Aneusomy of chromosomes 7 and 17 predicts the recurrence of transitional cell carcinoma of the urinary bladder

Objective To determine if changes in chromosome 7 and 17 copy number can be used to predict recurrence in patients with primary noninvasive (pTa) or superficially invasive (pT1) transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) of the urinary bladder. Patients and methods Tissue specimens for 129 tumours from 52 patients (38 men and 14 women) with pTa/pT1 TCC at first diagnosis were retrieved from pathology archives. All patient notes were accessed and disease outcome documented for superficial (pTa/ pT1) recurrence or progression to detrusor muscle invasion (greater than or equal to pT2). The rumours were examined for chromosomal copy number of chromosomes 7 and 17 using fluorescence in situ hybridization (PISH) with chromosome-specific probes. The copy number of chromosomes 7 and 17 was determined in interphase nuclei on intact 6 mu m tissue sections. Results Aneusomy of chromosomes 7 and 17 was detected in the index primary tumours of 10 of 32 (31%) patients with subsequent recurrent disease. No aneusomy for these chromosomes was detected in primary tumours from 20 patients with no detectable recurrence (P = 0.0082). The relative risk of recurrence was 3.62 times greater (95% confidence interval 1.6-8.1, Cox's multiple regression P = 0.0019) for patients with chromosomal aneusomy in primary TCC. Neither stage nor grade of the primary tumours was associated with recurrence in these patients, nor was there a significant association with increased grade (G2/3) or stage (greater than or equal to pT2) at recurrence. Conclusion These results suggest that the measurement of aneusomy by FISH, using markers for chromosomes 7 and 17, predict recurrence in a subgroup of patients with pTa/pT1 tumours at presentation. This finding may offer a new objective and quantitative test for patients destined to recur

Biotechnologien für die ’Dritte Welt’ - Eine entwicklungspolitische Perspektive?

Die rasanten Fortschritte in der modernen Biotechnologie eröffnen ein weites Spektrum von Anwendungsmöglichkeiten in der Landwirtschaft, der Industrie, der Medizin, im Umweltschutz und bei der schonenden Nutzung von Ressourcen. Entsprechend verheißungsvoll erscheinen Überlegungen, mit diesen Technologien zur Lösung oder zumindest Linderung zentraler Probleme von Entwicklungsländern wie Armut, unzureichende Ernährung und schlechte gesundheitliche Versorgung beizutragen. Andererseits verbindet sich mit ihrem Einsatz aber auch die Sorge, daß sich die technologische und wirtschaftliche Kluft zwischen armen und reichen Ländern noch weiter vertiefen könnte. Um das Potential moderner Biotechnologien für Entwicklungsländer, d.h. ihre sozioökonomischen Chancen und Risiken, beurteilen zu können, analysiert diese Studie, ausgehend vom Stand der biotechnologischen Forschung und ihren derzeitigen Einsatzmöglichkeiten, erwartbare Folgen für die ökonomische, ökologische und soziale Situation der Staaten der "Dritten Welt". Eine darauf folgende Bewertung der Biotechnologie im Lichte entwicklungspolitischer Zielsetzungen dient als Ausgangspunkt, um Schlußfolgerungen für die zukünftige deutsche Entwicklungszusammenarbeit zu ziehen und Anregungen hierfür zu formulieren

Planet-compatible pathways for transitioning the chemical industry

Chemical products, such as plastics, solvents, and fertilizers, are essential for supporting modern lifestyles. Yet, producing, using, and disposing of chemicals creates adverse environmental impacts which threaten the industry’s license to operate. This study presents seven planet-compatible pathways toward 2050 employing demand-side and supply-side interventions with cumulative total investment costs of US$1.2–3.7 trillion. Resource efficiency and circularity interventions reduce global chemicals demand by 23 to 33% and are critical for mitigating risks associated with using fossil feedstocks and carbon capture and sequestration, and constraints on available biogenic and recyclate feedstocks. Replacing fossil feedstocks with biogenic/air-capture sources, shifting carbon destinations from the atmosphere to ground, and electrifying/decarbonizing energy supply for production technologies could enable net negative emissions of 0.5 GtCO2eq y−1 across non-ammonia chemicals, while still delivering essential chemical-based services to society

An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics

For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of clinicopathologic annotations for over 11,000 cancer patients in the TCGA program leads to the generation of TCGA Clinical Data Resource, which provides recommendations of clinical outcome endpoint usage for 33 cancer types

Velocity-space sensitivity of the time-of-flight neutron spectrometer at JET

The velocity-space sensitivities of fast-ion diagnostics are often described by so-called weight functions. Recently, we formulated weight functions showing the velocity-space sensitivity of the often dominant beam-target part of neutron energy spectra. These weight functions for neutron emission spectrometry (NES) are independent of the particular NES diagnostic. Here we apply these NES weight functions to the time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR at JET. By taking the instrumental response function of TOFOR into account, we calculate time-of-flight NES weight functions that enable us to directly determine the velocity-space sensitivity of a given part of a measured time-of-flight spectrum from TOFOR

On the mechanisms governing gas penetration into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection

A new 1D radial fluid code, IMAGINE, is used to simulate the penetration of gas into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection (MGI). The main result is that the gas is in general strongly braked as it reaches the plasma, due to mechanisms related to charge exchange and (to a smaller extent) recombination. As a result, only a fraction of the gas penetrates into the plasma. Also, a shock wave is created in the gas which propagates away from the plasma, braking and compressing the incoming gas. Simulation results are quantitatively consistent, at least in terms of orders of magnitude, with experimental data for a D 2 MGI into a JET Ohmic plasma. Simulations of MGI into the background plasma surrounding a runaway electron beam show that if the background electron density is too high, the gas may not penetrate, suggesting a possible explanation for the recent results of Reux et al in JET (2015 Nucl. Fusion 55 093013)

Search for gravitational waves from Scorpius X-1 in the second Advanced LIGO observing run with an improved hidden Markov model

We present results from a semicoherent search for continuous gravitational waves from the low-mass x-ray binary Scorpius X-1, using a hidden Markov model (HMM) to track spin wandering. This search improves on previous HMM-based searches of LIGO data by using an improved frequency domain matched filter, the J-statistic, and by analyzing data from Advanced LIGO's second observing run. In the frequency range searched, from 60 to 650 Hz, we find no evidence of gravitational radiation. At 194.6 Hz, the most sensitive search frequency, we report an upper limit on gravitational wave strain (at 95% confidence) of h095%=3.47×10-25 when marginalizing over source inclination angle. This is the most sensitive search for Scorpius X-1, to date, that is specifically designed to be robust in the presence of spin wandering. © 2019 American Physical Society

All-sky search for long-duration gravitational wave transients with initial LIGO

We present the results of a search for long-duration gravitational wave transients in two sets of data collected by the LIGO Hanford and LIGO Livingston detectors between November 5, 2005 and September 30, 2007, and July 7, 2009 and October 20, 2010, with a total observational time of 283.0 days and 132.9 days, respectively. The search targets gravitational wave transients of duration 10-500 s in a frequency band of 40-1000 Hz, with minimal assumptions about the signal waveform, polarization, source direction, or time of occurrence. All candidate triggers were consistent with the expected background; as a result we set 90% confidence upper limits on the rate of long-duration gravitational wave transients for different types of gravitational wave signals. For signals from black hole accretion disk instabilities, we set upper limits on the source rate density between 3.4×10-5 and 9.4×10-4 Mpc-3 yr-1 at 90% confidence. These are the first results from an all-sky search for unmodeled long-duration transient gravitational waves. © 2016 American Physical Society