A classification prognostic score to predict OS in stage IV well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumors

No validated prognostic tool is available for predicting overall survival (OS) of patients with well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumors (WDNETs). This study, conducted in three independent cohorts of patients from five different European countries, aimed to develop and validate a classification prognostic score for OS in patients with stage IV WDNETs. We retrospectively collected data on 1387 patients: (i) patients treated at the Istituto Nazionale Tumori (Milan, Italy; n = 515); (ii) European cohort of rare NET patients included in the European RARECAREnet database (n = 457); (iii) Italian multicentric cohort of pancreatic NET (pNETs) patients treated at 24 Italian institutions (n = 415). The score was developed using data from patients included in cohort (i) (training set); external validation was performed by applying the score to the data of the two independent cohorts (ii) and (iii) evaluating both calibration and discriminative ability (Harrell C statistic). We used data on age, primary tumor site, metastasis (synchronous vs metachronous), Ki-67, functional status and primary surgery to build the score, which was developed for classifying patients into three groups with differential 10-year OS: (I) favorable risk group: 10-year OS >= 70%; (II) intermediate risk group: 30% <= 10-year OS < 70%; (III) poor risk group: 10-year OS < 30%. The Harrell C statistic was 0.661 in the training set, and 0.626 and 0.601 in the RARECAREnet and Italian multicentric validation sets, respectively. In conclusion, based on the analysis of three 'field-practice' cohorts collected in different settings, we defined and validated a prognostic score to classify patients into three groups with different long-term prognoses

TO BLOW THE WHISTLE OR NOT: THE ROLES OF PERCEIVED ORGANIZATIONAL RETALIATION AND UPWARD COMMUNICATION SATISFACTION IN EMPLOYEE RESPONSES TO OBSERVED WRONGDOING

The act of reporting illegal and unethical practices in the workplace has become an increasingly important issue for researchers and organizational management over the past several decades. This study tested a model of whistle-blowing in which perceived organizational retaliation and upward communication satisfaction were hypothesized to act as predictors of types of whistleblowing intentions using a representative sample of employees working in Kirklareli, Turkey (n = 1,012). Structural equation modeling indicated that perceptions of upward communication satisfaction were positively associated to blowing the whistle to internal channels like immediate supervisor and upper management and negatively related to staying silent and external whistleblowing. In addition, perceived threat of retaliation from an organization was negatively related to blowing the whistle to internal channels and positively related to staying silent and external whistleblowing. The present study has contributed to our understanding of whistleblowing in a relatively new national context by clarifying its associations with perceived organizational retaliation and communication with management.WOS:0005626219000122-s2.0-8506548440

Tomografia industriale ad alta risoluzione con fasci di fibre ottiche coerenti

Un rivelatore innovativo per la tomografia computerizzata ad alta risoluzione, da impiegare per le energie tipicamente usate in campo industriale, è stato realizzato recentemente dai ricercatori del Dipartimento di Fisica dell’Università di Bologna. In seguito, esso è stato provato presso un centro di ricerca svizzero, l’EMPA, istituto di ricerca sui materiali e per le prove non distruttive, da tempo specializzato in questo tipo di analisi, dove si trova installata una sorgente di raggi X da 450kV. Questo rivelatore, che si avvale di un particolare sistema di fibre ottiche coerenti per raccogliere e convogliare le immagini su di un CCD, è in grado di raggiungere una risoluzione molto elevata, con un pixel inferiore ai 25 micron. La geometria è di tipo lineare, ed il rivelatore ha una estensione orizzontale di 50cm, che permette di scansionare oggetti di dimensioni piuttosto grandi, come ad esempio testate di motori. Attraverso un sistema di rotazione si può effettuare la scansione dell’oggetto e ricostruire la sezione corrispondente all’area del rivelatore. Attraverso la scansione di più sezioni si può ottenere infine la ricostruzione tridimensionale del pezzo. La caratterizzazione in termini di prestazioni ed i risultati delle prime prove sono presentati in questo lavoro insieme ai dettagli costruttivi del sistema sperimentale impiegato

The use of industrial Computed Tomography in the study of archaeological finds

The successful use of Computed Tomography (CT) as an efficient and powerful non-destructive tool for the study of archaeological artifacts has been reported by several authors [1-4]. The 3D reconstruction of the ob-jects enables the archeologists to carry out archeological analysis. Information about manufacturing and as-sembly techniques as well as information useful for dating artifacts or choosing appropriate maintenance and restoration procedures can be obtained with this technique [5]. Most of the studies of archeological artifacts reported in literature are carried out by using medical CT [6-8], whereas investigations performed with in-dustrial CT systems are rather limited. Our work illustrates the results obtained with a high resolution CT system for industrial applications developed in our laboratories. The CT system is equipped with a 450 kV X-ray tube and an area detector of 40 x 30 cm2 consisting of a scintillator screen, a mirror and a CCD cam-era. The advantage of our system compared to medical CT is the higher penetration capability that allows in-vestigating high density objects. The system provides isotropic spatial resolution and fast data acquisition thanks to the cone-beam geometry. In this study we have focused on the demonstration of the capability of extracting and analyzing an item from a cluster. To this aim we have investigated a ceramic vase with diame-ter of 20 cm filled with ancient coins