The Effect of Vitamin E-Modified Dialyzers on Acute Intra-dialytic Symptoms: A Comparative Crossover Study.

We performed a crossover study to compare the effect of vitamin E-modified dialyzers on acute intra-dialytic symptoms, with other membranes. Twenty patients on hemodialysis were studied. They were divided into two equal groups of low-flux (C15NL, E15NL) and high-flux (F60, EE15NL) membrane dialyzers.

The Effect of Vitamin E-Modified Dialyzers on Acute Intra-dialytic Symptoms: A Comparative Crossover Study.

We performed a crossover study to compare the effect of vitamin E-modified dialyzers on acute intra-dialytic symptoms, with other membranes. Twenty patients on hemodialysis were studied. They were divided into two equal groups of low-flux (C15NL, E15NL) and high-flux (F60, EE15NL) membrane dialyzers.

Incidence of hyperthyroidism after unrelated donor allogeneic stem cell transplantation.

We report on three patients who developed overt thyrotoxicosis after volunteer unrelated donor bone marrow transplantation for Philadelphia chromosome positive chronic myeloid leukemia shortly after the onset of chronic graft versus host disease. In all three cases, the etiology of hyperthyroidism is likely to be a combination of toxic factors and an immune process. Systematic evaluation of thyroid function tests in 97 unrelated allograft recipients from our center who survived at least 100 days from stem cell or bone marrow transplantation for hematological diseases gave a rate of overt thyrotoxicosis at 3.

LACE-conditioned autologous stem cell transplantation for relapsed or refractory Hodgkin's lymphoma: treatment outcome and risk factor analysis in 67 patients from a single centre.

High-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) is a recognized treatment option for patients with relapsed Hodgkin's lymphoma. We have analysed 67 patients who underwent ASCT after LACE (lomustine (CCNU), cytarabine (Ara-C), cyclophosphamide, etoposide) conditioning for relapsed (n=61) or primary refractory (n=6) Hodgkin's lymphoma. The 100-day treatment-related mortality was 3%.

Winners don't take all: Characterizing the competition for links on the web.

As a whole, the World Wide Web displays a striking "rich get richer" behavior, with a relatively small number of sites receiving a disproportionately large share of hyperlink references and traffic. However, hidden in this skewed global distribution, we discover a qualitatively different and considerably less biased link distribution among subcategories of pages-for example, among all university homepages or all newspaper homepages. Although the connectivity distribution over the entire web is close to a pure power law, we find that the distribution within specific categories is typically unimodal on a log scale, with the location of the mode, and thus the extent of the rich get richer phenomenon, varying across different categories.

Long-term outcome of high-dose melphalan and autologous stem cell transplantation for AL amyloidosis.

Light chain (AL) amyloidosis is the result of a clonal plasma cell expansion, in which amyloidogenic monoclonal light chains deposit in various tissues resulting in organ dysfunction and organ failure. The median survival of patients with AL amyloidosis without therapy is 10-14 months. Several phase II studies report haematological and clinical remission in up to 50% of patients after high-dose melphalan and autologous stem cell transplantation.

Predictive factors for survival in myeloma patients who undergo autologous stem cell transplantation: a single-centre experience in 211 patients.

High-dose therapy with autologous stem cell therapy (ASCT) has become the treatment of choice for eligible patients with myeloma. We analysed retrospectively the prognostic influence of pre-transplant characteristics and transplant modalities on response and survival in 211 myeloma patients who were transplanted in our centre between 1994 and 2004. All patients received peripheral blood stem cell support after conditioning with melphalan alone (183 patients), or melphalan and total blood irradiation (28 patients).

Lattice distortion effects on the magnetostructural phase transition of MnAs.

We present a systematic experimental and theoretical study of the first-order phase transition of epitaxially grown MnAs thin films under biaxial tensile stress. Our results give direct information on the dependence of the phase-transition temperature of MnAs films on the lattice parameters. We demonstrate that an increase of the lattice constant in the hexagonal plane raises the phase-transition temperature (T(p)), while an increase of the perpendicular lattice constant lowers T(p).

Evaluation of five probiotic products for label claims by DNA extraction and polymerase chain reaction analysis.

Label claims were evaluated for five probiotic products. Specific oligonucleotide primers were designed for 11 species from the Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus, and Streptococcus genera. Polymerase chain reaction, gel electrophoresis, and amplicon excision with DNA sequencing were performed: Sequence analysis and DNA homology comparisons followed.

Diamond thermal expansion measurement using transmitted X-ray back-diffraction.

The linear thermal expansion coefficient of diamond has been measured using forward-diffracted profiles in X-ray backscattering. This experimental technique is presented as an alternative way of measuring thermal expansion coefficients of solids in the high-resolution Bragg backscattering geometry without the intrinsic difficulty of detecting the reflected beam. The temperature dependence of the lattice parameter is obtained from the high sensitivity of the transmitted profiles to the Bragg angle variation with temperature.

Farm-to-table: A Situation Awareness Model for Food Safety Assurance for Porous Borders.

Aldous Huxley's Brave NewWorld (1932) was far more prescient to the situation of food safety today than we dare to consider. When people are seduced rather than compelled to live in harmony, evil is not so obvious because no one is looking. In the instance of food safety, changes in world trade, consumer demand for variety, and an increasingly complex regulatory system create challenges to effective vigilance and mitigation.

