Directional Reflectance Studies in Support of the Radiometric Calibration Test Site (RadCaTS) at Railroad Valley

The Radiometric Calibration Test Site (RadCaTS) is a suite of commercial and custom instruments used to make measurements of the surface reflectance and atmosphere throughout the day at Railroad Valley, Nevada. It was developed in response to the need for daily radiometric calibration data for the vast array of Earth-observing sensors on orbit, which is continuously increasing as more nations and private companies launch individual environmental satellites as well as large constellations. The current suite of instruments at RadCaTS includes five ground-viewing radiometers (GVRs), four of which view the surface in a nadir-viewing configuration. Many sensors such as those on Landsat-7 and Landsat-8 view Railroad Valley within 3 of nadir, while others such as those on Sentinel-2A and -2B, RapidEye, Aqua, Suomi NPP, and Terra can view Railroad Valley at off-nadir angles. Past efforts have shown that the surface bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) has minimal impact on vicarious calibration uncertainties for views <10, but the desire to use larger view angles has prompted the effort to develop a BRDF correction for data from RadCaTS. The current work investigates the application of Railroad Valley BRDF data derived from a BRF camera developed at the University of Arizona in the 1990s (but is no longer in use) to the current RadCaTS surface reflectance measurements. Also investigated are early results from directional reflectance studies using a mobile spectro-goniometer system during a round-robin field campaign in 2018. This work describes the preliminary results, the effects on current measurements, and the approach for future measurements

Oral Toxicities Associated with Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors: Meta-Analyses of Clinical Trials

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have revolutionized cancer treatment; however, their oral toxicity profile is not well elucidated. This review aimed to investigate the prevalence of oral toxicities including xerostomia, mucositis/stomatitis, dysgeusia, dysphagia, oral/oropharyngeal pain, oral infections, angular cheilitis, osteonecrosis, osteomyelitis, and oral mucosal reactions with ICIs. A review protocol was registered with PROSPERO (ID: CRD42023391674). A systematic search of ClinicalTrials.gov was conducted as of April 10, 2022. Studies were selected, assessed, and data extracted using PRISMA guidelines. Oral toxicity data were extracted from study arms using a single immunotherapy drug. Meta-analyses were conducted to summarize prevalence of oral toxicities using random-effects models. Of 750 screened records, 95 trials were included in the meta-analysis with published results. Time between study completion and first publication on ClinicalTrials.gov was 1 to 146 months (mean = 20.3, SD = 18.4). Weighted pooled prevalence was 5% (95% CI: 4-6%) for xerostomia, 3% (95% CI: 3-4%) for mucositis/stomatitis, 3% (95% CI: 2-3%) for dysgeusia, 2% (95% CI: 1-2%) for dysphagia, 3% (95% CI: 2-4%) for oropharyngeal/oral pain, 2% (95% CI: 1-3%) for oral candidiasis, and 2% (95% CI: 0-4%) for angular cheilitis. Subgroup differences based on ICI drugs were minimal. No trials reported lichenoid or pemphigoid mucosal reactions. Meta-analysis results revealed low prevalence of oral toxicities with ICIs; however, data reporting was limited and inconsistent. Limitations of study dataset reveal a significant need for systematic collection of oral morbidity data as well as improved consistency and compliance of reporting results on ClinicalTrials.gov

Ultra-Portable Field Transfer Radiometer for Vicarious Calibration of Earth Imaging Sensors

A small portable transfer radiometer has been developed as part of an effort to ensure the quality of upwelling radiance from test sites used for vicarious calibration in the solar reflective. The test sites are used to predict top-of-atmosphere reflectance relying on ground-based measurements of the atmosphere and surface. The portable transfer radiometer is designed for one-person operation for on-site field calibration of instrumentation used to determine ground-leaving radiance. The current work describes the detector-and source-based radiometric calibration of the transfer radiometer highlighting the expected accuracy and SI-traceability. The results indicate differences between the detector-based and source-based results greater than the combined uncertainties of the approaches. Results from recent field deployments of the transfer radiometer using a solar radiation based calibration agree with the source-based laboratory calibration within the combined uncertainties of the methods. The detector-based results show a significant difference to the solar-based calibration. The source-based calibration is used as the basis for a radiance-based calibration of the Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager that agrees with the OLI calibration to within the uncertainties of the methods

Irregular behaviour of class numbers and Euler-Kronecker constants of cyclotomic fields: the log log log devil at play

Kummer (1851) and, many years later, Ihara (2005) both posed conjectures on invariants related to the cyclotomic field $\mathbb Q(\zeta_q)$ with $q$ a prime. Kummer's conjecture concerns the asymptotic behaviour of the first factor of the class number of $\mathbb Q(\zeta_q)$ and Ihara's the positivity of the Euler-Kronecker constant of $\mathbb Q(\zeta_q)$ (the ratio of the constant and the residue of the Laurent series of the Dedekind zeta function $\zeta_{\mathbb Q(\zeta_q)}(s)$ at $s=1$). If certain standard conjectures in analytic number theory hold true, then one can show that both conjectures are true for a set of primes of natural density 1, but false in general. Responsible for this are irregularities in the distribution of the primes. With this survey we hope to convince the reader that the apparently dissimilar mathematical objects studied by Kummer and Ihara actually display a very similar behaviour.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure, survey, to appear in `Irregularities in the Distribution of Prime Numbers - Research Inspired by Maier's Matrix Method', Eds. J. Pintz and M. Th. Rassia

Electrophoretic field gradient focusing with on-column detection by fluorescence quenching

Native, uncoloured, proteins can be focused in a column containing a fluorescent packing material, using hydrodynamic flow and a counteracting non-linear electric field, and imaged along the length of the channel by fluorescence quenching

