3,825 research outputs found
A systematic review of the association between circulating concentrations of C reactive protein and cancer.
The objective of this study was to review and summarise the published evidence for an association between circulating concentrations of C reactive protein (CRP) and cancer through a systematic review. 90 discrete studies were identified. 81 (90%) were prevalent case-control or cross-sectional studies, and only 9 studies had a prospective design. In most prevalent studies, CRP concentrations were found to be higher in patients with cancer than in healthy controls or controls with benign conditions. Of the nine large prospective studies identified in this review, four reported no relationship between circulating CRP levels and breast, prostate or colorectal cancers, and five studies found that CRP was associated with colorectal or lung cancers. Most of the studies evaluating CRP as a diagnostic marker of cancer did not present relevant statistical analyses. Furthermore, any association reported in the prevalent studies might reflect reverse causation, survival bias or confounding. The prospective studies provided no strong evidence for a causal role of CRP in cancer. Instead of further prevalent studies, more large prospective studies and CRP gene-cancer association studies would be valuable in investigating the role of CRP in cancer
Cooperation and Underlay Mode Selection in Cognitive Radio Network
In this research, we proposes a new method for cooperation and underlay mode
selection in cognitive radio networks. We characterize the maximum achievable
throughput of our proposed method of hybrid spectrum sharing. Hybrid spectrum
sharing is assumed where the Secondary User (SU) can access the Primary User
(PU) channel in two modes, underlay mode or cooperative mode with admission
control. In addition to access the channel in the overlay mode, secondary user
is allowed to occupy the channel currently occupied by the primary user but
with small transmission power. Adding the underlay access modes attains more
opportunities to the secondary user to transmit data. It is proposed that the
secondary user can only exploits the underlay access when the channel of the
primary user direct link is good or predicted to be in non-outage state.
Therefore, the secondary user could switch between underlay spectrum sharing
and cooperation with the primary user. Hybrid access is regulated through
monitoring the state of the primary link. By observing the simulation results,
the proposed model attains noticeable improvement in the system performance in
terms of maximum secondary user throughput than the conventional cooperation
and non-cooperation schemes
Integrated multi vector vortex beam generator
A novel method to generate and manipulate vector vortex beams in an
integrated, ring resonator based geometry is proposed. We show numerically that
a ring resonator, with an appropriate grating, addressed by a vertically
displaced access waveguide emits a complex optical field. The emitted beam
possesses a specific polarization topology, and consequently a transverse
intensity profile and orbital angular momentum. We propose a combination of
several concentric ring resonators, addressed with different bus guides, to
generate arbitrary orbital angular momentum qudit states, which could
potentially be used for classical and quantum communications. Finally, we
demonstrate numerically that this device works as an orbital angular momentum
sorter with an average cross-talk of -10 dB between different orbital angular
momentum channels.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure
Modeling the effects of high strain rate loading on RC columns using Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) technique
In recent years, many studies have been conducted by governmental and nongovernmental organizations across the world in an attempt to better understand the effect of explosive loads on buildings in order to better design against specific threats. This study is intended to contribute to increase the knowledge about how explosions affect reinforced concrete (RC) columns. In this study, a nonlinear model is developed to study the blast response of RC columns subjected to explosive loads. Numerical modeling of RC column under explosive load is presented using advanced finite element code LS DYNA. The obtained numerical model is validated with the experimental test and the results are in substantial agreement with the experimental data. ALE method for blast analysis is presented in the current research. The effects of scaled distance on the damage profile of RC columns are investigated. The results demonstrate that the level of damage increased with describing the scaled distance. Also the results shown duration for the blast loading, and hence the impulse, varies with charge masses at the specified scaled distance. Higher magnitude charge masses produced longer blast loading durations than lower magnitude charge masses. This means that at the same scaled distance, a charge mass of higher magnitude produced a higher impulse than the lower magnitude charge mass. The findings of this research represent the scaled distance is an important parameter that should be taken into account when analyzing the behavior of RC columns under explosive effects. The data collected from this research are being used to improve the knowledge of how structures will respond to a blast event, and improve finite element models for predicting the blast performance of concrete structures.Peer Reviewe
- …