Phenol-formaldehyde intumescent coating composition and coating prepared therefrom

Intumescent coatings which form a thick, uniform, fine celled, low density foam upon exposure to a high intensity heat flux or flame are disclosed, the invention coatings comprise phenolic resin prepolymer containing a blowing agent and a nucleating agent; in the preferred embodiments the coatings also contains a silicone surfactant, the coatings are useful in thermal and fire protection systems

SITC 2018 workshop report: Immuno-Oncology Biomarkers: State of the Art.

Identification of biomarkers in cancer immunotherapy that predict therapeutic response and/or limit adverse events are a critical need in the field. To address recent progress and hurdles around cancer biomarker development and utilization, the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) convened a workshop, Immuno-Oncology Biomarkers: State of the Art, on May 16-17, 2018. Topics discussed included challenges in handling biospecimens, identification and validation of new biomarkers, data sharing, and collaborating across disciplines to advance biomarker development. Panel discussions followed session presentations to help foster participant conversation and discuss future projects and collaborations. The results of the Workshop include the development of new initiatives for the SITC Biomarkers Committee

Updated resonance photo-decay amplitudes to 2 GeV

We present the results of an energy-dependent and set of single-energy partial-wave analyses of single-pion photoproduction data. These analyses extend from threshold to 2 GeV in the laboratory photon energy, and update our previous analyses to 1.8 GeV. Photo-decay amplitudes are extracted for the baryon resonances within this energy range. We consider two photoproduction sum rules and the contributions of two additional resonance candidates found in our most recent analysis of $\pi N$ elastic scattering data. Comparisons are made with previous analyses.Comment: Revtex, 26 pages, 3 figures. Postscript figures available from ftp://clsaid.phys.vt.edu/pub/pr or indirectly from http://clsaid.phys.vt.edu/~CAPS

Autophagosome-based strategy to monitor apparent tumor-specific CD8 T cells in patients with prostate cancer

The immune system plays an essential role in eradicating cancer in concert with various treatment modalities. In the absence of autologous tumor material, no standardized method exists to assess T cell responses against the many antigens that may serve as cancer rejection antigens. Thus, development of methods to screen for therapy-induced anti-tumor responses is a high priority that could help tailor therapy. Here we tested whether a tumor-derived antigen source called DRibbles®, which contain a pool of defective ribosomal products (DRiPs), long-lived and short-lived proteins (SLiPs) and danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), can be used to identify tumor-associated antigen (TAA)-specific responses in patients before or after immunotherapy treatment. Protein content, gene expression and non-synonymous – single nucleotide variants (ns-SNVs) present in UbiLT3 DRibbles were compared with prostate adenocarcinomas and the prostate GVAX vaccine cell lines (PC3/LNCaP). UbiLT3 DRibbles were found to share proteins, as well as match tumor sequences for ns-SNVs with prostate adenocarcinomas and with the cell lines PC3 and LNCaP. UbiLT3 DRibbles were used to monitor anti-tumor responses in patients vaccinated with allogeneic prostate GVAX. UbiLT3-DRibble-reactive CD8+ T-cell responses were detected in post-vaccine PBMC of 6/12 patients (range 0.85–22% of CD8+ cells) after 1 week in vitro stimulation (p = 0.007 vs. pre-vaccine). In conclusion, a cancer-derived autophagosome-enriched preparation, packaging over 100 proteins over-expressed in prostate cancer into microvesicles containing DAMPs, could be used to identify CD8+ T cells in peripheral blood from patients after prostate GVAX vaccination and may represent a general method to monitor anti-cancer T cell responses following immunotherapy

Heavy Quark Spectroscopy and Matrix Elements: A Lattice Study using the Static Approximation

We present results of a lattice analysis of the $B$ parameter, $B_B$, the decay constant $f_B$, and several mass splittings using the static approximation. Results were obtained for 60 quenched gauge configurations computed at $\beta=6.2$ on a lattice size of $24^3\times48$. Light quark propagators were calculated using the $O(a)$-improved Sheikholeslami-Wohlert action. We find \Bbstat(m_b) = 0.69\er{3}{4} {\rm(stat)}\er{2}{1} {\rm(syst)}, corresponding to \Bbstat = 1.02\er{5}{6}\er{3}{2}, and \fbstat = 266\err{18}{20}\err{28}{27} \mev, f_{B_s}^2 B_{B_s}/f_B^2 B_B = 1.34\er{9}{8}\er{5}{3}, where a variational fitting technique was used to extract \fbstat. For the mass splittings we obtain M_{B_s}-M_{B_d} = 87\err{15}{12}\err{6}{12} \mev, M_{\Lambda_b}-M_{B_d} = 420\errr{100}{90}\err{30}{30} \mev and M_{B^*}^2-M_B^2 = 0.281\err{15}{16}\err{40}{37} \gev^2. We compare different smearing techniques intended to improve the signal/noise ratio. From a detailed assessment of systematic effects we conclude that the main systematic uncertainties are associated with the renormalisation constants relating a lattice matrix element to its continuum counterpart. The dependence of our findings on lattice artefacts is to be investigated in the future.Comment: 40 pages, uuencoded compressed tar file, containing one LaTeX file and 14 postscript files (to be included with epsf). Minor change in the value of the B parameter. Contains corrected value for the B*-B mass splitting. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.