Advances in Cancer Research provides invaluable information on the exciting and fast-moving field of cancer research. In this Part A volume, outstanding and original reviews provide an overview and synthesis of the latest thoughts and findings relating to Clusterin. Chapters include the shifiting balance between CLU Forms during tumor progression, uclear CLU and the fate of the cell, and Oxidative stress in malignant progression.
The biological function of clusterin (CLU, also known as ApoJ, SGP2, TRPM2, CLI) has been puzzling researchers since its discovery and characterization in the early 1980s. Approaches such as cloning, expression and functional characterization of the different protein products generated by the CLU gene have now produced a critical mass of information of tremendous biological importance that are teaching us an important lesson in molecular biology of gene expression regulation. This volume brings together the contributions of top researchers in the field, providing an overview and synthesis of the latest thought and findings relating to CLU.
To understand Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the major thrusts of present-day clinical research, strongly supported by more fimdamental cellular, biochemical, immunological and structural studies. It is these latter that receive attention within this book. This compilation of 20 chapters indicates the diversity of work currently in progress and summarizes the current state of knowledge. Experienced authors who are scientifically active in their fields of study have been selected as contributors to this book, in an attempt to present a reasonably complete survey of the field. Inevitably, some exciting topics for one reason or another have not been included, for which we can only apologize. Standardization of terminology is often a problem in science, not least in the Alzheimer field; editorial effort has been made to achieve standardization between the Chapters, but some minor yet acceptable personal / author variation is still present, i. e. P-amyloid/amyloid-P; Ap42/Apl-42/APi. 42! The book commences with a broad survey of the contribution that the range of available microscopical techniques has made to the study of Alzheimer's amyloid plaques and amyloid fibrillogenesis. This chapter also serves as an Introduction to the book, since several of the topics introduced here are expanded upon in later chapters. Also, it is significant to the presence of this chapter that the initial discovery of brain plaques, by Alois Alzheimer, utilized light microscopy, a technique that continues to be extremely valuable in present-day AD research.
Alzheimer’s Disease is the most common form of dementia. The disease is characterised by the loss of synapses and neurons in the cerebral cortex and certain subcortical regions. In the last three years, the genetics of Alzheimer’s Disease has made significant advances; in fact, one could argue more than in the previous two decades. This has resulted in the identification of nine new genes and perhaps more importantly the realization that new pathways could be involved in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s. These new pathways are now legitimate targets for therapeutic intervention, which can possibly lead to treatment or a possible cure. The aim of this book is to put all of the recent genetic data on these new genes into context. Different genetic variants will be discussed, as well as biomarkers and future possibilities.
Recently many researchers are working on cluster analysis as a main tool for exploratory data analysis and data mining. A notable feature is that specialists in di?erent ?elds of sciences are considering the tool of data clustering to be useful. A major reason is that clustering algorithms and software are ?exible in thesensethatdi?erentmathematicalframeworksareemployedinthealgorithms and a user can select a suitable method according to his application. Moreover clusteringalgorithmshavedi?erentoutputsrangingfromtheolddendrogramsof agglomerativeclustering to more recent self-organizingmaps. Thus, a researcher or user can choose an appropriate output suited to his purpose,which is another ?exibility of the methods of clustering. An old and still most popular method is the K-means which use K cluster centers. A group of data is gathered around a cluster center and thus forms a cluster. The main subject of this book is the fuzzy c-means proposed by Dunn and Bezdek and their variations including recent studies. A main reasonwhy we concentrate on fuzzy c-means is that most methodology and application studies infuzzy clusteringusefuzzy c-means,andfuzzy c-meansshouldbe consideredto beamajortechniqueofclusteringingeneral,regardlesswhetheroneisinterested in fuzzy methods or not. Moreover recent advances in clustering techniques are rapid and we requirea new textbook that includes recent algorithms.We should also note that several books have recently been published but the contents do not include some methods studied herein.
This foundational work comprehensively examines the current state of the genetics, genomics and brain circuitry of psychiatric and neurological disorders. It consolidates discoveries of specific genes and genomic regions associated with these conditions, the genetic and anatomic architecture of these syndromes, and addresses how recent advances in genomics are leading to a reappraisal of the biology underlying clinical neuroscience. In doing so, it critically examines the promise and limitations of these discoveries toward treatment, and to the interdisciplinary nature of understanding brain and behavior. Coverage includes new discoveries regarding autism, epilepsy, intellectual disability, dementias, movement disorders, language impairment, disorders of attention, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. Genomics, Circuits, and Pathways in Clinical Neuropsychiatry focuses on key concepts, challenges, findings, and methods in genetics, genomics, molecular pathways, brain circuitry, and related neurobiology of neurologic and psychiatric disorders. - Provides interdisciplinary appeal in psychiatry, neurology, neuroscience, and genetics - Identifies key concepts, methods, and findings - Includes coverage of multiple disorders from autism to schizophrenia - Reviews specific genes associated with disorders - Discusses the genetic architecture of these syndromes - Explains how recent findings are influencing the understanding of biology - Clarifies the promise of these findings for future treatment
