30 years of collaboration

We highlight some of the most important cornerstones of the long standing and very fruitful collaboration of the Austrian Diophantine Number Theory research group and the Number Theory and Cryptography School of Debrecen. However, we do not plan to be complete in any sense but give some interesting data and selected results that we find particularly nice. At the end we focus on two topics in more details, namely a problem that origins from a conjecture of Rényi and Erdős (on the number of terms of the square of a polynomial) and another one that origins from a question of Zelinsky (on the unit sum number problem). This paper evolved from a plenary invited talk that the authors gaveat the Joint Austrian-Hungarian Mathematical Conference 2015, August 25-27, 2015 in Győr (Hungary)

Man and the Last Great Wilderness: Human Impact on the Deep Sea

The deep sea, the largest ecosystem on Earth and one of the least studied, harbours high biodiversity and provides a wealth of resources. Although humans have used the oceans for millennia, technological developments now allow exploitation of fisheries resources, hydrocarbons and minerals below 2000 m depth. The remoteness of the deep seafloor has promoted the disposal of residues and litter. Ocean acidification and climate change now bring a new dimension of global effects. Thus the challenges facing the deep sea are large and accelerating, providing a new imperative for the science community, industry and national and international organizations to work together to develop successful exploitation management and conservation of the deep-sea ecosystem. This paper provides scientific expert judgement and a semi-quantitative analysis of past, present and future impacts of human-related activities on global deep-sea habitats within three categories: disposal, exploitation and climate change. The analysis is the result of a Census of Marine Life – SYNDEEP workshop (September 2008). A detailed review of known impacts and their effects is provided. The analysis shows how, in recent decades, the most significant anthropogenic activities that affect the deep sea have evolved from mainly disposal (past) to exploitation (present). We predict that from now and into the future, increases in atmospheric CO2 and facets and consequences of climate change will have the most impact on deep-sea habitats and their fauna. Synergies between different anthropogenic pressures and associated effects are discussed, indicating that most synergies are related to increased atmospheric CO2 and climate change effects. We identify deep-sea ecosystems we believe are at higher risk from human impacts in the near future: benthic communities on sedimentary upper slopes, cold-water corals, canyon benthic communities and seamount pelagic and benthic communities. We finalise this review with a short discussion on protection and management methods

Validation of proposed prostate cancer biomarkers with gene expression data: a long road to travel

# The Author(s) 2014. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Biomarkers are important for early detection of can-cer, prognosis, response prediction, and detection of residual or relapsing disease. Special attention has been given to diagnostic markers for prostate cancer since it is thought that early detection and surgery might reduce prostate cancer-specific mortality. The use of prostate-specific antigen, PSA (KLK3), has been debated on the base of cohort studies that show that its use in preventive screenings only marginally influences mortality from prostate cancer. Many groups have identified alternative or additional markers, among which PCA3, in order to detect early prostate cancer through screening, to distinguish potentially lethal from indolent prostate cancers, and to guide the treatment decision. The large number of markers proposed has led us to the present study in which we analyze these indicators for their diagnosti

Qualitative evaluation of an interdisciplinary chronic pain intervention: outcomes and barriers and facilitators to ongoing pain management

Lauren S Penney,1,2 Elizabeth Haro1,2 1South Texas Veterans Health Care System, San Antonio, TX 78229, USA; 2Department of Medicine, The University of Texas Health at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78229, USA Background: Many leaders in the field of chronic pain treatment consider interdisciplinary pain management programs to be the most effective treatments available for chronic pain. As programs are instituted and expanded to address demands for nonpharmacological chronic pain interventions, we need to better understand how patients experience program impacts, as well as the challenges and supports patients encounter in trying to maintain and build on intervention gains. Methods: We conducted a qualitative evaluation of an interdisciplinary chronic pain coaching program at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs. A purposive sample of Veterans were engaged in interviews (n=41) and focus groups (n=20) to elicit patient outcomes and barriers and facilitators to sustainment of improvements. Transcripts were analyzed using matrix and thematic analyses. Results: Veterans reported various outcomes. Most frequently they described adopting new self-care or lifestyle practices for pain management and health. They also often described accepting pain, being better able to adjust and set boundaries, feeling more in control, participating in life, and changing their medication use. A small portion of the sample reported no improvement in their conditions. When outcomes were examined as a whole, individuals described impacts that could be placed along a spectrum from whole life change to no change. Facilitators to maintenance of improvements included having building blocks (eg, carrying forward practices learned), support (eg, access to resources), and energy (eg, motivation), and improving incrementally. Challenges were not having building blocks (eg, life disruptions), support (eg, unknown follow-up options), and energy (eg, competing demands) and having an unbalanced rate of improvement. Conclusion: Most Veterans identified experiencing multiple areas of improvement, especially learning about and taking up new pain and general health management skills. Ensuring participants can build on and find support for these outcomes when applying what they have learned in their dynamic social and physical worlds remains a challenge for this program and other relatively short-term interdisciplinary chronic pain interventions. Keywords: chronic pain, multimodal treatment, interviews, quality improvemen