The decomposition of <Ŝ(2)> for a general wave function has been carried out in the framework of the Hilbert-space analysis. The one and two-center components fulfill all physical requirements imposed to date. An inherent ambiguity of the Hilbert-space decomposition of a two-electron quantity, in particular using a Mulliken-type scheme, is also discussed in detail.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe describe herein a patient presenting with bilateral estrogen-receptor-positive (ER+) breast tumors who was enrolled in a clinical trial exploring molecular aberrations associated with hormone-refractory tumor cell proliferation. Short-term (two week) hormonal therapy with the aromatase inhibitor letrozole substantially reduced proliferation as measured by Ki67 immunohistochemistry in one tumor, whereas the second was essentially unchanged. Extensive molecular and genetic work-up of the two tumors yielded divergent lesions in the two tumors: an activating KRAS mutation in the responsive tumor and an amplification of the fibroblast growth factor receptor-1 (FGFR1) locus in the treatment-refractory tumor.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThese NCCN Guidelines Insights highlight the important updates/changes specific to the management of metastatic breast cancer in the 2012 version of the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) for Breast Cancer. These changes/updates include the issue of retesting of biomarkers (estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) on recurrent disease, new information regarding first-line combination endocrine therapy for metastatic disease, a new section on monitoring of patients with metastatic disease, and new information on endocrine therapy combined with an mTOR inhibitor as a subsequent therapeutic option.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe evolutionary background for cognition and awareness is currently under ardent scrutiny. Poikilothermic vertebrates such as teleost fishes are capable of classical conditioning and have long-term memories, but it remains unknown to what degree such capabilities are associated with affective states. Here, we investigate whether the concept of frustration may apply to Atlantic salmon.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn recent years, new strategies for the treatment of breast cancer have focused on extensive target identification and understanding the expression, regulation and function of critical signaling pathways involved in breast cancer initiation and progression. This has led to significant progress in developing and understanding human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-targeted therapies, which in turn, has translated into significant increases in median survival for patients with HER2-overexpressing breast cancer. It is becoming increasingly difficult to make specific recommendations for the optimal treatment of HER2-overexpressing breast cancer since the field is evolving so rapidly.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSterile triploid fish are being used in aquaculture to prevent early unwanted sexual maturation and the genetic interaction between wild and cultured fish; however, triploid fish are typically considered to be more susceptible to disease than diploid counterparts. Proportions of leucocytes from the head kidney and peripheral blood were identified using monoclonal antibodies and flow cytometry in triploid and diploid, vaccinated and unvaccinated, out-of-season (0+) and 1+ Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) three weeks post seawater transfer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClassically, the actions of progesterone (P4) are attributed to the binding of nuclear progesterone receptor (PR) and subsequent activation of its downstream target genes. These mechanisms, however, are not applicable to PR- or basal phenotype breast cancer (BPBC) due to lack of PR in these cancers. Recently, the function of membrane progesterone receptor alpha (mPRα) in human BPBC cell lines was studied in our lab.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this work, we demonstrate that there is a continuum of different formulations for the decomposition of ⟨Ŝ(2)⟩ that fulfills all physical requirements imposed to date. We introduce a new criterion based upon the behavior of single-electron systems to fix the value of the parameter defining that continuum, and thus we put forward a new general formula applicable for both single-determinant and correlated wave functions. The numerical implementation has been carried out in the three-dimensional physical space for several atomic definitions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMuch of the inter-individual variation observed in animal behaviour is now attributed to the existence of behavioural phenotypes or animal personalities. Such phenotypes may be fundamental to fisheries and aquaculture, yet there have been few detailed studies of this phenomenon in exploited marine animals. We investigated the behavioural and neuroendocrine responses of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua L.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBy fitting dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI data to an appropriate pharmacokinetic model, quantitative physiological parameters can be estimated. In this study, we compare four different models by applying four statistical measures to assess their ability to describe dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI data obtained in 28 human breast cancer patient sets: the chi-square test (χ(2)), Durbin-Watson statistic, Akaike information criterion, and Bayesian information criterion. The pharmacokinetic models include the fast exchange limit model with (FXL_v(p)) and without (FXL) a plasma component, and the fast and slow exchange regime models (FXR and SXR, respectively).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: With the increased use of ploidy manipulation in aquaculture and fisheries management this investigation aimed to determine whether triploidy influences culturable intestinal microbiota composition and bacterial drug resistance in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). The results could provide answers to some of the physiological differences observed between triploid and diploid fish, especially in terms of fish health.
