Factors In Different Stages Research Articles

Study on the Changes of Immune Factors in Different Stages of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Chemotherapy

Objective: To analyze various immune cytokines (NKG2D, IL-12, IL-15, IL-18, DC cells, TNF-a, IFN-r) and peripheral blood of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) at different times after chemotherapy. Changes in CD4+, CD8+, Th17 and IgG, IgM, and IgA levels. Methods: A total of 118 NSCLC patients who attended the Oncology Department of the Affiliated Hospital of Chengde Medical College from September 2018 to September 2021 were selected as the research objects, and the patients were analyzed at different time points (before chemotherapy, after the first chemotherapy, and after the second chemotherapy). The effects of NKG2D, IL-12, IL-15, IL-18, DC cells, TNF-A, IFN-r, CD4+, CD8+ Th17, IgG, IgM and IgA levels in peripheral blood at different time points (before chemotherapy, after the first chemotherapy and after the second chemotherapy) were analyzed. The changes of NKG2D, IL-12, IL-15, IL-18, DC cells, TNF-A, IFN-r and the levels of CD4+, CD8+ Th17, IgG, IgM and IgA in peripheral blood were compared at each time point. Results: NKG2D, IL-12, IL-15, IL-18, TNF-a, IFN-r gradually decreased before chemotherapy, one week after chemotherapy, and two weeks after chemotherapy, the difference was statistically significant, but DC cells were not significant Variety. CD4+ and CD8+ both increased significantly, and the levels of Th17, IgG, IgM, and IgA gradually decreased. Conclusion: In the course of chemotherapy, all immune factors except DC cells were significantly decreased compared with those before chemotherapy, and the decrease of immune factors except DC cells was positively correlated with the length of chemotherapy cycle. If additional immunotherapy is needed, it should be carried out in the early stage of chemotherapy.

Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Pre-dialysis Chronic Kidney Disease patients of Nepal

Background and Aims: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the commonest cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) due to increased prevalence of traditional and nontraditional CVD risk factors. Our study aimed to evaluate these risk factors in pre-dialysis Nepalese CKD patients.
 Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in Department of Nephrology, Bir hospital. Total 100 consecutive pre-dialysis CKD patients were enrolled. Ten traditional and six nontraditional CVD risk factors were analyzed and compared between CKD stages. Descriptive statistics was used to illustrate the socio-demographic and clinical characteristics, chi square test for categorical variables and multiple logistic regression analysis was done to determine the risk factors of CVD in CKD patients. p-value<0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.
 Results: Mean patient age was 52.03}13.64 years with majority (60%) of the patients being male. Comparison of traditional risk factors in different stages depicted similar trend except for old age in Stage 3 CKD (p=0.002). Anemia (p<0.001), hyperphosphatemia (p=0.01), hyperparathyroidism (p<0.01) and cumulative nontraditional risk factors were significantly higher (p=0.01) in stage 5 CKD. The predicted CVD events by Framingham risk score showed high risk in 37% with no significant difference among the stages. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed increased body mass index, low serum albumin and increased serum phosphate as the three significant predictors for left ventricular hypertrophy.
 Conclusion: Our study shows that the CVD risk factors were prevailing along the various stages of CKD. The occurrence of non-traditional risk factors increased with increasing stage of CKD.

Expression of Hypoxia-Inducible Factors in Different Stages of Pancreatic Tumor Progression

Background: Early diagnosis in pancreatic cancer is key for improving prognosis. Hypoxia plays a critical role in tumor progression. Thus, an evaluation of associations between pancreatic tumor progression and markers of hypoxia is needed. Methods: We assessed the expression of hypoxia-inducible factors (HIF-1α and HIF-2α) by immuno-histochemical staining from 29 subjects with the following: pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN), intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN), neuroendocrine tumor (NET), and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and compared it to the expression in non-tumor samples. Results: Expression of HIF-1α increased significantly from PanIN (3.01 ± 0.17) to IPMN (7.63 ± 0.18), NET (9.10 ± 0.23) and PDAC samples (11.06 ± 0.15, p < 0.0001). Similar findings were observed for HIF-2α (p < 0.0001)}. A strong correlation between HIF-1α and HIF-2α expression was demonstrated (R2 = 0.8408, p < 0.0001). Conclusions: This data suggest that HIF-1α and HIF-2α may play a role in the progression from PanIN through PDAC. Further studies are necessary to confirm these findings and determine the effect of HIFs abrogation on tumor progression that can lead to novel therapies.

