Predicting the Law Area and Decisions of French Supreme Court Cases

In this paper, we investigate the application of text classification methods to predict the law area and the decision of cases judged by the French Supreme Court. We also investigate the influence of the time period in which a ruling was made over the textual form of the case description and the extent to which it is necessary to mask the judge's motivation for a ruling to emulate a real-world test scenario. We report results of 96% f1 score in predicting a case ruling, 90% f1 score in predicting the law area of a case, and 75.9% f1 score in estimating the time span when a ruling has been issued using a linear Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier trained on lexical features.Comment: RANLP 201

Higher Education Reform in Romania. Present and Perspective

AbstractThe Lisbon Diary become famous for her pursues objective, transforming the European economy in the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy, capable of a sustainable economic growth, with more and better places of work, and with greater social cohesion. To reach this objective, the countries from UE must coordinate their efforts for the adaptation of an ambitious program to modernize the educational system.The fundamentals of educational reform in Europe, were released a year before the Lisbon Treaty, with the adoption of the Bologna Declaration.Romania is participating in the Bologna Process since its launch in 1999. From then until now, it was adopted a comprehensive framework for the education system to align the requirements of different initiatives at European level, to increase mobility of students and labor market opportunities, to reduce the number of university specializations and increase participation in masters and doctoral programs.Through Law number 1/2011 propose a major reform in the entire Romanian education system, with major implications for higher education. Comparing the European systems with the Romanian system and the new university legislative brought to the system by Law number 1/2011 in Romania, we will highlight what's new in this field and the shortcomings of this system

Validation of a short and generic Qualitative Job Insecurity Scale (QUAL-JIS)

The Qualitative Job Insecurity Scale (QUAL-JIS) has been used in job insecurity (JI) research for the past 9 years, without formal validation. The goal of the current study was to test the scale s psychometric properties. We checked the scale s reliability, as well as its validity, investigating evidence based on the scale s content, internal structure, and relations to other variables (convergent and discriminant, predictive and concurrent, as well as incremental predictive evidence). We additionally evaluated its cross-country and longitudinal invariance over three measurement times (6 months apart) in two countries (Romania and Belgium; NRO = 388, NBE = 1,992). We found evidence for the scale s reliability and validity, QUAL-JIS showing partial scalar invariance across time and between the two countries. Interestingly, qualitative JI measured with QUAL-JIS explained additional variance in the employees need for recovery above and beyond another popular qualitative JI scale

Exploring rigid-backbone protein docking in biologics discovery: a test using the DARPin scaffold

Accurate protein-protein docking remains challenging, especially for artificial biologics not coevolved naturally against their protein targets, like antibodies and other engineered scaffolds. We previously developed ProPOSE, an exhaustive docker with full atomistic details, which delivers cutting-edge performance by allowing side-chain rearrangements upon docking. However, extensive protein backbone flexibility limits its practical applicability as indicated by unbound docking tests. To explore the usefulness of ProPOSE on systems with limited backbone flexibility, here we tested the engineered scaffold DARPin, which is characterized by its relatively rigid protein backbone. A prospective screening campaign was undertaken, in which sequence-diversified DARPins were docked and ranked against a directed epitope on the target protein BCL-W. In this proof-of-concept study, only a relatively small set of 2,213 diverse DARPin interfaces were selected for docking from the huge theoretical library from mutating 18 amino-acid positions. A computational selection protocol was then applied for enrichment of binders based on normalized computed binding scores and frequency of binding modes against the predefined epitope. The top-ranked 18 designed DARPin interfaces were selected for experimental validation. Three designs exhibited binding affinities to BCL-W in the nanomolar range comparable to control interfaces adopted from known DARPin binders. This result is encouraging for future screening and engineering campaigns of DARPins and possibly other similarly rigid scaffolds against targeted protein epitopes. Method limitations are discussed and directions for future refinements are proposed

PO-033 Identification and functional evaluation of monoclonal antibodies specifically targeting human carbonic anhydrase IX

Introduction Poor vascularisation of solid tumours leads to inadequate nutrient and oxygen supplies which forces tumour cells to reprogram their metabolism. As a consequence the tumour cell's environment becomes acidic and hypoxic. This, in turn, triggers signalling cascades involving for example heterodimeric hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF). Activation of this hypoxia-induced transcriptional program is crucial for the survival of tumour cells in their hostile microenvironment but also their ability to metastasize. One of the genes upregulated through the HIF pathway is carbonic anhydrase (CA)-IX (CAIX, gene G250/MN-encoded transmembrane protein). CA-IX catalyses carbon dioxide (CO2) thereby generating a proton (H+) and bicarbonate (HCO3-), the latter of which is transported back into the cell and utilised to help safeguard intracellular pH (pHi) stability. Except for the stomach and the gallbladder, CA-IX expression is negligible in normal tissues. In contrast, a broad range of tumours express high levels of CA-IX, where the protein can serve as a biomarker for the early stages of tumour development but also as tumour marker of hypoxia associated with resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Material and methods Preclinical and clinical studies have shown that CA-IX is a promising therapeutic target for detection and therapy for several cancer types. To date only a limited number of ant-CAIX monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) have been available for clinical testing as therapeutic and imaging agents. In the current study, we generated and functionally categorised a panel of 51 mouse mAbs that specifically bind to human CA-IX. Results and discussions Characterisation of the mAbs revealed that of the mAbs with the best biophysical characteristics, three3 mAbs are suitable as an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), two2 mAbs inhibit the CA-IX enzyme activity, and one1 mAb that is suitable for CA-IX imaging purposes. Conclusion These preliminary data presented here could thus form the basis for the development of novel CA-IX targeted immunotherapies and diagnostic tools for the treatment of cancer

The Prevalence, Management and Impact of Dysmenorrhea on Medical Students’ Lives—A Multicenter Study

Introduction: Dysmenorrhea is defined as the presence of painful menstruation, and it affects daily activities in different ways. The aims of this study were to assess the prevalence and management of dysmenorrhea and to determine the impact of dysmenorrhea on the quality of life of medical students. Material and methods: The study conducted was prospective, analytical and observational and was performed between 7 November 2019 and 30 January 2020 in five university centers from Romania. The data was collected using an original questionnaire regarding menstrual cycles and dysmenorrhea. The information about relationships with family or friends, couples’ relationships and university activity helped to assess the effects of dysmenorrhea on quality of life. The level of significance was set at p < 0.05. Results: The study comprised 1720 students in total. The prevalence of dysmenorrhea was 78.4%. During their menstrual period, most female students felt more agitated or nervous (72.7%), more tired (66.9%), as if they had less energy for daily activities (75.9%) and highly stressed (57.9%), with a normal diet being difficult to achieve (30.0%). University courses (49.4%), social life (34.5%), couples’ relationships (29.6%), as well as relationships with family (21.4%) and friends (15.4%) were also affected, depending on the duration and intensity of the pain. Conclusion: Dysmenorrhea has a high prevalence among medical students and could affect the quality of life of students in several ways. During their menstrual period, most female students feel as if they have less energy for daily activities and exhibit a higher level of stress. The intensity of the symptoms varies considerably and, with it, the degree of discomfort it creates. Most student use both pharmacological and non-pharmacological methods to reduce pain (75.7%). University courses, social life, couples’ relationships, as well as relationships with family and friends are affected, depending on the duration and intensity of the pain