• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제15권16호
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• pp.6805-6810
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• 2014

Background: Previous studies have suggested a link between obesity and breast cancer (BC). However, there is no universal consensus, especially in population based studies. Because only few studies have been conducted on African women, we aimed here to assess the relationship between BMI at time of diagnosis and the BC histopathological features among Tunisian patients according to menopausal status using a hospital-based prospective cohort study. Materials and Methods: Clinical and pathological data were collected from 262 patients stratified on four groups according to their BMI. The relationship between BMI and histopathological features at diagnosis was analysed using univariate and multivariate analysis. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to evaluate the performance of BMI in predicting of high tumor grade, in comparison to ki-67 index of proliferation. Results: Obesity was correlated with larger tumors, advanced grade and with ER-PR-Her2+ BC subtype. An association of BMI with tumor size and tumor grade was observed in both premenopausal and postmenopausal women. Additionally, a significant association between BMI and ER+, ER+PR+Her2+ and ER-PR-Her2+ status was revealed for premenopausal patients, while only ER+PR+Her2+ was associated with BMI for postmenopausal women. Finally, our results showed that compared to Ki67 proliferation index, BMI is a useful prognostic marker of high grade BC tumors. Conclusions: These data are the first to show that in Tunisia obese women suffering from BC have significantly larger tumors and advanced tumor grade and that higher BMI might influence tumor characteristics and behavior.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• 제32권2호
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• pp.209-216
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• 2019

Objective: We compare the effects of three different approved sources of supplemental zilpaterol on growth-performance responses and carcass characteristics of finishing lambs. Methods: Twenty four Pelibuey${\times}$Katahdin lambs ($46.75{\pm}2.43kg$) were used in a 33-day feeding trial. Lambs were fed a dry rolled corn-based finishing diet. Treatments consisted of the non-supplemental basal diet (Control) versus the basal diet supplemented with 125 mg zilpaterol/kg of diet (as fed basis) from three commercial sources marketed in Mexico: Zilmax (ZIL), Grofactor, and Zipamix. Results: Compared to controls, zilpaterol (ZH) supplementation did not affect dry matter intake (DMI), but increased carcass adjusted daily weight gain (ADG, 36.7%), gain efficiency (34.2%), and dietary net energy (26.0%), and decreased (23.4%) the ratio of observed:expected DMI. Compared to controls, supplemental ZH increased hot carcass weight (6.4%), dressing percentage (3.2%), m. longissimus thoracis (LM) area (15.6%), and shoulder muscle:fat ratio (28.7%), but decreased kidney-pelvic-heart fat, and fat thickness. Supplemental ZH increased 10.9% and 14.3% whole cut weight of loin and leg, respectively, and the proportion (as percentage of cold carcass weight) of leg (4.3%). These increases were reflected in greater forequarter and hindquarter weights. Lambs fed ZH increased (4.6%) empty body weight (EBW) and reduced (14.7%) liver/spleen weight (as g/kg EBW). Likewise, ZH supplementation tended (p = 0.08) to lower (8.9%) visceral fat. Growth performance, energetic efficiency, hot carcass weight, dressing percentage, LM area and whole cuts were not different across supplemental ZH sources. However, compared with non-supplemented controls, only ZIL appreciably decreased carcass fat distribution, including fat thickness, percentage kidney pelvic and heart fat, shoulder fat, and visceral fat. Conclusion: Supplemental ZH increases ADG, gain efficiency, carcass dressing percentage, and LM area. The magnitude of these responses was similar among ZH sources. Nevertheless, compared with non-supplemented controls, only ZIL appreciably decreases carcass fat. The basis for this is uncertain, but indicative that some practical differences in zilpaterol bio-equivalency may exist across commercial sources tested.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제13권6호
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• pp.2879-2886
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• 2012

In order to thoroughly analyze risk factors of breast cancer (BC) in premenopausal Uruguayan women, a case-control study was carried out at the Pereira Rossell Women's Hospital, Montevideo, where 253 incident BC cases and 497 frequency-matched healthy controls were interviewed on menstrual and reproductive story, were administered a short food frequency questionnaire and undertook a series of body measurements necessary to calculate body composition and somatotype. Odds ratio (OR) coefficients were taken as estimates of relative risk derived from unconditional logistic regression. Among the classical risk factors, only the family history of BC in first degree relatives was significantly associated with risk of premenopausal BC (OR=2.20, 95% CI 1.33-3.62). Interestingly, this risk factor was found to be stronger in women of ages >40 (OR=4.05, 95% CI 2.10-7.81), late menarche (OR= 2.39, 95% CI 1.18-4.85), early age for their first delivery (OR=3.02, 95% CI 1.26-7.22), short time between menarche and first delivery (OR=3.22, 95% CI 1.29-8.07), and with high parity (OR=4.10, 95% CI 1.79-9.36), although heterogeneity was detected only for age and parity. High consumption of red meat was positively associated with the disease risk (OR=2.20, 95% CI 1.35-3.60), in the same way as fried foods (OR=1.79, 95% CI 1.12-2.84). Conversely, a high intake of plant foods displayed a protective effect (OR=0.41, 95% CI 0.26-0.65). Except for hypertension (OR=1.55, 95% CI 1.03-2.35), none of the analyzed components of metabolic syndrome were associated to BC risk. Particular increases of risk for premenopausal BC were found for family history in first degree relatives in certain subsets derived from the menstrual-reproductive history. Preventive strategies could broaden their scope if new studies confirm the present results, in view of the limited prevention measures that premenopausal BC currently has.

• Genomics & Informatics
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• 제18권2호
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• pp.20.1-20.4
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• 2020

Accessible negative results are relevant for researchers and clinicians not only to limit their search space but also to prevent the costly re-exploration of research hypotheses. However, most biomedical relation extraction datasets do not seek to distinguish between a false and a negative relation among two biomedical entities. Furthermore, datasets created using distant supervision techniques also have some false negative relations that constitute undocumented/ unknown relations (missing from a knowledge base). We propose to improve the distinction between these concepts, by revising a subset of the relations marked as false on the phenotype-gene relations corpus and give the first steps to automatically distinguish between the false (F), negative (N), and unknown (U) results. Our work resulted in a sample of 127 manually annotated FNU relations and a weighted-F1 of 0.5609 for their automatic distinction. This work was developed during the 6th Biomedical Linked Annotation Hackathon (BLAH6).

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제9권2호
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• pp.153-168
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• 2000

This paper presents four incompatible but convergent Rational quadrilateral elements, two four-node elements (RQ4Z and RQ4B) and two five-node elements (RQ5Z and RQ5B). The difference between the so-called Rational Finite Element (Zhong and Zeng 1996) and the Free Formulation (Bergan and Nygard 1984) are discussed and compared. The importance of the mode completeness in these formulations is emphasized. Numerical results for several benchmark problems show the good performance of these elements. The two five-nodes elements RQ5Z and RQ5B, which can be viewed as complete quadratic mode elements (with seven stress modes), always give better results than the four nodes elements RQ4Z and RQ4B.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• 제4권2호
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• pp.115-136
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• 2015

We present for one-dimensional model for elastoplastic bar with combined hardening in FPZ - fracture process zone and softening with embedded strong discontinuities. The simplified version of the model without FPZ is directly compared and validated against analytical solution of Bazant and Belytschko (1985). It is shown that deformation localizes in an area which is governed by the chosen element size and therefore causes mesh sensitivity and that the length of the strain-softening region tends to localize into a point, which also agrees with results obtained by stability analysis for static case. Strain increases in the softening domain with a simultaneous decrease of stress. The problem unloads elastically outside the strain-softening region. The more general case with FPZ leads to more interesting results that also account for induced strain heterogeneities.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제29권2호
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• pp.129-137
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• 2019

The maximum along-wind displacement of a considerable amount of building under simulated wind loads is computed with the aim to produce a simple prediction model using multiple regression analysis with variables transformation. The Shinozuka and Newmark methods are used to simulate the turbulent wind and to calculate the dynamic response, respectively. In order to evaluate the prediction performance of the regression model with longer degree of determination, two complex structural models were analyzed dynamically. In addition, the prediction model proposed is used to estimate and compare the maximum response of two test buildings studied with wind loads by other authors. Finally, it was proved that the prediction model is reliable to estimate the maximum displacements of structures subjected to the wind loads.

• Advances in materials Research
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• 제13권2호
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• pp.141-151
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• 2024

The aim of this work was to determine the behavior of alloy elements and compounds formed during solidification in the manufacturing process of the CuAgZrCr alloy under an oxidizing environment. Bulk and surface analysis techniques, such as Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Raman and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to characterize the phases obtained in the solidification process. In order to focus the analysis on the on grain boundary interface, partial removal of the matrix phase by acid attack was performed. The compositional differences obtained by SEM-EDX, Raman and XPS on post-manufacturing materials allowed us to conclude that the composition of grain boundaries of the alloy is directly influenced by the oxidizing environment of alloy manufacturing.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제19권2호
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• pp.115-126
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• 2017

In this paper, size dependent bending and free flexural vibration behaviors of functionally graded (FG) nanobeams are investigated using a nonlocal quasi-3D theory in which both shear deformation and thickness stretching effects are introduced. The nonlocal elastic behavior is described by the differential constitutive model of Eringen, which enables the present model to become effective in the analysis and design of nanostructures. The present theory incorporates the length scale parameter (nonlocal parameter) which can capture the small scale effect, and furthermore accounts for both shear deformation and thickness stretching effects by virtue of a hyperbolic variation of all displacements through the thickness without using shear correction factor. The material properties of FG nanobeams are assumed to vary through the thickness according to a power law. The neutral surface position for such FG nanobeams is determined and the present theory based on exact neutral surface position is employed here. The governing equations are derived using the principal of minimum total potential energy. The effects of nonlocal parameter, aspect ratio and various material compositions on the static and dynamic responses of the FG nanobeam are discussed in detail. A detailed numerical study is carried out to examine the effect of material gradient index, the nonlocal parameter, the beam aspect ratio on the global response of the FG nanobeam. These findings are important in mechanical design considerations of devices that use carbon nanotubes.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제16권3호
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• pp.1151-1157
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• 2015

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is responsible for one of the most frequent sexually transmitted infections. The first phylogenetic analysis was based on a LCR region fragment. Nowadays, 4 variants are known: African (Af-1, Af-2), Asian-American (AA) and European (E). However the existence of sub-lineages of the European variant havs been proposed, specific mutations in the E6 and LCR sequences being possibly related to persistent viral infections. The aim of this study was a phylogenetic study of HPV16 sequences of endocervical samples from C${\acute{o}}$rdoba, in order to detect the circulating lineages and analyze the presence of mutations that could be correlated with malignant disease. The phylogenetic analysis determined that 86% of the samples belonged to the E variant, 7% to AF-1 and the remaining 7% to AF-2. The most frequent mutation in LCR sequences was G7521A, in 80% of the analyzed samples; it affects the binding site of a transcription factor that could contribute to carcinogenesis. In the E6 sequences, the most common mutation was T350G (L83V), detected in 67% of the samples, associated with increased risk of persistent infection. The high detection rate of the European lineage correlated with patterns of human migration. This study emphasizes the importance of recognizing circulating lineages, as well as the detection of mutations associated with high-grade neoplastic lesions that could be correlated to the development of carcinogenic lesions.