Expression of Diverse Angiogenesis Factor in Different Stages of the 4T1 Tumor as a Mouse Model of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer.

Purpose: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is specified by high vascularity and repetitious metastasis. Although several studies have indicated that angiogenesis has an important role in invasive breast cancer, a suitable model of TNBC that can show the exact onset of angiogenesis factors still needs to be developed. The purpose of this study is to determine the expression level of angiogenesis factors in different clinical stages of the 4T1 tumor as TNBC mouse model. Methods: Twenty mice were injected by the 4T1 cell line, and four mice selected as healthy controls. Following by tumor induction, the mice were randomly put into four groups, each contains four mice. Once the tumor volume reached to the early stage (<100 mm3), intermediate stage (100-300 mm3), advanced stage (300-500 mm3), and end stage (>500 mm3), they were removed by surgery. Then, the expression levels of Hif1α, VEGFR1, and VEGFR2 genes, as well as tumor markers of VEGF, bFGF and CD31, were evaluated by qPCR and immunohistochemistry (IHC) respectively. The statistical analysis was done by SPSS version 16. Results: TNBC tumors were confirmed and multi-foci metastasis in the lung were seen. The mRNA and protein expression levels of the angiogenesis factors increased in the early stage and as the tumor grew, their expression level enhanced dramatically. Conclusion: The 4T1 syngeneic mouse tumor may serve as an appropriate TNBC model for further investigation of the angiogenesis and therapies. Moreover, angiogenesis factors are induced before the advanced stage, and anti-angiogenesis therapy is necessary to be considered at the first line of treatment in TBNC.

Los factores internos y externos en la política exterior mexicana (2012-2018): una evaluación general

El objetivo de este artículo es evaluar la política exterior de México durante la administración de Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018). El argumento principal es que esta actividad estuvo profundamente condicionada por factores internos y externos en las diferentes etapas del sexenio. La primera parte plantea las metas de la administración peñista en materia de política exterior. La segunda divide el sexenio en cuatro etapas: de 2012 a 2014, cuando plantea las reformas estructurales que tuvieron repercusiones en la política exterior de México; de 2014 a 2016, cuando analiza los problemas internos; de 2016 a mitad de 2018, cuando apareció en la escena política Donald Trump, y de mediados de 2018 hasta el final de la administración. La última parte del texto evalúa el cumplimiento de los objetivos trazados al inicio de la administración.

Impacts of congestion pricing and reward strategies on automobile travelers’ morning commute mode shift decisions

This paper studies the impacts of congestion pricing and reward strategies on automobile travelers’ morning commute mode shift decisions using stated preference travel mode choice data of over 1000 automobile travelers collected in Beijing inner districts. To address the complex impacts of these strategies on automobile travelers, a stage-based model framework is developed to analyze their mode shift decision-making process (whether they will shift from using automobile to public transit, biking or walking or continue using automobile) under these strategies. Four multilevel structural equation models are created for participants using automobile (personal vehicle and/or taxi) as the most common mode of transportation (hereafter referred to as “more habitual automobile travelers”) and those using automobile as second most common mode (hereafter referred to as “less habitual automobile travelers”) under each strategy. Model estimation results show that the impacts of latent psychological factors on mode shift decisions under congestion pricing and reward strategies are significantly different between more and less habitual automobile travelers. The results also show that congestion pricing strategies are more effective than reward strategies in promoting mode shifts among more habitual automobile travelers, while the opposite is observed for less habitual automobile travelers. This study provides insights for designing congestion pricing and reward strategies and illustrates the importance of developing complementary modules that target numerous factors in different stages of the mode shift decision-making process to effectively promote mode shifts from automobile to sustainable travel modes in China.

