Prostate-specific antigen half-life： a new predictor of progression- free survival and overall survival in Chinese prostate cancer patients

We investigated the potential value of prostate-specific antigen half-life （PSAHL） and decreasing velocity （PSAVd） to predict progression-free survival （PFS） and overall survival （OS） in Chinese patients with prostate cancer. A total of 153 patients treated with hormonal therapy were included in the study. Of these, 78 patients progressed to hormone- refractory prostate cancer （HRPC） and 24 patients died by the end of follow-up. PSAHL was defined as the time during which prostate-specific antigen （PSA） concentration became half of the initial value during the first hormonal therapy. PSAVd reflected the decreasing velocity of PSA during the first hormonal therapy. PFS was defined as the interval from the beginning of hormonal therapy to HRPC. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to evaluate whether PSAHL and PSAVd were significantly associated with PFS and OS. The median PSAHL and PSAVd were 0.50 months and 33.8 ng mL^-1 per month. The median PFS and OS were 22.7 months （95% confidence interval [CI], 22.0-29.6 months） and 43.5 months （95% CI, 37.9-48.4 months）, respectively. On univariate and multivariate analysis, long PSAHL （〉 0.5 months）, metastatic disease, high biopsy Gleason scores （〉 8） and high nadir PSA （〉 0.4 ng mL^-1） were all found to be significantly associated with short PFS. Long PSAHL, high nadir PSA and short PSA doubling time （PSADT 〈 2.0 months） were significantly associated with short OS. There were no significant relationships between PSAVd and either PFS or OS. Thus, PSAHL is a promising new independent predictor of survival. Patients with long PSAHL were identified as those at high risk for a relatively short PFS and OS.

Exploring the sensitivity of α-decay half-life to neutron skin thickness for nuclei around ^(208)Pb

Based on the newest experimentally extracted nuclear density distributions for double-magic nucleus208Pb(Tarbert et al. in Phys Rev Lett 112:242502, 2014),the sensitivity of α-decay half-life to nuclear skin thickness is explored in the vicinity of the shell closure region around208 Pb, i.e., isotopes of Z ? 82 and isotones of N ? 126.With the two-parameter Fermi(2PF) density distributions and an analytically derived formula, the α-decay half-life is found to be closely related to the magnitude of nuclear skin thickness. For a decays to the Z ? 82 isotopes, the α-decay half-life is found to decrease with the increasing neutron skin thickness, while the opposite behavior is found for a decays to the N ? 126 isotones. Therefore, it could be a possible way to extract the nuclear skin thickness from measured α-decay half-lives.

Antibody fragments: Prolonging circulation half-life special issue-antibody research

Antibodies are currently the fastest growing class of therapeutic proteins. When antibody fragments are included, there are over thirty-five antibody-based medicines approved for human therapy. Many more antibody and antibody-like fragments are being evaluated clinically. Production of antibody fragments can be efficient and their compact size can allows for better tissue extravasation into solid tumors than full antibodies. Unfortunately, a key limitation of antibody fragments for systemic use is their short half-life in circulation. Prolonging their circulation half-life can be accomplished clinically by the covalent conjugation of the antibody fragment to the water-soluble polymer, poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG). Many polymers and strategies are also being pursued to increase antibody fragment half-life.

Determinations of ^(171)Er half-life and some ^(171)Tm transition energies

The neutrons have been captured by Erbium nuclei which were received by using clinical electron linear accelerator. In this experiment, the possibility of the neutron capture process has been observed because of emitted neutrons appearing in the experimental area. In particular,neutron capture of ^(170)Er nucleus has been observed. After the neutron capture of ^(170)Er nucleus, the unstable ^(171)Er has been formed and decayed into the ^(171)Tm. By using this reaction path, some transition energies of ^(171)Tm obtained from the residual activity measurements and the half-life of ^(171)Er have been determined, and they are in agreement with adopted values in the literature.

Preparation of Microcapsules and Half Life of the Kiwi Fruit Seed Oil by Complex Coacervation

The experiment adopts complex coacervation to prepare microcapsules. Through the experimental comparison, soybean protein isolated-maltodextrin is determined as the wall material for the experimental preparation of the microcapsules of kiwi fruit seed oil. This paper researched the effects of wall material concentration, core wall ratio and other factors on complex coacervation of kiwi fruit seed oil microcapsules embedding rate, determining that the best wall material concentration is 1%, core wall ratio is 1:1, and the optimum pH ratio is 3.0, temperature is 40°C, and the optimum curing time is 6 hours. The experiment carried out half life research on the microcapsules prepared by the complex coacervation of kiwi fruit seed oil microcapsule. By calculation: the degradation rate constant of kiwi fruit seed oil microcapsules prepared by complex coacervation is 2.793. According to the regression equation it can calculate the half life of kiwi fruit seed oil microcapsules is 18.58 months, about a year and a half.

a-Decay half-life screened by electrons

In this paper,by considering the electrons in different external environments,including neutral atoms,a metal,and an extremely strong magnetic-field environment,the screened a-decay half-lives of the a emitters with proton number Z = 52–105 are systematically calculated.In the external environment,the decay energy and the interaction potential between a particle and daughter nucleus are both changed due to the electron screening effect and their variations are both very important for the electron screening effect.Besides,the electron screening effect is found to be closely related to the decay energy and its proton number.

