Current status of sentinel lymph node biopsy in solid malignancies

Lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymph node biopsy were first reported in 1977 by Cabanas for penile cancer. Since that time, the technique has become rapidly assimilated into clinical practice. The sentinel node concept has been validated in cutaneous melanoma and breast cancer. However, follow-up data of patients from randomised trials is needed to establish the clinical significance of sentinel lymph node biopsy before accepting the procedure as a standard of care. This technique has the potential to be utilised in all solid tumours like colon, gastric, oesophageal, lung, gynaecologic, and head and neck cancer. This paper reviews the current status of sentinel lymph node biopsy in solid tumours

"Hayatım bir serenattı"

Taha Toros Arşivi, Dosya No: 15-Fahrünnisa Zeidİstanbul Kalkınma Ajansı (TR10/14/YEN/0033) İstanbul Development Agency (TR10/14/YEN/0033

"My life played me a serenade"

Taha Toros Arşivi, Dosya No: 15-Fahrünnisa Zeidİstanbul Kalkınma Ajansı (TR10/14/YEN/0033) İstanbul Development Agency (TR10/14/YEN/0033

Fausto Zonaro:Court painter of Sultan Abdul Hamid II

Taha Toros Arşivi, Dosya No: 98-Fausto Zonaroİstanbul Kalkınma Ajansı (TR10/14/YEN/0033) İstanbul Development Agency (TR10/14/YEN/0033

Stochastic Dual Ascent for Solving Linear Systems

We develop a new randomized iterative algorithm---stochastic dual ascent (SDA)---for finding the projection of a given vector onto the solution space of a linear system. The method is dual in nature: with the dual being a non-strongly concave quadratic maximization problem without constraints. In each iteration of SDA, a dual variable is updated by a carefully chosen point in a subspace spanned by the columns of a random matrix drawn independently from a fixed distribution. The distribution plays the role of a parameter of the method. Our complexity results hold for a wide family of distributions of random matrices, which opens the possibility to fine-tune the stochasticity of the method to particular applications. We prove that primal iterates associated with the dual process converge to the projection exponentially fast in expectation, and give a formula and an insightful lower bound for the convergence rate. We also prove that the same rate applies to dual function values, primal function values and the duality gap. Unlike traditional iterative methods, SDA converges under no additional assumptions on the system (e.g., rank, diagonal dominance) beyond consistency. In fact, our lower bound improves as the rank of the system matrix drops. Many existing randomized methods for linear systems arise as special cases of SDA, including randomized Kaczmarz, randomized Newton, randomized coordinate descent, Gaussian descent, and their variants. In special cases where our method specializes to a known algorithm, we either recover the best known rates, or improve upon them. Finally, we show that the framework can be applied to the distributed average consensus problem to obtain an array of new algorithms. The randomized gossip algorithm arises as a special case.Comment: This is a slightly refreshed version of the paper originally submitted on Dec 21, 2015. We have added a numerical experiment involving randomized Kaczmarz for rank-deficient systems, added a few relevant references, and corrected a few typos. Stats: 29 pages, 2 algorithms, 1 figur

Comparative analysis of existing food safety culture evaluation systems

The purpose of the research was firstly, to analyze existing culture evaluation systems for commonalities and differences in research quality, applied validation strategies, and content. Secondly, to suggest a simple structure of food safety cultural dimensions to help unify the culture evaluation field. To achieve these goals, a comparison of eight culture evaluation models applied to varing degrees in the food industry was conducted. The systems were found to vary significantly in applied validation strategies but through deductive, textual data analysis, five dimensions were identified that cover elements present in all the models. Transparency is needed when using applied research methodologies to continually increase quality and trustworthiness of culture research in the food safety domain and this field would benefit from both further commonality of approach to validation strategy and structure and adoption of an overarching structural framework