Study on the Timely Adjustment of the Grazing Prohibition Policy: Ban or Lift? Empirical Research from Local Government Managers

As national policy implementers and regional development planners, local government managers have a clearer, more objective and comprehensive understanding of ecological changes than herdsmen. Thus, they have a significant impact on the sustainable development of grassland resources and agricultural and pastoral areas. In this paper, grassland ecological change and related factors in different stages were investigated by means of questionnaires and structured interviews, and the adjustment strategies of grazing prohibition policy were studied. The perception of local government managers was that there was an improvement in grassland ecology, coverage, quality, yield, and in species richness in the early grazing prohibition period. There was, furthermore, an obvious improvement in the intermediate stage and a significant improvement with some degradation in its current stage. The grazing prohibition policy urgently needs to be adjusted according to the management pattern and to the limited time and space. It is necessary to improve the standard of ecological compensation and bolster herdsmen livelihoods, diversification, and non-agriculturalization. Based on the non-equilibrium theory and polycentric governance, the multi-central grassland governance and control system should be created in future.

Multistate recursively imputed survival trees for time-to-event data analysis: an application to AIDS and mortality post-HIV infection data

sBackgroundThis study aimed to introduce recursively imputed survival trees into multistate survival models (MSRIST) to analyze these types of data and to identify the prognostic factors influencing the disease progression in patients with intermediate events. The proposed method is fully nonparametric and can be used for estimating transition probabilities.MethodsA general algorithm was provided for analyzing multi-state data with a focus on the illness-death and progressive multi-state models. The model considered both beyond Markov and Non-Markov settings. We also proposed a multi-state random survival method (MSRSF) and compared their performance with the classical multi-state Cox model. We applied the proposed method to a dataset related to HIV/AIDS patients based on a retrospective cohort study extracted in Tehran from April 2004 to March 2014 consist of 2473 HIV-infected patients.ResultsThe results showed that MSRIST outperformed the classical multistate method using Cox Model and MSRSF in terms of integrated Brier score and concordance index over 500 repetitions. We also identified a set of important risk factors as well as their interactions on different states of HIV and AIDS progression.ConclusionsThere are different strategies for modelling the intermediate event. We adapted two newly developed data mining technique (RSF and RIST) for multistate models (MSRSF and MSRIST) to identify important risk factors in different stages of the diseases. The methods can capture any complex relationship between variables and can be used as a useful tool for identifying important risk factors in different states of this disease.

Expressions of serum TSLP, SAA, and CRP in COPD patients

Objective To value different stages of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients with the detection of the levels of serum thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP), serum amyloid A (SAA), and C-reactive protein (CRP). Methods A total of 33 patients with COPD during and after hospitalization and 16 healthy controls were enrolled in the study from the 3rd affiliated hospital of SYSU. Differences and correlations of the level of serum TSLP, SAA and CRP were analyzed to value the veracity of those factors in different stages of COPD. Results The levels of CRP and SAA were higher in acute exacerbation of COPD (AECOPD) group than stable COPD group, TSLP was lower in the AECOPD group than the healthy control group (P<0.05). CRP had a positive correlation with SAA (correlation r=0.546, P=0.000), CRP [area under curve (AUC) =0.797] and SAA (AUC=0.815), and they were statistically significant in identity of different stages of COPD (P<0.05). Conclusions Serum TSLP level is decreased in acute exacerbation phase of COPD. CRP and SAA are increased in AECOPD. SAA is more confident in identity of different phases of COPD. Key words: Lymphopoiesis; Thymus gland/CY/ME; Serum amyloid A protein/ME; C-reactive protein/ME; Pulmonary disease, chronic obstructive/ME

Decomposition of harvest residue needles of different needle ages in a Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) plantation

