Using the Process Digital Twin as a tool for companies to evaluate the Return on Investment of manufacturing automation

The fourth industrial revolution is gaining momentum, but still lacks full realization. Several studies suggest that many companies around the world have begun the digital transformation undertaking, but most are still far from full adoption and yet fail to see the full economic potential, being stuck in what has been called "pilot purgatory”. Digitalization is largely recognized as an accelerator and enabler for full automation in manufacturing, but companies are still struggling to assess the return on investment and the impact on operational performance indicators. Therefore, companies, especially SMEs characterized by dynamic, high-value, high-mix, and low-volume contexts, are reluctant to invest further. By incorporating simulation, data analytics and behavioral models, digital twins may also be used to support automation solutions ramp-up, demonstrate their impact evaluation, usage scenarios, eliminating the need for physical prototypes, reducing development time, and improving quality. Few forward-thinking companies are pursuing the digital transformation path, while the majority are clipping the wings of a transformation that is essential for a sustainable manufacturing. This paper describes a theoretical approach to exploit the digital twin technology to gather insights towards a realistic economical assessment of full automation solutions, to back and encourage investments to realize the potential of the digital manufacturing transformation. The approach is being tested under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 958363, which provides an opportunity to assess how the various components of the method are constructed, how complex they are, and what level of effort is required, using a practical example.publishedVersio

Immunotherapeutic Intervention against Sarcomas

<p>Advances in systemic therapy for sarcoma have produced, over the last two decades, relatively short-term benefits for the majority of patient. Among the novel biologic therapeutics that will likely increase our ability to cure human cancer in the years to come, immunotherapy is one of the most promising approaches. While past attempts to use immunotherapy have failed to dramatically shift the paradigm of care for the treatment of patients with sarcoma, major advances in basic and translational research have resulted, in more recent years, in clinical trial activity that is now beginning to generate promising results. However, to move from &#8220;proof of principle&#8221; to large scale clinical applicability, we need well-designed, multi-institutional clinical trials, along with continuous laboratory research to explore further the immunological characteristics of individual sarcoma subtypes and the consequent tailoring of therapy.</p

Immunotherapeutic Intervention against Sarcomas

Advances in systemic therapy for sarcoma have produced, over the last two decades, relatively short-term benefits for the majority of patient. Among the novel biologic therapeutics that will likely increase our ability to cure human cancer in the years to come, immunotherapy is one of the most promising approaches. While past attempts to use immunotherapy have failed to dramatically shift the paradigm of care for the treatment of patients with sarcoma, major advances in basic and translational research have resulted, in more recent years, in clinical trial activity that is now beginning to generate promising results. However, to move from “proof of principle” to large scale clinical applicability, we need well-designed, multi-institutional clinical trials, along with continuous laboratory research to explore further the immunological characteristics of individual sarcoma subtypes and the consequent tailoring of therapy

Immunological Effects of Multikinase Inhibitors for Kidney Cancer: A Clue for Integration with Cellular Therapies?

The multikinase inhibitors Sunitinib and Sorafenib not only inhibit angiogenesis and tumor growth, but also have the potential of interacting with the function of the immune system

Nutritional support in cancer patients: A position paper from the Italian Society of Medical Oncology (AIOM) and the Italian Society of Artificial Nutrition and Metabolism (SINPE)

Malnutrition is a frequent problem in cancer patients, which leads to prolonged hospitalization, a higher degree of treatment-related toxicity, reduced response to cancer treatment, impaired quality of life and a worse overall prognosis. The attitude towards this issue varies considerably and many malnourished patients receive inadequate nutritional support. We reviewed available data present in the literature, together with the guidelines issued by scientific societies and health authorities, on the nutritional management of patients with cancer, in order to make suitable and concise practical recommendations for appropriate nutritional support in this patient population. Evidence from the literature suggests that nutritional screening should be performed using validated tools (the Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 [NRS 2002], the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool [MUST], the Malnutrition Screening Tool [MST] and the Mini Nutritional Assessment [MNA]), both at diagnosis and at regular time points during the course of disease according to tumor type, stage and treatment. Patients at nutritional risk should be promptly referred for comprehensive nutritional assessment and support to clinical nutrition services or medical personnel with documented skills in clinical nutrition, specifically for cancer patients. Nutritional intervention should be actively managed and targeted for each patient; it should comprise personalized dietary counseling and/or artificial nutrition according to spontaneous food intake, tolerance and effectiveness. Nutritional support may be integrated into palliative care programs. "Alternative hypocaloric anti-cancer diets" (e.g. macrobiotic or vegan diets) should not be recommended as they may worsen nutritional status. Well-designed clinical trials are needed to further our knowledge of the nutritional support required in different care settings for cancer patients

Challenges and Founding Pillars for a Manufacturing Platform to Support Value Networks Operating in a Circular Economy Framework

This research received no external funding. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Circularity is clearly a competitive advantage and a market opportunity for European industries. From this perspective, while digitalization is largely recognized as an accelerator and an enabler of Circular Economy, the fact that European industry is strong but fragmented (highly special-ized medium-and small-sized companies have different needs and different tools) naturally results in the proliferation of commercial platforms for digitalized manufacturing. If such fragmentation is not properly addressed, it will eventually become a threat to European competitiveness. Despite some examples, value networks still do not operate in a seamless, transparent, and effective way. This paper addresses the challenges and the resulting technical funding pillars for an IDS (International Data Space) manufacturing platform meant to empower a fully digital circular thread of products and services.publishersversionpublishe

T cell therapy with EBV-specific cytotoxic T-lymphocytes for patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma

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Developments in Solid Tumours

AbstractChimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells have emerged as breakthrough therapies in patients with refractory haematologic malignancies, and the highly encouraging clinical results have fuelled expectations of implementing these strategies in other cancer types. However, a similar success of CAR-T cell treatment has not yet been observed in solid tumours. Various factors, including the immunosuppressive nature of the tumour microenvironment, hinder CAR-T cell trafficking and infiltration into scarcely accessible tumour sites, and difficulties in identifying targetable antigens with optimal expression and a good toxicity profile, limiting CAR-T dose escalation, must be overcome to achieve success in the treatment of solid cancers (Comoli et al. 2019)