Diverse, noisy and parallel: a New Spiking Neural Network approach for humanoid robot control

keywords: Biological neural networks;Computational modeling;Liquids;Neurons;Noise measurement;Robots;Shape;BAXTER;V-REP;humanoid robots;liquid state machines;parallel;processing;reservoir computing;spiking neural network

Cultivation-Independent Methods Reveal Differences among Bacterial Gut Microbiota in Triatomine Vectors of Chagas Disease

Chagas disease is one of the most important endemic diseases of South and Central America. Its causative agent is the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, which is transmitted to humans by blood-feeding insects known as triatomine bugs. These vectors mainly belong to Rhodnius, Triatoma and Panstrongylus genera of Reduviidae. The bacterial communities in the guts of these vectors may have important effects on the biology of T. cruzi. For this reason, we analyzed the bacterial diversity hosted in the gut of different species of triatomines using cultivation-independent methods. Among Rhodnius sp., we observed similar bacterial communities from specimens obtained from insectaries or sylvatic conditions. Endosymbionts of the Arsenophonus genus were preferentially associated with insects of the Panstrongylus and Triatoma genera, whereas the bacterial genus Serratia and Candidatus Rohrkolberia were typical of Rhodnius and Dipetalogaster, respectively. The diversity of the microbiota tended to be the largest in the Triatoma genus, with species of both Arsenophonus and Serratia being detected in T. infestans

11 years' follow-up of trastuzumab after adjuvant chemotherapy in HER2-positive early breast cancer: final analysis of the HERceptin Adjuvant (HERA) trial.

Background Clinical trials have shown that trastuzumab, a recombinant monoclonal antibody against HER2 receptor, significantly improves overall survival and disease-free survival in women with HER2-positive early breast cancer, but long-term follow-up data are needed. We report the results of comparing observation with two durations of trastuzumab treatment at a median follow-up of 11 years, for patients enrolled in the HERA (HERceptin Adjuvant) trial.Methods HERA (BIG 1-01) is an international, multicentre, open-label, phase 3 randomised trial of 5102 women with HER2-positive early breast cancer, who were enrolled from hospitals in 39 countries between Dec 7, 2001, and June 20, 2005. After completion of all primary therapy (including, surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy as indicated), patients were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to receive trastuzumab for 1 year (once at 8 mg/kg of bodyweight intravenously, then 6 mg/kg once every 3 weeks) or for 2 years (with the same dose schedule), or to the observation group. Primary endpoint is disease-free survival, and analyses are in the intention-to-treat population. Hazard ratios (HRs) were estimated from Cox models, and survival curves were estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method. Comparison of 2 years versus 1 year of trastuzumab is based on 366-day landmark analyses. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT00045032).Findings Of the 5102 women randomly assigned in the HERA trial, three patients had no evidence of having provided written informed consent to participate. We followed up the intention-to-treat population of 5099 patients (1697 in observation, 1702 in 1-year trastuzumab, and 1700 in 2-years trastuzumab groups). After a median follow-up of 11 years (IQR 10·09-11·53), random assignment to 1 year of trastuzumab significantly reduced the risk of a disease-free survival event (HR 0·76, 95% CI 0·68-0·86) and death (0·74, 0·64-0·86) compared with observation. 2 years of adjuvant trastuzumab did not improve disease free-survival outcomes compared with 1 year of this drug (HR 1·02, 95% CI 0·89-1·17). Estimates of 10-year disease-free survival were 63% for observation, 69% for 1 year of trastuzumab, and 69% for 2 years of trastuzumab. 884 (52%) patients assigned to the observation group selectively crossed over to receive trastuzumab. Cardiac toxicity remained low in all groups and occurred mostly during the treatment phase. The incidence of secondary cardiac endpoints was 122 (7·3%) in the 2-years trastuzumab group, 74 (4·4%) in the 1-year trastuzumab group, and 15 (0·9%) in the observation group.Interpretation 1 year of adjuvant trastuzumab after chemotherapy for patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer significantly improves long-term disease-free survival, compared with observation. 2 years of trastuzumab had no additional benefit.Funding F Hoffmann-La Roche (Roche)

Identification and manipulation of tumor associated macrophages in human cancers

Evading immune destruction and tumor promoting inflammation are important hallmarks in the development of cancer. Macrophages are present in most human tumors and are often associated with bad prognosis. Tumor associated macrophages come in many functional flavors ranging from what is known as classically activated macrophages (M1) associated with acute inflammation and T-cell immunity to immune suppressive macrophages (M2) associated with the promotion of tumor growth. The role of these functionally different myeloid cells is extensively studied in mice tumor models but dissimilarities in markers and receptors make the direct translation to human cancer difficult. This review focuses on recent reports discriminating the type of infiltrating macrophages in human tumors and the environmental cues present that steer their differentiation. Finally, immunotherapeutic approaches to interfere in this process are discussed