Relationship of body mass index with aromatisation and plasma and tissue oestrogen levels in postmenopausal breast cancer patients treated with aromatase inhibitors

Background: Recent data have raised concern about the clinical efficacy of aromatase inhibitors in overweight and/or obese breast cancer patients. We report in vivo aromatase inhibition and plasma and tissue oestrogen levels in relation to body mass index (BMI) status among breast cancer patients treated with different aromatase inhibitors. Methods: We compared data on in vivo aromatase inhibition (64 patients) as well as plasma and tissue oestrogen levels from patients participating in our studies to BMI values. Results: We found a weak positive correlation between pretreatment aromatisation level and BMI (n = 64; R = 0.236; p = 0.060) but no correlation between on-treatment aromatisation levels or percentage aromatase inhibition and BMI within patient subgroups treated with any of a panel of aromatase inhibitors. Pre-treatment levels of plasma estradiol (p < 0.001), estrone (p = 0.001) and estrone sulphate (p = 0.002) correlated to BMI. While on-treatment levels of plasma estrane sulphate correlated to BMI in patients on letrozole (R = 0.601; p = 0.001; n = 25 for all) or anastrozole (n = 12; R = 0.611; p = 0.035) therapy, letrozole suppressed plasma estrone sulphate more than anastrozole independent of BMI. No correlation between on-treatment tumour oestrogen levels and BMI was recorded. Conclusions: Our unique data do not support a lack of effective aromatase inhibition in overweight patients or therefore a need for alternative therapy. The higher levels of estrogens in overweight postmenopausal breast cancer patients before and during aromatase inhibition may be due to effects of BMI on oestrogen metabolism rather than aromatisation

An Analysis of International CO2 agreements

We examine the effects on GNP for groups of countries after introducing different schemes of tradable CO2 emission rights. The analysis is based on a numerical general equilibrium model of the world economy. The development of prices and trade of energy carriers and emission rights are investigated.Climate change, CO2 permits, numerical equilibrium model

Diffuse Small Angle X-Ray Scattering From Thin Film Structures In the Distorted Wave Born Approximation

The differential scattering cross section for diffuse scattering of X-rays from thinfilm structures is discussed within the framework of the distorted wave Born ap-proximation (DWBA). In contrast to the standard Born approximation (BA), thedistorted wave approach succeeds in calculating scattering from surfaces near thecritical angle of reflection. The method is particularly useful for studying averagesurface properties.Compromises made in the derivation of the model substantially simplify thefinal expression, but also limit its range of validity, which depends on the surfaceroot mean square roughness σ and the momentum transfer between the incidentand scattered X-rays perpendicular to the surface, Qz . The approximation is validso long as (Qz x σ) << 1.However, this is also the only regime where it is necessary togo beyond the simpler Born approximation.A computer simulation software based on the DWBA is implemented in Python.The implemented DWBA depends on the fractal dimension of the surface featuresthrough a parameter h (D = 3 − h) and an in-plane correlation cut off length ζ.The various effects of changing key model parameters, among them ζ and h, isdemonstrated. Comparison between experimental data and the DWBA modellooks promising although there are some challenges in relation to determiningthe fractal dimension.Finally, the feasibility of implementing the DWBA model in a multi-parameterfitting algorithm is discussed

Dealing with the good and the evil. Introducing morality as an anthropological concern

Questions of morality and ethics - good and evil - have not been anthropological favourites. Such issues have been addressed within certain applied environments as well as currently within American cultural anthropology, but more generally they seem to have been pushed aside within a basically very relativist discipline. Global problems like ethnocide, military rule and occupation, accompanied by - or perhaps spurred by - a truly international arms trade, do not appear to have shaken social anthropology out of its insistence on morality being studied in Its local context. This paper concludes that such an approach to morality is partly dishonest, limits the scope of our discipline, and serves to make us peripheral in an increasingly global discourse on morality and human rights. The paper seeks, tentatively, to show how morality could be incorporated into anthropology

“You hold your life in your hands until you arrive in another country”: young Afghans seeking onward mobility from Greece

This article considers the interplay between mobility and immobility in the everyday lives of young people on the move. It looks at the ways interactions with and categorisations by protection structures and restrictive border and migration regimes lead to diverse trajectories. The article is based on research with young men from Afghanistan mostly classified as unaccompanied minors. Some of the young men were seeking to continue their journeys from Greece and others had managed and had arrived in Norway. The young people’s trajectories were marked by uneven rhythms and multiple forms of movement and stasis with various effects on the body and the intimate. Whether they were categorised as accompanied or unaccompanied children or as adults also governed their spatiotemporal mobility and led to different, partly contradictory, temporalities. Moreover, imagination, desire, and conditions endured in the places they had left and moved through interacted and encouraged onward mobility.“You hold your life in your hands until you arrive in another country”: young Afghans seeking onward mobility from GreecepublishedVersio

