NK Cells in Cancer Immunotherapy

Natural killer (NK) cells are crucial components of the innate immune system and play critical roles in host immunity against viral infections and cancer. NK cells’ activity is controlled by the interaction of a wide range of receptors expressed on their surfaces with cell surface ligands. Opposite signals delivered by inhibitory and activating receptors tightly regulate NK cells’ cytotoxicity. Natural killer cells can discriminate between normal and cancer cells. NK cells are known to directly recognize and kill malignant cells or induce apoptosis. However, tumor cells have the ability to evade those attacks. The main mechanisms involve the lack of expression or downregulation of the expression of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I molecules and secretion of soluble NKG2D ligands by tumor cells. Furthermore, tumors harbor a population of cancer stem cells (CSCs), which can drive tumor progression and therapeutical resistance. This chapter highlights the roles of NK cells in tumor immunosurveillance and their applications for cancer immunotherapy. NK cell biology and function as well as the role of their receptor interactions will be described. We will discuss the therapeutic applications of NK cells in cancer and NK cells targeting CSCs as a promising strategy for cancer therapy

From Hyperlinks to Hypercues : Entity-Based Affordances for Fluid Information Exploration

Peer reviewe

Etude expérimentale de l’effet du processus électro-osmotique dans un sol fin salin de la région de Mostaganem

In civil engineering, electro-osmosis is a technique used as a means of dehydration, treatment of fine soils for the improvement and remediation. It is also used in agriculture for the desalinization of soils. In this study, the effect of electro-osmosis on the properties of a fine soil of the Ain Nouissy-Mostaganem region under a difference of electric potential was analyzed. The objective is to study the behavior of the water flow and the modification of some parameters, such as the electrical conductivity, the pH and the Atterberg limits during and after the electrokinetic process. These parameters make it possible to understand and control the performance of this technique with respect to the treatment under consideration. Soil heating during this process was approached through the surface temperature, indicating a loss of relative energy when the voltage gradient exceeds an optimal value.En génie civil, l'électro-osmose est une technique utilisée comme moyen de déshydratation et de traitement des sols fins pour l’amélioration et la dépollution. Elle est aussi utilisée en agriculture pour la désalinisation des sols. Dans cette étude, l'effet de l’électro-osmose sur les propriétés d'un sol fin de la région d’Ain Nouissy-Mostaganem sous une différence de potentiel électrique a été analysée. L’objectif est d’étudier le comportement de l’écoulement hydrique et la modification de certains paramètres, tels que la conductivité électrique, le pH et les limites d’Atterberg durant et après le processus électrocinétique. Ces paramètres permettent de comprendre et de contrôler la performance de cette technique vis-à-vis du traitement considéré. Le chauffage du sol durant ce processus a été abordé à travers la température de surface, indiquant une perte d’énergie relative lorsque le gradient de tension dépasse une valeur optimale.En génie civil, l'électro-osmose est une technique utilisée comme moyen de déshydratation et de traitement des sols fins pour l’amélioration et la dépollution. Elle est aussi utilisée en agriculture pour la désalinisation des sols. Dans cette étude, l'effet de l’électro-osmose sur les propriétés d'un sol fin de la région d’Ain Nouissy-Mostaganem sous une différence de potentiel électrique a été analysée. L’objectif est d’étudier le comportement de l’écoulement hydrique et la modification de certains paramètres, tels que la conductivité électrique, le pH et les limites d’Atterberg durant et après le processus électrocinétique. Ces paramètres permettent de comprendre et de contrôler la performance de cette technique vis-à-vis du traitement considéré. Le chauffage du sol durant ce processus a été abordé à travers la température de surface, indiquant une perte d’énergie relative lorsque le gradient de tension dépasse une valeur optimale

QueryTogether: Enabling entity-centric exploration in multi-device collaborative search

Collaborative and co-located information access is becoming increasingly common. However, fairly little attention has been devoted to the design of ubiquitous computing approaches for spontaneous exploration of large information spaces enabling co-located collaboration. We investigate whether an entity-based user interface provides a solution to support co-located search on heterogeneous devices. We present the design and implementation of QueryTogether, a multi-device collaborative search tool through which entities such as people, documents, and keywords can be used to compose queries that can be shared to a public screen or specific users with easy touch enabled interaction. We conducted mixed-methods user experiments with twenty seven participants (nine groups of three people), to compare the collaborative search with QueryTogether to a baseline adopting established search and collaboration interfaces. Results show that QueryTogether led to more balanced contribution and search engagement. While the overall s-recall in search was similar, in the QueryTogether condition participants found most of the relevant results earlier in the tasks, and for more than half of the queries avoided text entry by manipulating recommended entities. The video analysis demonstrated a more consistent common ground through increased attention to the common screen, and more transitions between collaboration styles. Therefore, this provided a better fit for the spontaneity of ubiquitous scenarios. QueryTogether and the corresponding study demonstrate the importance of entity based interfaces to improve collaboration by facilitating balanced participation, flexibility of collaboration styles and social processing of search entities across conversation and devices. The findings promote a vision of collaborative search support in spontaneous and ubiquitous multi-device settings, and better linking of conversation objects to searchable entities

