Preoperative 18F-Fdg Pet/CT and CT Radiomics for Identifying Aggressive Histopathological Subtypes in Early Stage Lung Adenocarcinoma

Lung adenocarcinoma (ADC) is the most common non-small cell lung cancer. Surgical resection is the primary treatment for early-stage lung ADC while lung-sparing surgery is an alternative for non-aggressive cases. Identifying histopathologic subtypes before surgery helps determine the optimal surgical approach. Predominantly solid or micropapillary (MIP) subtypes are aggressive and associated with a higher likelihood of recurrence and metastasis and lower survival rates. This study aims to non-invasively identify these aggressive subtypes using preoperative 18F-FDG PET/CT and diagnostic CT radiomics analysis. We retrospectively studied 119 patients with stage I lung ADC and tumors ≤ 2 cm, where 23 had aggressive subtypes (18 solid and 5 MIPs). Out of 214 radiomic features from the PET/CT and CT scans and 14 clinical parameters, 78 significant features (3 CT and 75 PET features) were identified through univariate analysis and hierarchical clustering with minimized feature collinearity. A combination of Support Vector Machine classifier and Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator built predictive models. Ten iterations of 10-fold cross-validation (10 ×10-fold CV) evaluated the model. A pair of texture feature (PET GLCM Correlation) and shape feature (CT Sphericity) emerged as the best predictor. The radiomics model significantly outperformed the conventional predictor SUVmax (accuracy: 83.5% vs. 74.7%, p = 9e-9) and identified aggressive subtypes by evaluating FDG uptake in the tumor and tumor shape. It also demonstrated a high negative predictive value of 95.6% compared to SUVmax (88.2%, p = 2e-10). The proposed radiomics approach could reduce unnecessary extensive surgeries for non-aggressive subtype patients, improving surgical decision-making for early-stage lung ADC patients

Europe's ecological backbone: recognising the true value of our mountains

Europe's mountain areas have social, economic and environmental capital of significance for the entire continent. This importance has been recognised since the late 19th century through national legislation; since the 1970s through regional structures for cooperation; and since the 1990s through regional legal instruments for the Alps and Carpathians. The European Union (EU) first recognised the specific characteristics of mountain areas in 1975 through the designation of Less Favoured Areas (LFAs). During the last decade, EU cohesion policy and the Treaty of Lisbon have both focused specifically on mountain

ICTERI 2020: ІКТ в освіті, дослідженнях та промислових застосуваннях. Інтеграція, гармонізація та передача знань 2020: Матеріали 16-ї Міжнародної конференції. Том II: Семінари. Харків, Україна, 06-10 жовтня 2020 р.

This volume represents the proceedings of the Workshops co-located with the 16th International Conference on ICT in Education, Research, and Industrial Applications, held in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in October 2020. It comprises 101 contributed papers that were carefully peer-reviewed and selected from 233 submissions for the five workshops: RMSEBT, TheRMIT, ITER, 3L-Person, CoSinE, MROL. The volume is structured in six parts, each presenting the contributions for a particular workshop. The topical scope of the volume is aligned with the thematic tracks of ICTERI 2020: (I) Advances in ICT Research; (II) Information Systems: Technology and Applications; (III) Academia/Industry ICT Cooperation; and (IV) ICT in Education.Цей збірник представляє матеріали семінарів, які були проведені в рамках 16-ї Міжнародної конференції з ІКТ в освіті, наукових дослідженнях та промислових застосуваннях, що відбулася в Харкові, Україна, у жовтні 2020 року. Він містить 101 доповідь, які були ретельно рецензовані та відібрані з 233 заявок на участь у п'яти воркшопах: RMSEBT, TheRMIT, ITER, 3L-Person, CoSinE, MROL. Збірник складається з шести частин, кожна з яких представляє матеріали для певного семінару. Тематична спрямованість збірника узгоджена з тематичними напрямками ICTERI 2020: (I) Досягнення в галузі досліджень ІКТ; (II) Інформаційні системи: Технології і застосування; (ІІІ) Співпраця в галузі ІКТ між академічними і промисловими колами; і (IV) ІКТ в освіті