Half-life measurement of neutron-rich isotope^(237)Th

MeV/u 18O ions were used to bombard natural uranium targets, and the heavy neutron-rich isotope 237Th was produced via multi-nucleon transfer reaction and dissipative fragmentation of the heavy target. A relatively fast radiochemical procedure was used to separate thorium from the mixture of uranium and complex reaction products. The chemically separated thorium fractions were studied by the 7-ray spectroscopic method. The behaviors of the growth and decay of 853.7 and 865.0 keV-γrays of 237Pa decay were observed. The half-life of 237Th was determined to be 4.69±0.60 nun.

3D-QSAR study on atmospheric half-lives of POPs using CoMFA and CoMSIA

3D-QSAR studies of persistent organic pollutants(POPs)screening for atmosphere persistence were performed by comparative molecular field analysis(CoMFA)and comparative molecular similarity index analysis(CoMSIA)methods.The mean and maximum half-life estimations for degradation in air of 49 UNEP POPs and possible POPs were modeled.Both groups’data have been modeled to obtain an average estimate and a predictive value for ranking and screening purposes.CoMFA and CoMSIA models have given cross-validation regre...

Internalization and half-life of membrane-bound macrophage colony-stimulating factor

The binding of recombinant human macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF) soluble receptor (rh-M-CSF-sR) to membrane-bound macrophage colony stimulating factor (m-M-CSF) and the internalization and recycling of rh-M-CSF-sR/m-M-CSF complexes mediated by m-M-CSF were studied with a model of J6-1 cell line. The results indicated that m-M-CSF bound rh-M-CSF-sR with high affinity (Kd= 1.78×10 12 mol/L) and mediated a temperature- and energy-dependent internalization of rh-M-CSF-sR, and that internalized rh-M-CSF-sR could return to the cell surface in an m-M-CSF-bound state, suggesting that m-M-CSF may have a capability to mediate the internalization and recycling of rh-M-CSF-sR/m-M-CSF complexes. In addition, the half-lives of cell-associated M-CSF and its receptor of stimulated normal human cord blood mononuclear cells (CBMCs) and 4 leukemic cell lines were measured by indirect immunoflu-orescence and flow cytometry. The results showed that the half-lives of the various kinds of M-CSF isoforms and

Discussions about whether radioactive half life can be changed by mechanic motion

In this essay, some discussions and comments about the paper entitled "Can the decay rate of 32P be changed by mechanic motion?" (Ding et al., Science in China Series B:Chemistry (Chinese version), 2008, 38(11):1035-1037) are given. It was strongly suggested that its experimental methods, data calculations and conclusion should be reconsidered. After the data were recalculated, the new results supported that the chiral mechanic motion could induce the changes of radioactive half life.

Measurement of the half-life of ^(79)Se with accelerator mass spectrometry

The accelerator mass spectrometry（AMS） is an effective method for the determination of the half-life of long-lived radionuclides. In this paper, we report a method for measurement of the half-life of ^79Se. The number of ^79Se atoms was determined from measured ^79Se/Se absolute ratios with the AMS system at the China Institute of Atomic Energy and the decay rate of ^79Se was determined by counting the emitted β-rays with a liquid scintillation spectrometer. The major improvements of our measurements include using the high abundance of an ^79Se sample which was cooled for many years to exclude the interference of short-lived nuclides, the extraction of SeO-2molecular ions, that results in a suppression of the ^79Br background by as much as about five orders of magnitude. Also, an AMS measurement of the absolute ratio of ^79Se/Se was developed to avoid systematic errors. The results show that ^79Se/Se is（2.35±0.12）×10^-7in the reference sample and the radioactivity of ^79Se is（1.24±0.05） Bq/g, so the half-life of ^79Se is（2.78±0.18）×10^5a.

