Mass flow, energy flow and costs of the German building stock

On behalf of a committee of the German parliament, a study of the mass, energy and monetary flows of the German building stock has been initated. The approach was macro-economic (top-down) for the calculation of the overall flows and process oriented (bottom-up)for the detailed flows created by new construction, refurbishment, demolition and utilisation of buildings. The building stock has been modelled with a stochastic replacement model for a reference population of 160 building materials. Specific data sets were used for the upstream and downstream parts. A scenario for the development of the building stock and the induced mass, energy and monetary flows was established

A common variant of the MACC1 gene is significantly associated with overall survival in colorectal cancer patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The newly discovered metastasis-associated in colon cancer-1 (MACC1) gene is a key regulator of the HGF/MET pathway. Deregulation of HGF/MET signaling is reported as a prognostic marker for tumorigenesis, early stage invasion, and metastasis. High expression levels of MACC1 have been associated with colon cancer metastasis and reduced survival. Potential links between the genetic diversity of the MACC1 locus and overall survival are unknown. We therefore investigated the association between MACC1 tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and overall survival in a large cohort of colorectal cancer patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study included 318 subjects with histopathologically proven colorectal cancer at the Academic Teaching Hospital Feldkirch, Austria. Survival data were provided by the federal agency for statistics in Austria. Genomic DNA was isolated from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded specimens; six tagging SNPs (rs1990172, rs3114446, rs10275612, rs3095007, rs3095009, and rs7780032), capturing most of the common variants of the MACC1 locus, were genotyped by SNaPshot assays.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Over a mean follow up period of 5.3 (± 1.0) years, 94 deaths were recorded. Carriers of the G-allele of SNP rs1990172 showed a significantly decreased overall survival (additive HR = 1.38 [1.05-1.82]; <it>p </it>= 0.023). Multivariate analysis adjusted for age and UICC tumor stage confirmed this result (HR = 1.49 [1.12-1.98]; <it>p </it>= 0.007). Other investigated genetic variants of the MACC1 gene were not significantly associated with overall survival (<it>p</it>-values > 0.05).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>For the first time, our study investigated the influence of MACC1 tagging polymorphisms on overall survival suggesting SNP rs1990172 as a predictor for reduced overall survival in colorectal cancer patients. Further studies will be required to validate our findings.</p

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Search for chargino-neutralino production with mass splittings near the electroweak scale in three-lepton final states in √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for supersymmetry through the pair production of electroweakinos with mass splittings near the electroweak scale and decaying via on-shell W and Z bosons is presented for a three-lepton final state. The analyzed proton-proton collision data taken at a center-of-mass energy of √s=13  TeV were collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139  fb−1. A search, emulating the recursive jigsaw reconstruction technique with easily reproducible laboratory-frame variables, is performed. The two excesses observed in the 2015–2016 data recursive jigsaw analysis in the low-mass three-lepton phase space are reproduced. Results with the full data set are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations. They are interpreted to set exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level on simplified models of chargino-neutralino pair production for masses up to 345 GeV

Targeting STAT3 signaling using stabilised sulforaphane (SFX-01) inhibits endocrine resistant stem-like cells in ER-positive breast cancer

