199 research outputs found
Secular changes in the physical development of students of the Medical University of Łódź
This study analyses, using selected somatometric features, secular trend changes which have occurred over a quarter of a century in female and male students of the Medical University of Łódź. The study is based on the results of an anthropometric survey carried out among first-year students who commenced their studies in the academic years 1978/79 (240 females and 193 males), 1982/83 (347 females and 188 males), 1988/89 (178 females and 165 males) and 2003/04 (188 females and 77 males). The following features were examined in all participants in the survey: body height (B-v), the height of the lower body segment measured from a floor base to the crista iliaca at the point on the mid-axillary line (B-ic), shoulder width (a-a), intertrochanteric distance (tro-tro) and resting chest circumference. To compare average values Student`s t-test was used with
assumptions of equal and unequal variances. To gauge the magnitude of changes in specific features in the course of a quarter of a century a percentage difference in results was calculated for the years 2003/2004 and 1978/1979. The basis for the calculations was the initial value of a feature at the beginning of the period analysed.
It was determined that in the 25-year period analysed (1978-2003) the young
people commencing studies at the Medical University of Łódź exhibited an acceleration in the height of the lower body segment (B-ic) and of the intertrochanteric distance (tro-tro) and a deceleration in resting chest circumference. Additionally, an increase in shoulder width has been noted in female students; no significant intergenerational changes were noted in body height, although the last 15 years display certain symptoms of deceleration; there is an emerging
tendency towards a blurring of the differences in body proportions between the sexes in the environment of the young people studying at the Medical University of Łódź
Phonon effects on the radiative recombination of excitons in double quantum dots
We study theoretically the radiative recombination of excitons in double
quantum dots in the presence of carrier-phonon coupling. We show that the
phonon-induced pure dephasing effects and transitions between the exciton
states strongly modify the spontaneous emission process and make it sensitive
to temperature, which may lead to non-monotonic temperature dependence of the
time-resolved luminescence. We show also that under specific resonance
conditions the biexcitonic interband polarization can be coherently transferred
to the excitonic one, leading to an extended life time of the total coherent
polarization, which is reflected in the nonlinear optical spectrum of the
system. We study the stability of this effect against phonon-induced
decoherence.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
Interplay of coupling and superradiant emmision in the optical response of a double quantum dot
We study theoretically the optical response of a double quantum dot structure
to an ultrafast optical excitation. We show that the interplay of a specific
type of coupling between the dots and their collective interaction with the
radiative environment leads to very characteristic features in the
time-resolved luminescence as well as in the absorption spectrum of the system.
For a sufficiently strong coupling, these effects survive even if the
transition energy mismatch between the two dots exceeds by far the emission
linewidth.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures; considerably extended versio
Artificial Intelligence in PET: An Industry Perspective
Artificial intelligence (AI) has significant potential to positively impact and advance medical imaging, including positron emission tomography (PET) imaging applications. AI has the ability to enhance and optimize all aspects of the PET imaging chain from patient scheduling, patient setup, protocoling, data acquisition, detector signal processing, reconstruction, image processing, and interpretation. AI poses industry-specific challenges which will need to be addressed and overcome to maximize the future potentials of AI in PET. This article provides an overview of these industry-specific challenges for the development, standardization, commercialization, and clinical adoption of AI and explores the potential enhancements to PET imaging brought on by AI in the near future. In particular, the combination of on-demand image reconstruction, AI, and custom-designed data-processing workflows may open new possibilities for innovation which would positively impact the industry and ultimately patients
Molecular Analysis of Precursor Lesions in Familial Pancreatic Cancer
PMCID: PMC3553106This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Detection of novel biomarkers of liver cirrhosis by high performance proteomics
Comunicaciones a congreso
A53T-alpha-synuclein-overexpression in the mouse nigrostriatal pathway leads to early increase of 14-3-3 epsilon and late increase of GFAP
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder frequent at old age characterized by atrophy of the nigrostriatal projection. Overexpression and A53T-mutation of the presynaptic, vesicle-associated chaperone alpha-synuclein are known to cause early-onset autosomal dominant PD. We previously generated mice with transgenic overexpression of human A53T-alpha-synuclein (A53T-SNCA) in dopaminergic substantia nigra neurons as a model of early PD. To elucidate the early and late effects of A53T-alpha-synuclein on the proteome of dopaminergic nerve terminals in the striatum, we now investigated expression profiles of young and old mice using two-dimensional fluorescence difference in gel electrophoresis (2D-DIGE) and mass spectrometry. In total, 15 proteins were upregulated and 2 downregulated. Mice before the onset of motor anomalies showed an upregulation of the spot containing 14-3-3 proteins, in particular the epsilon isoform, as well as altered levels of chaperones, vesicle trafficking and bioenergetics proteins. In old mice, the persistent upregulation of 14-3-3 proteins was aggravated by an increase of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) suggesting astrogliosis due to initial neurodegeneration. Independent immunoblots corroborated GFAP upregulation and 14-3-3 upregulation for the epsilon isoform, and also detected significant eta and gamma changes. Only for 14-3-3 epsilon a corresponding mRNA increase was observed in midbrain, suggesting it is transcribed in dopaminergic perikarya and accumulates as protein in presynapses, together with A53T-SNCA. 14-3-3 proteins associate with alpha-synuclein in vitro and in pathognomonic Lewy bodies of PD brains. They act as chaperones in signaling, dopamine synthesis and stress response. Thus, their early dysregulation probably reflects a response to alpha-synuclein toxicity
Metabolites of Purine Nucleoside Phosphorylase (NP) in Serum Have the Potential to Delineate Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma
Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma (PDAC), the fourth highest cause of cancer related deaths in the United States, has the most aggressive presentation resulting in a very short median survival time for the affected patients. Early detection of PDAC is confounded by lack of specific markers that has motivated the use of high throughput molecular approaches to delineate potential biomarkers. To pursue identification of a distinct marker, this study profiled the secretory proteome in 16 PDAC, 2 carcinoma in situ (CIS) and 7 benign patients using label-free mass spectrometry coupled to 1D-SDS-PAGE and Strong Cation-Exchange Chromatography (SCX). A total of 431 proteins were detected of which 56 were found to be significantly elevated in PDAC. Included in this differential set were Parkinson disease autosomal recessive, early onset 7 (PARK 7) and Alpha Synuclein (aSyn), both of which are known to be pathognomonic to Parkinson's disease as well as metabolic enzymes like Purine Nucleoside Phosphorylase (NP) which has been exploited as therapeutic target in cancers. Tissue Microarray analysis confirmed higher expression of aSyn and NP in ductal epithelia of pancreatic tumors compared to benign ducts. Furthermore, extent of both aSyn and NP staining positively correlated with tumor stage and perineural invasion while their intensity of staining correlated with the existence of metastatic lesions in the PDAC tissues. From the biomarker perspective, NP protein levels were higher in PDAC sera and furthermore serum levels of its downstream metabolites guanosine and adenosine were able to distinguish PDAC from benign in an unsupervised hierarchical classification model. Overall, this study for the first time describes elevated levels of aSyn in PDAC as well as highlights the potential of evaluating NP protein expression and levels of its downstream metabolites to develop a multiplex panel for non-invasive detection of PDAC
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