Making the most of bioimaging data through interdisciplinary interactions

The increasing technical complexity of all aspects involving bioimages, ranging from their acquisition to their analysis, has led to a diversification in the expertise of scientists engaged at the different stages of the discovery process. Although this diversity of profiles comes with the major challenge of establishing fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration, such collaboration also offers a superb opportunity for scientific discovery. In this Perspective, we review the different actors within the bioimaging research universe and identify the primary obstacles that hinder their interactions. We advocate that data sharing, which lies at the heart of innovation, is finally within reach after decades of being viewed as next to impossible in bioimaging. Building on recent community efforts, we propose actions to consolidate the development of a truly interdisciplinary bioimaging culture based on open data exchange and highlight the promising outlook of bioimaging as an example of multidisciplinary scientific endeavour

Community standards for open cell migration data

Cell migration research has become a high-content field. However, the quantitative information encapsulated in these complex and high-dimensional datasets is not fully exploited owing to the diversity of experimental protocols and non-standardized output formats. In addition, typically the datasets are not open for reuse. Making the data open and Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) will enable meta-analysis, data integration, and data mining. Standardized data formats and controlled vocabularies are essential for building a suitable infrastructure for that purpose but are not available in the cell migration domain. We here present standardization efforts by the Cell Migration Standardisation Organisation (CMSO), an open community-driven organization to facilitate the development of standards for cell migration data. This work will foster the development of improved algorithms and tools and enable secondary analysis of public datasets, ultimately unlocking new knowledge of the complex biological process of cell migration.</p

Learning to Learn Faster from Human Feedback with Language Model Predictive Control

Large language models (LLMs) have been shown to exhibit a wide range of capabilities, such as writing robot code from language commands -- enabling non-experts to direct robot behaviors, modify them based on feedback, or compose them to perform new tasks. However, these capabilities (driven by in-context learning) are limited to short-term interactions, where users' feedback remains relevant for only as long as it fits within the context size of the LLM, and can be forgotten over longer interactions. In this work, we investigate fine-tuning the robot code-writing LLMs, to remember their in-context interactions and improve their teachability i.e., how efficiently they adapt to human inputs (measured by average number of corrections before the user considers the task successful). Our key observation is that when human-robot interactions are viewed as a partially observable Markov decision process (in which human language inputs are observations, and robot code outputs are actions), then training an LLM to complete previous interactions is training a transition dynamics model -- that can be combined with classic robotics techniques such as model predictive control (MPC) to discover shorter paths to success. This gives rise to Language Model Predictive Control (LMPC), a framework that fine-tunes PaLM 2 to improve its teachability on 78 tasks across 5 robot embodiments -- improving non-expert teaching success rates of unseen tasks by 26.9% while reducing the average number of human corrections from 2.4 to 1.9. Experiments show that LMPC also produces strong meta-learners, improving the success rate of in-context learning new tasks on unseen robot embodiments and APIs by 31.5%. See videos, code, and demos at: https://robot-teaching.github.io/

Cost-effectiveness of Pembrolizumab in Second-line Advanced Bladder Cancer

BACKGROUND: Immune-modulating drugs have recently been introduced to the second-line setting of advanced bladder cancer. Pembrolizumab increases overall survival and is associated with less toxicity compared with chemotherapy in this setting based on the Keynote 045 study. The high cost of immunotherapy necessitates an assessment of its value by considering both efficacy and cost.OBJECTIVE: To estimate the cost-effectiveness of pembrolizumab for the second-line treatment of advanced bladder cancer from the perspective of payers in multiple countries.DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: We developed a Markov model to compare the cost and effectiveness of pembrolizumab with those of chemotherapy in the second-line treatment of advanced bladder cancer based on the Keynote 045 study. Drug costs were acquired for the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), Canada, and Australia. All costs were converted from local currency to US dollars at the exchange rates in September 2017.OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Health outcomes were measured in quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs).RESULTS AND LIMITATIONS: Pembrolizumab generated a gain of 0.36-0.37 QALYs compared with chemotherapy. Our analysis established the following incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) for pembrolizumab versus chemotherapy in second-line advanced bladder cancer treatment: US $122 557/QALY; UK$91 995/QALY; Canada $90 099/QALY; and Australia$99 966/QALY. The willingness-to-pay (WTP) thresholds per QALY are considered to be around 100 000-150 000 US dollars for the US, 20 000-50 000 pounds for the UK (US$25 000-65 000), 20 000 -100 000 CAD for Canada (US$16 000-80 000), and 40 000-75 000 AUD for Australia (US$32 000-60 000).CONCLUSIONS: Cost-effectiveness and WTP thresholds vary between countries. Compared with the other countries examined, US drug prices were found to be the highest, leading to the highest ICER. With standard WTP thresholds, pembrolizumab may be considered cost-effective in the US but not in the other countries examined.PATIENT SUMMARY: This article assessed the cost-effectiveness of pembrolizumab for the treatment of patients with metastatic bladder cancer who had previously failed one treatment regimen. It would cost$122 557 in the United States, $91 995 in the United Kingdom,$90 099 in Canada, and $99 966 in Australia to gain one quality-adjusted life-year with pembrolizumab versus chemotherapy in these patients, which may be considered cost-effective only in the United States because of the differences in willingness-to-pay thresholds.</p