From Springer Nature via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: received 2020-02-21, rev-recd 2020-05-13, accepted 2020-05-15, registration 2020-05-16, pub-electronic 2020-05-30, online 2020-05-30, pub-print 2020-06-18Publication status: PublishedFunder: DH | National Institute for Health Research (NIHR); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000272; Grant(s): IS-BRC-1215-20007, IS-BRC-1215-20007, IS-BRC-1215-20007Funder: Breast Cancer Now; doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100007913; Grant(s): MAN-Q2Funder: National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000849; Grant(s): NC/T001267/1Funder: RCUK | Medical Research Council (MRC); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000265; Grant(s): MR/K501311/1Abstract: Estrogen receptor (ER) positive breast cancer is frequently sensitive to endocrine therapy. Multiple mechanisms of endocrine therapy resistance have been identified, including cancer stem-like cell (CSC) activity. Here we investigate SFX-01, a stabilised formulation of sulforaphane (SFN), for its effects on breast CSC activity in ER+ preclinical models. SFX‐01 reduced mammosphere formation efficiency (MFE) of ER+ primary and metastatic patient samples. Both tamoxifen and fulvestrant increased MFE and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) activity of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) tumors, which was reversed by combination with SFX‐01. SFX-01 significantly reduced tumor-initiating cell frequency in secondary transplants and reduced the formation of spontaneous lung micrometastases by PDX tumors in mice. Mechanistically, we establish that both tamoxifen and fulvestrant induce STAT3 phosphorylation. SFX-01 suppressed phospho‐STAT3 and SFN directly bound STAT3 in patient and PDX samples. Analysis of ALDH+ cells from endocrine-resistant patient samples revealed activation of STAT3 target genes MUC1 and OSMR, which were inhibited by SFX-01 in patient samples. Increased expression of these genes after 3 months’ endocrine treatment of ER+ patients (n = 68) predicted poor prognosis. Our data establish the importance of STAT3 signaling in CSC-mediated resistance to endocrine therapy and the potential of SFX-01 for improving clinical outcomes in ER+ breast cancer

YesWorkflow:A User-Oriented, Language-Independent Tool for Recovering Workflow Information from Scripts

Scientific workflow management systems offer features for composing complex computational pipelines from modular building blocks, for executing the resulting automated workflows, and for recording the provenance of data products resulting from workflow runs. Despite the advantages such features provide, many automated workflows continue to be implemented and executed outside of scientific workflow systems due to the convenience and familiarity of scripting languages (such as Perl, Python, R, and MATLAB), and to the high productivity many scientists experience when using these languages. YesWorkflow is a set of software tools that aim to provide such users of scripting languages with many of the benefits of scientific workflow systems. YesWorkflow requires neither the use of a workflow engine nor the overhead of adapting code to run effectively in such a system. Instead, YesWorkflow enables scientists to annotate existing scripts with special comments that reveal the computational modules and dataflows otherwise implicit in these scripts. YesWorkflow tools extract and analyze these comments, represent the scripts in terms of entities based on the typical scientific workflow model, and provide graphical renderings of this workflow-like view of the scripts. Future versions of YesWorkflow also will allow the prospective provenance of the data products of these scripts to be queried in ways similar to those available to users of scientific workflow systems

The Human Phenotype Ontology in 2024: phenotypes around the world

\ua9 The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research. The Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) is a widely used resource that comprehensively organizes and defines the phenotypic features of human disease, enabling computational inference and supporting genomic and phenotypic analyses through semantic similarity and machine learning algorithms. The HPO has widespread applications in clinical diagnostics and translational research, including genomic diagnostics, gene-disease discovery, and cohort analytics. In recent years, groups around the world have developed translations of the HPO from English to other languages, and the HPO browser has been internationalized, allowing users to view HPO term labels and in many cases synonyms and definitions in ten languages in addition to English. Since our last report, a total of 2239 new HPO terms and 49235 new HPO annotations were developed, many in collaboration with external groups in the fields of psychiatry, arthrogryposis, immunology and cardiology. The Medical Action Ontology (MAxO) is a new effort to model treatments and other measures taken for clinical management. Finally, the HPO consortium is contributing to efforts to integrate the HPO and the GA4GH Phenopacket Schema into electronic health records (EHRs) with the goal of more standardized and computable integration of rare disease data in EHRs

Genome-wide analysis identifies 12 loci influencing human reproductive behavior.

The genetic architecture of human reproductive behavior-age at first birth (AFB) and number of children ever born (NEB)-has a strong relationship with fitness, human development, infertility and risk of neuropsychiatric disorders. However, very few genetic loci have been identified, and the underlying mechanisms of AFB and NEB are poorly understood. We report a large genome-wide association study of both sexes including 251,151 individuals for AFB and 343,072 individuals for NEB. We identified 12 independent loci that are significantly associated with AFB and/or NEB in a SNP-based genome-wide association study and 4 additional loci associated in a gene-based effort. These loci harbor genes that are likely to have a role, either directly or by affecting non-local gene expression, in human reproduction and infertility, thereby increasing understanding of these complex traits