Cyst Features and Risk of Malignancy in Intraductal Papillary Mucinous Neoplasms of the Pancreas: Imaging and Pathology

Background: Intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMNs) display diverse macroscopic, histological, and immunohistochemical characteristics with typical morphological appearance in magnetic resonance imaging. Depending on those, IPMNs may show progression into invasive carcinomas with variable frequency. Overall, IPMN-associated invasive carcinomas are found in about 30% of all IPMNs, revealing phenotpyes comparable with conventional ductal adenocarcinomas or mucinous (colloid) carcinomas of the pancreas. In Sendai-negative side-branch IPMNs, however, the annual risk of the development of invasive cancer is 2%; thus, risk stratification with regard to imaging and preoperative biomarkers and cytology is mandatory. Methods and Results: The present study addresses the radiological and interventional preoperative measures including histological features to determine the risk of malignancy and the prognosis of IPMNs. Conclusion: While preoperative imaging largely relies on the detection of macroscopic features of IPMNs, which are associated with a divergent risk of malignant behavior, in resected specimens the determination of the grade of dysplasia and the detection of an invasive component are the most important features to estimate the prognosis of IPMNs

PlanvoLL-D – Die Bedeutung des professionellen Wissens angehender Deutschlehrkräfte für ihre Planung von Unterricht: Validierung und methodische Innovation. Skalendokumentation zu Instrumenten der Ausbildungsinhalte und Schulpraxis, Messzeitpunkte 1 und 2, Sommer 2016 und Winter 2017/18.

Diese Dokumentation sowie der zugehörige SPSS-Datensatz sind aus dem Verbundprojekt „PlanvoLL-D – Die Bedeutung des professionellen Wissens angehender Deutschlehrkräfte für ihre Planung von Unterricht: Validierung und methodische Innovation“ hervorgegangen, das von April 2016 bis März 2019 an der Universität zu Köln, der Universität Duisburg-Essen sowie der Technischen Universität Berlin durchgeführt wurde. Das Projekt „PlanvoLL-D“ untersucht den Zusammenhang zwischen dem professionellen Wissen, das angehende Deutschlehrkräfte während der ersten Phase ihrer Ausbildung an Universitäten erworben haben, und ihrer Planung von Unterricht in der zweiten Phase der Lehrerausbildung (Vorbereitungsdienst bzw. Referendariat). Der Fokus liegt auf der empirischen Untersuchung der Planungskompetenz als Kernanforderung angehender Deutschlehrkräfte in der zweiten Ausbildungsphase auf Grundlage ihrer schriftlichen Planungen aus der jeweils ersten und letzten Lehrprobe. Auch die Kompetenzen der Lehramtsanwärterinnen bzw. Lehramtsanwärter wie das Fachwissen Deutsch (Literatur, Linguistik), das deutschdidaktische Wissen (Literatur- und Sprachdidaktik) und pädagogische Wissen werden erforscht. Die hier veröffentlichte Skalendokumentation enthält folgende Merkmale, die zu den Messzeitpunkten 1 und 2 erfasst wurden: Selbsteingeschätzte Planungskompetenz, Ausbildungsinhalte (Fachwissen Deutsch, Fachdidaktik Deutsch, Pädagogische Inhalte), Lerngelegenheiten sowie die Angaben zur inhaltlichen Betreuung in der Schulpraxis durch eine Lehrperson (Mentoring) und zur Kohärenz zwischen Hochschullehre und Schulpraxis. Die Dokumentation enthält relevante Angaben zu Variablen, Items und Skalen sowie die technischen Daten

Foreign-accented speech modulates linguistic anticipatory processes

Available online 25 March 2016Listeners are able to anticipate upcoming words during sentence comprehension, and, as a result, they also pre-activate semantically related words. In the present study, we aim at exploring whether these anticipatory processes are modulated by indexical properties of the speakers, such as a speaker's accent. Event-related brain potentials were obtained while native speakers of Spanish listened to native (Experiment 1) or foreign-accented speakers (Experiment 2) of Spanish producing highly constrained sentences. The sentences ended in: (1) the highest cloze probability completion, (2) a word semantically related to the expected ending, or (3) a word with no semantic overlap with the expected ending. In Experiment 1, we observed smaller N400 mean amplitudes for the semantically related words as compared to the words with no semantic overlap, replicating previous findings. In Experiment 2, we observed no difference in integrating semantically related and unrelated words when listening to accented speech. These results suggest that linguistic anticipatory processes are affected by indexical properties of the speakers, such as the speaker's accent.This research was funded by an FPI Grant(BES-2012- 056668)and three project Grants(PSI2014-54500,PSI2011-23033 and Consolider INGENIO CSD2007-00012)awarded by the Spanish Government;by one grant from the Catalan Government(SGR 2014-1210); by one grant from the Basque Government (PI_2015_1_25); and by one grant from the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework (FP7/2007-2013 Cooperation grant agreement 613465-AThEME). C.D.M. is supported by the IKERBASQUE Institution,the Basque Center on Cognition,Brain and Language,and by the Severo Ochoa Program Grant SEV-2015-049. A.Caecostenetroides is supported by the ICREA Institution and the Center for Brain and Cognition