Асинхронный электропривод винтового компрессора

Объектом исследования является винтовой компрессор для подачи сжатого воздуха в пневмооборудовании. В данной работе произведён расчет по выбору электропривода и преобразователя частоты для управления винтовым компрессором. Обоснован выбор способа управления, рассчитаны механические и электромеханические характеристики. Методом имитационного моделирования на ЭВМ исследованы переходные процессы, сделаны выводы и обобщения по результатам моделирования и расчета.The object of the study is a screw compressor for supplying compressed air in pneumatic equipment. In this paper, the choice of the electric drive and the frequency converter for controlling the screw compressor was calculated. The choice of the control method is substantiated, mechanical and electromechanical characteristics are calculated. The method of simulation on a computer studied transient processes, conclusions and generalizations based on the results of modeling and calculation

Nanotechnology in peripheral nerve repair and reconstruction

The recent progress in biomaterials science and development of tubular conduits (TCs) still fails in solving the current challenges in the treatment of peripheral nerve injuries (PNIs), in particular when disease-related and long-gap defects need to be addressed. Nanotechnology-based therapies that seemed unreachable in the past are now being considered for the repair and reconstruction of PNIs, having the power to deliver bioactive molecules in a controlled manner, to tune cellular behavior, and ultimately guide tissue regeneration in an effective manner. It also offers opportunities in the imaging field, with a degree of precision never achieved before, which is useful for diagnosis, surgery and in the patientâ s follow-up. Nanotechnology approaches applied in PNI regeneration and theranostics, emphasizing the ones that are moving from the lab bench to the clinics, are herein overviewed.The authors acknowledge the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for the financial support provided to Joaquim M. Oliveira (IF/01285/2015) and Joana Silva-Correia (IF/00115/2015) under the program “Investigador FCT”.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Black holes, gravitational waves and fundamental physics:a roadmap

The grand challenges of contemporary fundamental physics---dark matter, dark energy, vacuum energy, inflation and early universe cosmology, singularities and the hierarchy problem---all involve gravity as a key component. And of all gravitational phenomena, black holes stand out in their elegant simplicity, while harbouring some of the most remarkable predictions of General Relativity: event horizons, singularities and ergoregions. The hitherto invisible landscape of the gravitational Universe is being unveiled before our eyes: the historical direct detection of gravitational waves by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration marks the dawn of a new era of scientific exploration. Gravitational-wave astronomy will allow us to test models of black hole formation, growth and evolution, as well as models of gravitational-wave generation and propagation. It will provide evidence for event horizons and ergoregions, test the theory of General Relativity itself, and may reveal the existence of new fundamental fields. The synthesis of these results has the potential to radically reshape our understanding of the cosmos and of the laws of Nature. The purpose of this work is to present a concise, yet comprehensive overview of the state of the art in the relevant fields of research, summarize important open problems, and lay out a roadmap for future progress

BioTIME 2.0 : expanding and improving a database of biodiversity time series

Funding: H2020 European Research Council (Grant Number(s): GA 101044975, GA 101098020).Motivation: Here, we make available a second version of the BioTIME database, which compiles records of abundance estimates for species in sample events of ecological assemblages through time. The updated version expands version 1.0 of the database by doubling the number of studies and includes substantial additional curation to the taxonomic accuracy of the records, as well as the metadata. Moreover, we now provide an R package (BioTIMEr) to facilitate use of the database. Main Types of Variables: Included The database is composed of one main data table containing the abundance records and 11 metadata tables. The data are organised in a hierarchy of scales where 11,989,233 records are nested in 1,603,067 sample events, from 553,253 sampling locations, which are nested in 708 studies. A study is defined as a sampling methodology applied to an assemblage for a minimum of 2 years. Spatial Location and Grain: Sampling locations in BioTIME are distributed across the planet, including marine, terrestrial and freshwater realms. Spatial grain size and extent vary across studies depending on sampling methodology. We recommend gridding of sampling locations into areas of consistent size. Time Period and Grain: The earliest time series in BioTIME start in 1874, and the most recent records are from 2023. Temporal grain and duration vary across studies. We recommend doing sample-level rarefaction to ensure consistent sampling effort through time before calculating any diversity metric. Major Taxa and Level of Measurement: The database includes any eukaryotic taxa, with a combined total of 56,400 taxa. Software Format: csv and. SQL.Peer reviewe

Global wealth disparities drive adherence to COVID-safe pathways in head and neck cancer surgery

Peer reviewe

SN 2009ip à la PESSTO: no evidence for core collapse yet★

We present ultraviolet, optical and near-infrared observations of the interacting transient SN 2009ip, covering the period from the start of the outburst in 2012 October until the end of the 2012 observing season. The transient reached a peak magnitude o