Prostate lymphoscintigraphy and radio-guided surgery for sentinel lymph node identification in prostate cancer - Technique and results of the first 350 cases

Introduction: Having in mind the promising results of lymphoscintigraphy and intraoperative gamma probe application for the detection of sentinel lymph nodes (SLN) in malignant melanoma, breast and penis cancer, we tried to identify the SLN in prostate cancer by applying a comparable technique. Materials and Method. 350 patients with prostate cancer were examined after providing informed consent. The day before pelvic lymphadenectomy technetium-99m nanocolloid was transrectally injected into the prostate under ultrasound guidance. A single central application was done per prostate lobe in most cases. Activity attained 90400 MBq, and the total injected volume was about 2-3 ml. Hereafter, lymphoscintigraphy was carried out. Those lymph nodes having been identified as SLN by means of gamma probe detection and lymphoscintigraphy were removed intraoperatively. Later, most of the cases had different types of pelvic lymphadenectomy. SLN received serial sections and immunohistochemistry, non-SLN step sections. Results: 335 patients showed at least 1 SLN in lymphoscintigraphy. 24.7% had lymph node metastases. In 2 patients, metastases in non-SLN were found without at least one SLN being affected (false-negative patient). Conclusion:Our experience suggests that the SLN identification is not only feasible in breast cancer and malignant melanoma, but also in prostate cancer with a comparable technique. Copyright (C) 2003 S. Karger AG, Basel

A High-resolution Model of Field-aligned Currents Through Empirical Orthogonal Functions Analysis (MFACE)

Ten years of CHAMP magnetic field measurements are integrated into MFACE, a model of field-aligned currents (FACs) using empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs). EOF1 gives the basic Region-1/Region-2 pattern varying mainly with the interplanetary magnetic field Bz component. EOF2 captures separately the cusp current signature and By-related variability. Compared to existing models, MFACE yields significantly better spatial resolution, reproduces typically observed FAC thickness and intensity, improves on the magnetic local time (MLT) distribution, and gives the seasonal dependence of FAC latitudes and the NBZ current signature. MFACE further reveals systematic dependences on By, including 1) Region-1/Region-2 topology modifications around noon; 2) imbalance between upward and downward maximum current density; 3) MLT location of the Harang discontinuity. Furthermore, our procedure allows quantifying response times of FACs to solar wind driving at the bow shock nose: we obtain 20 minutes and 35-40 minutes lags for the FAC density and latitude, respectively

Improving protein extraction and separation methods for investigating the metaproteome of anaerobic benzene communities within sediments

BTEX compounds such as benzene are frequent soil and groundwater contaminants that are easily biodegraded under oxic conditions by bacteria. In contrast, benzene is rather recalcitrant under anaerobic conditions. The analysis of anoxic degradation is often hampered by difficult sampling conditions, limited amounts of biomass and interference of matrix compounds with proteomic approaches. In order to improve the procedure for protein extraction we established a scheme consisting of the following steps: dissociation of cells from lava granules, cell lysis by ultrasonication and purification of proteins by phenol extraction. The 2D-gels revealed a resolution of about 240 proteins spots and the spot patterns showed strong matrix dependence, but still differences were detectable between the metaproteomes obtained after growth on benzene and benzoate. Using direct data base search as well as de novo sequencing approaches we were able to identify several proteins. An enoyl-CoA hydratase with cross species homology to Azoarcus evansii, is known to be involved in the anoxic degradation of xenobiotics. Thereby the identification confirmed that this procedure has the capacity to analyse the metaproteome of an anoxic living microbial community

Dressed gluon exponentiation

Perturbative and non-perturbative aspects of differential cross-sections close to a kinematic threshold are studied applying ``dressed gluon exponentiation'' (DGE). The factorization property of soft and collinear gluon radiation is demonstrated using the light-cone axial gauge: it is shown that the singular part of the squared matrix element for the emission of an off-shell gluon off a nearly on-shell quark is universal. We derive a generalized splitting function that describes the emission probability and show how Sudakov logs emerge from the phase-space boundary where the gluon transverse momentum vanishes. Both soft and collinear logs associated with a single dressed gluon are computed through a single integral over the running-coupling to any logarithmic accuracy. The result then serves as the kernel for exponentiation. The divergence of the perturbative series in the exponent indicates specific non-perturbative corrections. We identify two classes of observables according to whether the radiation is from an initial-state quark, as in the Drell-Yan process, or a final-state quark, forming a jet with a constrained invariant mass, as in fragmentation functions, event-shape variables and deep inelastic structure functions.Comment: 28 page

Colossal Positive Magnetoresistance in a Doped Nearly Magnetic Semiconductor

We report on a positive colossal magnetoresistance (MR) induced by metallization of FeSb$_{2}$, a nearly magnetic or "Kondo" semiconductor with 3d ions. We discuss contribution of orbital MR and quantum interference to enhanced magnetic field response of electrical resistivity.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

POSTER: Towards Secure 5G Infrastructures for Production Systems

To meet the requirements of modern production, industrial communication increasingly shifts from wired fieldbus to wireless 5G communication. Besides tremendous benefits, this shift introduces severe novel risks, ranging from limited reliability over new security vulnerabilities to a lack of accountability. To address these risks, we present approaches to (i) prevent attacks through authentication and redundant communication, (ii) detect anomalies and jamming, and (iii) respond to detected attacks through device exclusion and accountability measures.Comment: Accepted to the poster session of the 22nd International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security (ACNS 2024

Data-driven prediction and uncertainty quantification of process parameters for directed energy deposition

Laser-based directed energy deposition using metal powder (DED-LB/M) offers great potential for a flexible production mainly defined by software. To exploit this potential, knowledge of the process parameters required to achieve a specific track geometry is essential. Existing analytical, numerical, and machine-learning approaches, however, are not yet able to predict the process parameters in a satisfactory way. A trial-&-error approach is therefore usually applied to find the best process parameters. This paper presents a novel user-centric decision-making workflow, in which several combinations of process parameters that are most likely to yield the desired track geometry are proposed to the user. For this purpose, a Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) model, which has the advantage of including uncertainty quantification (UQ), was trained with experimental data to predict the geometry of single DED tracks based on the process parameters. The inherent UQ of the GPR together with the expert knowledge of the user can subsequently be leveraged for the inverse question of finding the best sets of process parameters by minimizing the expected squared deviation between target and actual track geometry. The GPR was trained and validated with a total of 379 cross sections of single tracks and the benefit of the workflow is demonstrated by two exemplary use cases.Landesministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden-WürttembergGerman Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaf