There are several reports on the correlation between early tumor shrinkage (ETS) or depth of response (DpR) and survival in chemotherapies for colorectal cancer; however, few studies have investigated it in pancreatic cancer. We therefore investigated whether the ETS will predict outcomes in 59 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer treated with FOLFIRINOX therapy. The association of ETS with...

In this paper we introduce a theory of policy routing dynamics based on fundamental axioms of routing update mechanisms. We develop a dynamic policy routing model (DPR) that extends the static formalism of the stable paths problem (introduced by Griffin et al.) with discrete synchronous time. DPR captures the propagation of path changes in any dynamic network irrespective of its time-varying to...

BACKGROUND The application of image analysis technologies for the interpretation of microbiological cultures is evolving rapidly. The primary aim of this study was to establish whether the image analysis system named Automated Plate Assessment System (APAS; LBT Innovations Ltd., Australia) could be applied to screen urine cultures. A secondary aim was to evaluate differences between traditional...

Visual field loss after brain lesions is commonly determined using perimetric tests of light detection (perimetry). Many patients with visual field defects complain about perceptual difficulties in areas that are perimetrically normal. To look at a potential cause for such difficulties, we topographically determined temporal characteristics of visual information processing in those patients and...

Modern field-programmable gate arrays offer dynamic partial reconfiguration (DPR) capabilities, a characteristic that opens new scheduling opportunities for real-time applications running on heterogeneous platforms. To evaluate when it is really useful to exploit DPR, in this letter, we present the characterization of its cost terms time and definition “DPR Profitability” concept targeting syst...

Performance constraints in communication systems and networks require the error or fault probabilities to be very low. Analytical and numerical models are often too restrictive and Monte Carlo simulation is computationally prohibitive for low probabilities. Importance sampling (IS) has been used to estimate rare event probabilities but is increasingly difficult to apply to complex systems where...

Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) is poised to be the next generation precipitation observations from space after the TRMM mission. The GPM will carry a dual-frequency precipitation radar (DPR), operating at Ku and Ka band frequencies. Since space-borne precipitation observations have never been done in Ka band before, extensive research work on dualfrequency radar, including electromagnet...

background: medical liability systems play an important role on doctors’ everyday practices and their relationship with patients. they can be established in two ways, fault-based and non-fault. basing medical liability upon the element of fault links it to various issues of medical ethics.  in this paper, we have studied the possible ways each system, could affect the applicability of values an...