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Utilization of environmental stimuli for growth is the main factor contributing to the evolution of prokaryotes and eukaryotes, independently and mutualistically. Epigenetics describes an organism's ability to vary expression of certain genes based on their environmental stimuli. The diverse degree of dose-dependent responses based on their variances in expressed genetic profiles makes it difficult to ascertain whether hormesis or oncogenesis has or is occurring. In the medical field this is shown where survival curves used in determining radiotherapeutic doses have substantial uncertainties, some as large as 50% (Barendsen, 1990). Many in-vitro radiobiological studies have been limited by not taking into consideration the innate presence of microbes in biological systems, which have either grown symbiotically or pathogenically. Present in-vitro studies neglect to take into consideration the varied responses that commensal and opportunistic pathogens will have when exposed to the same stimuli and how such responses could act as stimuli for their macro/microenvironment. As a result many theories such as radiation carcinogenesis explain microscopic events but fail to describe macroscopic events (Cohen, 1995). As such, this review shows how microorganisms have the ability to perturb risks of cancer and enhance hormesis after irradiation. It will also look at bacterial significance in the microenvironment of the tumor before and during treatment. In addition, bacterial systemic communication after irradiation and the host's immune responses to infection could explain many of the phenomena associated with bystander effects. Therefore, the present literature review considers the paradigms of hormesis and oncogenesis in order to find a rationale that ties them all together. This relationship was thus characterized to be the microbiome.

Hemos visto durante los últimos seis años un aumento gradual del número de tumores mesodérmicos mixtos del útero. En el presente estudio se diagnosticó, trató y siguió un total de 41 pacientes en una institución y por los mismos médicos. Se revisó las historias con especial atención a factores clínicos tales como radiación previa, uso de estrógenos, raza, datos de laboratorio, etc. Se estudió las láminas y se determinó la penetración del tumor miometrial. En doce pacientes, el diagnóstico inicial no era correcto, y al revisa r el tejido enviado a nuestra institución se puso en evidencia la existencia de sarcoma y carcinoma. Dicho factor puede influir en el aumento de la incidencia de este raro tumor. Las pacientes fueron tratadas inicialmente con cirugía sola, y en etapas más recientes del presente estudio se combinó cirugía y radiación. La sobrevida a los 3 años ha sido de 15%. No se encontró diferencia significativa de sobrevida entre las que tuvieron cirugía sola y aquéllas en las que se añadió radiación externa. Sí se encontró correlación significativa entre la penetración miometrial y la sobrevida. En la mayoría de pacientes se encontró profunda penetración miometrial del tumor. Los niveles séricos de dehidrogenasa láctica estuvieron elevados en 72% de las pacientes. Se halló grandes elevaciones cuando la enfermedad era avanzada.

Kees et al. (2017) provide evidence from a comparative study that supports the use of Mechanical Turk (MTurk) data in advertising research when compared to student samples and online panel data. MT...

Magnetic resonance-guided radiotherapy (MRgRT) is a new and evolving treatment modality that allows unprecedented visualization of the tumor and surrounding anatomy. MRgRT includes daily 3D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for setup and rapidly repeated near real-time MRI scans during treatment for target tracking. One of the more exciting potential benefits of MRgRT is the ability to analyze serial MRIs to monitor treatment response or predict outcomes. A typical radiation treatment (RT) over the span of 10-15 minutes on the MRIdian system (ViewRay, Cleveland, OH) yields thousands of “cine” images, each acquired in 250 ms. This unique data allows for a glimpse in image intensity changes during RT delivery. In this report, we analyze cine images from a single fraction RT of a glioblastoma patient on the ViewRay platform in order to characterize the dynamic signal changes occurring during RT therapy. The individual frames in the cines were saved into DICOM format and read into an MIM image analysis platform (MIM Software, Cleveland, OH) as a time series. The three possible states of the three Cobalt-60 radiation sources—OFF, READY, and ON—were also recorded. An in-house Java plugin for MIM was created in order to perform principal component analysis (PCA) on each of the datasets. The analysis resulted in first PC, related to monotonous signal increase over the course of the treatment fraction. We found several distortion patterns in the data that we postulate result from the perturbation of the magnetic field due to the moving metal parts in the platform while treatment was being administered. The largest variations were detected when all Cobalt-60 sources were OFF. During this phase of the treatment, the gantry and multi-leaf collimators (MLCs) are moving. Conversely, when all Cobalt-60 sources were in the ON position, the image signal fluctuations were minimal, relating to very little mechanical motion. At this phase, the gantry, the MLCs, and sources are fixed in their positions. These findings were confirmed in a study with the daily quality assurance (QA) phantom. While the identified variations were not related to physiological processes, our findings confirm the sensitivity of the developed approach to identify very small fluctuations. Relating these variations to the physical changes that occur during treatment shows the methodical ability of the technique to uncover their underlying sources.

