Measurements of Two-Particle Correlations in e

Measurements of two-particle angular correlations of charged particles emitted in hadronic Z decays are presented. The archived e^{+}e^{-} annihilation data at a center-of-mass energy of 91 GeV were collected with the ALEPH detector at LEP between 1992 and 1995. The correlation functions are measured over a broad range of pseudorapidity and full azimuth as a function of charged particle multiplicity. No significant long-range correlation is observed in either the lab coordinate analysis or the thrust coordinate analysis, where the latter is sensitive to a medium expanding transverse to the color string between the outgoing qq[over ¯] pair from Z boson decays. The associated yield distributions in both analyses are in better agreement with the prediction from the pythia v6.1 event generator than from herwig v7.1.5. They provide new insights to showering and hadronization modeling. These results serve as an important reference to the observed long-range correlation in proton-proton, proton-nucleus, and nucleus-nucleus collisions.

Impact of a Monthly Compliance Review on Interventional Radiology Adverse Event Reporting.

PURPOSE: Our aims were to analyze the change in interventional radiology physician major adverse event (AE) reporting after initiation of a monthly morbidity and mortality (M&M) conference compliance review and to describe the association of procedure class and potentially preventable errors with major AE occurrence. METHODS: In late 2010, to motivate timely reporting, we instituted a structured monthly M&M conference review confirming whether each complication warranted institutional AE reporting and whether timely reporting had occurred. In this study, we retrospectively analyzed the M&M conference minutes over the subsequent 5 years. Logistic regression was used to model the change of AE reporting over time as well as the association of procedure class with the risk of an AE. Each AE was classified as to whether it seemed potentially preventable. RESULTS: There were 46,660 patient encounters, 1,160 (2.5%) major and minor complications, and 462 (1.0%) reportable AEs. From 2011 to 2015, the percentage of reportable AEs reported increased from 67% to 98%. The number of months from initiation of the M&M conference review was a significant predictor of the likelihood of AE reporting (odds ratio 1.06, 95% confidence interval 1.04, 1.08, P < .0001). Procedure class was strongly associated with the risk of a reportable AE (P < .0001). At least 111 (24%) reportable AEs were potentially preventable. CONCLUSIONS: Increasing AE reporting occurred after initiation of a monthly M&M conference compliance review. The incidence of reportable AEs was strongly associated with procedure class, and a significant percentage of these events were potentially preventable.

Epidermal growth factor receptor inhibition attenuates liver fibrosis and development of hepatocellular carcinoma.

UNLABELLED: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most rapidly increasing cause of cancer-related mortality in the United States. Because of the lack of viable treatment options for HCC, prevention in high-risk patients has been proposed as an alternative strategy. The main risk factor for HCC is cirrhosis and several lines of evidence implicate epidermal growth factor (EGF) in the progression of cirrhosis and development of HCC. We therefore examined the effects of the EGF receptor (EGFR) inhibitor erlotinib on liver fibrogenesis and hepatocellular transformation in three different animal models of progressive cirrhosis: a rat model induced by repeated, low-dose injections of diethylnitrosamine (DEN), a mouse model induced by carbon tetrachloride (CCl4 ), and a rat model induced by bile duct ligation (BDL). Erlotinib reduced EGFR phosphorylation in hepatic stellate cells (HSC) and reduced the total number of activated HSC. Erlotinib also decreased hepatocyte proliferation and liver injury. Consistent with all these findings, pharmacological inhibition of EGFR signaling effectively prevented the progression of cirrhosis and regressed fibrosis in some animals. Moreover, by alleviating the underlying liver disease, erlotinib blocked the development of HCC and its therapeutic efficacy could be monitored with a previously reported gene expression signature predictive of HCC risk in human cirrhosis patients. CONCLUSION: These data suggest that EGFR inhibition using Food and Drug Administration-approved inhibitors provides a promising therapeutic approach for reduction of fibrogenesis and prevention of HCC in high-risk cirrhosis patients who can be identified and monitored by gene expression signatures.

Angiogenesis inhibition using an oncolytic herpes simplex virus expressing endostatin in a murine lung cancer model.

Herpes-mediated viral oncolysis alone is not sufficient to completely eradicate tumors. In this study we used a replication conditional, endostatin-expressing herpes simplex virus-1 mutant (HSV-Endo) in a murine lung cancer model. We hypothesized that the anti-angiogenic action of endostatin would improve upon the oncolytic effect of HSV-1. HSV-Endo was evaluated in a pulmonary metastases and orthotopic flank model, where there was significantly less tumor burden and reduced microvessel density compared to a control virus. Endostatin expression appears to improve the anti-tumor effect of HSV-1 in a lung cancer model.