Scaling and better approximating quantum Fourier transform by higher radices

Quantum Fourier Transform (QFT) plays a principal role in the development of efficient quantum algorithms. Since the number of quantum bits that can currently built is limited, while many quantum technologies are inherently three- (or more) valued, we consider extending the reach of the realistic quantum systems by building a QFT over ternary quantum digits. Compared to traditional binary QFT, the q-valued transform improves approximation properties and increases the state space by a factor of (q/2)n. Further, we use non-binary QFT derivation to generalize and improve the approximation bounds for QFT

The synthesis and structural characterization of graft copolymers composed of γ-PGA backbone and oligoesters pendant chains

© 2017 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1021/jasms.8b05393The novel copolymers composed of poly-γ-glutamic acid (γ-PGA) and oligoesters have been developed. The structures of the obtained copolymers including variety of end groups were determined at the molecular level with the aid of electrospray ionization multistage mass spectrometry (ESI-MSn). The fragmentation experiment performed for the selected sodium adducts of the copolymers confirmed that the developed methods lead to the formation of graft copolymers composed of poly-γ-glutamic acid (γ-PGA) backbone and oligoesters pendant chains. Moreover, it was established that fragmentation of selected sodium adducts of graft copolymers proceeded via random breakage of amide bonds along the backbone and ester bonds of the oligoesters pendant chains. Considering potential applications of the synthesized copolymers in the area of biomaterials, the hydrolytic degradation under laboratory conditions and in vitro cytotoxicity tests were performed. The ESI-MSn technique applied in this study has been proven to be a useful tool in structural studies of novel graft copolymers as well as their degradation products.This work was supported by the Polish National Science Centre (Decision No DEC-2013/11/N/ST5/01364

Mapping Succession in Non-Forest Habitats by Means of Remote Sensing: Is the Data Acquisition Time Critical for Species Discrimination?

The process of secondary succession is one of themost significant threats to non-forest (natural and semi-natural open) Natura 2000 habitats in Poland; shrub and tree encroachment taking place on abandoned, low productive agricultural areas, historically used as pastures or meadows, leads to changes to the composition of species and biodiversity loss, and results in landscape transformations. There is a perceived need to create amethodology for themonitoring of vegetation succession by airborne remote sensing, both from quantitative (area, volume) and qualitative (plant species) perspectives. This is likely to become a very important issue for the effective protection of natural and semi-natural habitats and to advance conservation planning. A key variable to be established when implementing a qualitative approach is the remote sensing data acquisition date, which determines the developmental stage of trees and shrubs forming the succession process. It is essential to choose the optimal date on which the spectral and geometrical characteristics of the species are as different from each other as possible. As part of the research presented here, we compare classifications based on remote sensing data acquired during three different parts of the growing season (spring, summer and autumn) for five study areas. The remote sensing data used include high-resolution hyperspectral imagery and LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data acquired simultaneously from a common aerial platform. Classifications are done using the random forest algorithm, and the set of features to be classified is determined by a recursive feature elimination procedure. The results show that the time of remote sensing data acquisition influences the possibility of differentiating succession species. This was demonstrated by significant differences in the spatial extent of species, which ranged from 33.2% to 56.2% when comparing pairs of maps, and differences in classification accuracies, which when expressed in values of Cohen’s Kappa reached ~0.2. For most of the analysed species, the spring and autumn dates turned out to be slightly more favourable than the summer one. However, the final recommendation for the data acquisition time should take into consideration th

Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio, and systemic immune-inflammation index as clinical predictive and prognostic markers in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer receiving gemcitabine monotherapy

