A population-based study of transformed marginal zone lymphoma: identifying outcome-related characteristics

Histological transformation of marginal zone lymphoma (tMZL) into diffuse large B-cell lymphoma is associated with poor outcomes. Clinical characteristics associated with transformation risk and outcome after transformation are largely unknown due to scarcity of data. In this population-based study, competing risk analyses were performed to elucidate clinical characteristics associated with developing transformation among 1793 MZL patients using the Netherlands Cancer Registry. Cox regression analyses were performed to elucidate clinical characteristics associated with risk of relapse and mortality after transformation. Transformation occurred in 75 (4%) out of 1793 MZL patients. Elevated LDH and nodal MZL subtype at MZL diagnosis were associated with an increased risk, and radiotherapy with a reduced risk of developing tMZL. Most tMZL patients received R-(mini)CHOP (n = 53, 71%). Age >60 years and (immuno)chemotherapy before transformation were associated with an increased risk of relapse and mortality after transformation. Two-year progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were 66% (95% CI 52-77%) and 75% (95% CI 62-85%) for R-(mini)CHOP-treated tMZL patients, as compared to a PFS and OS both of 41% (95% CI 19-63%) for patients treated otherwise. Our study offers comprehensive insights into characteristics associated with transformation and survival after transformation, thereby optimizing guidelines and patient counseling.Immunobiology of allogeneic stem cell transplantation and immunotherapy of hematological disease

Direct Measurements of the Branching Fractions for D0→K−e+νeD^0 \to K^-e^+\nu_e and D0→π−e+νeD^0 \to \pi^-e^+\nu_e and Determinations of the Form Factors f+K(0)f_{+}^{K}(0) and f+π(0)f^{\pi}_{+}(0)

The absolute branching fractions for the decays $D^0 \to K^-e ^+\nu_e$ and $D^0 \to \pi^-e^+\nu_e$ are determined using $7584\pm 198 \pm 341$ singly tagged $\bar D^0$ sample from the data collected around 3.773 GeV with the BES-II detector at the BEPC. In the system recoiling against the singly tagged $\bar D^0$ meson, $104.0\pm 10.9$ events for $D^0 \to K^-e ^+\nu_e$ and $9.0 \pm 3.6$ events for $D^0 \to \pi^-e^+\nu_e$ decays are observed. Those yield the absolute branching fractions to be $BF(D^0 \to K^-e^+\nu_e)=(3.82 \pm 0.40\pm 0.27)$ and $BF(D^0 \to \pi^-e^+\nu_e)=(0.33 \pm 0.13\pm 0.03)$. The vector form factors are determined to be $|f^K_+(0)| = 0.78 \pm 0.04 \pm 0.03$ and $|f^{\pi}_+(0)| = 0.73 \pm 0.14 \pm 0.06$. The ratio of the two form factors is measured to be $|f^{\pi}_+(0)/f^K_+(0)|= 0.93 \pm 0.19 \pm 0.07$.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Measurements of the Mass and Full-Width of the ηc\eta_c Meson

In a sample of 58 million $J/\psi$ events collected with the BES II detector, the process J/$\psi\to\gamma\eta_c$ is observed in five different decay channels: $\gamma K^+K^-\pi^+\pi^-$, $\gamma\pi^+\pi^-\pi^+\pi^-$, $\gamma K^\pm K^0_S \pi^\mp$ (with $K^0_S\to\pi^+\pi^-$), $\gamma \phi\phi$ (with $\phi\to K^+K^-$) and $\gamma p\bar{p}$. From a combined fit of all five channels, we determine the mass and full-width of $\eta_c$ to be $m_{\eta_c}=2977.5\pm1.0 ({stat.})\pm1.2 ({syst.})$ MeV/$c^2$ and $\Gamma_{\eta_c} = 17.0\pm3.7 ({stat.})\pm7.4 ({syst.})$ MeV/$c^2$.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures and 4 table. Submitted to Phys. Lett.

The σ\sigma pole in J/ψ→ωπ+π−J/\psi \to \omega \pi^+ \pi^-

Using a sample of 58 million $J/\psi$ events recorded in the BESII detector, the decay $J/\psi \to \omega \pi^+ \pi^-$ is studied. There are conspicuous $\omega f_2(1270)$ and $b_1(1235)\pi$ signals. At low $\pi \pi$ mass, a large broad peak due to the $\sigma$ is observed, and its pole position is determined to be $(541 \pm 39)$ - $i$ $(252 \pm 42)$ MeV from the mean of six analyses. The errors are dominated by the systematic errors.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PL

Search for the Lepton Flavor Violation Processes J/ψ→J/\psi \to μτ\mu\tau and eτe\tau

The lepton flavor violation processes $J/\psi \to \mu\tau$ and $e\tau$ are searched for using a sample of 5.8$\times 10^7$ $J/\psi$ events collected with the BESII detector. Zero and one candidate events, consistent with the estimated background, are observed in $J/\psi \to \mu\tau, \tau\to e\bar\nu_e\nu_{\tau}$ and $J/\psi\to e\tau, \tau\to\mu\bar\nu_{\mu}\nu_{\tau}$ decays, respectively. Upper limits on the branching ratios are determined to be $Br(J/\psi\to\mu\tau)<2.0 \times 10^{-6}$ and $Br(J/\psi \to e\tau) < 8.3 \times10^{-6}$ at the 90% confidence level (C.L.).Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

