Vandetanib with FOLFIRI in patients with advanced colorectal adenocarcinoma: results from an open-label, multicentre phase I study.

The safety and tolerability of vandetanib (ZACTIMA; ZD6474) plus FOLFIRI was investigated in patients with advanced colorectal cancer (CRC). METHODS: Patients eligible for first- or second-line chemotherapy received once-daily oral doses of vandetanib (100 or 300 mg) plus 14-day treatment cycles of FOLFIRI. RESULTS: A total of 21 patients received vandetanib 100 mg (n = 11) or 300 mg (n = 10) + FOLFIRI. Combination therapy was well tolerated at both vandetanib dose levels. There were no DLTs in the vandetanib 100 mg cohort and one DLT of hypertension (CTCAE grade 3) in the 300 mg cohort. The most common adverse events were diarrhoea (n = 20), nausea (n = 12) and fatigue (n = 10). Two patients (one in each cohort) discontinued vandetanib due to adverse events (rash, 100 mg cohort; hypertension, 300 mg cohort). There was no apparent pharmacokinetic interaction between vandetanib and FOLFIRI. Preliminary efficacy results included two confirmed partial responses in the 100 mg cohort and 9 patients with stable disease > or =8 weeks (100 mg, n = 7; 300 mg, n = 2). CONCLUSIONS: Once-daily vandetanib (100 or 300 mg) in combination with a standard FOLFIRI regimen was generally well tolerated in patients with advanced CRC.

Recepción e influencia de la literatura hispanoamericana en Corea

A medida que el concepto de "nación" se ha debilitado en estos últimos años, y de forma muy rápida, el límite convencional de la cultura se está desvaneciendo y el mundo se mueve hacia un orden cultural integrado, a través de intercambios constantes entre las culturas, a pesar de las barreras discriminatorias. La literatura, en este sentido, no es una excepción y es necesario discutir la relación entre la literatura coreana y la hispanoamericana desde la perspectiva de la literatura comparativa. El presente estudio ofrece una mirada más cercana al proceso y a los distintos aspectos del modo en que las obras de los escritores hispanoamericanos han sido aceptadas en Corea del Sur. La literatura hispanoamericana se ha introducido en Corea desde principios del siglo XX y se extendió rápidamente a partir de los ochenta, cuando la controversia literaria del posmodernismo se desató y las obras de Borges y García Márquez fueron presentadas a los lectores coreanos. Sería interesante examinar los aspectos sobre cómo los escritores hispanoamericanos como Neruda, Borges y García Márquez se han integrado en la literatura coreana. En esta etapa, sin embargo, es difícil determinar si su influencia es suficientemente permanente como para convertirse en un linaje, o simplemente se trata de un fenómeno temporal. No obstante, la literatura hispanoamericana seguirá expandiendo interrelaciones crecientes con la coreana más allá de las fronteras, ejerciendo una gran influencia entre sí.

Optimization of an open-ended microwave oven for microelectronics packaging

A physically open, but electrically shielded, microwave open oven can be produced by virtue of the evanescent fields in a waveguide below cutoff. The below cutoff heating chamber is fed by a transverse magnetic resonance established in a dielectric-filled section of the waveguide exploiting continuity of normal electric flux. In order to optimize the fields and the performance of the oven, a thin layer of a dielectric material with higher permittivity is inserted at the interface. Analysis and synthesis of an optimized open oven predicts field enhancement in the heating chamber up to 9.4 dB. Results from experimental testing on two fabricated prototypes are in agreement with the simulated predictions, and demonstrate an up to tenfold improvement in the heating performance. The open-ended oven allows for simultaneous precision alignment, testing, and efficient curing of microelectronic devices, significantly increasing productivity gains.

Open-ended microwave oven for flip-chip assembly

A novel open-ended waveguide cavity resonator for the microwave curing of bumps, underfills and encapsulants is described. The open oven has the potential to provide fast alignment of devices during flip-chip assembly, direct chip attach, surface mount assembly or wafer-scale level packaging. The prototype microwave oven was designed to operate at X-band for ease of testing, although a higher frequency version is planned. The device described in the paper takes the form of a waveguide cavity resonator. It is approximately square in cross-section and is filled with a low-loss dielectric with a relative permittivity of 6. It is excited by end-fed probes in order to couple power preferentially into the TM3,3,k mode with the object of forming nine 'hot-spots' in the open end. Low power tests using heat sensitive film demonstrate clearly that selective heating in multiple locations in the open end of the oven is achievable.

The Open Method of Coordination on Health Care After the Lisbon Strategy II: Towards a Neoliberal Framing?

