Who should we hire?: Examining coaching succession in NCAA Division I women’s basketball

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of newly hired coaches in relation to their predecessors, and utilize the analysis to provide guidance to decision makers in college athletic departments. This study examined 185 coaching changes in Division I women’s basketball in 16 conferences between 2000 and 2009. Data were collected from online sources including institutional websites, media guides, and media articles. Latent class analysis was employed to reduce the data to one item per factor. Factors included demographics, coaching ability, coaching experience, past team performance, hiring factors (coaching level change, inside/outside hire, interim, conference affiliation), and institutional factors (public/private, demographic market area, enrollment, budget, and National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics standings). Mixed models analysis was performed to identify which categories have a relationship with changes in the number of wins following a coaching change. Results suggest that past team performance was the strongest indicator of future performance after a coaching change

A Post-Succession Analysis of Factors Influencing Coaching Success in NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball – Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics

Based on the reciprocal determinism component of social learning theory, a total of 736 men’s NCAA Division I basketball coaching changes between 1999 and 2014 were examined to establish which factors were related to conference success following a coaching change. Results from an exploratory latent class analysis indicated that many demographic, environmental, and experiential variables assumed to be important in hiring a new coach are insignificant. However, a program’s previous success, individual coaching ability, and previous coach vacancy circumstance are all significantly related to conference winning differential after a coaching change. Results also indicated a regression to the mean occurs after most coaching changes except for the most elite programs. Pragmatically, however, findings show relatively small increments in winning or losing following a coaching change, suggesting that the impact of a coach is often overstated. Stakeholders can use this information to evaluate coaches, programs, and hiring practices in men’s Division I basketball

Science Gateways: The Long Road to the Birth of an Institute

Nowadays, research in various disciplines is enhanced via computational methods, cutting-edge technologies and diverse resources including computational infrastructures and instruments. Such infrastructures are often complex and researchers need means to conduct their research in an efficient way without getting distracted with information technology nuances. Science gateways address such demands and offer user interfaces tailored to a specific community. Creators of science gateways face a breadth of topics and manifold challenges, which necessitate close collaboration with the domain specialists but also calling in experts for diverse aspects of a science gateway such as project management, licensing, team composition, sustainability, HPC, visualization, and usability specialists. The Science Gateway Community Institute tackles the challenges around science gateways to support domain specialists and developers via connecting them to diverse experts, offering consultancy as well as providing a software collaborative, which contains ready-to-use science gateway frameworks and science gateway components

Androgen receptor as a mediator and biomarker of radioresistance in triple-negative breast cancer.

Increased rates of locoregional recurrence have been observed in triple-negative breast cancer despite chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Thus, approaches that combine therapies for radiosensitization in triple-negative breast cancer are critically needed. We characterized the radiation therapy response of 21 breast cancer cell lines and paired this radiation response data with high-throughput drug screen data to identify androgen receptor as a top target for radiosensitization. Our radiosensitizer screen nominated bicalutamide as the drug most effective in treating radiation therapy-resistant breast cancer cell lines. We subsequently evaluated the expression of androgen receptor in >2100 human breast tumor samples and 51 breast cancer cell lines and found significant heterogeneity in androgen receptor expression with enrichment at the protein and RNA level in triple-negative breast cancer. There was a strong correlation between androgen receptor RNA and protein expression across all breast cancer subtypes (R2 = 0.72, p < 0.01). In patients with triple-negative breast cancer, expression of androgen receptor above the median was associated with increased risk of locoregional recurrence after radiation therapy (hazard ratio for locoregional recurrence 2.9-3.2)) in two independent data sets, but there was no difference in locoregional recurrence in triple-negative breast cancer patients not treated with radiation therapy when stratified by androgen receptor expression. In multivariable analysis, androgen receptor expression was most significantly associated with worse local recurrence-free survival after radiation therapy (hazard ratio of 3.58) suggesting that androgen receptor expression may be a biomarker of radiation response in triple-negative breast cancer. Inhibition of androgen receptor with MDV3100 (enzalutamide) induced radiation sensitivity (enhancement ratios of 1.22-1.60) in androgen receptor-positive triple-negative breast cancer lines, but did not affect androgen receptor-negative triple-negative breast cancer or estrogen-receptor-positive, androgen receptor-negative breast cancer cell lines. androgen receptor inhibition with MDV3100 significantly radiosensitized triple-negative breast cancer xenografts in mouse models and markedly delayed tumor doubling/tripling time and tumor weight. Radiosensitization was at least partially dependent on impaired dsDNA break repair mediated by DNA protein kinase catalytic subunit. Our results implicate androgen receptor as a mediator of radioresistance in breast cancer and identify androgen receptor inhibition as a potentially effective strategy for the treatment of androgen receptor-positive radioresistant tumors

The very bright SCUBA galaxy count: looking for SCUBA galaxies with the Mexican Hat Wavelet