Radiation therapy (RT) plays a critical role in the treatment of glioblastoma. Studies of brain imaging during RT for glioblastoma have demonstrated changes in the brain during RT. However, frequent or daily utilization of standalone magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans during RT have limited feasibility. The recent release of the tri-cobalt-60 MRI-guided RT (MR-IGRT) device (ViewRay MRIdian, Cleveland, OH) allows for daily brain MRI for the RT setup. Daily MRI of three postoperative patients undergoing RT and temozolomide for glioblastoma over a six-week course allowed for the identification of changes to the cavity, edema, and visible tumor on a daily basis. The volumes and dimensions of the resection cavities, edema, and T2-hyperintense tumor were measured. A general trend of daily decreases in cavity measurements was observed in all patients. For the one patient with edema, a trend of daily increases followed by a trend of daily decreases were observed. These results suggest that daily MRI could be used for onboard resimulation and adaptive RT for future fluctuations in the sizes of brain tumors, cavities, or cystic components. This could improve tumor targeting and reduce RT of healthy brain tissue.

We present a radiomics-based approach developed for the SPIE-AAPM-NCI PROSTATEx challenge. The task was to classify clinically significant prostate cancer in multiparametric (mp) MRI. Data consisted of a "training dataset" (330 suspected lesions from 204 patients) and a "test dataset" (208 lesions/140 patients). All studies included T2-weighted (T2-W), proton density-weighted, dynamic contrast enhanced, and diffusion-weighted imaging. Analysis of the images was performed using the MIM imaging platform (MIM Software, Cleveland, Ohio). Prostate and peripheral zone contours were manually outlined on the T2-W images. A workflow for rigid fusion of the aforementioned images to T2-W was created in MIM. The suspicious lesion was outlined using the high b-value image. Intensity and texture features were extracted on four imaging modalities and characterized using nine histogram descriptors: 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 90%, mean, standard deviation, kurtosis, and skewness (216 features). Three classification methods were used: classification and regression trees (CART), random forests, and adaptive least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO). In the held out by the organizers test dataset, the areas under the curve (AUCs) were: 0.82 (random forests), 0.76 (CART), and 0.76 (adaptive LASSO). AUC of 0.82 was the fourth-highest score of 71 entries (32 teams) and the highest for feature-based methods.

Scale development in a cross-cultural context is demanding and exacting. The purpose of this paper is to follow the necessary protocols to examine the emerging construct of brand nostalgia. This research contributes to the literature by developing a rigorously tested, reliable and valid scale to measure the multi-dimensional nature of brand nostalgia across two countries – Belgium and the U.S. Following the rigorous scale development procedures suggested by Churchill (1979) and Devellis (2003), emic (country and market-specific) scales are developed in Belgium and the United States through a series of iterative studies. By using items common to both emic scales, a derived etic scale is created and tested. The scale's robustness is validated via tests of invariance, dimensionality, reliability, discriminant and nomological validity. Suggestions for future research and managerial implications are provided.

With the growing size and purchasing power of minority consumers, the need to address ethnic diversity through accommodating marketing efforts has received continued attention (Huang et al. 2013; Grinstein and Nisan 2009; Laroche et al. 2007 etc.). Notwithstanding this growth in minority ethnic consumption behavior research, our knowledge of the accommodation effectiveness of service providers when pursuing these segments remains limited with the assumption of general homogeneity of minority consumers.