PurposeHyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is used in the treatment of radiation-induced tissue injury but its effect on (residual) tumor tissue is indistinct and therefore investigated in this study.ProceduresOrthotopic FaDu tumors were established in mice, and the response of the (irradiated) tumors to HBOT was monitored by bioluminescence imaging. Near infrared fluorescence imaging using AngioSense750 and Hypoxisense680 was applied to detect tumor vascular permeability and hypoxia.ResultsHBOT treatment resulted in accelerated growth of non-irradiated tumors, but mouse survival was improved. Tumor vascular leakiness and hypoxia were enhanced after HBOT, whereas histological characteristics, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition markers, and metastatic incidence were not influenced.ConclusionsSquamous cell carcinoma responds to HBOT with respect to tumor growth, vascular permeability, and hypoxia, which may have implications for its use in cancer patients. The ability to longitudinally analyze tumor characteristics highlights the versatility and potential of optical imaging methods in oncological research.

This paper provides a critical aspect of the position of the industrial sector in the transition economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina. If we observe sectors C-exploitation of coal and stone, D-processing industry, E-production and distribution of electric power, gas and steam, as per NACERev.1 classification, and sectors B-exploitation of coal and stone, C-processing industry, D-distribution of electric power, E-water, sanitation and recycling as per NACERev.2 classification, then from 2007 until 2012, their participation amounts to: 14.49%, 14.37%, 14.20%, 14.02%, 13.80%, 12.75% respectively. The paper observes the internal and the external reasons of the poor state of the industrial sector, and determines a possibility of its strengthening through recommendations that sum up results of the conducted research.

A bstractWe speculate about the possible interpretations of the recently observed excess in the h → τμ decay. We derive a robust lower bound on the Higgs boson coupling strength to a tau and a muon, even in presence of the most general new physics affecting other Higgs properties. Then we reevaluate complementary indirect constraints coming from low energy observables as well as from theoretical considerations. In particular, the tentative signal should lead to τ → μγ at rates which could be observed at Belle II. In turn we show that, barring fine-tuned cancellations, the effect can only be accommodated within models with an extended scalar sector. These general conclusions are demonstrated using a number of explicit new physics models. Finally we show how, given the h → τμ signal, the current and future searches for μ → eγ and μ → e nuclear conversions unambiguously constrain the allowed rates for h → τe.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are a common approach for systematic discovery of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) which are associated with a given disease. Univariate analysis approaches commonly employed may miss important SNP associations that only appear through multivariate analysis in complex diseases. However, multivariate SNP analysis is currently limited by its inherent computational complexity. In this work, we present a computational framework that harnesses supercomputers. Based on our results, we estimate a three-way interaction analysis on 1.1 million SNP GWAS data requiring over 5.8 years on the full "Avoca" IBM Blue Gene/Q installation at the Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative. This is hundreds of times faster than estimates for other CPU based methods and four times faster than runtimes estimated for GPU methods, indicating how the improvement in the level of hardware applied to interaction analysis may alter the types of analysis that can be performed. Furthermore, the same analysis would take under 3 months on the currently largest IBM Blue Gene/Q supercomputer "Sequoia" at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory assuming linear scaling is maintained as our results suggest. Given that the implementation used in this study can be further optimised, this runtime means it is becoming feasible to carry out exhaustive analysis of higher order interaction studies on large modern GWAS.