The canopies in evergreen coniferous plantations are often composed of various-aged needles. Plantation management, such as thinning, produced abundant harvest residue, including needles with different needle ages. However, little attention was paid to the effect of needle age on decomposition, although the needle chemical properties varied substantially with leaf ages. A field experiment was conducted for 3 years to investigate the decomposition of harvest residue needles at different needle ages, and determine the main controlling factors in different stages of decomposition in a Chinese fir plantation. We found that the initial decomposition rate varied 5-fold among different needle ages in a Chinese fir plantation. Litter quality controlled the overall litter decomposition rate, especially the initial decomposition rate. Needle nitrogen content was positively correlated to decomposition rate during the early stage of decomposition. However, it was negatively correlated to decomposition rate during the later stage of decomposition. The contents of needle tannins increased the asymptotic mass remaining (A, proportion of mass remaining at which decomposition approaches zero, i.e., the fraction of slowly decomposing litter). We also found that the initial litter decomposition rates in soil fauna presence were significantly higher than those in soil fauna absence across different needle ages. Moreover, the effect of soil fauna on initial litter decomposition is independent of needle quality. Our results suggest that needle age and plant secondary metabolites should be considered to understand the response of litter decomposition and nutrient cycling to management practices, such as thinning, in conifer plantations.

Factors influencing service innovation of MSNs in China: a theoretical and empirical research

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the key factors influencing the service innovation of mobile social networks (MSNs), figure out the mechanism of all factors in different stages of service innovation and help mobile social application developers promote better service innovation.Design/methodology/approachFrom previous research, this paper adopted nine initial factors that influence the service innovation of MSNs, and divide the service innovation process into three stages (i.e. demand analysis, service design and innovation implementation). On that basis, the authors constructed a model, and then collected data from 184 managers from 20 leading MSN corporates in China through questionnaires to examine the model. Furthermore, factor analysis was used to extract key factors influencing the service innovation of MSNs, correlation analysis was employed to discuss the relationship among factors and regression analysis was applied to explore their specific roles in different stages in the service innovation process.FindingsThe empirical results show that the service innovation of MSNs is mainly influenced by five key factors: user, developer, market environment, social environment and technology. The authors found that different factors played remarkably different roles in the three stages. In specific, all factors but technology are important in the demand analysis stage; all factors but social environment are critical to service design; and all factors but user contribute to the implementation of service innovation.Practical implicationsThe results of this study can help mobile social application developers and mobile social service providers in China to better understand the driving force of service innovation and what should be emphasized in different stages, and then find the optimal path to implement service innovation, improve their service quality and user experience and facilitate the development of Chinese MSNs.Originality/valueThis is the first research that comprehensively explores factors influencing the service innovation of Chinese MSNs from multi-dimensional perspectives, which provides profound theoretical guidance to the practice of service innovation in China. Also, it contributes to the development of innovation theory of traditional web services.

The important role of circulating CYFRA21-1 in metastasis diagnosis and prognostic value compared with carcinoembryonic antigen and neuron-specific enolase in lung cancer patients

BackgroundThe roles of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), cytokeratin 19 fragments (CYFRA21-1) and neuron-specific enolase (NSE) in metastases occurrence and poor diagnosis in specific histological classifications of lung cancer need further exploring. In this study, we investigated relationship between elevated levels of three biomarkers of CEA, CYFRA21-1 and NSE (individually and in combination) and metastasis, survival status and prognosis in lung cancer patients.MethodsEight hundred and sixty eight lung cancer patients including adenocarcinoma (ADC, N = 445), squamous cell carcinoma (SCC, N = 215), small cell lung cancer (SCLC, N = 159) and other types (N = 49) were categorized into negative, moderate and high groups according to serum levels of biomarkers, and were then categorized into negative, single, double and triple groups according to any positive combination of three biomarkers. The cutoff values of three biomarkers for groupings were developed on the training group (N = 432) and verified in a validation group (N = 436). Clinical and laboratory characteristics were then assessed for correlation with occurrence of metastasis, survival status and prognosis between the two groups. Further correlation analyses were also conducted by different subtypes (ADC, SCC and SCLC) and tumor stages (I + II, III and IV) of lung cancers.ResultsThe consistent results between training and validation group confirmed the rationality of grouping methods. CYFRA21-1 levels had stronger association with metastases and survival status than CEA and NSE in all lung cancer patients. When stratified by subtypes, these significances only existed in ADC patients for CYFRA21-1. Cox regression analyses showed that CYFRA21-1 and NSE were independent prognostic factors for lung cancer patients. However, only CYFRA21-1 was an independent prognostic factor in ADC and SCLC patients subtypes. Cox-regression results also indicated that CYFRA21-1 could act as independent prognostic factor in different stages (I + II, III and IV) of lung cancer.ConclusionCYFRA21-1 was more important in metastasis occurrence and in predicting poor prognosis in lung cancer patients than CEA, NSE and positive numbers of biomarkers.

