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Estrogens represent risk factors for endocrine-related cancers and play also an important role in the development and progression of other malignancies. In order to analyze the associations between estrogen receptor gene alpha polymorphisms and cancers susceptibility, we genotyped six single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 163 Caucasian cancer patients--103 breast cancers and 60 other malignancies (colorectal, bladder, hepatocellular carcinoma and acute myeloid leukemia)--and 114 healthy controls using hybridization probes. We performed Armitage`s association trend-test to evaluate the risk. Linkage disequilibrium (LD) was assessed for each pair of markers. The genotypes CC and CT of rs3798577 were significantly associated with the cancers risk (p-trend breast = 4 × 10(-5); p-trend cancers = 1 × 10(-5)); in discrepancy with breast cancer where the C-allele represented the risk allele, for bladder, hepatocellular carcinomas and leukemia, the T allele seems to confer susceptibility. The minor G allele of rs1801132 was protective in our cases (p = 1 × 10(-4)); for rs2228480, the heterozygous frequency was higher for cancer groups (p = 0.03); the SNP pairs rs2228480&rs3798577 and rs2234693&rs9340799 were in low LD; the haplotypes T-A of rs2234693&rs9340799 and G-C of rs2228480&rs3798577 showed a trend to be higher represented in breast cancers; T allele of rs2234693 was higher expressed in breast, colon cancers and leukemia; rs2077647 was associated with colon (p = 0.008, C-risk allele) and bladder (p = 0.01, T-risk allele) cancers. We concluded that ESR1 polymorphisms may have distinct impact in carcinogenesis and further genotyping will establish whether these findings remain significant in larger cohorts.

Body Sensor Networks (BSNs) have tremendous potential in facilitating the real-time monitoring of the health of an individual in their own environment. However to truly exploit this potential, the powerful signal processing and analysis techniques available in the hospital environment must also be deployed in BSNs. In this paper, techniques in algorithm development, communications, hardware architecture and circuit design are described that will achieve the necessary power savings to make intelligent BSNs a reality.

Framework-incorporated vanadium mesoporous silica materials with different contents in vanadium were obtained by a facile, direct synthesis at room temperature, using VOSO4 x 5H2O as the vanadium precursor. The porous characteristics of the samples and the coordination environment of the vanadia in the structure were studied by a combination of techniques: X-ray diffraction, N2-adsorption/desorption, FT-Raman, FTIR-PAS and UV-Vis-DR, electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and electron nuclear double resonance (ENDOR) spectroscopy. A structural comparison is made using pulsed EPR and ENDOR spectroscopic techniques between vanadia deposited on the surface of MCM-41 by the Molecular Designed Dispersion method and as-synthesised samples of vanadia incorporated in the mesoporous silica framework using the above-mentioned synthesis method. The EPR study on the non-calcined samples proves the incorporation of a high amount of vanadium in the silica framework by the observation of a strong hyperfine coupling of the unpaired electron with 29Si. It demonstrates the feasibility for EPR to reveal structural information on true incorporation of metal ions in framework positions leading to metal oxides.

Objective: The present study aims to analyse the risk factors involvement in the cross infectious pathology determined by multiresistant Enterobacteriaceae, in hospitalised patients in the Intensive Care Unit at the County Emergency Clinical Hospital in Timişoara., Material and Method: We carried out a case-control study with 3 groups of adult inpatients--200 patients with no superadded infectious pathology, 100 patients infected with Enterobacteriaceae strains resistant to 3 classes of antibacterial chemotherapeutic agents and 100 infected with multiresistant strains. Identification of bacterial germs was performed using API ID 20 E manual galleries (BioMérieux) and the inclusion in the resistance phenotypes was done using the Osiris Evolution (BioRad) analyser., Results: Subjects infected with multiresistant strains are mostly male, (p=0.020, OR=1.8 [1.06-3.07], RR=1.49, [1.05-2.11]), with the mean age younger than that of the control group (p=0.011). The mean Charlson Comorbidity Index was 3.34 in Group III and 4.06 in Group I (p=0.027). The logistic regression application keeps as well as independent risk factors for multiresistance--the mechanical ventilation, consciousness impairment, prolonged hospitalization and the higher number of days of antibiotherapy., Conclusions: In this study, the nosocomial factors and basic pathology prevail to the detriment of other intrinsic risk factors.