Mesothelioma and thymic tumors: Treatment challenges in (outside) a network setting

The management of patients with mesothelioma and thymic malignancy requires continuous multidisciplinary expertise at any step of the disease. A dramatic improvement in our knowledge has occurred in the last few years, through the development of databases, translational research programs, and clinical trials. Access to innovative strategies represents a major challenge, as there is a lack of funding for clinical research in rare cancers and their rarity precludes the design of robust clinical trials that could lead to specific approval of drugs. In this context, patient-centered initiatives, such as the establishment of dedicated networks, are warranted. International societies, such as IMIG (International Mesothelioma Interest Group) and ITMIG (International Thymic Malignancy Interest Group) provide infrastructure for global collaboration, and there are many advantages to having strong regional groups working on the same issues. There may be regional differences in risk factors, susceptibility, management and outcomes. The ability to address questions both regionally as well as globally is ideal to develop a full understanding of mesothelioma and thymic malignancies. In Europe, through the integration of national networks with EURACAN, the collaboration with academic societies and international groups, the development of networks in thoracic oncology provides multiplex integration of clinical care and research, ultimately ensuring equal access to high quality care to all patients, with the opportunity of conducting high level clinical and translational research projects

Can distributed delays perfectly stabilize dynamical networks?

Signal transmission delays tend to destabilize dynamical networks leading to oscillation, but their dispersion contributes oppositely toward stabilization. We analyze an integro-differential equation that describes the collective dynamics of a neural network with distributed signal delays. With the gamma distributed delays less dispersed than exponential distribution, the system exhibits reentrant phenomena, in which the stability is once lost but then recovered as the mean delay is increased. With delays dispersed more highly than exponential, the system never destabilizes.Comment: 4pages 5figure

A New Linear Logic for Deadlock-Free Session-Typed Processes

The π -calculus, viewed as a core concurrent programming language, has been used as the target of much research on type systems for concurrency. In this paper we propose a new type system for deadlock-free session-typed π -calculus processes, by integrating two separate lines of work. The first is the propositions-as-types approach by Caires and Pfenning, which provides a linear logic foundation for session types and guarantees deadlock-freedom by forbidding cyclic process connections. The second is Kobayashi’s approach in which types are annotated with priorities so that the type system can check whether or not processes contain genuine cyclic dependencies between communication operations. We combine these two techniques for the first time, and define a new and more expressive variant of classical linear logic with a proof assignment that gives a session type system with Kobayashi-style priorities. This can be seen in three ways: (i) as a new linear logic in which cyclic structures can be derived and a CYCLE -elimination theorem generalises CUT -elimination; (ii) as a logically-based session type system, which is more expressive than Caires and Pfenning’s; (iii) as a logical foundation for Kobayashi’s system, bringing it into the sphere of the propositions-as-types paradigm

Accretion onto the Companion of Eta Carinae During the Spectroscopic Event. IV. the Disappearance of Highly Ionized Lines

We show that the rapid and large decrease in the intensity of high-ionization emission lines from the Eta Carinae massive binary system can be explained by the accretion model. These emission lines are emitted by material in the nebula around the binary system that is being ionized by radiation from the hot secondary star. The emission lines suffer three months long deep fading every 5.54 year, assumed to be the orbital period of the binary system. In the accretion model, for ~70 day the less massive secondary star is accreting mass from the primary wind instead of blowing its fast wind. The accretion event has two effects that substantially reduce the high-energy ionizing radiation flux from the secondary star. (1) The accreted mass absorbs a larger fraction of the ionizing flux. (2) The accreted mass forms a temporarily blanked around the secondary star that increases its effective radius, hence lowering its effective temperature and the flux of high energy photons. This explanation is compatible with the fading of the emission lines at the same time the X-ray is declining to its minimum, and with the fading being less pronounced in the polar directions.Comment: ApJ, in pres

Proposal of a new Hcal geometry avoiding cracks in the calorimeter

The classical geometry of a calorimeter consists most of the time in several modules, whose edges are pointing on the beam axis. Thus, detection discontinuities between two consecutive modules induce cracks in the calorimeter, and consequently a loss of precious information. This paper describes two new possible Hcal geometries avoiding such cracks in the detection. Then it deals with the internal layout and assembly procedure

Polarization state of the optical near-field

The polarization state of the optical electromagnetic field lying several nanometers above complex dielectric structures reveals the intricate light-matter interaction that occurs in this near-field zone. This information can only be extracted from an analysis of the polarization state of the detected light in the near-field. These polarization states can be calculated by different numerical methods well-suited to near--field optics. In this paper, we apply two different techniques (Localized Green Function Method and Differential Theory of Gratings) to separate each polarisation component associated with both electric and magnetic optical near-fields produced by nanometer sized objects. The analysis is carried out in two stages: in the first stage, we use a simple dipolar model to achieve insight into the physical origin of the near-field polarization state. In the second stage, we calculate accurate numerical field maps, simulating experimental near-field light detection, to supplement the data produced by analytical models. We conclude this study by demonstrating the role played by the near-field polarization in the formation of the local density of states.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Proof Relevant Corecursive Resolution

Resolution lies at the foundation of both logic programming and type class context reduction in functional languages. Terminating derivations by resolution have well-defined inductive meaning, whereas some non-terminating derivations can be understood coinductively. Cycle detection is a popular method to capture a small subset of such derivations. We show that in fact cycle detection is a restricted form of coinductive proof, in which the atomic formula forming the cycle plays the role of coinductive hypothesis. This paper introduces a heuristic method for obtaining richer coinductive hypotheses in the form of Horn formulas. Our approach subsumes cycle detection and gives coinductive meaning to a larger class of derivations. For this purpose we extend resolution with Horn formula resolvents and corecursive evidence generation. We illustrate our method on non-terminating type class resolution problems.Comment: 23 pages, with appendices in FLOPS 201