Introduction. Pancreatic cancer is characterized by an increasing incidence and still poor prognosis despite the availability of various therapeutic options, currently including single- and multi-drug chemotherapy as well as molecularly targeted therapy. Therefore, appropriate qualification for particular therapies, based mainly on clinical and histological factors, is extremely important. Inflammatory status, associated with cancer development, justifies the search for prognostic markers related to the immune system, which could be additional factors facilitating selection of appropriate therapy. This study aimed at assessing the prognostic value of the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), plateletto- lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and systemic immune-inflammation index (SII) in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer undergoing gemcitabine monotherapy.  Material andmethods. A retrospective analysis of blood morphological parameters was performed in 167 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer treated with gemcitabine monotherapy in the first line in five oncology centers in Poland in the years 2017–2022. The NLR, PLR, and SII were calculated, and cut-off points between high and low values were defined. Clinical parameters and their distribution were assessed depending on the overall survival (OS) value equal to or greater than or less than median OS. The distribution of patients within OS intervals in relation to the categories of inflammatory markers was assessed.  Results. The median age of patients was 71 years, the majority were women (58%), with clinical stage IV (57%), and with dominant location of metastases in the liver (42.5%). The median NLR was 2.69 (range 0.5–36.65), PLR 146.54 (range 18.53–1118.57), and SII 784.75 (range 79.86–10622.67). The cut-off points were defined as 4.5625 for the NLR [125 patients (75.8%) with a value less than and 40 patients (24.3%) with a value equal to or greater], 150 for the PLR [87 (52.7%)/ 78 (47.3%)], and 897.619 for the SII [96 (58.2%)/69 (41.8%)]. Comparing the groups with OS longer than or equal to the median and OS shorter than the median, statistically significant differences were found in relation to body mass index (BMI) (p = 0.02), baseline stage (p < 0.001), and location of metastases (p < 0.001). There were statistically significantly more NLR and SII values below the cut-off points in patients with survival at least equal to median OS. Concerning the PLR, no statistically significant differences were found between groups determined by OS value.  Conclusions. We demonstrated the relationship between indicators calculated on the basis of blood count parameters and treatment results. It may indicate the predictive and prognostic importance of indices reflecting immune system status, which can be a valuable addition to the clinical criteria included in prognostic models.

Systemic treatment of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer — is there still a place for gemcitabine in the first-line setting? Experience of Polish oncology centers

Introduction. Despite some progress in the treatment of patients with pancreatic cancer, it is still a malignancy with a poor prognosis, which results from its rapid local growth with a tendency to infiltrate surrounding tissues and metastasize, and late diagnosis at the advanced stage. The use of multi-drug regimens and modern targeted therapies did not completely eliminate the use of gemcitabine in monotherapy, which is a therapeutic option mainly in patients with poor performance status, ineligible for more advanced therapies. This study aimed to evaluate the results of treatment with single-agent gemcitabine in everyday clinical practice in Poland and to attempt to identify the predictors of obtaining long-term responses resulting from this treatment.  Material and methods. A retrospective analysis of 167 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer treated with single-agent gemcitabine in five oncology centers in Poland in the years 2017–2022 was conducted. Gemcitabine was used as monotherapy at an initial dose of 1000 mg/m2 of body surface area (BSA) weekly, 7 times in an 8-week cycle, then 3 times in a 4-week cycle.  Results. Median overall survival (OS) in the entire group of patients was 6.1 months (range — 0.2–32.3 months), and median progression-free survival (PFS) was 4.2 months (range — 0.2–31.3 months). A group of 60 patients was identified as “long responders” (LR), with a response of at least 6 months and a group of 107 as “short responders” (SR). Median PFS in the LR group was 9.15 months (range — 6.0–31.3 months) and in the SR group, it was 3.2 months (range — 0.2–5.8 months). Median OS was 11.6 months (range — 5.9–30.8) and 3.8 months (range — 0.2–32.3 months), respectively. In multivariate analysis, the likelihood of achieving at least a 6-month response (LR) was assessed using a logistic regression model. The model takes into account four variables: the neutrophil/lymphocyte (NLR) ratio, liver metastases, sex, and Hb level. Conclusions. The obtained results confirm that gemcitabine monotherapy is still useful in the first-line treatment of patients with advanced and metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma. An appropriate selection of patients for this treatment may improve the results while maintaining lower toxicity compared to combined treatment.

