BACKGROUND Trastuzumab has been approved for use in combination with fluoropyrimidine plus cisplatin for the treatment of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive advanced gastric cancer (AGC). Although capecitabine plus oxaliplatin (XELOX) is a standard first-line regimen for AGC, combination trastuzumab plus XELOX has not been studied. METHODS Patients with metastatic or unr...

The TOR (target of rapamycin), an atypical protein kinase, is evolutionarily conserved from yeast to man. Pharmacological studies using rapamycin to inhibit TOR and yeast genetic studies have provided key insights on the function of TOR in growth regulation. One of the first bona fide cellular targets of TOR was the mammalian protein kinase p70 S6K (p70 S6 kinase), a member of a family of kinas...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Elderly patients with advanced gastric cancer (AGC) have generally been excluded from clinical trials, and there are few data available on the treatment of these patients. The efficacy of palliative S-1 monotherapy as a first-line treatment regimen for elderly patients has not been well elucidated. METHODS For this study, 25 AGC patients were enrolled between January 1, 2007 a...

  Objective(s): Osteoarthritis is one of the most common diseases in middle-aged population in the world. Cartilage tissue engineering (TE) has been presented as an effort to introduce the best combination of cells, biomaterial scaffolds and stimulating growth factors to produce a cartilage tissue similar to the natural articular cartilage. In this study, the chondrogenic potential of adipose d...

A number of studies in laboratory rodents have shown how glucocorticoid hormones (GC) alter thymus functionality. Conversely, how GC influence normal human thymus functionality is largely unknown for obvious ethical reasons. Current guidelines state that healthy pregnant women destined to preterm delivery should be considered for antenatal GC (AGC) administration before delivery to facilitate f...

In this paper, the traditional AGC two area system is modified to take into account the role of AGC as an ancillary service. The concept of DISCO participation matrix is introduced and reflected in the two-area diagram. Simulation studies as well as trajectory sensitivity studies are done, the latter for optimization.

BACKGROUND The survival benefits from cytotoxic chemotherapy have been demonstrated in advanced gastric cancer (AGC). A large proportion of AGC patients initially present poor performance status (PS); however, most of the clinical evidence comes from trials on patients with good PS. A better-designed regimen is greatly needed for AGC patients with poor PS. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy a...

The relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function has increasingly been debated as the cornerstone of the processes behind ecosystem services delivery. Experimental and natural field-based studies have come up with nonconsistent patterns of biodiversity-ecosystem function, supporting either niche complementarity or selection effects hypothesis. Here, we used aboveground carbon (AGC) ...

Prognostic value of DNA-ploidy in gastric cancers is still a matter of controversy. A possible explanation for the discrepant results reported in the literature could be sampling error in tumours with multiple stemlines differing in DNA-ploidy [2,4]. In order to determine whether or not such hetero-geneity exists and play a role in biology of gastric cancers we have analysed two different types...

Abstract: A new intelligent Automatic Generation Control (AGC) scheme based on Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) and Fuzzy Logic concept is developed for a multiarea power system. EAs i.e. Genetic Algorithm–Simulated Annealing (GA–SA) are used to optimize the gains of Fuzzy Logic Algorithm (FLA)-based AGC regulators for interconnected power systems. The multi-area power system model has three diffe...