Who gets acknowledged: measuring scientific contributions through automatic acknowledgment indexing.

Acknowledgements in research publications, like citations, indicate influential contributions to scientific work. However, acknowledgements are different from citations; whereas citations are formal expressions of debt, acknowledgements are arguably more personal, singular, or private expressions of appreciation and contribution. Furthermore, many sources of research funding expect researchers to acknowledge any support that contributed to the published work.

Nanosecond-resolved XMCD on ID24 at the ESRF to investigate the element-selective dynamics of magnetization switching of Gd-Co amorphous thin film.

The one-bunch filling mode of the ESRF is combined with a microcoil to generate a pulsed-magnetic-field pump phased with respect to the probe that is given by the bunch of photons emitted each turn (357 kHz). Nanosecond-resolved X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) is carried out. Besides the microcoil, the two other key-elements are the energy-dispersive XAS spectrometer, which yields parallel data acquisition, and the diamond-based quarter-wave plate, which tunes the helicity of the photon alternatively left and right.

A versatile X-ray diffraction station at LNLS (Brazil).

Versatility was a major consideration in the project to provide an X-ray diffraction station at LNLS. At least two techniques are possible at the station: powder diffraction and multiple single-crystal diffraction. A two-crystal monochromator based on monolithic elastic translators, developed at LNLS, with sagittal focusing by the second crystal, allows 10 mrad of a >/=2 keV monochromatic beam to be used on the diffractometer.

Efficacy of danofloxacin in the treatment of respiratory disease in European cattle.

The efficacy of an injectable formulation of danofloxacin (180 mg/ml) in the treatment of naturally occurring bovine respiratory disease was evaluated in field studies on farms in France, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Cattle aged one week to 15 months with clinical respiratory disease were randomly allocated to treatment with 6 mg/kg danofloxacin or 10 mg/kg tilmicosin, administered by a single subcutaneous injection on day 0. A second injection of danofloxacin was administered on day 2, only if predefined clinical criteria were met.

Paclitaxel-containing high-dose chemotherapy for relapsed or refractory testicular germ cell tumours.

High-dose regimes containing etoposide, carboplatin and an oxazaphospharine can salvage 30-40% of patients with relapsed or refractory male germ cell tumours (GCTs). The additional benefit of paclitaxel in such high-dose therapy has not been tested. Between March 1995 and November 2002, 36 male GCT patients were treated with Carbop-EC-T (paclitaxel 75 mg x m(-2), etoposide 450 mg x m(-2), carboplatin AUC 10 on days -7, -5 and -3 and cyclophosphamide 60 mg x kg(-1) on days -5 and -3) followed by peripheral blood stem cell infusion (day 0).

High-resolution X-ray diffraction beamline at the LNLS for the study of charge, orbital and magnetic structures.

A high-resolution X-ray diffraction beamline at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS) has been commissioned for the study of crystalline magnetic materials. The beamline optics is based on a Rh-coated vertical-focusing X-ray mirror and a sagittal-focusing double-crystal monochromator. The primary instrument is a six-circle diffractometer equipped with energy and polarization analysers and a closed-cycle He cryostat.

First experiments on diffraction-enhanced imaging at LNLS.

Diffraction-enhanced images have been obtained using two silicon crystals in a non-dispersive set-up at the XRD2 beamline at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS). A first asymmetrically cut silicon crystal using the (333) reflection vertically expanded the monochromated beam from 1 mm to 20 mm allowing the imaging of the whole sample without movements. A symmetrically cut Si(333) second crystal was used as a Bragg analyzer.

Probiotics in health maintenance and disease prevention.

Probiotic microflora display numerous health benefits beyond providing basic nutritional value. They cooperatively maintain a delicate balance between the gastrointestinal tract and immune system. When this balance is disrupted, disease and inflammation result.

How embedded memory in recurrent neural network architectures helps learning long-term temporal dependencies.

Learning long-term temporal dependencies with recurrent neural networks can be a difficult problem. It has recently been shown that a class of recurrent neural networks called NARX networks perform much better than conventional recurrent neural networks for learning certain simple long-term dependency problems. The intuitive explanation for this behavior is that the output memories of a NARX network can be manifested as jump-ahead connections in the time-unfolded network.

Autologous stem cell transplantation in multiple myeloma: improved survival in nonsecretory multiple myeloma but lack of influence of age, status at transplant, previous treatment and conditioning regimen. A single-centre experience in 127 patients.

High-dose therapy with autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) has become the treatment of choice for symptomatic eligible patients with multiple myeloma (MM). We report our centre experience and analyse retrospectively the prognostic influence of pretransplant characteristics and transplant modalities on response and survival. A total of 127 MM patients (median age: 55.

Efficacy of danofloxacin 18% injectable solution in the treatment of Escherichia coli diarrhoea in young calves in Europe.

The efficacy of danofloxacin 18% against naturally occurring Escherichia coli diarrhoea was investigated in calves at seven European sites. Treatment commenced on day 0, with either a single subcutaneous injection of danofloxacin 18% (n=267) at 6 mg/kg repeated on day 2 if required, or reference product containing baquiloprim/sulphadimidine (n=37) or gentamicin (n=98) administered as recommended. E.