After Being Granted or Refused Asylum in Norway: Relational Migration Journeys among Afghan Unaccompanied Young Men

This article considers experiences of moving and dwelling in Europe among Afghan unaccompanied young men in the context of stringent migration, asylum, and settlement processes. The young men embarked as minors and arrived unaccompanied in Norway. There, their claims for asylum had radically different outcomes: some were granted international protection and others were refused asylum. The article sheds light on forms of relationality on migration journeys by focusing on relational selves and subjectivities regarding trajectories, processes of inclusion and exclusion, and family. Participants shared numerous challenges and struggles arising from their journeys, but also possibilities and transformations taking place alongside developmental changes and life transitions. While some attached meaning to experienced hardships and drew on a sense of direction, others spoke of exhaustion or inoculated themselves from an inability to pursue a direction they desired and saw as necessary for their lives. They made sense of their experiences relationally, relating to hopes and fears, idealised and longed for kinship ties and care, and the ongoing processes and positionings involved in shaping their present situations and imaginings of the future.publishedVersio

The potency and clinical efficacy of aromatase inhibitors across the breast cancer continuum

The strategy of using estrogen suppression to treat breast cancer led to the development of aromatase inhibitors, including the third-generation nonsteroidal compounds anastrozole and letrozole, and the steroidal compound exemestane. Aromatase inhibitors potently inhibit aromatase activity and also suppress estrogen levels in plasma and tissue. In clinical studies in postmenopausal women with breast cancer, third-generation aromatase inhibitors were shown superior to tamoxifen for the treatment of metastatic disease. Studies of adjuvant therapy with aromatase inhibitors include (i) head-to-head studies of 5 years of the aromatase inhibitor versus 5 years of tamoxifen monotherapy; (ii) sequential therapy of 2–3 years of tamoxifen followed by an aromatase inhibitor (or the opposite sequence) versus 5 years of tamoxifen monotherapy; (iii) extended therapy with an aromatase inhibitor after 5 years of tamoxifen; and (iv) sequential therapy with an aromatase inhibitor versus aromatase inhibitor monotherapy. Recent results from the Arimidex, Tamoxifen, Alone or in Combination and Breast International Group 1–98 trials advocate using an aromatase inhibitor upfront. This article examines the clinical data with aromatase inhibitors, following a brief summary of their pharmacology

Fabrication and Characterization of Polymeric Membranes for Dehydration of Triethylene Glycol Used for Subsea Application

Hensikten med dette prosjektet er undersøke om en polybenzimidazole (PBI) membran kan brukes til å dehydrere trietylen glykol (TEG) i en pervaporasjons prosess som en del av en membran prosess for dehydrering av naturgass. Dette prosjektet er en del av et prosjekt av SUBPRO som er et senter for innovasjonsbasert forskning innen subsea produksjon og prosessering[1]. Siden mange nye gassreservoarer blir funnet på mer avsideliggende steder med harde værforhold vil det ikke være praktisk å bruke en platform for å dehydrere naturgassen på overflaten. Det er derfor mange nye forskningsprosjekter som ser på muligheten for å plassere behandlingen av naturgassen på havbunnen. Limitasjoner på de mer tradisjonelle dehydreringsprosessene gjør at det ikke er mulig å implementere dem på havbunnen og det er derfor blitt foreslått en membranprosess som bruker en kombinasjon av en membran kontaktor og en membran pervaporator for å løse dette problemet[1]. Dette prosjektet ser på pervaporasjonsdelen av denne prosessen. Membranen viste ingen absorbsjon av TEG ved absorbsjonstester og kan derfor anntas å være lovende for dehydrering av TEG. Den beregnede separasjonsfaktoren var svært god, men det var problemer med målingen av TEG konsentrasjonen med gaskromatograf og separasjonsfaktoren er derfor mest sannsynlig svært unøyaktig. Det trengs derfor flere tester der disse problemene er løst for å kunne komme til en konklusjon om separasjonsfaktoren og permeabiliteten til TEG. TEG konsentrasjonene var så lav at det ikke hadde en signifikant innvirkning på permeabiliteten og fluksen til vann derimot og disse målingene viser til at PBI er en lovende membran for dehydrering av TEG