENK- and PDYN-derived peptides appeared to be promising pathogenetic and disease severity markers in HD, reflecting the ongoing striatal neurodegeneration along with the loss of MSNs. In PD patients, CSF PDYN showed a limitative role as a possible pharmacodynamic marker during dopaminergic therapy, but further investigations are needed