Swiss tourism in the age of climate change:vulnerability, adaptive capacity, and barriers to adaptation

This thesis analyses the impacts of climate change on Swiss tourism. It looks in particular at the regional vulnerability, adaptation, and barriers that hinder this process. The final goal of the work is to make a contribution in bringing about a smoother shift to a more sustainable tourism sector better adapted to the changing conditions. In the first part, the thesis examines the regional vulnerability of Swiss tourism to climate change for a 2030-2050 time horizon in order to define which regions are most in need of taking action. We analyzed in particular the impacts generated by changes in climate suitability for tourism activities, snowpack reduction, glaciers melting, permafrost melting, natural hazards, water scarcity, and changes in landscape and scenic beauty. We selected 70 indicators describing the exposure, the sensitivity and the adaptive capacity of each of the 85 defined areas. We collected, weighted and assembled simulations on the possible impacts and statistical data covering the whole country. The results obtained allowed us to identify the most important drivers influencing vulnerability. Moreover, they permitted the assessment of spatial heterogeneity in vulnerability. Finally, the data allowed us to identify hotspots, areas in which the implementation of adaptation measures is most crucial. To validate the legitimacy of the results and to analyze the perception of people working in the sector, we compared outcomes with the results of an online survey we designed. It was carried out among 566 Swiss tourism stakeholders and asked them to evaluate the vulnerability of their particular region. Differences between the two methods appeared: the outcome of the survey indicated that those living mainly in the Prealpine regions perceived their regions as the most vulnerable. Meanwhile, the outcomes of the geographic “hotspot” analysis showed that the mountainous regions, mostly in the Valais, Ticino, and Uri cantons, were the most vulnerable. Differences may be explained on one hand from the predisposition of stakeholders to be influenced by impacts already visible like snowpack reduction. Therefore, they might be more likely to identify the most vulnerable regions as the ones in which climate change is already affecting the tourism sector. On the other hand, dissimilarities also depend on the scores given by the 13 experts which weighted the various indicators used in the vulnerability map. In the second part of the thesis, we examined adaptation. We analyzed in particular which measures are already being implemented or have already been planned for the future. We also looked at how stakeholders evaluate the efficiency of these measures. Our analysis suggested that adaptation is already taking place in the country. Three categories of adaptation exist. These can be summarized as following: development of the supply, risk reduction, and communication on impacts and on implemented measures. The development of the supply can be seen both as the promotion of year-round tourism, in addition to innovation and diversification of tourism activities offered. It could also include the further development and securing of snow sports activities. The maintenance of winter tourism was a popular option in the past, with the wide spreading of snow cannons. Now, however, this strategy is beginning to show its economic and environmental limits in multiple regions. Various stakeholders in the online survey cited artificial snowmaking as efficient measures only on the short term that should be replaced by other strategies on the long run. Consequently more and more regions are focusing on diversification and innovation, putting more effort in offering year-round tourism. Our results confirm outcomes of past studies on the topic, which found similar results. Moreover, in collaboration with the ClimAlpTour project, we carried out a participative adaptation process in a selected case study region (the Aletsch region). We did this in order to study possible adaptation paths and to analyze possible impediments to the process. Finally, the last part of the thesis looked more in particular at this latter aspect, focusing on barriers to adaptation. Many elements can hinder the implementation of effective and efficient adaptation. These can have either economic, technological, social, or institutional origins. Based on stakeholders’ opinions, we saw that, for Swiss tourism, the barriers relate mainly to economic and social issues. The lack of money can clearly be an impediment to adaptation; also in addition to this, however, we found that the lack of information and coordination among stakeholders can also seriously hinder the process. This even if the willingness to act in order to adapt is high among stakeholders and the acceptability of the measures is important among the population (up to a point to which measures do not lead to maladaptation and that they do not carry too many negative impacts on the society, economy, and environment). Much is already being done at the Swiss national and local levels to combat the impacts of climate change in the country, in particular with the elaboration of the Swiss adaptation strategy. The groundwork for an effective transition of Swiss tourism seems therefore to have been laid. However, it should not be forgotten that the sector is facing many other challenges not directly linked to climate change and which also threaten the viability of the sector. Moreover, due to its significant footprint on the environment and its contribution to greenhouse gasses emission, the sector also needs to incorporate sustanaiblity in its adjustment and change

