Radiotherapy for GIST progressing during or after tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy : A prospective study

Purpose: Gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) has been considered radiation-resistant, and radiotherapy is recommended only for palliation of bone metastases in current treatment guidelines. No registered prospective trial has evaluated GIST responsiveness to radiotherapy. Patients and methods: Patients with GIST progressing at intra-abdominal sites or the liver were entered to this prospective Phase II multicenter study (identifier NCT00515931). Metastases were treated with external beam radiotherapy using either conformal 3D planning or intensity modulated radiotherapy and conventional fractionation to a cumulative planning target volume dose of approximately 40 Gy. Systemic therapy was maintained unaltered during the study. Results: Of the 25 patients entered, 19 were on concomitant tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy, most often imatinib. Two (8%) patients achieved partial remission, 20 (80%) had stable target lesion size for >= 3 months after radiotherapy with a median duration of stabilization of 16 months, and 3 (12%) progressed. The median time to radiotherapy target lesion progression was 4-fold longer than the median time to GIST progression at any site (16 versus 4 months). Radiotherapy was generally well tolerated. Conclusions: Responses to radiotherapy were infrequent, but most patients had durable stabilization of the target lesions. GIST patients with soft tissue metastases benefit frequently from radiotherapy. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.Peer reviewe

Image‐guided percutaneous cryoablation of unresectable sacrococcygeal chordoma: Feasibility and outcome in a selected group of patients with long term follow‐up

Chordoma is a rare malignant tumor of the axial skeleton. Percutaneous cryoablation (PCA) is a minimally invasive technique that allows freezing of tumors under imaging control. The purpose of our retrospective study was to investigate the outcome of PCA in a selected cohort of patients with sacrococcygeal chordoma, with a minimum of 5 years follow-up. Four patients were treated in 10 sessions. The mean follow-up was 57.3 months. We evaluated the feasibility, the procedure-related complications, the impact on pain control and oncological outcomes. Freezing of 100% of the tumor volume was possible in 60%. Pain control was not reliably evaluable. Local recurrence occurred in 90% of the treated lesions; the mean time to progression was 8.1 months (range 1.5-16). At last follow-up, one patient had died of the disease, one of another cause and one was receiving the best supportive care. The only patient alive without the disease had received additional carbon-ion radiotherapy. The 5-year survival rate after index PCA was 50%. Complete freezing of the tumor was technically challenging, mainly due to the complex local anatomy. Recurrence occurred in 90% of the lesions treated. PCA should be considered with caution in the curative management of sacrococcygeal chordoma

An Overview on IEEE 802.11bf: WLAN Sensing

With recent advancements, the wireless local area network (WLAN) or wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) technology has been successfully utilized to realize sensing functionalities such as detection, localization, and recognition. However, the WLANs standards are developed mainly for the purpose of communication, and thus may not be able to meet the stringent requirements for emerging sensing applications. To resolve this issue, a new Task Group (TG), namely IEEE 802.11bf, has been established by the IEEE 802.11 working group, with the objective of creating a new amendment to the WLAN standard to meet advanced sensing requirements while minimizing the effect on communications. This paper provides a comprehensive overview on the up-to-date efforts in the IEEE 802.11bf TG. First, we introduce the definition of the 802.11bf amendment and its formation and standardization timeline. Next, we discuss the WLAN sensing use cases with the corresponding key performance indicator (KPI) requirements. After reviewing previous WLAN sensing research based on communication-oriented WLAN standards, we identify their limitations and underscore the practical need for the new sensing-oriented amendment in 802.11bf. Furthermore, we discuss the WLAN sensing framework and procedure used for measurement acquisition, by considering both sensing at sub-7GHz and directional multi-gigabit (DMG) sensing at 60 GHz, respectively, and address their shared features, similarities, and differences. In addition, we present various candidate technical features for IEEE 802.11bf, including waveform/sequence design, feedback types, as well as quantization and compression techniques. We also describe the methodologies and the channel modeling used by the IEEE 802.11bf TG for evaluation. Finally, we discuss the challenges and future research directions to motivate more research endeavors towards this field in details.Comment: 31 pages, 25 figures, this is a significant updated version of arXiv:2207.0485

LIN28B Underlies the Pathogenesis of a Subclass of Ewing Sarcoma

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Timing Precision in Population Coding of Natural Scenes in the Early Visual System

The timing of spiking activity across neurons is a fundamental aspect of the neural population code. Individual neurons in the retina, thalamus, and cortex can have very precise and repeatable responses but exhibit degraded temporal precision in response to suboptimal stimuli. To investigate the functional implications for neural populations in natural conditions, we recorded in vivo the simultaneous responses, to movies of natural scenes, of multiple thalamic neurons likely converging to a common neuronal target in primary visual cortex. We show that the response of individual neurons is less precise at lower contrast, but that spike timing precision across neurons is relatively insensitive to global changes in visual contrast. Overall, spike timing precision within and across cells is on the order of 10 ms. Since closely timed spikes are more efficient in inducing a spike in downstream cortical neurons, and since fine temporal precision is necessary to represent the more slowly varying natural environment, we argue that preserving relative spike timing at a ∼10-ms resolution is a crucial property of the neural code entering cortex

