Thyroid-hormone therapy and thyroid cancer: a reassessment.

Experimental studies and clinical data have demonstrated that thyroid-cell proliferation is dependent on thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), thereby providing the rationale for TSH suppression as a treatment for differentiated thyroid cancer. Several reports have shown that hormone-suppressive treatment with the L-enantiomer of tetraiodothyronine (L-T(4)) benefits high-risk thyroid cancer patients by decreasing progression and recurrence rates, and cancer-related mortality. Evidence suggests, however, that complex regulatory mechanisms (including both TSH-dependent and TSH-independent pathways) are involved in thyroid-cell regulation. Indeed, no significant improvement has been obtained by suppressing TSH in patients with low-risk thyroid cancer. Moreover, TSH suppression implies a state of subclinical thyrotoxicosis. In low-risk patients, the goal of L-T(4) treatment is therefore to obtain a TSH level in the normal range (0.5-2.5 mU/l). Only selected patients with high-risk papillary and follicular thyroid cancer require long-term TSH-suppressive doses of L-T(4). In these patients, careful monitoring is necessary to avoid undesirable effects on bone and heart

Assessing the Success of Farmers’ Markets in Northern New York: A Survey of Vendors, Customers, and Market Managers

Farmers markets, Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management,

The relationship between membrane damage, release of protein and loss of viability in Escherichia coli exposed to high hydrostatic pressure

The aim of this work was to examine a possible association between resistance of two Escherichia coli strains to high hydrostatic pressure and the susceptibility of their cell membranes to pressure-induced damage. Cells were exposed to pressures between 100 and 700 MPa at room temperature (~20C) in phosphate-buffered-saline. In the more pressure-sensitive strain E. coli 8164, loss of viability occurred at pressures between 100 MPa and 300 MPa and coincided with irreversible loss of membrane integrity as indicated by uptake of propidium iodide (PI) and leakage of protein of molecular mass between 9 and 78 kDa from the cells. Protein release increased to a maximum at 400 MPa then decreased, possibly due to intracellular aggregation at the higher pressures. In the pressure-resistant strain E. coli J1, PI was taken up during pressure treatment but not after decompression indicating that cells were able to reseal their membranes. Loss of viability in strain J1 coincided with the transient loss of membrane integrity between approximately 200 MPa and 600 MPa. In E. coli J1 leakage of protein occurred before loss of viability and the released protein was of low molecular mass, between 8 and 11 kDa and may have been of periplasmic origin. In these two strains differences in pressure resistance appeared to be related to differences in the ability of their membranes to withstand disruption by pressure. However it appears that transient loss of membrane integrity during pressure can lead to cell death irrespective of whether cells can reseal their membranes afterwards

Long-term cereal price changes: how important is the speculative element

The objective of this article is to provide an analysis of the relationship existing between cereal prices and several variables such as population, income, exports, the exchange rate, and speculation, by using a linear regression analysis. Specific emphasis is placed on the speculative dimension. The methodology used helps us explore the forms of relationships between the different variables, and, more specifically, it gives an insight into the extent of speculation during the recent critical time period. Our results show that speculation (defined by the long position of traders) has played a crucial role during the period June 2001 – December 2009. According to our analysis, speculation it is the most relevant independent variable that affects cereal prices. Exports, in some ways connected to the former variable, occupy second place, in term of significance. However, their impact on cereal prices is less relevant than that of biofuel production. Population growth does not have impact in a positive way on cereal prices; it acts in the opposite direction due to the change in diets, implying that population increases would tend to affect primarily other agricultural markets. Excessive volatility in food prices, as that observed in the last years is a dramatic question. From a demand point of view, consumers in developing countries and vulnerable income groups in other countries (farmers) have to be protected. More than one policy on both international markets and domestic markets have to be introduced so as to lessen food/cereal lower price volatility.cereal prices, future markets and speculation, renewable energy, agricultural demand and supply.

Rice price volatility: a dilemma for public policies in Asia and Europe?