LOCATING OF CONCEALED SKARN IRON ORE DEPOSIT BASED ON MULTIVARIATE INFORMATION CONSTRAINTS: A CASE STUDY OF BEIYA GOLD MINE IN YUNNAN PROVINCE

AbstractSkarn deposit is one of the main gold‐polymetallic deposits in Beiya, Yunnan, and constrained by its porphyries, structures and stratums, the favorable ore‐prospecting spaces are contact zones between intermediate‐acid rocks and carbonatite. Based on the physical characteristics of rocks, we realized the transition between target geological body and the geophysical field and extracted the useful information. Skarn iron deposits are characterized by low‐medium resistivity in contact zone, low density of porphyries, high susceptibility and high polarizability of the iron ore. Utilizing the geological and geophysical information, we analyzed ore‐controlling factors in different stages, implemented the locating of concealed skarn iron deposits, established a geophysical exploration mode, verified the validity of the study method on the periphery of the ore district and obtained favorable exploration results. We also proposed a locating and predicting method for the concealed skarn iron deposits, which is applicable to Beiya and other similar ore‐forming geological conditions.

432P Survival pattern of non-metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the United States

Background Tumor size and lymph node infiltration are known to be prognostic factors in different stages of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the aim of this study is to show the effect of different treatment modality with different stage on survival rate. Methods: The data were obtained from all 18 SEER database registries which were used to identify patients diagnosed with non-metastatic non-small cell lung cancer between 1988-2003. Relative five-year survival was calculated & compared between patient according to American Joint Committee on Cancer 6th edition classification with surgical and/or radiation intervention for treatment. Results 6133 patients in the SEER databases who met the selection criteria. 57.7% was male, 82.1% was white. 56.8% of the patient has the primary lesion in the upper lobe of the lung. According to American Joint Committee on Cancer 6th edition 45.1% of the patient had T4 stage and 47.9% had N2 stage. All T stages showed significant difference of 5 years relative survival (P > 0.05) with surgical intervention only except T3 stage which showed significant difference of 5 years relative survival (P > 0.05) with surgical intervention and radiation therapy. N0 and N1 stage showed significant difference of 5 years relative survival (P > 0.05) with surgical intervention only but N2 showed significant difference of 5 years relative survival (P > 0.05) with surgical intervention and radiation therapy. Conclusions Surgical intervention alone has significant higher 5 years relative survival rate with most of stages of NSCLC. However radiation therapy will be needed with surgical intervention in T3 and N2 stages. Legal entity responsible for the study Ahmed Meshref Funding Ahmed Meshref Disclosure All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

PREVALENCE OF VASCULAR RISK FACTORS IN DIFFERENT STAGES OF PRODROMAL ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON COGNITIVE DECLINE

PREVALENCE OF VASCULAR RISK FACTORS IN DIFFERENT STAGES OF PRODROMAL ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON COGNITIVE DECLINE

Assessment of changes in expression and presentation of NKG2D under influence of MICA serum factor in different stages of breast cancer

