Antidiabetic treatment, obesity, and cancer risk in Algerian patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

OBJECTIVE: Several studies have shown that antidiabetic drugs and obesity can modulate the risk of developing cancer. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of the use of antidiabetic drugs and obesity on the risk of developing cancers in type 2 diabetics. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data for 1220 patients were collected from the processing of files and a pre-established questionnaire. The anthropobiological parameters and the associated treatment type have been unspecified. RESULTS: Women (OR=17.26; 95% CI=2.88-103.45, p<0.01), overweight individuals (OR=4.81; 95% CI=1.63-14.14, p<0.01) and hypertensive diabetic subjects (OR=3.82; 95% CI=1.39-10.49, p< 0.01) are more exposed to cancers. It is interesting to note that diabetic subjects treated with insulin have a reduced risk of developing cancer (OR=0.22; 95% CI=0.07-0.67, p<0.01). Diabetic subjects treated with metformin have a four and a half times higher risk of developing cancer (OR=4.61; 95% CI=1.48-14.37, p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: In type 2 diabetic subjects, cancer is significantly linked to overweight, to the presence of essential hypertension in individuals under hypotensive as well as in patients treated with metformin

Ontogenic changes in hematopoietic hierarchy determine pediatric specificity and disease phenotype in fusion oncogene-driven myeloid leukemia

Fusion oncogenes are prevalent in several pediatric cancers, yet little is known about the specific associations between age and phenotype. We observed that fusion oncogenes, such as ETO2–GLIS2, are associated with acute megakaryoblastic or other myeloid leukemia subtypes in an age-dependent manner. Analysis of a novel inducible transgenic mouse model showed that ETO2–GLIS2 expression in fetal hematopoietic stem cells induced rapid megakaryoblastic leukemia whereas expression in adult bone marrow hematopoietic stem cells resulted in a shift toward myeloid transformation with a strikingly delayed in vivo leukemogenic potential. Chromatin accessibility and single-cell transcriptome analyses indicate ontogeny-dependent intrinsic and ETO2–GLIS2-induced differences in the activities of key transcription factors, including ERG, SPI1, GATA1, and CEBPA. Importantly, switching off the fusion oncogene restored terminal differentiation of the leukemic blasts. Together, these data show that aggressiveness and phenotypes in pediatric acute myeloid leukemia result from an ontogeny-related differential susceptibility to transformation by fusion oncogenes. SIGNIFICANCE: This work demonstrates that the clinical phenotype of pediatric acute myeloid leukemia is determined by ontogeny-dependent susceptibility for transformation by oncogenic fusion genes. The phenotype is maintained by potentially reversible alteration of key transcription factors, indicating that targeting of the fusions may overcome the differentiation blockage and revert the leukemic state

Setting the agenda for social science research on the human microbiome

The human microbiome is an important emergent area of cross, multi and transdisciplinary study. The complexity of this topic leads to conflicting narratives and regulatory challenges. It raises questions about the benefits of its commercialisation and drives debates about alternative models for engaging with its publics, patients and other potential beneficiaries. The social sciences and the humanities have begun to explore the microbiome as an object of empirical study and as an opportunity for theoretical innovation. They can play an important role in facilitating the development of research that is socially relevant, that incorporates cultural norms and expectations around microbes and that investigates how social and biological lives intersect. This is a propitious moment to establish lines of collaboration in the study of the microbiome that incorporate the concerns and capabilities of the social sciences and the humanities together with those of the natural sciences and relevant stakeholders outside academia. This paper presents an agenda for the engagement of the social sciences with microbiome research and its implications for public policy and social change. Our methods were informed by existing multidisciplinary science-policy agenda-setting exercises. We recruited 36 academics and stakeholders and asked them to produce a list of important questions about the microbiome that were in need of further social science research. We refined this initial list into an agenda of 32 questions and organised them into eight themes that both complement and extend existing research trajectories. This agenda was further developed through a structured workshop where 21 of our participants refined the agenda and reflected on the challenges and the limitations of the exercise itself. The agenda identifies the need for research that addresses the implications of the human microbiome for human health, public health, public and private sector research and notions of self and identity. It also suggests new lines of research sensitive to the complexity and heterogeneity of human–microbiome relations, and how these intersect with questions of environmental governance, social and spatial inequality and public engagement with science

A reactive GRASP and path relinking for a combined production-distribution problem.Computers and Operations Research,34

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NUMERICAL SIMULATION AND OPTIMIZATION OF PERFORMANCES OF A SOLAR CELL BASED ON CdTe

<p>This article has as an aim the study and the simulation of the photovoltaic cells containing CdTe materials, contributing to the development of renewable energies, and able to feed from the houses, the shelters as well as photovoltaic stations… etc. CdTe is a semiconductor having a structure of bands with an indirect gap of a value of 1,5 eV at ambient temperature what means that photon wavelength of approximately 1200 nm will be able to generate an electron-hole pair. One speaks about photogeneration. We will lay the stress, initially, on the essential design features of a photovoltaic module (the open-circuit tension, the short-circuit current, the fill factor, and the output of the cell)<strong>, </strong>our results was simulated with the SCAPS computer code in one dimension which uses electrical characteristics DC and AC of the thin layers heterojunctions. The results obtained after optimization are: V_CO = 0.632V, Jsc = 39.1 mA/cm2, FF=82.98 % and the output energy of conversion is 18.26%.Optimization is made according to the temperature and the wavelength.</p

TEMPERATUREEFFECT OFELECTRICALPROPERTIES OF CIGS SOLAR CELL

<p>In this paper we are interested in studying the copper–indium–gallium–selenium (CIGS) solar cells sandwiched between cadmium sulfide (CdS) and ZnO as buffer layers, and Molybdenum (Mo). Thus, we report our simulation results using the capacitance simulator (SCAPS) in terms of layer thickness, absorber layer band gap and operating temperature to find out the optimum choice. An efficiency of 20.61% (with V_oc of 635.2mV, J_sc of 44.08 mA/cm² and fill factor of 0.73) has been achieved with CdS used as buffer layer as the reference case. It is also found that the high efficiency CIGS cells with the low temperature were a very high efficiency conversion.</p