Results: No ploidy effect was observed in the bacterial species isolated, however, triploids were found to contain a significant increase in total gut microbiota levels, with increases in Pseudomonas spp.
An improved SCF energy decomposition scheme is proposed in which a special treatment is introduced for those "ionic" one-center electron-electron repulsion energy contributions which arise from the use of doubly filled bonding orbitals. These terms characterize the bonding pattern rather than the state of the atoms, therefore they are attributed to the bonds and are redistributed between them in accord with the bond orders. This permits one to solve the dilemma which we had with the previous decomposition schemes, and obtain very "chemical" one- and two-center energy components, characterizing well the bonding situation in different molecules.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Small Anim Pract
December 2011
Objectives: Co-oximetry is a complex and valuable laboratory method that measures haemoglobin species and oxygenation status by multi-wavelength spectrophotometry. The purpose of this study was to establish reference intervals for clinically healthy dogs and to determine the effect of time of analyses and sex of animals on the accuracy of results.
Methods: Blood was collected from 27 healthy adult dogs of various breeds and sex.
Curr Treat Options Oncol
December 2011
Though serum tumor markers and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have been available to the oncologist for many years, their place in the management of breast cancer remains unclear. Due to issues with sensitivity and specificity, tumor markers are unreliable for the detection of metastases in early stage breast cancer. For patients with metastatic breast cancer without measurable disease (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFQuantitative analysis of dynamic contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) data requires the accurate determination of the arterial input function (AIF). A novel method for obtaining the AIF is presented here and pharmacokinetic parameters derived from individual and population-based AIFs are then compared. A Philips 3.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEffective atomic orbitals (AOs) have been calculated by the method of the "fuzzy atoms" analysis by using the numerical molecular orbitals (MOs) obtained from plane-wave DFT calculation, i.e., without introducing any atom-centered functions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To provide a quantitative assessment of motion and distortion correction of diffusion-weighted images (DWIs) of the breast and to evaluate the effects of registration on the mean apparent diffusion coefficient (mADC).
Materials And Methods: Eight datasets from four patients with breast cancer and eight datasets from six healthy controls were acquired on a 3T scanner. A 3D affine registration was used to align each set of images and principal component analysis was used to assess the results.
Metformin, an inexpensive oral agent commonly used to treat type 2 diabetes, has been garnering increasing attention as a potential anti-cancer agent. Preclinical, epidemiologic, and clinical evidences suggest that metformin may reduce overall cancer risk and mortality, with specific effects in breast cancer. The extensive clinical experience with metformin, coupled with its known (and modest) toxicity, has allowed the traditional process of drug evaluation to be shortened.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUsing the concepts of Löwdin pairing theorem, a method is developed to calculate extremely localized, but nonorthogonal, sets of molecular orbitals and their strictly localized counterparts. The method is very suitable to study to what extent a given model of bonding in a given molecule can be considered adequate from the point of view of the actual LCAO-MO (Hartree Fock or DFT) wave function and is expected to be useful for doing local approximations of electron correlation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe recent formula for decomposing the expectation value of the total spin operator for general (correlated) wave functions has been rewritten in terms of the cumulant and is realized numerically for the first time. The results confirm its conformity with the physical expectations.
Pulse laser deposition (PLD) was used to deposit Mn containing calcium hydroxyapatite (HAMn). The PLD process ensures that the composition of the target and the deposited layer is the same. In some cases additional effort should be made to preserve some volatile components, namely OH.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The authors present a method to validate coregistration of breast magnetic resonance images obtained at multiple time points during the course of treatment. In performing sequential registration of breast images, the effects of patient repositioning, as well as possible changes in tumor shape and volume, must be considered. The authors accomplish this by extending the adaptive bases algorithm (ABA) to include a tumor-volume preserving constraint in the cost function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAngiogenesis, which is crucial for the growth and spread of cancer cells, has become an important target for antineoplastic therapies in a variety of malignant tumors. Vascular endothelial growth factor and its receptor promote formation of new blood vessels in tumors. Several drugs, most notably the monoclonal antibody bevacizumab, have been developed to inhibit this process.
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