Flexible entity search on surfaces

Surface computing allows flexible search interaction where users can manipulate the representation of entities recommended for them to create new queries or augment existing queries by taking advantage of increased screen estate and almost physical tactile interaction. We demonstrate a search system based on 1) Direct Manipulation of Entity Representation on Surfaces and 2) Entity Recommendation and Document Retrieval. Entities are modeled as a knowledge-graph and the relevances of entities are computed using the graph structure. Users can manipulate the representation of entities via spatial grouping and assigning preferences on entities. Our contribution can help to design effective information exploration systems that take advantage of large surfaces

Sodium bicarbonate for severe metabolic acidaemia – Authors' reply

International audienc

Crowdboard: Augmenting in-person idea generation with real-time crowds

Online crowds can help infuse creativity into the design process, but traditional strategies for leveraging them, such as large-scale ideation platforms, require time and organizational effort in order to obtain results. We propose a new method for crowd-based ideation that simplifies the process by having smaller crowds join in-person ideators during synchronous creative sessions. Our system Crowdboard allows online crowds to provide real-time creative input during early-stage design activities, such as brainstorming or concept mapping. The system enables in-person ideators to develop ideas on a physical or digital whiteboard which is augmented with real-time creative input from online participants who see and hear a live broadcast of the meeting. We validate Crowdboard via two user studies in which dyads of in-person ideators brainstormed with the help of crowd ideators. Our studies suggest that Crowdboard can effectively enhance ongoing brainstorming sessions, but also revealed key challenges for how to better facilitate interactions among in-person and crowd ideator

Alpha-methylnorepinephrine, a selective alpha2-adrenergic agonist for cardiac resuscitation

AbstractOBJECTIVESThe purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a selective alpha2-adrenergic agonist, alpha-methylnorepinephrine (alphaMNE) as an alternative vasopressor agent during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).BACKGROUNDFor more than 40 years, epinephrine has been the vasopressor agent of choice for CPR. Its beta- and alpha1-adrenergic effects increase myocardial oxygen consumption, magnify global myocardial ischemia and increase the severity of postresuscitation myocardial dysfunction.METHODSVentricular fibrillation (VF) was induced in 20 Sprague-Dawley rats. After 8 min of untreated VF, mechanical ventilation and precordial compression began. AlphaMNE, epinephrine or saline placebo was injected into the right atrium 2 min after the start of precordial compression. As an additional control, one group of animals was pretreated with alpha2-receptor blocker, yohimbine, before injection of alphaMNE. Defibrillation was attempted 4 min later. Left ventricular pressure, dP/dt40, negative dP/dt and cardiac index were measured for an interval of 240 min after resuscitation.RESULTSExcept for saline placebo and yohimbine-treated animals, comparable increases in coronary perfusion pressure were observed after each drug intervention. All animals were successfully resuscitated. Left ventricular diastolic pressure, cardiac index, dP/dt40and negative dP/dt were more optimal after alphaMNE; this was associated with significantly better postresuscitation survival. Pretreatment with yohimbine abolished the beneficial effects of alphaMNE.CONCLUSIONSThe selective alpha2-adrenergic agonist, alphaMNE, was as effective as epinephrine for initial cardiac resuscitation but provided strikingly better postresuscitation myocardial function and survival

Designing for Exploratory Search on Touch Devices

Exploratory search confront users with challenges in expressing search intents as the current search interfaces require investigating result listings to identify search directions, iterative typing, and reformulating queries. We present the design of Exploration Wall, a touch-based search user interface that allows incremental exploration and sense-making of large information spaces by combining entity search, flexible use of result entities as query parameters, and spatial configuration of search streams that are visualized for interaction. Entities can be flexibly reused to modify and create new search streams, and manipulated to inspect their relationships with other entities. Data comprising of task-based experiments comparing Exploration Wall with conventional search user interface indicate that Exploration Wall achieves significantly improved recall for exploratory search tasks while preserving precision. Subjective feedback supports our design choices and indicates improved user satisfaction and engagement. Our findings can help to design user interfaces that can effectively support exploratory search on touch devices

A System to Search and Recommend Learning Courses Sequences

Traditional recommender systems provide the user with a list of items supposed to be of interest to the user. Each item is a single independent object and the entire result represents alternatives that match user’s preferences. Another category of recommender systems provides recommendations as collections of items. For this type of systems the recommended items are not alternatives but items to be taken in a “certain order”. In this work, we propose a system that recommends learning courses sequences. Another objective of our system is to enable efficient courses search by proposing an approach based on a multi-criteria weighting method. Our general purpose is to recommend sequences of learning courses using the user’s profile and also to search specific courses by keywords and to suggest related courses. Our goal is to facilitate the learning process and satisfy the user’s need