Preclinical <i>In Vivo</i> Antitumor Activity Experiments: Methodological Pitfalls and a New Framework for their Design and Analysis

Aims: Poorly designed, analyzed and reported preclinical in vivo experiments (inVivoExp) raise ethical as well as scientific concerns. It could be hypothesized that the recurring failure of apparently promising interventions to improve outcome in clinical trials has been partially caused by poor quality of statistical design and analysis (QoStat) of inVivoExp. This project aimed to assess and correlate QoStat with clinical activity, and to improve the statistical framework used in inVivoExp. Methods: A systematic search of Medline and EMBASE databases was carried out to identify epithelial ovarian cancer clinical trials assessing the antitumor activity of candidate compounds (CC) as monotherapy. For each eligible CC, a systematic search was carried out to identify scientific papers reporting inVivoExp on rats and mice, in which the CC was administered as monotherapy. An ad hoc checklist was used to assess QoStat of inVivoExp. QoStat was correlated to the clinical activity. Results: Fifty-two eligible CCs and 121 inVivoExp were identified. In 45 out of 120 (37.5%) inVivoExp the method of treatment assignment was not specified. The randomization type was specified in 3 out of 74 (4.1%) inVivoExp and sample size was justified in 9 (7.4%) inVivoExp. If the primary outcome was tumor volume, the antitumor activity endpoint was declared in 14 out of 106 (13.2%) inVivoExp. The length of follow-up was specified in 43 (35.5%) inVivoExp. Outcome assessor was blinded in 5 (4.1%) inVivoExp. Inefficient statistical methods were often applied to analyze tumor growth data. A new statistical framework based on the Mann-Whitney statistic was proposed and applied to a specific tumor model. Conclusions: QoStat of inVivoExp was so poor that the correlation with clinical activity was impossible. The magnitude of the biological signal was poorly estimated. The new statistical framework should be considered for the design and analysis of in vivo tumor growth studies