Synthesis and functionalization of protease-activated nanoparticles with tissue plasminogen activator peptides as targeting moiety and diagnostic tool for pancreatic cancer

Background: Functionalized nanoparticles (NPs) are one promising tool for detecting specific molecular targets and combine molecular biology and nanotechnology aiming at modern imaging. We aimed at ligand-directed delivery with a suitable target-biomarker to detect early pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Promising targets are galectins (Gal), due to their strong expression in and on PDAC-cells and occurrence at early stages in cancer precursor lesions, but not in adjacent normal tissues. Results: Molecular probes (10-29 AA long peptides) derived from human tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) were selected as binding partners to galectins. Affinity constants between the synthesized t-PA peptides and Gal were determined by microscale thermophoresis. The 29 AA-long t-PA-peptide-1 with a lactose-functionalized serine revealed the strongest binding properties to Gal-1 which was 25-fold higher in comparison with the native t-PA protein and showed additional strong binding to Gal-3 and Gal-4, both also over-expressed in PDAC. t-PA-peptide-1 was selected as vector moiety and linked covalently onto the surface of biodegradable iron oxide nanoparticles (NPs). In particular, CAN-doped maghemite NPs (CAN-Mag), promising as contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), were selected as magnetic core and coated with different biocompatible polymers, such as chitosan (CAN-Mag-Chitosan NPs) or polylactic co glycolic acid (PLGA) obtaining polymeric nanoparticles (CAN-Mag@PNPs), already approved for drug delivery applications. The binding efficacy of t-PA-vectorized NPs determined by exposure to different pancreatic cell lines was up to 90%, as assessed by flow cytometry. The in vivo targeting and imaging efficacy of the vectorized NPs were evaluated by applying murine pancreatic tumor models and assessed by 1.5 T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The t-PA-vectorized NPs as well as the protease-activated NPs with outer shell decoration (CAN-Mag@PNPs-PEG-REGAcp-PEG/tPA-pep1Lac) showed clearly detectable drop of subcutaneous and orthotopic tumor staining-intensity indicating a considerable uptake of the injected NPs. Post mortem NP deposition in tumors and organs was confirmed by Fe staining of histopathology tissue sections. Conclusions: The targeted NPs indicate a fast and enhanced deposition of NPs in the murine tumor models. The CAN-Mag@PNPs-PEG-REGAcp-PEG/tPA-pep1Lac interlocking steps strategy of NPs delivery and deposition in pancreatic tumor is promising

RFID reader and method for adjusting a frame length of an RFID system comprising an RFID reader

Embodiments provide an RFID reader. The RFID reader comprises a collision detector, a decoder and a frame length adjuster. The collision detector is configured to detect for each slot of a plurality of slots of a current frame, in which a collision of signals transmitted by at least two RFID tags occurred, a signal property of a signal of the signals transmitted by at least two RFID tags. The decoder is configured to decode for the slot in which the collision is detected the signal of the signals transmitted by the at least two RFID tags using the detected signal property, wherein a collision recover probability describing a probability that the decoder can accurately decode the one signal depends on a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the current frame. The frame length adjuster is configured to adjust a frame length of a subsequent frame in dependence on the collision recover probability

RFID reader and method for recognizing RFID tags

The invention refers to an RFID reader (1) comprising a transmitter (2), a receiver (3), and an evaluator (4). The receiver (3) receives signals from RFID tags (10) within a given number of slots of a time frame with a given frame size (L) and provides a number of successful slots (ss) and a number of collided slots (cs). The evaluator (4) sets a modified frame size (L') based on an estimated number of RFID tags (n est ) which is determined based on the frame size (L), the number of successful slots (ss), and the number of collided slots (cs). The invention also refers to a corresponding method

Pädagogisches Wissen versus fachdidaktisches Wissen? Struktur des professionellen Wissens bei angehenden Deutsch-, Englisch- und Mathematiklehrkräften im Studium

General pedagogical knowledge (GPK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) are central cognitive elements in the professional competence of teachers. Thus initial teacher education aims at the acquisition of this relevant knowledge. However, the question how GPK and PCK are related to each other or can be separated from each other has not yet been answered, neither conceptually nor empirically. Against this background, this article focuses on two research questions on the basis of standardized knowledge tests administered to 889 pre-service teachers of German, English and Mathematics from two large universities: (1) Can GPK empirically be separated from PCK of German, English, and Mathematics? (2) Are there differences in pre-service teachers' PCK test scores depending on their stage of training (Bachelor versus Master) and can PCK test scores additionally be explained by specific learning opportunities in the area of PCK (when compared with GPK test scores)? On the one hand, findings show that GPK and PCK can empirically be separated. This is true for all three domains (construct validity), whereby the correlation between GPK and Mathematics PCK is lower than the correlations between GPK and German PCK and English PCK (when controlled for background and entry characteristics of students and their learning opportunities). On the other hand, a comparison between cohorts of Bachelor and Master student teachers provides evidence that the more advanced Master students outperform the Bachelor students in all knowledge tests (curricular validity). In addition, German PCK and English PCK (better than Mathematics PCK) can be explained by subject-specific learning opportunities (convergent validity) and be demarcated from GPK (discriminant validity). Implications for current initiatives of quality assurance in initial teacher education are discussed