Targeted molecular therapy of anaplastic thyroid carcinoma with AEE788

Anaplastic Thyroid Carcinoma (ATC) is one of the most aggressive human malignancies with a mean survival of only 6 months. The poor prognosis of patients with ATC reflects the current lack of curative therapeutic options and the need for development of novel therapeutic strategies. In this study, we report the results of a preclinical study of AEE788, a dual inhibitor of Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) and Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor (VEGFR) tyrosine kinases, against ATC. AEE788 was able to inhibit the proliferation and induce apoptosis of ATC cell lines in vitro. Administration of AEE788, alone and in combination with paclitaxel, to athymic nude mice bearing s.c. ATC xenografts inhibited the growth of ATC xenografts by 44% and 69%, respectively, compared with the control group. Furthermore, tumors from mice treated with AEE788, alone and in combination with paclitaxel, showed increase in apoptosis of tumor cells by &#8764;6- and 8-fold, respectively, compared with the control group. The microvessel density within the ATC xenografts was decreased by &#62;80% in the mice treated with AEE788 alone and in combination with paclitaxel compared with the control group. Lastly, immunofluorescence microscopy showed the inhibition of EGFR autophosphorylation on the tumor cells as well as the inhibition of VEGFR-2 autophosphorylation on tumor endothelium. Considering the fact that curative options seldom exist for patients with ATC, concurrent inhibition of EGFR and VEGFR tyrosine kinases seems to be a valid and promising anticancer strategy for these patients

A retrospective study of administration of vaccination for hepatitis B among newborn infants prior to hospital discharge at a midwestern tertiary care center

Infants are at high risk of developing chronic, life-threatening disease as a result of hepatitis B virus infection. Universal vaccination of infants against hepatitis B virus, before discharge from the hospital after delivery is recommended as a measure to eradicate infection and associated mortality and morbidity. The purpose of this study was to determine rates of perinatal hepatitis B vaccine (Hep B) administration at a tertiary care center in Iowa and to assess the impact of maternal factors on Hep B uptake

Genetic Associations in Four Decades of Multienvironment Trials Reveal Agronomic Trait Evolution in Common Bean

Multienvironment trials (METs) are widely used to assess the performance of promising crop germplasm. Though seldom designed to elucidate genetic mechanisms, MET data sets are often much larger than could be duplicated for genetic research and, given proper interpretation, may offer valuable insights into the genetics of adaptation across time and space. The Cooperative Dry Bean Nursery (CDBN) is a MET for common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) grown for . 70 years in the United States and Canada, consisting of 20–50 entries each year at 10–20 locations. The CDBN provides a rich source of phenotypic data across entries, years, and locations that is amenable to genetic analysis. To study stable genetic effects segregating in this MET, we conducted genome-wide association studies (GWAS) using best linear unbiased predictions derived across years and locations for 21 CDBN phenotypes and genotypic data (1.2 million SNPs) for 327 CDBN genotypes. The value of this approach was confirmed by the discovery of three candidate genes and genomic regions previously identified in balanced GWAS. Multivariate adaptive shrinkage (mash) analysis, which increased our power to detect significant correlated effects, found significant effects for all phenotypes. Mash found two large genomic regions with effects on multiple phenotypes, supporting a hypothesis of pleiotropic or linked effects that were likely selected on in pursuit of a crop ideotype. Overall, our results demonstrate that statistical genomics approaches can be used on MET phenotypic data to discover significant genetic effects and to define genomic regions associated with crop improvement

A Deep Learning Onion Peeling Approach to Measure Oral Epithelium Layer Number

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), specifically in the oral cavity (oral squamous cell carcinoma, OSCC), is a common, complex cancer that significantly affects patients\u27 quality of life. Early diagnosis typically improves prognoses yet relies on pathologist examination of histology images that exhibit high inter- and intra-observer variation. The advent of deep learning has automated this analysis, notably with object segmentation. However, techniques for automated oral dysplasia diagnosis have been limited to shape or cell stain information, without addressing the diagnostic potential in counting the number of cell layers in the oral epithelium. Our study attempts to address this gap by combining the existing U-Net and HD-Staining architectures for segmenting the oral epithelium and introducing a novel algorithm that we call Onion Peeling for counting the epithelium layer number. Experimental results show a close correlation between our algorithmic and expert manual layer counts, demonstrating the feasibility of automated layer counting. We also show the clinical relevance of oral epithelial layer number to grading oral dysplasia severity through survival analysis. Overall, our study shows that automated counting of oral epithelium layers can represent a potential addition to the digital pathology toolbox. Model generalizability and accuracy could be improved further with a larger training dataset

A Deep Learning Onion Peeling Approach to Measure Oral Epithelium Layer Number.

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), specifically in the oral cavity (oral squamous cell carcinoma, OSCC), is a common, complex cancer that significantly affects patients\u27 quality of life. Early diagnosis typically improves prognoses yet relies on pathologist examination of histology images that exhibit high inter- and intra-observer variation. The advent of deep learning has automated this analysis, notably with object segmentation. However, techniques for automated oral dysplasia diagnosis have been limited to shape or cell stain information, without addressing the diagnostic potential in counting the number of cell layers in the oral epithelium. Our study attempts to address this gap by combining the existing U-Net and HD-Staining architectures for segmenting the oral epithelium and introducing a novel algorithm that we call Onion Peeling for counting the epithelium layer number. Experimental results show a close correlation between our algorithmic and expert manual layer counts, demonstrating the feasibility of automated layer counting. We also show the clinical relevance of oral epithelial layer number to grading oral dysplasia severity through survival analysis. Overall, our study shows that automated counting of oral epithelium layers can represent a potential addition to the digital pathology toolbox. Model generalizability and accuracy could be improved further with a larger training dataset