We present the results of a search for bright high-redshift galaxies in two large SCUBA scan-maps of Galactic regions. A Mexican Hat Wavelet technique was used to locate point sources in these maps, which suffer high foreground contamination as well as typical scan-map noise signatures. A catalogue of point source objects was selected and observed again in the submillimetre continuum, and in HCO+ (3->2) at zero redshift to rule out Galactic sources. No extragalactic sources were found. Simulations show that the survey was sensitive to sources with fluxes > 50 mJy, depending on the local background. These simulations result in upper limits on the 850-micron counts of SCUBA galaxies of 53 per square degree at 50 mJy and 2.9 per square degree at 100 mJy.Comment: Accepted by MNRA

Two-temperature LATE-PCR endpoint genotyping

BACKGROUND: In conventional PCR, total amplicon yield becomes independent of starting template number as amplification reaches plateau and varies significantly among replicate reactions. This paper describes a strategy for reconfiguring PCR so that the signal intensity of a single fluorescent detection probe after PCR thermal cycling reflects genomic composition. The resulting method corrects for product yield variations among replicate amplification reactions, permits resolution of homozygous and heterozygous genotypes based on endpoint fluorescence signal intensities, and readily identifies imbalanced allele ratios equivalent to those arising from gene/chromosomal duplications. Furthermore, the use of only a single colored probe for genotyping enhances the multiplex detection capacity of the assay. RESULTS: Two-Temperature LATE-PCR endpoint genotyping combines Linear-After-The-Exponential (LATE)-PCR (an advanced form of asymmetric PCR that efficiently generates single-stranded DNA) and mismatch-tolerant probes capable of detecting allele-specific targets at high temperature and total single-stranded amplicons at a lower temperature in the same reaction. The method is demonstrated here for genotyping single-nucleotide alleles of the human HEXA gene responsible for Tay-Sachs disease and for genotyping SNP alleles near the human p53 tumor suppressor gene. In each case, the final probe signals were normalized against total single-stranded DNA generated in the same reaction. Normalization reduces the coefficient of variation among replicates from 17.22% to as little as 2.78% and permits endpoint genotyping with >99.7% accuracy. These assays are robust because they are consistent over a wide range of input DNA concentrations and give the same results regardless of how many cycles of linear amplification have elapsed. The method is also sufficiently powerful to distinguish between samples with a 1:1 ratio of two alleles from samples comprised of 2:1 and 1:2 ratios of the same alleles. CONCLUSION: SNP genotyping via Two-Temperature LATE-PCR takes place in a homogeneous closed-tube format and uses a single hybridization probe per SNP site. These assays are convenient, rely on endpoint analysis, improve the options for construction of multiplex assays, and are suitable for SNP genotyping, mutation scanning, and detection of DNA duplication or deletions

Stray-light restoration of full-disk CaII K solar observations: a case study

AIMS: We investigate whether restoration techniques, such as those developed for application to current observations, can be used to remove stray-light degradation effects on archive CaII K full-disk observations. We analyze to what extent these techniques can recover homogeneous time series of data. METHODS:We develop a restoration algorithm based on a method presented by Walton & Preminger (1999). We apply this algorithm to data for both present-day and archive CaII K full-disk observations, which were acquired using the PSPT mounted at the Rome Observatory, or obtained by digitization of Mt Wilson photographic-archive spectroheliograms. RESULTS:We show that the restoring algorithm improves both spatial resolution and photometric contrast of the analyzed solar observations. We find that the improvement in spatial resolution is similar for analyzed recent and archive data. On the other hand, the improvement of photometric contrast is quite poor for the archive data, with respect to the one obtained for the present-day images. We show that the quality of restored archive data depends on the photographic calibration applied to the original observations. In particular, photometry can be recovered with a restoring algorithm if the photographic-calibration preserves the intensity information stored in the original data, principally outside the solar-disk observations.Comment: 10 pages; 9 figure

Phase II Trial of IL-12 Plasmid Transfection and PD-1 Blockade in Immunologically Quiescent Melanoma.

PurposeTumors with low frequencies of checkpoint positive tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (cpTIL) have a low likelihood of response to PD-1 blockade. We conducted a prospective multicenter phase II trial of intratumoral plasmid IL-12 (tavokinogene telseplasmid; "tavo") electroporation combined with pembrolizumab in patients with advanced melanoma with low frequencies of checkpoint positive cytotoxic lymphocytes (cpCTL).Patients and methodsTavo was administered intratumorally days 1, 5, and 8 every 6 weeks while pembrolizumab (200 mg, i.v.) was administered every 3 weeks. The primary endpoint was objective response rate (ORR) by RECIST, secondary endpoints included duration of response, overall survival and progression-free survival. Toxicity was evaluated by the CTCAE v4. Extensive correlative analysis was done.ResultsThe combination of tavo and pembrolizumab was well tolerated with adverse events similar to those previously reported with pembrolizumab alone. Patients had a 41% ORR (n = 22, RECIST 1.1) with 36% complete responses. Correlative analysis showed that the combination enhanced immune infiltration and sustained the IL-12/IFNγ feed-forward cycle, driving intratumoral cross-presenting dendritic cell subsets with increased TILs, emerging T cell receptor clones and, ultimately, systemic cellular immune responses.ConclusionsThe combination of tavo and pembrolizumab was associated with a higher than expected response rate in this poorly immunogenic population. No new or unexpected toxicities were observed. Correlative analysis showed T cell infiltration with enhanced immunity paralleling the clinical activity in low cpCTL tumors