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Summary: Objectives: Chemoradiation is the treatment of choice for carcinomas of the pharynx and larynx with imminent loss of organ or function. However, the prognosis after CRT decreases when salvage surgery becomes necessary. Single-cycle induction chemotherapy is therefore performed to identify patients who would benefit more from S than from CRT. The present study aims to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of this approach. Materials and methods: Forty-seven patients received Induction Chemotherapy (IC) with docetaxel plus cisplatin or carboplatin and were subsequently assessed for tumor response. Responders achieving a ⩾30% decrease in endoscopic tumor size and a ⩾20% decrease in 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose uptake proceeded to primary Chemoradiation (CRT) and non-responders received surgery (S). Six weeks after CRT patients with residual tumors underwent secondary surgery (S). Results: Thirty eight patients were elected for CRT and 9 received S. A local control rate of 86.1% and disease-free survival of 80.4% was achieved at 2years. Overall treatment time in CRT-patients >80days was associated with inferior disease-free survival (p =0.05), cause-specific survival (p =0.02), overall survival (p =0.01) and a trend to inferior local control (p =0.07) at 2years. Conclusion: The strategy of selecting patients for CRT vs. S based on the response to IC achieves encouraging rates of disease control by surgery and CRT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last decade has seen the development of hybrid imaging technologies combining positron emission tomography (PET) or single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with x-ray computed tomography (CT). Numerous studies demonstrate the superiority of PET/CT and SPECT/CT over stand-alone PET and SPECT in terms of diagnostic accuracy. For PET with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), this has been demonstrated for bronchial carcinomas, high-grade lymphomas, melanomas, and head and neck tumors, to name a few. Combined imaging of structure and biochemistry is expected to be even more important for tracers such as 124I that are more specific for tumor tissue. Similarly, SPECT/CT has revolutionized the field of conventional nuclear medicine. Available evidence indicates that this hybrid imaging technology will become the gold standard for conventional scintigraphy, including bone imaging performed for staging malignancy, and also for the so-called tumor scintigraphies that visualize neoplastic foci via tumor-specific agents such as octreotide labeled with 111In or 131I. Another important indication for SPECT/CT is sentinel lymph node scintigraphy, where SPECT/CT fusion helps considerably in localizing the first lymph node draining a tumor. Technological progress never stands still; hybrid cameras combining PET and MRI have already been introduced. These systems will lead medical imaging to new horizons, and they will offer the virtually unlimited potential of simultaneously acquiring morphologic, functional, and molecular information about the living human body. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Objectives: There exist no uniform decision criteria for conservative organ preservation treatments in head and neck cancer patients. Even with 18F-FDG-PET/CT after induction chemotherapy patient selection is challenging. This study correlated metabolic tumor response with treatment types and recurrence patterns.Materials and Methods: Decrease in SUVmax in 18F-FDG-PET/CT was measured 21-28 days after IC-1 in 102 patients and correlated to cancer-specific endpoints.Results: Residual SUVmax (resSUVmax) values were uniformly distributed across five cut-off levels (0-0.2 vs. >0.2-0.4 vs. >0.4-0.6 vs. >0.6-0.8 vs. >0.8) containing 20%, 25% 25%, 15% and 15% of patients. Patients were stratified into three response categories according to residual SUVmax (Group A: 0-0.4 = high response Group B: >0.4-0.8 = moderate response, Group C > 0.8 = non-response), 5-year local control rates were 90.5% (Group A) vs. 78.9% (Group B; univariate p = 0.07, multivariate: HR: 3.6, p = 0.03) vs. 49.4% (Group C vs. B; univariate p = 0.04, multivariate: HR 5.5, p < 0.01). After IC-1, Group A received chemoradiotherapy (CRT) only. Group B received surgery plus either (chemo)radiotherapy (B_S + RT/CRT) or chemoradiotherapy (B_CRT), yielding local control rates of 100% and 74.2% (p = 0.11). Group C received surgery plus CRT or CRT alone; both achieved equally poor local control (p = 0.71). Group C had significantly worse distant metastasis-free survival and overall survival than Groups A and B (p < 0.05).Conclusion: Metabolic response after IC-1 differentiates HNC patients into three subgroups predicting local tumor control. Non-response was associated with a poor outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenge of integrating data from many data sources has persisted as an issue in several industry areas. With the evolution of technology in the upstream petroleum sector (i.e., exploration and production), the petroleum business must contend with technological silos from diverse service providers and suffers from the associated waste of time to