Visual Reaction Time™ as a predictor of sexual offense recidivism.

In this study, we investigated the use of Visual Reaction Time™ (VRT™) for sexual interest in children to predict recidivism of sexual offenses among men who sexually abused children and men with other sexually deviant behaviors. The authors hypothesized that study participants with a higher VRT™ to stimuli of children would be more likely to sexually reoffend compared with those with a lower VRT™ to stimuli of children. Participants included 621 adult males on parole or probation for acting on a range of sexual paraphilias who sought outpatient treatment or evaluation at two separate therapists' practices. Sample 1 consisted of 284 adult males followed up (by the lead author) during a 15-year period, while Sample 2 consisted of 337 adult males followed up (by the second author) during a 7-year period. A discrete-time hazard model found VRT™ to children to be significantly related to sexual recidivism. The researchers found that VRT™ to children measured at intake held up in its predictive ability over a 15-year period. When the participants were divided into three groups based on their VRT™, of the 97 participants who measured at least one standard deviation lower than the mean VRT™, 0% reoffended. The 432 participants in the medium-VRT™ group had an estimated recidivism rate of 7% after 15 years and the 92 participants who measured at least one standard deviation higher than the mean had an estimated recidivism rate of 27%.

Intensifying Salvage Therapy in Prostate-specific Antigen Recurrent Prostate Cancer After Radical Prostatectomy with Apalutamide, Salvage Radiation, and Docetaxel: The Phase 2 STARTAR Trial.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) with salvage radiation therapy (RT) improves survival for patients with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) recurrence after radical prostatectomy (RP) for prostate cancer (PC), but many patients suffer further relapse. This study aims to determine the benefit of the combination of ADT, apalutamide, salvage RT, and docetaxel for high-risk PSA recurrent PC. METHODS: STARTAR is a multicenter, investigator-initiated phase 2 trial of men with PSA recurrent PC after RP. The key inclusion criteria included M0 by computed tomography/bone scan, Gleason 7 with either T3/positive margin/N1 disease or Gleason 8-10 prostate adenocarcinoma, PSA relapse (0.2-4 ng/ml) <4 yr after RP, and fewer than four positive resected lymph nodes. Patients received ADT with apalutamide for 9 mo, RT starting week 8, and then six cycles of docetaxel. The primary endpoint was 36-mo progression-free survival (PFS) with testosterone recovery and compared against the prior STREAM trial. KEY FINDINGS AND LIMITATIONS: We enrolled 39 men, including those with Gleason 8-10 (46%), pN1 (23%); the median PSA was 0.58 ng/ml. The median follow-up was 37 mo. All patients achieved undetectable PSA nadir. At 24 and 36 mo, PFS rates were 84% and 71%, respectively, which improved significantly over 3-yr 47% historic PFS and 54% enzalutamide/ADT/RT (STREAM) PFS rates (p = 0.004 and p = 0.039, respectively). Common any-grade adverse events included 98% hot flashes, 88% fatigue, 77% alopecia, 53% rash (10% G3), and 5% febrile neutropenia. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: In this phase 2 trial of ADT, apalutamide, salvage RT, and six cycles of docetaxel for high-risk PSA recurrence, the 3-yr PFS rate improved to 71%, indicating feasible and efficacious treatment intensification, with durable remissions beyond historic data. PATIENT SUMMARY: Prostate cancer recurrence after surgical removal of the tumor occurs often, and current treatment options to limit recurrence after surgery are only partially effective. In this study, we found that the addition of an androgen receptor inhibitor and docetaxel chemotherapy to standard postsurgery radiation therapy and androgen deprivation therapy significantly improved progression-free survival at 3 yr after treatment. These results suggest that intensification of treatment after surgery can provide long-term benefit to a subset of patients with high-risk prostate cancer.

Real-time monitoring of high-gravity corn mash fermentation using in situ raman spectroscopy.

In situ Raman spectroscopy was employed for real-time monitoring of simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) of corn mash by an industrial strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. An accurate univariate calibration model for ethanol was developed based on the very strong 883 cm(-1) C-C stretching band. Multivariate partial least squares (PLS) calibration models for total starch, dextrins, maltotriose, maltose, glucose, and ethanol were developed using data from eight batch fermentations and validated using predictions for a separate batch. The starch, ethanol, and dextrins models showed significant prediction improvement when the calibration data were divided into separate high- and low-concentration sets. Collinearity between the ethanol and starch models was avoided by excluding regions containing strong ethanol peaks from the starch model and, conversely, excluding regions containing strong saccharide peaks from the ethanol model. The two-set calibration models for starch (R(2) = 0.998, percent error = 2.5%) and ethanol (R(2) = 0.999, percent error = 2.1%) provide more accurate predictions than any previously published spectroscopic models. Glucose, maltose, and maltotriose are modeled to accuracy comparable to previous work on less complex fermentation processes. Our results demonstrate that Raman spectroscopy is capable of real time in situ monitoring of a complex industrial biomass fermentation. To our knowledge, this is the first PLS-based chemometric modeling of corn mash fermentation under typical industrial conditions, and the first Raman-based monitoring of a fermentation process with glucose, oligosaccharides and polysaccharides present.

Hyperthermophilic Thermotoga species differ with respect to specific carbohydrate transporters and glycoside hydrolases.

Four hyperthermophilic members of the bacterial genus Thermotoga (T. maritima, T. neapolitana, T. petrophila, and Thermotoga sp. strain RQ2) share a core genome of 1,470 open reading frames (ORFs), or about 75% of their genomes. Nonetheless, each species exhibited certain distinguishing features during growth on simple and complex carbohydrates that correlated with genomic inventories of specific ABC sugar transporters and glycoside hydrolases. These differences were consistent with transcriptomic analysis based on a multispecies cDNA microarray. Growth on a mixture of six pentoses and hexoses showed no significant utilization of galactose or mannose by any of the four species. T. maritima and T. neapolitana exhibited similar monosaccharide utilization profiles, with a strong preference for glucose and xylose over fructose and arabinose. Thermotoga sp. strain RQ2 also used glucose and xylose, but was the only species to utilize fructose to any extent, consistent with a phosphotransferase system (PTS) specific for this sugar encoded in its genome. T. petrophila used glucose to a significantly lesser extent than the other species. In fact, the XylR regulon was triggered by growth on glucose for T. petrophila, which was attributed to the absence of a glucose transporter (XylE2F2K2), otherwise present in the other Thermotoga species. This suggested that T. petrophila acquires glucose through the XylE1F1K1 transporter, which primarily serves to transport xylose in the other three Thermotoga species. The results here show that subtle differences exist among the hyperthermophilic Thermotogales with respect to carbohydrate utilization, which supports their designation as separate species.