Multiple Myeloma

The results of the use of melphalan in 52 patients with multiple myeloma have been analysed.  The median survival of the whole group of patients was 30 months, and of those with renal insufficiency only 12,5 months. Bence-lones proteinuria was also a poor prognostic finding,. but only because of its association with renal failure. Patients with Bence-Jones proteinuria and normal renal function had a median survival of 41 months. Responsiveness to therapy by criteria based on those of the Chronic Leukemial Multiple Myeloma Task Force could be assessed in 25 patients. Dramatic symptomatic relief occurred in all but one of the responsive patients, but in only one-fifth of those who did not respond to therapy.S. Afr. Med. J., 48, 1026 (1974)

Local experience in the treatment of acute non-lymphoblastic leukaemia

Seventy-six patients suffering from various forms of acute non-lymphoblastic leukaemia were seen at the Johannesburg Hospital over an 8-year period. During this time various forms of therapy were used. Results with 6-mercaptopurine and prednisone were very poor, with less than 10% of patients achieving complete remission. Daunorubicin, when used alone, proved too toxic, but when given in a smaller dose with other agents, was more effective. The best results were obtained in 22 patients in whom a combination of daunorubicin and cytosine arabinoside was used. Complete remissions occurred in 9 patients and partial remissions in 2. The median survival of these 11 patients was 42 weeks. It is noteworthy that 3 of these patients were still alive one-and-a-half years from the time of diagnosis, and 1 of them is still in complete remission, two years after she was first treated.S. Afr. Med. J., 48, 963 (1974)

Observations and modeling of wave-supported sediment gravity flows on the Po prodelta and comparison to prior observations from the Eel shelf

Author Posting. © The Authors, 2006. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Continental Shelf Research 27 (2007): 375-399, doi:10.1016/j.csr.2005.07.008.A mooring and tripod array was deployed from the fall of 2002 through the spring of 2003 on the Po prodelta to measure sediment transport processes associated with sediment delivered from the Po River. Observations on the prodelta revealed wave-supported gravity flows of high concentration mud suspensions that are dynamically and kinematically similar to those observed on the Eel shelf (Traykovski et al., 2000). Due to the dynamic similarity between the two sites, a simple one-dimensional across-shelf model with the appropriate bottom boundary condition was used to examine fluxes associated with this transport mechanism at both locations. To calculate the sediment concentrations associated with the wave-dominated and wave-current resuspension, a bottom boundary condition using a reference concentration was combined with an “active layer” formulation to limit the amount of sediment in suspension. Whereas the wave-supported gravity flow mechanism dominates the transport on the Eel shelf, on the Po prodelta flux due to this mechanism is equal in magnitude to transport due to wave resuspension and wind-forced mean currents in cross-shore direction. Southward transport due to wave resuspension and wind forced mean currents move an order of magnitude more sediment along-shore than the downslope flux associated wave-supported gravity flows.This work funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research under grant number #N00014-02-10378, under the direction of program manager, Tom Drake

Dynamical mean-field theory of spiking neuron ensembles: response to a single spike with independent noises

Dynamics of an ensemble of $N$-unit FitzHugh-Nagumo (FN) neurons subject to white noises has been studied by using a semi-analytical dynamical mean-field (DMF) theory in which the original $2 N$-dimensional {\it stochastic} differential equations are replaced by 8-dimensional {\it deterministic} differential equations expressed in terms of moments of local and global variables. Our DMF theory, which assumes weak noises and the Gaussian distribution of state variables, goes beyond weak couplings among constituent neurons. By using the expression for the firing probability due to an applied single spike, we have discussed effects of noises, synaptic couplings and the size of the ensemble on the spike timing precision, which is shown to be improved by increasing the size of the neuron ensemble, even when there are no couplings among neurons. When the coupling is introduced, neurons in ensembles respond to an input spike with a partial synchronization. DMF theory is extended to a large cluster which can be divided into multiple sub-clusters according to their functions. A model calculation has shown that when the noise intensity is moderate, the spike propagation with a fairly precise timing is possible among noisy sub-clusters with feed-forward couplings, as in the synfire chain. Results calculated by our DMF theory are nicely compared to those obtained by direct simulations. A comparison of DMF theory with the conventional moment method is also discussed.Comment: 29 pages, 2 figures; augmented the text and added Appendice

Tomato: a crop species amenable to improvement by cellular and molecular methods

Tomato is a crop plant with a relatively small DNA content per haploid genome and a well developed genetics. Plant regeneration from explants and protoplasts is feasable which led to the development of efficient transformation procedures. In view of the current data, the isolation of useful mutants at the cellular level probably will be of limited value in the genetic improvement of tomato. Protoplast fusion may lead to novel combinations of organelle and nuclear DNA (cybrids), whereas this technique also provides a means of introducing genetic information from alien species into tomato. Important developments have come from molecular approaches. Following the construction of an RFLP map, these RFLP markers can be used in tomato to tag quantitative traits bred in from related species. Both RFLP's and transposons are in the process of being used to clone desired genes for which no gene products are known. Cloned genes can be introduced and potentially improve specific properties of tomato especially those controlled by single genes. Recent results suggest that, in principle, phenotypic mutants can be created for cloned and characterized genes and will prove their value in further improving the cultivated tomato.

Stateful Contracts for Affine Types

Abstract. Affine type systems manage resources by preventing some values from being used more than once. This offers expressiveness and performance benefits, but difficulty arises in interacting with components written in a conventional language whose type system provides no way to maintain the affine type system’s aliasing invariants. We propose and implement a technique that uses behavioral contracts to mediate between code written in an affine language and code in a conventional typed language. We formalize our approach via a typed calculus with both affine-typed and conventionally-typed modules. We show how to preserve the guarantees of both type systems despite both languages being able to call into each other and exchange higher-order values.

Measurement of Transverse Single-Spin Asymmetries for Di-Jet Production in Proton-Proton Collisions at s=200\sqrt{s} = 200 GeV

We report the first measurement of the opening angle distribution between pairs of jets produced in high-energy collisions of transversely polarized protons. The measurement probes (Sivers) correlations between the transverse spin orientation of a proton and the transverse momentum directions of its partons. With both beams polarized, the wide pseudorapidity ($-1 \leq \eta \leq +2$) coverage for jets permits separation of Sivers functions for the valence and sea regions. The resulting asymmetries are all consistent with zero and considerably smaller than Sivers effects observed in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering (SIDIS). We discuss theoretical attempts to reconcile the new results with the sizable transverse spin effects seen in SIDIS and forward hadron production in pp collisions.Comment: 6 pages total, 1 Latex file, 3 PS files with figure