111In–L–LDL and 153Gd–L–LDL as radiotracers for detection of AR4‐2J rat pancreatic tumors

Pancreatic cancer has an extremely poor prognosis, due, in part, to lack of methods for early diagnosis. The present study was designed to evaluate the potential of labeling low‐density lipoprotein (LDL) with a radionuclide using a lipid chelating agent, bis(stearylamide) of diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (L), to detect pancreatic tumors by gamma‐scintigraphy. Previous studies indicated that the difficulty of visualization of pancreatic tumors was due to their poor vascularization. This study compares the ability of two radiotracers, ¹¹¹In–L–LDL and ¹⁵³Gd–L–LDL to target highly vascularized rat pancreatic tumors (AR4‐2J) implanted in nude mice. Biodistribution studies showed that the tumor uptake of ¹¹¹In–L–LDL and ¹⁵³Gd–L–LDL tracers was twofold and fivefold higher respectively than with the controls (¹¹¹In citrate and ¹⁵³Gd citrate respectively). These tracers would thus be suitable for scintigraphic imaging. We show here that LDL could be employed as a delivery system for tracers such as ¹¹¹In or ¹⁵³Gd when these two radionuclides are complexed by a lipid‐chelating anchor, and that ¹¹¹In–L–LDL and ¹⁵³Gd–L–LDL enabled better visualization of the pancreatic tumor tissues, with a better result with ¹⁵³Gd–L–LDL. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A priori-Schranken für diskrete Lösungen monotoner Operatorgleichungen und Anwendungen

Summary Operator equationsTu=f are approximated by Galerkin's method, whereT is a monotone operator in the sense of Browder and Minty, so that existence results are available in a reflexive Banach spaceX. In a normed spaceY error estimates are established, which require a priori bounds for the discrete solutionsu _h in the norm of a suitable space . Sufficient conditions for the uniform boundedness u _{h Z} =O(1) ash0 are proved. Well-known error estimates in [3] for the special caseX=Y=Z are generalized by this. The theory is applied to quasilinear elliptic boundary value problems of order 2m in a bounded domain . The approximating subspaces are finite element spaces. Especially the caseX=W ₀ ^{m, p} (), 1<p<,Y=W ₀ ^{m. 2} (),Z=W ₀ ^{m. max (2,p)} ()W^m, () is treated. Some examples for 1<p<2 are considered. Forp2 a refined technique is introduced in the author's paper [7].

     

Symmetric Skorohod topology onn-variable functions and hierarchical Markov properties ofn-parameter processes

Summary We introduce a new Skorohod topology for functions of several variables. Since ann-variable function may be viewed as a one-variable function with values in the set of (n–1)-variable functions, this topology is defined by induction from the classical Skorohod topology for one-variable functions. This allows us to define the notion of completen-parameter symmetric Markov processes: Such processes are, for any 1pn, rawp-parameter Markov processes (in the sense of our previous paper [17]) with values in the space of (n–p)-variable functions. We prove, for these processes and their Bochner subordinates, a maximal inequality which implies the continuity of additive functionals associated with finite energy measures. We finally present several important examples.     

Reflected Brownian motion in a cone: Semimartingale property

Summary In this paper, the object of study is reflected Brownian motion in a cone ind-dimensions (d3) with nonconstant oblique reflection on each radial line emanating from the vertex of the cone. The basic question considered here is When is this process a semimartingale?. Conditions for the existence and uniqueness of the process for which the vertex is an instantaneous state were given by Kwon, which is resolved in terms of a real parameter depending on the cone and the direction of reflection. It is shown that starting from any point of the cone, the process is a semimartingale if < 1, + 0 and not a semimartingale if < < 2.This research is supported by KOSEF grant 941-0100-011-1     

Über lineare Unabhängigkeit

It is the aim of the present work to prove, under appropriate conditions, lower estimates for the dimension of w ₁ + ... + w _m over , wherew ₁,...,w _m are given real numbers. In particular, if this dimension ism, i.e. ifw ₁,...,w _m are linearly independent over , we are also interested in a quantitative version of this fact. Our qualitative theorems generalize a result of Nesterenko. Its formulation is quite similar to the axiomatization of methods for algebraic independence, as it became usual during the last decade.

     

Perturbed unstable variational inequalities with unbounded operators on approximately given sets

The stability and convergence of the solutions of perturbed and regularized variational inequality to the solutions of the primary (unstable a priori) variational inequality with proper monotone operator are investigated. All the objects of inequality: the operatorA, the right-hand partf and the set of constrains are to be perturbed. At the same time no assumptions of boundedness and smoothness of the operatorA are used. The connection between the parameters of perturbations, which guarantees strong convergence of approximate solutions, is established. It is proved that the existence of the solution to the unperturbed variational inequality is necessary and sufficient condition for convergence of the regularized perturbed inequality solutions.This research was supported in part by the Ministry of Science Grant 3481-1-91 and by the Ministry of Absorption Center for Absorption in Science.     

Existence and uniqueness of semimartingale reflecting Brownian motions in an orthant

Summary This work is concerned with the existence and uniqueness of a class of semimartingale reflecting Brownian motions which live in the non-negative orthant of ^d . Loosely speaking, such a process has a semimartingale decomposition such that in the interior of the orthant the process behaves like a Brownian motion with a constant drift and covariance matrix, and at each of the (d-1)-dimensional faces that form the boundary of the orthant, the bounded variation part of the process increases in a given direction (constant for any particular face) so as to confine the process to the orthant. For historical reasons, this pushing at the boundary is called instantaneous reflection. In 1988, Reiman and Williams proved that a necessary condition for the existence of such a semimartingale reflecting Brownian motion (SRBM) is that the reflection matrix formed by the directions of reflection be completely-L. In this work we prove that condition is sufficient for the existence of an SRBM and that the SRBM is unique in law. It follows from the uniqueness that an SRBM defines a strong Markov process. Our results have potential application to the study of diffusions arising as approximations tomulti-class queueing networks.Research supported in part by NSF Grants DMS 8657483, 8722351 and 9023335, and a grant from AT&T Bell Labs. In addition, R.J. Williams was supported in part during the period of this research by an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship     

Extended iterative methods for the solution of operator equations

Summary Given an iterative methodM ₀, characterized byx ^(k+1=G ₀(x( ^k )) (k0) (x(⁰) prescribed) for the solution of the operator equationF(x)=0, whereF:XX is a given operator andX is a Banach space, it is shown how to obtain a family of methodsM _p characterized byx ^(k+1=G _p (x( ^k )) (k0) (x(⁰) prescribed) with order of convergence higher than that ofM _o. The infinite dimensional multipoint methods of Bosarge and Falb [2] are a special case, in whichM ₀ is Newton's method.Analogues of Theorems 2.3 and 2.36 of [2] are proved for the methodsM _p, which are referred to as extensions ofM ₀. A number of methods with order of convergence greater than two are discussed and existence-convergence theorems for some of them are proved.Finally some computational results are presented which illustrate the behaviour of the methods and their extensions when used to solve systems of nonlinear algebraic equations, and some applications currently being investigated are mentioned.     

Numerical implementation of coherence for the example of the “Swiss Cross”

Summary We consider the two-dimensional Helmholtz equation u+u=0 inD with the boundary conditionsu=0 on D. D is the Swiss Cross — a region consisting of five unit squares. A method based on the concept of Coherence is utilized to determine an approximation for the first eigenvalue= ₁ more accurate than calculated by classical difference methods. The numerical result is used to illustrate isoperimetric upper and lower bounds for ₁, and to test some conjectures on its relations with torsional rigidity.Dedicated to the memory of Professor Lathar Collatz