The contribution of the first forbidden transitions to the nuclear β^--decay half-life

β-decay half-life is a key quantity for nuclear structure and nucleosynthesis studies.There exist large uncertainties in the contributions of allowed and forbidden transitions to the totalβ-decay life,which limits the resolution of the predictedβ-decay half-life.We systematically study the contribution of the first forbidden(FF)transitions to theβ--decay half-life,and quantify it with a formula based on simple physics considerations.We also propose a new formula for calculation of theβ--decay half-life that includes the FF contribution.It is shown that the inclusion of the contribution of FF transitions significantly improves the precision of calculations of theβ--decay half-life.By fitting of the RQRPA results for neutron-rich Z=47,57 isotopes and N=80,94 isotones,the formula for the contribution of the FF transitions gives similar results as the RQRPA calculations.However,because of limited experimental data for the branching ratios of unstable nuclei,the fit parameters are not fully constrained.Therefore,the proposed formula for theβ--decay half-life is more suitable for calculations of half-lives than of the FF contributions.The formula could be used to predict theβ?-decay half-life in nuclear structure studies as well as nucleosynthesis calculations in stars.

Sensitivity of the half-life time of water exchange in coastal waters

A three-dimensional model was established to investigate water exchange in coastal waters, and applied to Qinzhou Bay(QZB) in the South China Sea. Given the strong tidal current in QZB, a half-life time was calculated for water exchange by filtering the tidal signal from the concentrations of a conservative substance. In a control run driven by the tide, without external inputs and an open boundary concentration of zero, it was estimated that the average half-life time in QZB was 54.8 d. Numerical experiments showed that wind accounted for an 11.9% reduction in the half-life time to 48.3 d. When rivers were included in the model, the half-life time decreased by 74.6% to 13.9 d. Sensitivity experiments showed that the half-life time for water exchange was greatly affected by the concentration of the conservative substance which was used at the open boundary. In response to 10,20, 30, and 40% increases in the boundary concentration, the half-life time increased to 91.5, 168.3, 186.2, and 229.1 d,respectively. Results also suggested that for coastal bays with large intertidal areas such as QZB, consideration of the wet and dry processes produced more accurate simulations of the hydrodynamics and the half-life times. Simulations, which did not incorporate wet and dry processes, were more than likely to have overestimated or underestimated the half-life times for water exchange.

Half-life of bismuth isotopes predicted by the Coulomb and proximity potential model; a proposition for the spherical nuclei

We know that the ground state energy, half-life, spin and parity of the heavy nuclei can be determined via the study of alpha decay. Bearing this in mind, we have calculated the penetration probability in the barrier, the decay constant and thereby the half-lives of 21 isotopes of Bi by using the proximity potential model. The comparison with the existing data is motivating.

A formula for half-life of proton radioactivity

We present a formula for proton radioactivity half-lives of spherical proton emitters with the inclusion of the spectroscopic factor. The coefficients in the formula are calibrated with the available experimental data. As an input to calculate the half-life, the spectroscopic factor that characterizes the important information on nuclear structure should be obtained with a nuclear many-body approach. This formula is found to work quite well, and in better agreement with experimental measurements than other theoretical models. Therefore, it can be used as a powerful tool in the investigation of proton emission, in particular for experimentalists.

Systematic Analysis of Post-Translational Modifications for Increased Longevity of Biotherapeutic Proteins

Protein-based therapeutics (PPTs) are drugs used to treat a variety of different conditions in the human body by alleviating enzymatic deficiencies, augmenting other proteins and drugs, modulating signal pathways, and more. However, many PPTs struggle from a short half-life due to degradation caused by irreversible protein aggregation in the bloodstream. Currently, the most researched strategies for improving the efficiency and longevity of PPTs are post-translational modifications (PTMs). The goal of our research was to determine which type of PTM increases longevity the most for each of three commonly-used therapeutic proteins by comparing the docking scores (DS) and binding free energies (BFE) from protein aggregation and reception simulations. DS and BFE values were used to create a quantitative index that outputs a relative number from −1 to 1 to show reduced performance, no change, or increased performance. Results showed that methylation was the most beneficial for insulin (p < 0.1) and human growth hormone (p < 0.0001), and both phosphorylation and methylation were somewhat optimal for erythropoietin (p < 0.1 and p < 0.0001, respectively). Acetylation consistently provided the worst benefits with the most negative indices, while methylation had the most positive indices throughout. However, PTM efficacy varied between PPTs, supporting previous studies regarding how each PTM can confer different benefits based on the unique structures of recipient proteins.