Predicting early brain metastases based on clinicopathological factors and gene expression analysis in advanced HER2-positive breast cancer patients

The overexpression or amplification of the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 gene (HER2/neu) is associated with high risk of brain metastasis (BM). The identification of patients at highest immediate risk of BM could optimize screening and facilitate interventional trials. We performed gene expression analysis using complementary deoxyribonucleic acid-mediated annealing, selection, extension and ligation and real-time quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) in primary tumor samples from two independent cohorts of advanced HER2 positive breast cancer patients. Additionally, we analyzed predictive relevance of clinicopathological factors in this series. Study group included discovery Cohort A (84 patients) and validation Cohort B (75 patients). The only independent variables associated with the development of early BM in both cohorts were the visceral location of first distant relapse [Cohort A: hazard ratio (HR) 7.4, 95 % CI 2.4–22.3; p < 0.001; Cohort B: HR 6.1, 95 % CI 1.5–25.6; p = 0.01] and the lack of trastuzumab administration in the metastatic setting (Cohort A: HR 5.0, 95 % CI 1.4–10.0; p = 0.009; Cohort B: HR 10.0, 95 % CI 2.0–100.0; p = 0.008). A profile including 13 genes was associated with early (≤36 months) symptomatic BM in the discovery cohort. This was refined by qRT-PCR to a 3-gene classifier (RAD51, HDGF, TPR) highly predictive of early BM (HR 5.3, 95 % CI 1.6–16.7; p = 0.005; multivariate analysis). However, predictive value of the classifier was not confirmed in the independent validation Cohort B. The presence of visceral metastases and the lack of trastuzumab administration in the metastatic setting apparently increase the likelihood of early BM in advanced HER2-positive breast cancer

Zgodność w ocenie ekspresji biomarkerów między rdzeniami mikromacierzy tkankowych z pierwotnych ognisk raka pęcherzyka żółciowego i raka jajnika

Wstęp. Technika mikromacierzy tkankowych (TMA) znalazła szerokie zastosowanie szczególnie w badaniach immunohistochemicznych nad nowymi markerami rokowniczymi i predykcyjnymi. Głównym zarzutem stawianym przez przeciwników tej metody jest niewielka ilość badanego materiału i związane z tym ryzyko nieadekwatnej oceny ekspresji analizowanych biomarkerów, wynikające z potencjalnej heterogenności tkanek guza. Materiał i metody. W niniejszej pracy oceniono zgodność ekspresji biomarkerów w dwóch niezależnych rdzeniach tkankowych o średnicy 1,5 mm uzyskanych techniką TMA od chorych na raka pęcherzka żółciowego (ERb, cytoPgR, HER2, CTGF) i raka jajnika (PTEN, BCL2, PIK3CA, IGF1R). Porównanie ekspresji poszczególych biomarkerów między rdzeniami przeprowadzono przy wykorzystaniu współczynnika korelacji (ICC), przyjmując kappa &lt; 0,4 jako korelację słabą, ≥ 0,4 wystarczającą, ≥ 0,6 dobrą i ≥ 0,75 optymalną oraz testu Kendalla tau — pakiet ICC. Wyniki. Ocenę ekspresji biomarkerów w guzie pierwotnym przeprowadzono u 60 chorych na raka pęcherzyka żółciowego i u 64 chorych na surowiczego raka jajnika o wysokim stopniu złośliwości (high grade). U chorych na raka pęcherzykowego dodatkowo oceniono ekspresję badanych markerów w nabłonku wolnym od utkania nowotworowego. W obu nowotworach stwierdzono dobry lub wystarczający stopień jednorodności w ekspresji analizowanych biomarkerów między rdzeniami tkankowymi. Współczynnik korelacji dla ekspresji poszczególnych markerów w raku pęcherzyka żółciowego i przylegającej tkance zdrowej wyniósł: 0,68 (95% CI: 0,53–0,79)/0,62 (95% CI: 0,39–0,78) dla ERb, 0,44 (95% CI: 0,23–0,61)/0,77 (95% CI: 0,61–0,87) dla cytoPgR, 0,77 (95% CI: 0,65–0,85)/0,66 (95% CI: 0,44–0,80) dla HER2 i 0,68 (95% CI: 0,53–0,79)/0,62 (95% CI: 0,39–0,78) dla CTGF. U chorych na raka jajnika współczynnik korelacji w obrębie guza pierwotnego wyniósł 0,82 (95% CI: 0,71–0,89) dla PTEN, 0,84 (95% CI: 0,75–0,90) dla BCL2, 0,71 (95% CI: 0,56–0,81) dla PIK3CA i 0,77 (95% CI: 0,65–0,85) dla IGF1R. Wnioski. Technika mikomacierzy tkankowych pozwala na wiarygodną ocenę ekspresji biomarkerów tkankowych w obrębie pierwotnego ogniska raka pęcherzyka żółciowego i raka jajnika