Systematic construction of goal-oriented COTS taxonomies

El proceso de construir software a partir del ensamblaje e integración de soluciones de software pre-fabricadas, conocidas como componentes COTS (Comercial-Off-The-Shelf) se ha convertido en una necesidad estratégica en una amplia variedad de áreas de aplicación. En general, los componentes COTS son componentes de software que proveen una funcionalidad específica, que están disponibles en el mercado para ser adquiridos e integrados dentro de otros sistemas de software. Los beneficios potenciales de esta tecnología son principalmente la reducción de costes y el acortamiento del tiempo de desarrollo, a la vez que fomenta la calidad. Sin embargo, numerosos retos que van desde problemas técnicos y legales deben ser afrontados para adaptar las actividades tradicionales de ingeniería de software para explotar los beneficios del uso de COTS para el desarrollo de sistemas.Actualmente, existe un incrementalmente enorme mercado de componentes COTS; así, una de las actividades más críticas en el desarrollo de sistemas basados en COTS es la selección de componentes que deben ser integrados en el sistema a desarrollar. La selección está básicamente compuesta de dos procesos principales: La búsqueda de componentes candidatos en el mercado y su posterior evaluación con respecto a los requisitos del sistema. Desafortunadamente, la mayoría de los métodos existentes para seleccionar COTS, se enfocan en el proceso de evaluación, dejando de lado el problema de buscar los componentes en el mercado. La búsqueda de componentes en el mercado no es una tarea trivial, teniendo que afrontar varias características del mercado de COTS, tales como su naturaleza dispersa y siempre creciente, cambio y evolución constante; en este contexto, la obtención de información de calidad acerca de los componentes no es una tarea fácil. Como consecuencia, el proceso de selección de COTS se ve seriamente dañado. Además, las alternativas tradicionales de reuso también carecen de soluciones apropiadas para reusar componentes COTS y el conocimiento adquirido en cada proceso de selección. Esta carencia de propuestas es un problema muy serio que incrementa los riesgos de los proyectos de selección de COTS, además de hacerlos ineficientes y altamente costosos. Esta disertación presenta el método GOThIC (Goal- Oriented Taxonomy and reuse Infrastructure Construction) enfocado a la construcción de infraestructuras de reuso para facilitar la búsqueda y reuso de componentes COTS. El método está basado en el uso de objetivos para construir taxonomías abstractas, bien fundamentadas y estables para lidiar con las características del mercado de COTS. Los nodos de las taxonomías son caracterizados por objetivos, sus relaciones son declaradas como dependencias y varios artefactos son construidos y gestionados para promover la reusabilidad y lidiar con la evolución constante.El método GOThIC ha sido elaborado a través de un proceso iterativo de investigación-acción para identificar los retos reales relacionados con el proceso de búsqueda de COTS. Posteriormente, las soluciones posibles fueron evaluadas e implementadas en varios casos de estudio en el ámbito industrial y académico en diversos dominios. Los resultados más relevantes fueron registrados y articulados en el método GOThIC. La evaluación industrial preliminar del método se ha llevado a cabo en algunas compañías en Noruega.The process of building software systems by assembling and integrating pre-packaged solutions in the form of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software components has become a strategic need in a wide variety of application areas. In general, COTS components are software components that provide a specific functionality, available in the market to be purchased, interfaced and integrated into other software systems. The potential benefits of this technology are mainly its reduced costs and shorter development time, while maintaining the quality. Nevertheless, many challenges ranging form technical to legal issues must be faced for adapting the traditional software engineering activities in order to exploit these benefits.Nowadays there is an increasingly huge marketplace of COTS components; therefore, one of the most critical activities in COTS-based development is the selection of the components to be integrated into the system under development. Selection is basically composed of two main processes, namely: searching of candidates from the marketplace and their evaluation with respect to the system requirements. Unfortunately, most of the different existing methods for COTS selection focus their efforts on evaluation, letting aside the problem of searching components in the marketplace. Searching candidate COTS is not an easy task, having to cope with some challenging marketplace characteristics related to its widespread, evolvable and growing nature; and the lack of available and well-suited information to obtain a quality-assured search. Indeed, traditional reuse approaches also lack of appropriate solutions to reuse COTS components and the knowledge gained in each selection process. This lack of proposals is a serious drawback that makes the whole selection process highly risky, and often expensive and inefficient. This dissertation introduces the GOThIC (Goal- Oriented Taxonomy and reuse Infrastructure Construction) method aimed at building a domain reuse infrastructure for facilitating COTS components searching and reuse. It is based on goal-oriented approaches for building abstract, well-founded and stable taxonomies capable of dealing with the COTS marketplace characteristics. Thus, the nodes of these taxonomies are characterized by means of goals, their relationships declared as dependencies among them and several artifacts are constructed and managed for reusability and evolution purposes. The GOThIC method has been elaborated following an iterative process based on action research premises to identify the actual challenges related to COTS components searching. Then, possible solutions were envisaged and implemented by several industrial and academic case studies in different domains. Successful results were recorded to articulate the synergic GOThIC method solution, followed by its preliminary industrial evaluation in some Norwegian companies