locate data and information throughout siloed databases. Based on a thorough compilation of industry-oriented requirements in the form of use cases and competency questions, this document defines a domain ontology for defining entities in offshore petroleum production plants. The objective is to develop a uniform and clearly defined reference vocabulary to aid engineers and information technology professionals in labeling and relating production plant monitoring, simulation measures, and facilities. BFO is the top-level ontology, while GeoCore and a continuing version of the core ontology developed by the Industry Ontology Foundry (IOF) configure the middle-level ontologies. We have studied and combined several other resources to build the ontology, such as glossaries from the industry and related ontologies. The research resulted in a well-founded domain ontology that provides universals, defined classes, and relations that can be useful in several types of applications in the domain. We have demonstrated the utility of the ontology within an actual scenario in an offshore petroleum field in Brazil, where we conceived and applied the domain ontology. This study is a component of the PeTWIN project, 2 2 Petwin is an academic cooperation between UFRGS, UiO, and Libra, Equinor, and Shell companies (www.petwin.org). which looks at the best approaches for creating digital twins of offshore petroleum plants. • O3PO is a domain ontology for offshore petroleum production plants based on BFO. • It allows modeling equipment properties, functional decomposition and connections. • It was validated with data and use cases from Mero Field in Brazil's Pre-Salt. • O3PO contributes to dealing with semantic interoperability issues in oil and gas. • The ontology may serve as a semantic backbone for digital twins in oil and gas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Pliocene period is the most recent time when the Earth was globally significantly (∼3°C) warmer than today. However, the existing pCO2 data for the Pliocene are sparse and there is little agreement between the various techniques used to reconstruct palaeo-pCO2. This disagreement, coupled with the general low temporal resolution of the published records, does not allow a robust assessment of the role of declining pCO2 in the intensification of the Northern Hemisphere Glaciation (INHG) and a direct comparison to other proxy records are lacking. For the first time, we use a combination of foraminiferal (δ 11B) and organic biomarker (alkenone-derived carbon isotopes) proxies to determine the concentration of atmospheric CO2 over the past 5Ma. Both proxy records show that during the warm Pliocene pCO2 was between 330 and 400ppm, i.e. similar to today. The decrease to values similar to pre-industrial times (275–285ppm) occurred between 3.2Ma and 2.8Ma — coincident with the INHG and affirming the link between global climate, the cryosphere and pCO2. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Functional neuroimaging techniques using positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have provided new insights in our understanding of brain function from the molecular to the systems level. While subtraction strategy based data analyses have revealed the involvement of distributed brain regions in memory processes, covariance analysis based data analysis strategies allow functional interactions between brain regions of a neuronal network to be assessed. The focus of this chapter is to (1) establish the functional topography of episodic and working memory processes in young and old normal volunteers, (2) to assess functional interactions between modules of networks of brain regions by means of covariance based analyses and systems level modelling and (3) to relate neuroimaging data to the underpinning neural networks. Male normal young and old volunteers without neurological or psychiatric illness participated in neuroimaging studies (PET, fMRI) on working and episodic memory. Distributed brain areas are involved in memory processes (episodic and working memory) in young volunteers and show much of an overlap with respect to the network components. Systems level modelling analyses support the hypothesis of bihemispheric, asymmetric networks subserving memory processes and revealed both similarities in general and differences in the interactions between brain regions during episodic encoding and retrieval as well as working memory. Changes in memory function with ageing are evident from studies in old volunteers activating more brain regions compared to young volunteers and revealing more and stronger influences of prefrontal regions. We finally discuss the way in which the systems level models based on PET and fMRI results have implications for the understanding of the underlying neural network functioning of the brain. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Present-day ocean deoxygenation has major implications for marine ecosystems and biogeochemical cycling in the oceans. Chromium isotopes are used as a proxy to infer changes in past oceanic redox state. Chromium isotopes in carbonates, including the prime proxy carrier foraminifera, were initially thought to record the seawater composition during crystallisation. However, the uptake of Cr into foraminiferal tests and carbonates is still poorly understood and recent studies question this assumption. We assess whether Cr in foraminiferal calcite is taken up during biomineralisation, has a post-depositional origin or is a combination of the two. Laser Ablation-MC-ICP-MS analyses and NanoSIMS imaging of individual tests were used to characterise the distribution of Cr in both planktic and benthic foraminifera. Foraminifera in sediment core-top samples have up to two orders of magnitude more Cr than sediment trap, plankton net, and culture samples. In cultured specimens, Cr is incorporated in foraminiferal tests at low concentrations (0.04–0.13 ppm) with a distribution coefficient of ∼250 ± 43 (2SE) which is an upper estimate due to substantial loss of dissolved Cr during the experiment. Part of the Cr signal in sedimentary foraminifera may be primary, but this primary signal is likely often overprinted by the uptake of Cr from bottom and pore waters. In sediment samples, there is no significant isotopic offset between individual species and bulk foraminiferal calcite from the same size fraction. The >500 μm fraction has a heavier isotopic composition than the smaller 250–500 μm fraction with an offset of −0.3 to −0.5‰ due to an increase in surface area to volume. We propose that Cr in foraminifera is predominantly post-depositional and records bottom/pore water signals. This is contrary to current interpretations of the foraminiferal Cr isotope proxy as a surface seawater redox proxy. • Chromium is distributed across the whole foraminiferal shell. • Post-depositional addition of Cr is the main uptake mechanism in foraminifera. • There is no interspecies isotope fractionation between equisized foraminifera. • Isotopic compositional changes are related to foraminiferal test size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure (both gross morphology and internal cellular) of rhodoliths (free-living forms of coralline algae) are important factors in the ability of rhodoliths to create complex habitats. Using Finite Element Analysis, models of the internal structure of rhodoliths have been interrogated to assess how changes to the cellular structure affect structural integrity. These models are accurate in their portrayal of the internal skeleton, yet they fail in other ways. Specifically, they lack accurate environmental loads and material properties (Young's modulus), which form the basis of an accurate quantification of the structural integrity of rhodoliths. Here we measure the material properties of rhodoliths and quantify the hydrodynamic forces acting on them. Applying correct material properties and hydrodynamic forces, our results show that rhodoliths experience larger stresses than previously modelled. Water velocities representing storm surges cause internal stresses exceeding experimentally derived breakage stresses. As the intensity and frequency of storm surges are predicted to increase, the forces generated by them will result in breakage and hence affect their role as habitat builders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this functional positron emission tomography study brain activations during an auditory lexical decision task with two experimental conditions were investigated. First, the subjects had to discriminate between real words and nonwords; second, real words varied with pseudowords. Comparing each of these tasks to an auditory control condition we found bilateral activation of the superior temporal and inferior frontal gyrus, lateralized to the left in the pseudoword condition. The comparison of the lexical decision tasks revealed higher rCBF during the pseudo-/real word decisions within BA 47, adjacent to Broca''s area, and the anterior cingulate. The data support the notion that the lexical decision during a nonword task is mainly based on a phonological discrimination process, whereas a pseudoword task more strongly requires lexical access resulting in activation of BA 47. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

It was the aim of this study to compare in vitro closure time (PFA-100), reflecting platelet-related primary hemostasis, to more platelet-specific tests like whole blood electrical aggregometry and platelet surface antigen expression in healthy volunteers. In vitro closure time was measured using a PFA-100. Platelet surface antigen expression (CD63, CD62-P, CD42b, CD36, CD31) was determined in accordance with the consensus protocol for flow-cytometric characterisation of platelet function. Platelet aggregometry was performed using a whole blood electrical aggregometer (ADP and arachidonic acid as agonists). Analysis of the obtained data revealed only a few significant correlations between the different platelet function tests used. This finding can be explained by the various aspects of platelet function being focused by these tests in different extents. Whenever platelet function is analysed, the investigator should be aware of the specific and limited evidence of the method used. For screening purposes, it may be useful to introduce a platelet function index, referring to basal platelet activity, platelet adhesion and platelet aggregation at low and high shear stress forces. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]