IntroductionTo determine the risk of relapse of hematologic malignancies after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT), a disease risk index (DRI) tool has been used extensively for adult patients. In 2021 a validated DRI, considering age and disease status, for pediatric patients was developed by Qayed et al. (Blood, 2021, 137[7]).ObjectivesWe assessed this pediatric DRI in a tri-institutional dataset of pediatric patients who underwent allo-HCT for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) or acute myeloid leukemia (AML).MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed data from patients ≤18 years old receiving their first allo-HCT for ALL or AML between 2008-2019 at three large academic medical centers. Patients were grouped into low, intermediate, and high risk (for ALL) or low/intermediate, high, and very high risk (for AML), based on this new, pediatric DRI tool. Main outcomes of interest were leukemia-free survival (LFS) and relapse. Other outcome of interest was non-relapse related mortality (NRM). Fine and Gray competing risk models and Cox proportional hazard models were used for statistical analyses.Results348 ALL patients were included; median age at HCT was 9 years (range 0.5 – 18). Based on the pediatric DRI tool, 136 (39.1%) patients were low, 176 (50.6%) were intermediate and 36 (10.3%) were high risk. Cumulative incidence of relapse for the low, intermediate, and high-risk groups were 14.4% (index), 29.6% (hazard ratio [HR] 2.1, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.3-3.4, p=0.0036) and 39.3% (HR 3.2, 95% CI 1.6-6.4, p=0.0011) respectively (figure 1a). LFS at 5 years was 73% (index), 49.6% (HR 2, 95%CI 1.4-2.9, p=0.0003) and 22.2% (HR 5.1, 95%CI 3.1-8.4, p<0.001), respectively (figure 1b). Cumulative incidence of NRM was 9.8% (index), 16.7% (HR 1.5, 95%CI 0.9-2.7, p=0.15) and 34.1% (HR 3.5, 95%CI 1.7-7.2, p=0.0006), respectively.316 AML patients were included; median age 9.2 years (range 0.5 – 18 at HCT); 131 (41.5%) patients were low/intermediate, 110 (34.8%) were high and 75 (23.7%) were very high risk. Cumulative incidence of relapse for the low/intermediate, high, and very high-risk groups were 19.5% (index), 29.9% (HR 1.5, 95%CI 0.9-2.5, p=0.1) and 49.8% (HR 3.1, 95% CI 1.9-5.1, p<0.001) respectively (figure 1c). LFS at 5 years was 60% (index), 50.2% (HR 1.3, 95%CI 0.9-1.9, p=0.174) and 24.5% (HR 3, 95%CI 2.1-4.4, p<0.001), respectively (figure 1d). Cumulative incidence of NRM was 15.5% (index), 14.1% (HR 1, 95%CI 0.5-1.8, p=0.91) and 20.2% (HR 1.5, 95%CI 0.8-2.8, p=0.19), respectively.ConclusionIn this multicenter real-world pediatric ALL and AML cohort, we confirm that using the pediatric DRI tool can predict risk of relapse and leukemia-free survival effectively, especially in the higher risk groups. These analyses further validate this tool, to guide standardized risk stratification in pediatric HCT for clinical decision-making and research purposes.

Success rates of assisted reproductive techniques (ART) are approximately 30%, with the most important limiting factor being embryo implantation. Mechanical endometrial injury, also called ‘scratching’, has been proposed to positively affect the chance of implantation after embryo transfer, but the currently available evidence is not yet conclusive. The primary aim of this study is to determine the effect of endometrial scratching prior to a second fresh in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (IVF/ICSI) cycle on live birth rates in women with a failed first IVF/ICSI cycle.

In this paper it is shown how the equivalent circuit parameters of a MEMS resonator can be simply obtained from an eigenfrequency simulation. Additionally, it is demonstrated that the Q-factor as a result of support losses in a MEMS resonator can be determined using a matched boundary layer. The method is applied to calculate the frequency dependent admittance of a diamond disk resonator. Results agree well with measurements and analytic results. Comparison to a frequency response analysis establishes the validity of the method and shows that it results in a large reduction of the simulation time.