Predicting for activity of second-line trastuzumab-based therapy in her2-positive advanced breast cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In Her2-positive advanced breast cancer, the upfront use of trastuzumab is well established. Upon progression on first-line therapy, patients may be switched to lapatinib. Others however remain candidates for continued antibody treatment (treatment beyond progression). Here, we aimed to identify factors predicting for activity of second-line trastuzumab-based therapy.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Ninety-seven patients treated with > 1 line of trastuzumab-containing therapy were available for this analysis. Her2-status was determined by immunohistochemistry and re-analyzed by FISH if a score of 2+ was gained. Time to progression (TTP) on second-line therapy was defined as primary study endpoint. TTP and overall survival (OS) were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier product limit method. Multivariate analyses (Cox proportional hazards model, multinomial logistic regression) were applied in order to identify factors associated with TTP, response, OS, and incidence of brain metastases. <it>p </it>values < 0.05 were considered to indicate statistical significance.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Median TTP on second-line trastuzumab-based therapy was 7 months (95% CI 5.74-8.26), and 8 months (95% CI 6.25-9.74) on first-line, respectively (n.s.). In the multivariate models, none of the clinical or histopthological features could reliably predict for activity of second-line trastuzumab-based treatment. OS was 43 months suggesting improved survival in patients treated with trastuzumab in multiple-lines. A significant deterioration of cardiac function was observed in three patients; 40.2% developed brain metastases while on second-line trastuzumab or thereafter.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Trastuzumab beyond progression showed considerable activity. None of the variables investigated correlated with activity of second-line therapy. In order to predict for activity of second-line trastuzumab, it appears necessary to evaluate factors known to confer trastuzumab-resistance.</p

Increasing crop rotational diversity can enhance cereal yields

Diversifying agriculture by rotating a greater number of crop species in sequence is a promising practice to reduce negative impacts of crop production on the environment and maintain yields. However, it is unclear to what extent cereal yields change with crop rotation diversity and external nitrogen fertilization level over time, and which functional groups of crops provide the most yield benefit. Here, using grain yield data of small grain cereals and maize from 32 long-term (10–63 years) experiments across Europe and North America, we show that crop rotational diversity, measured as crop species diversity and functional richness, enhanced grain yields. This yield benefit increased over time. Only the yields of winter-sown small grain cereals showed a decline at the highest level of species diversity. Diversification was beneficial to all cereals with a low external nitrogen input, particularly maize, enabling a lower dependence on nitrogen fertilisers and ultimately reducing greenhouse gas emissions and nitrogen pollution. The results suggest that increasing crop functional richness rather than species diversity can be a strategy for supporting grain yields across many environments

Increasing crop rotational diversity can enhance cereal yields

9 Pág.Diversifying agriculture by rotating a greater number of crop species in sequence is a promising practice to reduce negative impacts of crop production on the environment and maintain yields. However, it is unclear to what extent cereal yields change with crop rotation diversity and external nitrogen fertilization level over time, and which functional groups of crops provide the most yield benefit. Here, using grain yield data of small grain cereals and maize from 32 long-term (10–63 years) experiments across Europe and North America, we show that crop rotational diversity, measured as crop species diversity and functional richness, enhanced grain yields. This yield benefit increased over time. Only the yields of winter-sown small grain cereals showed a decline at the highest level of species diversity. Diversification was beneficial to all cereals with a low external nitrogen input, particularly maize, enabling a lower dependence on nitrogen fertilisers and ultimately reducing greenhouse gas emissions and nitrogen pollution. The results suggest that increasing crop functional richness rather than species diversity can be a strategy for supporting grain yields across many environments.G.V., R.B. and S.H. acknowledge FORMAS grants 2018-02872 and 2018-02321. TMB acknowledges USDA AFRI grant 2017-67013-26254. LTEs managed by SRUC were supported by the Scottish Government RESAS Strategic Research Programme under project D3-, Healthy Soils for a Green Recovery. Swedish LTEs were funded by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). We thank the Lawes Agricultural Trust and Rothamsted Research for data from the e-RA database. The Rothamsted Long-term Experiments National Capability (LTE-NC) was supported by the UK BBSRC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, BBS/E/C/000J0300) and the Lawes Agricultural Trust. The Woodslee site was supported by the Agro-Ecosystem Resilience Program (Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada) and field management provided by field crews over 6 decades is appreciated. La Canaleja LTE (Spain) was supported by RTA2017-00006-C03-01 project (Ministry of Science and Innovation. El Encín LTEs were supported by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness funds (projects AGL2002-04186-C03-01.03, AGL2007-65698-C03-01.03, AGL2012-39929-C03-01 of which L. Navarrete was the P.I). R.A., A.G.D. and E.H.P. are also grateful to all members of the Weed Science Group from El Encín Experimental Station for their technical assistance in managing the experiments. The Brody/Poznan University of Life Sciences long-term experiments were funded by the Polish Ministry of Education and Science. We acknowledge the E-Obs dataset from the EU-FP6 project UERRA (http://www.uerra.eu) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service, and the data providers in the ECA&D project (https://www.ecad.eu/).Peer reviewe

Universal entropy of word ordering across linguistic families

Background The language faculty is probably the most distinctive feature of our species, and endows us with a unique ability to exchange highly structured information. In written language, information is encoded by the concatenation of basic symbols under grammatical and semantic constraints. As is also the case in other natural information carriers, the resulting symbolic sequences show a delicate balance between order and disorder. That balance is determined by the interplay between the diversity of symbols and by their specific ordering in the sequences. Here we used entropy to quantify the contribution of different organizational levels to the overall statistical structure of language. Methodology/Principal Findings We computed a relative entropy measure to quantify the degree of ordering in word sequences from languages belonging to several linguistic families. While a direct estimation of the overall entropy of language yielded values that varied for the different families considered, the relative entropy quantifying word ordering presented an almost constant value for all those families. Conclusions/Significance Our results indicate that despite the differences in the structure and vocabulary of the languages analyzed, the impact of word ordering in the structure of language is a statistical linguistic universal