This paper undertakes a content analysis of the discourse on the Open Method of Coordination on Health Care (OMC/HC) in order to show how equity and solidarity are increasingly linked to optimisation and, as such, how neoliberalism increasingly frames health care. Some of the side-effects of this reframing for politics are highlighted: legitimating and extending EU governance, reducing the space for oppositional formations and limited citizenship. The analysis begins by interrogating the broader context of the Lisbon Strategy II, after which the techniques of the OMC/HC and its substantive outputs are analysed.

Sustainability and the Multifunctional Landscape: An Assessment of the Cairngorms National Park Authority’s Approach to Planning and Management in Upland Scotland.

Upland Scotland contains some of Britain’s most prized areas of natural heritage value. However, although such areas may appear both ‘wild’ and ‘remote’, these are typically working landscapes which symbolise the interdependence of nature and society. The complexity of this relationship means that management responses will need to address a multitude of potentially conflicting priorities whilst at the same time ensuring that sufficient social and institutional capital exists to allow for the promotion of landscape integrity. The introduction of national parks to Scotland in the form of the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000 allows for a high-level of protection for designated areas in upland Scotland. Yet, whilst the recent Act outlines the statutory purpose and direction national parks should take, it allows a significant degree of flexibility in theway in which the Actmay be implemented. This level of discretion allows for significant local distinctiveness within the model but also raises questions about the potential effectiveness of chosen responses. In order to assess the potential implications of a model rooted in self-determination,we provide a case study review of the institutional basis of the Cairngorms National Park along with an assessment of the strategic character of the first National Park Plan. It is argued that whilst the Cairngorms National Park Authority has developed a significant level of stakeholder engagement, the authority may struggle to bridge the policy-implementation gap. Although a number of shortcomings are identified, particular concerns relate to the potential mismatch between strategic ambition and local level capacity.

Can we characterise ‘openness’ in the Holocene palaeoenvironmental record? Modern analogue studies of insect faunas and pollen spectra from Dunham Massey deer park and Epping Forest, England

This paper examines the degree to which tree-associated Coleoptera (beetles) and pollen could be used to predict the degree of ‘openness’ in woodland. The results from two modern insect and pollen analogue studies from ponds at Dunham Massey, Cheshire and Epping Forest, Greater London are presented. We explore the reliability of modern pollen rain and sub-fossil beetle assemblages to represent varying degrees of canopy cover for up to 1000m from a sampling site. Modern woodland canopy structure around the study sites has been assessed using GIS-based mapping at increasing radial distances as an independent check on the modern insect and pollen data sets. These preliminary results suggest that it is possible to use tree-associated Coleoptera to assess the degree of local vegetation openness. Additionally, it appears that insect remains may indicate the relative intensity of land use by grazing animals. Our results also suggest most insects are collected from within a 100m to 200m radius of the sampling site. The pollen results suggest that local vegetation and density of woodland in the immediate area of the sampling site can have a strong role in determining the pollen signal.

The main-sequence rotation-colour relation in the Coma Berenices open cluster

We present the results of a photometric survey of rotation rates in the Coma Berenices (Melotte 111) open cluster, using data obtained as part of the SuperWASP exoplanetary transit-search programme. The goal of the Coma survey was to measure precise rotation periods for main-sequence F, G and K dwarfs in this intermediate-age (~600 Myr) cluster, and to determine the extent to which magnetic braking has caused the stellar spin periods to converge. We find a tight, almost linear relationship between rotation period and J - K colour with an rms scatter of only 2 per cent. The relation is similar to that seen among F, G and K stars in the Hyades. Such strong convergence can only be explained if angular momentum is not at present being transferred from a reservoir in the deep stellar interiors to the surface layers. We conclude that the coupling time-scale for angular momentum transport from a rapidly spinning radiative core to the outer convective zone must be substantially shorter than the cluster age, and that from the age of Coma onwards stars rotate effectively as solid bodies. The existence of a tight relationship between stellar mass and rotation period at a given age supports the use of stellar rotation period as an age indicator in F, G and K stars of Hyades age and older. We demonstrate that individual stellar ages can be determined within the Coma population with an internal precision of the order of 9 per cent (rms), using a standard magnetic braking law in which rotation period increases with the square root of stellar age. We find that a slight modification to the magnetic-braking power law, P ~ t0.56, yields rotational and asteroseismological ages in good agreement for the Sun and other stars of solar age for which p-mode studies and photometric rotation periods have been published.

Collaborative artistic laboratories. Transfrontier spaces of cultural production

The appearance of the open code paradigm and the demands of social movements have permeated the ways in which today’s cultural institutions are organized. This article analyzes the birth of a new critical and cooperative spatiality and how it is transforming current modes of cultural research and production. It centers on the potential for establishing the new means of cooperation that are being tested in what are defined as collaborative artistic laboratories. These are hybrid spaces of research and creation based on networked and cooperative structures producing a new societal-technical body that forces us to reconsider the traditional organic conditions of the productive scenarios of knowledge and artistic practice.