Control of the formation of dust particles in a silane deposition plasma is very important for avoiding electrical shunts in devices, such as thin film silicon solar cells. In this work we present a noninvasive in situ method for identification of the plasma regime, based on optical emission spectroscopy (OES), which can be applied to silane/hydrogen plasmas at low substrate temperatures. By monitoring the OES spectra as a function of the position perpendicular to the plasma electrodes we developed a method to identify the transition of a plasma from the dust free to a dusty regime, which was confirmed by TEM images of layers deposited in both regimes. Using this technique we mapped this transition as a function of applied forward very-high frequency (VHF) power and hydrogen dilution at different substrate temperatures. The advantage of this technique is that the experiment is insensitive to optical transmission loss at the viewport due to deposition of silicon films. As the transition from the dust free to the dusty regime is substrate temperature dependent and the transition from amorphous to nanocrystalline growth mainly depends on hydrogen dilution, a limited parameter window has been defined in which dust-free amorphous silicon can be deposited at low substrate temperatures. A single simple OES technique can be used for in situ monitoring of amorphous to nanocrystalline transition as well as the onset of the dusty regime in a thin film silicon cell fabrication process.

Not available DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bjms.v11i3.11715 Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol. 11 No. 03 July’12

Gonadotrophin surge-inhibiting/attenuating factor (GnSIF/AF) has been known for over two decades, but its molecular structure has not been completely characterized yet. In the last 20 years, five different putative GnSIF/AF sequences have been published. In this article, we describe a procedure to isolate and characterize GnSIF/AF from bovine follicular fluid, a GnSIF/AF-derived synthetic peptide (SP-GnSIF/AF) was produced, and the intracellular bioactivity of GnSIF/AF was tested for intracellular action with a MAPK-assay. Two different bioactive molecular weight forms of GnSIF/AF were isolated, a 160 kDa heteromeric and a monomeric 40 kDa protein. The 40 kDa form appeared to be a subunit of the 160 kDa protein. The synthetic peptide mimicked the actions of GnSIF/AF, such as inhibition of GnRH-induced LH secretion and attenuation of the MAPK phosphorylation. The two GnSIF/AF candidates do not show similarities with previously published GnSIF/AF sequences. These are the first data showing the influence of GnSIF/AF on intracellular processes involved in GnRH self-priming and that the biological action of GnSIF/AF was preserved in the produced synthetic peptide. The results provide strong evidence that the identified candidate proteins are the true GnSIF/AF.

A key element in the Aquarec project is the development of a water treatment matrix in which wastewater treatment process schemes are categorized as a function of the raw wastewater quality and the reuse application. Starting point is the definition of reuse applications; municipal wastewater can be reused for an industrial, a domestic, a natural, and an agricultural purpose. Next step in building the treatment matrix is the construction of treatment trains. With existing primary, secondary and tertiary unit process operations numerous different treatment trains can be constructed. The EU directives discharge limits should be the starting point for further treatment of municipal wastewater for reuse. Therefore effluent will be the main primary source for wastewater reclamation in the short term. Based on this conclusion a set of typical or standard schemes was developed. The typical or standard schemes are illustrated by case studies. In the long term, schemes alternative to the traditional chain can become feasible options. One of the innovations is direct membrane filtration of raw wastewater. Other innovating technologies are advanced oxidation processes. The latter become more and more important since substances such as pesticides, endocrine disrupters, etc. are given priority.

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are appealing genetic markers due to several beneficial attributes, but uncertainty remains about how many of these bi‐allelic markers are necessary to have sufficient power to differentiate populations, a task now generally accomplished with highly polymorphic microsatellite markers. In this study, we tested the utility of 37 SNPs and 13 microsatellites for differentiating 29 broadly distributed populations of Chinook salmon (n = 2783). Information content of all loci was determined by In and , and the top 12 markers ranked by In were microsatellites, but the 6 highest, and 7 of the top 10 ranked markers, were SNPs. The mean ratio of random SNPs to random microsatellites ranged from 3.9 to 4.1, but this ratio was consistently reduced when only the most informative loci were included. Individual assignment test accuracy was higher for microsatellites (73.1%) than SNPs (66.6%), and pooling all 50 markers provided the highest accuracy (83.2%). When marker types were combined, as few as 15 of the top ranked loci provided higher assignment accuracy than either microsatellites or SNPs alone. Neighbour‐joining dendrograms revealed similar clustering patterns and pairwise tests of population differentiation had nearly identical results with each suite of markers. Statistical tests and simulations indicated that closely related populations were better differentiated by microsatellites than SNPs. Our results indicate that both types of markers are likely to be useful in population genetics studies and that, in some cases, a combination of SNPs and microsatellites may be the most effective suite of loci.