地西泮在模拟养殖环境中的含量变化及累积特征

为探究地西泮(Diazepam,DZP)在模拟养殖环境中的降解特点及累积特征,设置2个浓度胁迫组(A、C组),并在2个浓度下添加蜈蚣草(Pteris vittata)作对照组(B、D组),共4个试验组;分析水体、底泥和蜈蚣草中DZP浓度随时间的变化特点,探讨蜈蚣草和底泥对水体中DZP的累积特征。结果表明,给药后4组水体中DZP的初始质量浓度分别为A:(0.118±0.002)μg·L^(-1)、B:(0.117±0.004)μg·L^(-1)、C:(1.141±0.078)μg·L^(-1)和D:(1.142±0.039)μg·L^(-1),给药后第768小时水体中DZP质量浓度下降了29.71%~40.17%;DZP降解半衰期介于65.29~139.11 d。4组底泥中DZP质量分数随时间变化逐渐上升,给药768 h后4组底泥中DZP质量分数分别达到初始质量分数的17.99倍(1.384μg·kg^(-1))、14.81倍(0.918μg·kg^(-1))、4.77倍(7.848μg·kg^(-1))和5.30倍(7.763μg·kg^(-1)),富集系数介于9.79~18.80;B、D组蜈蚣草中DZP浓度峰值出现在给药后第216小时。蜈蚣草和底泥对水体中的DZP具有一定的吸附和富集作用,可明显缩短高浓度DZP在水中降解的半衰期,在低浓度DZP水体中添加蜈蚣草可抑制底泥对DZP的富集。

成人重型血友病A患者凝血因子Ⅷ药代动力学研究

目的:检测成人重型血友病A患者的凝血因子Ⅷ(FⅧ)药代动力学(PK)参数,对PK参数可能的影响因素进行相关性研究,并对患者进行PK指导下的个体化预防治疗。方法:对23例FⅧ抑制物阴性的成人重型血友病A患者的FⅧPK参数进行检测,分析患者年龄、血管性血友病因子抗原(vWF:Ag)水平、血型、体重和体重指数(BMI)、FⅧ基因突变对于FⅧPK参数的影响,并根据PK参数推荐个体化预防方案。结果:FⅧ平均半衰期(t_(1/2))为20.6±9.3(11.47-30.12)h。t_(1/2)随着年龄增长(r=0.580)和vWF:Ag水平升高(r=0.814)呈延长趋势。平均药时曲线下面积(AUC)为913±399(328-1878)IU·h/dl,与年龄(r=0.557)和vWF:Ag水平(r=0.784)呈正相关。平均驻留时间(MRT)为24.7±12.4(13.2-62.2)h,与年龄(r=0.664)和vWF:Ag水平(r=0.868)呈正相关。FⅧ平均回收率(IVR)为2.59±0.888(1.5-4.29)(IU/dl)/(IU/kg),平均清除率(CL)为3±1.58(0.97-7.18)ml/(kg·h),IVR和CL与年龄及vWF:Ag均无明显相关性。PK指导的个体化给药模式下,15例患者为超低剂量、6例为小剂量、2例为中剂量预防方案。结论:成人重型血友病A患者FⅧ半衰期个体差异较大,患者年龄越大,vWF:Ag水平越高,FⅧ半衰期越长。需要根据FⅧPK参数进行个体化给药,以优化预防治疗模式。

硫化—胺法浮选菱锌矿体系中两相和三相泡沫的性能研究

硫化—胺法是氧化锌的主要选别方法之一,在工业生产中的指标较好,但存在浮选泡沫发黏、难消泡的问题。研究了硫化-胺法浮选菱锌矿体系中两相泡沫和三相泡沫的性能,考察了硫化钠用量、十二胺用量、矿物含量、矿物粒度、矿物种类等对泡沫稳定性的影响,并测试了不同矿物含量的矿浆黏度。结果表明,在采用硫化—胺法浮选菱锌矿时,加入硫化钠能够提高两相和三相泡沫的稳定性。不同粒度的矿物颗粒对泡沫稳定性影响不同,加入-74+37μm粒级的菱锌矿和石英颗粒均能够降低泡沫稳定性,而加入-37μm粒级的菱锌矿和石英颗粒均能够提高泡沫稳定性,-18μm的石英颗粒影响尤为明显。当十二胺与微细粒级石英共同存在时,浮选泡沫尤为稳定。加入石英颗粒后的三相泡沫半衰期均高于菱锌矿,这是由于石英矿浆的黏度高于菱锌矿,因而泡沫液膜的Marangoni效应增强,导致排液速率变慢,泡沫液膜变薄速率下降,泡沫稳定性更强。

α decay energies and half-lives from a macroscopic-microscopic model

α decay energies of 323 heavy nuclei with Z ≥82 are evaluated with a macroscopic-microscopic model. In this model, the macroscopic part is treated by the continuous medium model and the microscopic part consists of shell and pairing corrections based on the Nilsson potential. α decay half-lives are calculated bY Viola-Seaborg formula. The results of α decay energies and half-lives are compared with experimental values and satisfactory agreement is found. The recoiling effect of the daughter nucleus on α decay half-life is also discussed.