Ductal-lobar organisation of human breast tissue, its relevance in disease and a research objective: vector mapping of parenchyma in complete breasts (the Astley Cooper project)

A human breast has many lobes, which are highly variable in size and shape, each with one central duct, its peripheral branches and their associated glandular tissues. Realising the potential of new endoductal approaches to breast diagnosis and improving our understanding of breast cancer precursors will require greatly improved knowledge of this ductal-lobar anatomy and the distribution of cancer precursors within it. This architecture is very challenging to study in its entirety: whole-breast lobe mapping has only been achieved for two human breasts. Clearly, much more efficient techniques are required. Streamlined data capture and visualisation of breast parenchymal anatomy from thin and thick sections in a vector format would allow integrated mapping of whole-breast structure with conventional histology and molecular data. The 'Astley Cooper digital breast mapping project' is proposed as a name for this achievable research objective. Success would offer new insights into the development of breast cancer precursor lesions, allow testing of the important 'sick lobe' hypothesis, improve correlation with imaging studies and provide 'ground truth' for mathematical modelling of breast growth

Combination schemes for turning point prediction

We propose new forecast combination schemes for predicting turning points of business cycles. The combination schemes deal with the forecasting performance of a given set of models and possibly providing better turning point predictions. We consider turning point predictions generated by autoregressive (AR) and Markov-Switching AR models, which are commonly used for business cycle analysis. In order to account for parameter uncertainty we consider a Bayesian approach to both estimation and prediction and compare, in terms of statistical accuracy, the individual models and the combined turning point predictions for the United States and Euro area business cycles

Epithelial cells of Hydra are dye-coupled

In the past decade, a strong correlation has been established between gap junctions, seen in cell ultrastructure studies, and cell coupling (ionic, metabolic or dye coupling) assayed physiologically1. In Hydra, ultrastructural analyses have indicated that the epithelial cells of both cell layers are connected extensively by gap junctions; lap junctions have also been observed between the two layers. On the basis of these results, one would expect electrical and dye coupling between epithelial cells of Hydra. However, de Laat et al. reported that these cells were neither dye- nor electrically coupled, which was unexpected as cells in another coelenterate have been shown to be coupled ionically. Cell-cell coupling in Hydra is particularly interesting because extensive experiments on head regeneration in this coelenterate have led to well-defined models of patterning that require communication between cells of the type that may be provided by gap junctions. We have re-examined dye coupling in Hydra and we report here that, after injection of Lucifer yellow into single epithelial cells, neighbouring cells were observed to contain the dye. We conclude that the pithelial of cells of Hydra are indeed dye-coupled