Observation of the decay \psip\rar\kstark

Using 14 million $\psi(2S)$ events collected with the BESII detector, branching fractions of \psip\rar\kstarkpm and \kstarknn are determined to be: \calB(\psip\rar\kstarkpm)=(2.9^{+1.3}_{-1.7}\pm0.4)\times 10^{-5} and \calB(\psip\rar\kstarknn)=(13.3^{+2.4}_{-2.7}\pm1.9)\times 10^{-5}. The results confirm the violation of the "12%" rule for these two decay channels with higher precision. A large isospin violation between the charged and neutral modes is observed.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Quantifying atmospheric nitrogen deposition through a nationwide monitoring network across China

A Nationwide Nitrogen Deposition Monitoring Network (NNDMN) containing 43 monitoring sites was established in China to measure gaseous NH3, NO2, and HNO3 and particulate NH4+ and NO3− in air and/or precipitation from 2010 to 2014. Wet/bulk deposition fluxes of Nr species were collected by precipitation gauge method and measured by continuous-flow analyzer; dry deposition fluxes were estimated using airborne concentration measurements and inferential models. Our observations reveal large spatial variations of atmospheric Nr concentrations and dry and wet/bulk Nr deposition. On a national basis, the annual average concentrations (1.3–47.0 μg N m−3) and dry plus wet/bulk deposition fluxes (2.9–83.3 kg N ha−1 yr−1) of inorganic Nr species are ranked by land use as urban > rural > background sites and by regions as north China > southeast China > southwest China > northeast China > northwest China > Tibetan Plateau, reflecting the impact of anthropogenic Nr emission. Average dry and wet/bulk N deposition fluxes were 20.6 ± 11.2 (mean ± standard deviation) and 19.3 ± 9.2 kg N ha−1 yr−1 across China, with reduced N deposition dominating both dry and wet/bulk deposition. Our results suggest atmospheric dry N deposition is equally important to wet/bulk N deposition at the national scale. Therefore, both deposition forms should be included when considering the impacts of N deposition on environment and ecosystem health

Shrinking a large dataset to identify variables associated with increased risk of Plasmodium falciparum infection in Western Kenya

Large datasets are often not amenable to analysis using traditional single-step approaches. Here, our general objective was to apply imputation techniques, principal component analysis (PCA), elastic net and generalized linear models to a large dataset in a systematic approach to extract the most meaningful predictors for a health outcome. We extracted predictors for Plasmodium falciparum infection, from a large covariate dataset while facing limited numbers of observations, using data from the People, Animals, and their Zoonoses (PAZ) project to demonstrate these techniques: data collected from 415 homesteads in western Kenya, contained over 1500 variables that describe the health, environment, and social factors of the humans, livestock, and the homesteads in which they reside. The wide, sparse dataset was simplified to 42 predictors of P. falciparum malaria infection and wealth rankings were produced for all homesteads. The 42 predictors make biological sense and are supported by previous studies. This systematic data-mining approach we used would make many large datasets more manageable and informative for decision-making processes and health policy prioritization

Isometric Sliced Inverse Regression for Nonlinear Manifolds Learning

[[abstract]]Sliced inverse regression (SIR) was developed to find effective linear dimension-reduction directions for exploring the intrinsic structure of the high-dimensional data. In this study, we present isometric SIR for nonlinear dimension reduction, which is a hybrid of the SIR method using the geodesic distance approximation. First, the proposed method computes the isometric distance between data points; the resulting distance matrix is then sliced according to K-means clustering results, and the classical SIR algorithm is applied. We show that the isometric SIR (ISOSIR) can reveal the geometric structure of a nonlinear manifold dataset (e.g., the Swiss roll). We report and discuss this novel method in comparison to several existing dimension-reduction techniques for data visualization and classification problems. The results show that ISOSIR is a promising nonlinear feature extractor for classification applications.[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]紙本[[booktype]]電子

Prunella vulgaris: A comprehensive review of chemical constituents, pharmacological effects and clinical applications.

Prunella vulgaris (PV) is a perennial herb belonging to the Labiate family and is widely distributed in northeastern Asian countries such as Korea, Japan, and China. It is reported to display diverse biological activities including anti-microbial, anti-cancer, and anti-inflammation as determined by in vitro or in vivo studies. So far, about 200 compounds have been isolated from PV plant and majority of these have been characterized mainly as triterpenoids, sterols and flavonoids, followed by coumarins, phenylpropanoids, polysaccharides and volatile oils. This review summarizes and analyzes the current knowledge on the chemical constituents, pharmacological activities, mechanisms of action and clinical applications of the PV plant including its potential as a future medicinal plant. Although some of the chemical constituents of the PV plant and their mechanism of action have been investigated the biological activities of many of these remain unknown and further clinical trials are required to further enhance its reputation as a medicinal plant