In 2008 the world’s attention was focused on the global food crisis and, as consequence, on the global food security. By mid-2009, commodity prices have dropped sensitively, nevertheless most of them still remain at or above past trend levels. Fluctuations in prices are not rare in agricultural markets where volatility is a common characteristic. Among cereals rice has a strategic importance. It is source of nutrition for more than a half of the world population and of income for about two million of farmers. Even if it is produced and consumed everywhere, production and consumption are concentrated in Asia. Because of its strategic importance, rice is and has been subject to a host of policy interventions that have made it feature among the most distorted of all agricultural commodities. Export policies have typically been applied by net exporting countries and one of the most commonly applied policy measures, adopted by net importing countries, is the removal or reduction of import duties and taxes on food commodities. Various forms of producer support measures were introduced, including input subsidies, output price support and an easing of cropland set-aside requirements. Policies to support consumers and vulnerable groups have included: direct consumer subsidies, tax reductions, distribution from public stocks, price subsidies, public-sector salary increases and social safety net programmes. Self-targeting food-for-work programmes have been put in place by some countries. Although the EU rice trade represents only 0.4 per cent of world trade a common organisation market (COM) for rice was set-up. It is a complex system aiming at maintaining European rice production destined for domestic and external markets. This paper aims to expand the above statements. The objective is to review and compare the policies adopted in Asia and in the EU and assess their impact form the point of sustainability (in a broad sense) with the ultimate aim to advance some interpretations and suggestions in the short and long run, having in mind the variables that affect the supply, the demand and the trade. As a background, the paper first outlines the characteristics of the rice market. Through a regression analysis that could help to understand how the rice price changes. It also considers the policies adopted in Asia and in the EU, highlighting their results on prices from an economic and social point of view. This paper concludes with a number of issues to be borne in mind when interpreting the volatility or rice prices (according to the regression analysis results), the expected policy impact and distortions, and, finally, the “relatively” new strategy: move from food security to self-sufficient food security, one of the long terms goals of the Treaty of Rome (to secure availability of supplies).food security, rice market, public policies, regression analysis

Electronic structure of the Ca3Co4O9\rm Ca_3Co_4O_9 compound from ab initio local interactions

We used fully correlated ab initio calculations to determine the effective parameters of Hubbard and t - J models for the thermoelectric misfit compound $\rm Ca_3Co_4O_9$. As for the $\rm Na_xCoO_2$ family the Fermi level orbitals are the $a_{1g}$ orbitals of the cobalt atoms ; the $e'_g$ being always lower in energy by more than 240\,meV. The electron correlation is found very large $U/t\sim 26$ as well as the parameters fluctuations as a function of the structural modulation. The main consequences are a partial $a_{1g}$ electrons localization and a fluctuation of the in-plane magnetic exchange from AFM to FM. The behavior of the Seebeck coefficient as a function of temperature is discussed in view of the ab initio results, as well as the 496\,K phase transition

150th Anniversary of the arrival of the Sisters of Charity in Australia 1838-1988

baptized a Protestant. Being a frail baby, she was taken to Nurse Mary Rorke at Eason's Hill to be nursed and for six years remained in the country air in the midst of a deeply religious family. At home again with her family, Mary attended Sunday Service at the Protestant Shandon Church. Mary was confused by the poverty of the Catholics contrasting with the well being of the Protestants. She enjoyed her visits to Mrs Stackpole's Catholic home, reverting to the famliar prayers Nurse Rorke had taught her and revisiting the much loved Catholic Chapel with its strange halo of purity and peace. During his last illness Dr Aikenhead, touched by his wife's passionately expressed sorrow, sent for a priest and after a long conversation, asked to be received into the Catholic Church. He died with great trust in God in December, 1801. In her sixteenth year Mary was baptized in the Catholic Church and received her First Communion and Confirmation. By the time she was eighteen she no

The effects of pre-processing strategies for pediatric cochlear implant recipients

The purpose of the present study was to compare pediatric speech perception performance across various pre-processing strategies with the Cochlear Corporation CP810 external speech processor when a specific mapping protocol was used

NEIU News- May 1986

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