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide. In this study, we correlated the serum level of major histocompatibility complex class I-related chain A (sMICA) with expression and presentation of NKG2D receptors on NK cells among patients with breast cancer. Peripheral blood (PB) samples were collected from 49 healthy and 49 breast cancer patients before surgery and chemotherapy. The expression and presentation of NKG2D were assessed using qRT-PCR and flow cytometry, respectively. Furthermore, sMICA levels were determined using ELISA. In flow cytometry, whole blood samples were stained with anti-CD56/NKG2D/CD3 and the obtained results were analyzed using WinMDI software. In addition, SPSS software was used for statistical analysis of data. Significantly higher levels sMICA were detected in the sera of the majority of cancer patients in contrast to healthy volunteers (P < 0.001). The expression and presentation of NKG2D receptor were significantly lower than those in healthy persons, and with an inverse correlation to sMICA and positively correlated with tumor stage. Our study showed that sMICA may have an important role in diminishing the expression and presentation of NKG2D receptor in breast cancer patients and proposes the notion that sMICA can be a target candidate for treatment of breast cancer.

Risk Prevention and Deduction in Software Development Using Fuzzy Membership Function

Evidence indicates that risks in IT projects which are not effectively managed and lack of identification and management during the life cycle of a project can contribute to their failures. Traditional risk assessment methods usually model risks with objective probabilities based on the expected frequency of repeatable events. Meanwhile, managers prefer to linguistically represent likelihoods because of the uncertainty and vagueness of risk factors. The objective of this paper is to identify risk mitigation strategies in software development projects from the perspectives of software practitioners and determine the effectiveness of these strategies. We explore the use of fuzzy methods to overcome the problems associated with probabilistic modelling through a set of questionnaire surveys which was conducted among 3000 IT practitioners using Tukey-B test, Kendall's test and Post Hoc Tukey HSD test. We apply Fuzzy Membership Function (Fuzzy-MBF) as an appropriate mechanism in dealing with the subjectivity in the assessment of risk factors in different stages of a software development life cycle. The proposed Fuzzy-MBF offers a quantitative evaluation of risk factors and provides a systemic evaluation of risk and visualization of results.

长白山森林不同演替阶段比叶面积及其影响因子研究

Specific leaf area( SLA) is an important indicator of plant function trait,reflecting resources utilization strategy during the plant growth process. The typical forest communities under four different succession stages in Changbai Mountains were selected,the SLA and its influencing factors in different stages of successions were compared. The results showed that SLA was obviously different across forest successions,and significantly increased with forest succession stages. Correlation analysis showed that SLA had significant positive correlations with elevation、slope position、soil nitrogen( with P 0. 05).Further path analysis indicated that on early stage of succession,slope position was an important factor,while Path analysis model was with low path coefficient on middle stage of succession,and the negative effect of soil N was significant on later stage of succession.

Perceived Sources of Stress and Coping Strategies in Dental Students and Interns

Dental students are exposed to different stress factors in different stages of dental education which, apart from affecting their physical and mental health also has an impact on academic performance. The present research attempts to identify the perceived sources of stress and coping strategies amongst dental students and interns. Questionnaire consisting demographic data, Modified Dental Environmental Stress Questionnaire and Tactics for Coping with Stress Inventory were administered to undergraduate dental students and interns (N= 320). Stress showed an upward trend from first to final year. Stress due to emotional factors was significantly higher than academic, social and physical factors. Females were more stressful than males. Students staying at home were more stressful than those staying in hostel. There is a need for intervention programs at the level of students, parents, teachers and administration to develop an overall positive institutional atmosphere for dental education and student welfare.

Research on Risk of Automotive Product Life Cycle Design Based on Low Carbon Requirements

Based on low-carbon and product life-cycle design concept, this paper classifies risk factors in different stages of automotive product life cycle design risk evaluation indicator system and analyzes the different risk categories weight adopting the rough set and analytical hierarchy process to determine the key risks of automotive product in different stages of life cycle. Additionally, real instances are cited to verify the conclusions.