Application of conflictology methods for evaluating physical protection systems effectiveness

At present, physical protection of nuclear material and nuclear facilities is actual. For the implementation of physical protection, Physical Protection System (PPS) is created at nuclear facilities. We all know that the most important characteristic is effectiveness of physical protection systems. PPS effectiveness value is determined by the probability that reaction forces can stop and intercept the intruder. There are many methods to assess the effectiveness of PPS. However, not all methods can provide an accurate quantitative assessment of the effectiveness of security systems. This work presents an approach for assessing the resistance of PPS to emerging threat (that is, the intruder to act against items of physical protection).Based on the fact that different processes are subject to universal physical laws and principles of development, a parallel between the concepts of Conflictology field was established to describe the interaction in the system "intruder against PPS"

Understanding psychiatric institutionalization: a conceptual review

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Pitfalls in assessing stromal tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (sTILs) in breast cancer

Stromal tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (sTILs) are important prognostic and predictive biomarkers in triple-negative (TNBC) and HER2-positive breast cancer. Incorporating sTILs into clinical practice necessitates reproducible assessment. Previously developed standardized scoring guidelines have been widely embraced by the clinical and research communities. We evaluated sources of variability in sTIL assessment by pathologists in three previous sTIL ring studies. We identify common challenges and evaluate impact of discrepancies on outcome estimates in early TNBC using a newly-developed prognostic tool. Discordant sTIL assessment is driven by heterogeneity in lymphocyte distribution. Additional factors include: technical slide-related issues; scoring outside the tumor boundary; tumors with minimal assessable stroma; including lymphocytes associated with other structures; and including other inflammatory cells. Small variations in sTIL assessment modestly alter risk estimation in early TNBC but have the potential to affect treatment selection if cutpoints are employed. Scoring and averaging multiple areas, as well as use of reference images, improve consistency of sTIL evaluation. Moreover, to assist in avoiding the pitfalls identified in this analysis, we developed an educational resource available at www.tilsinbreastcancer.org/pitfalls.Stromal tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (sTILs) are important prognostic and predictive biomarkers in triple-negative (TNBC) and HER2-positive breast cancer. Incorporating sTILs into clinical practice necessitates reproducible assessment. Previously developed standardized scoring guidelines have been widely embraced by the clinical and research communities. We evaluated sources of variability in sTIL assessment by pathologists in three previous sTIL ring studies. We identify common challenges and evaluate impact of discrepancies on outcome estimates in early TNBC using a newly-developed prognostic tool. Discordant sTIL assessment is driven by heterogeneity in lymphocyte distribution. Additional factors include: technical slide-related issues; scoring outside the tumor boundary; tumors with minimal assessable stroma; including lymphocytes associated with other structures; and including other inflammatory cells. Small variations in sTIL assessment modestly alter risk estimation in early TNBC but have the potential to affect treatment selection if cutpoints are employed. Scoring and averaging multiple areas, as well as use of reference images, improve consistency of sTIL evaluation. Moreover, to assist in avoiding the pitfalls identified in this analysis, we developed an educational resource available at www.tilsinbreastcancer.org/pitfalls.Peer reviewe

Empirical research on Waldorf education

Waldorf education began in 1919 with the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart and nowadays is widespread in many countries all over the world. Empirical research, however, has been rare until the early nineties and Waldorf education has not been discussed within educational science so far. This has changed during the last decades. This article reviews the results of surveys during the last 20 years and is mainly focused on German Waldorf Schools, because most investigations have been done in this field. Findings are reported with respect to the following central aspects of Waldorf education: the holistic and integrative approach, the self-governance in the organization of the Waldorf schools, the Waldorf curriculum, and the principle of class teachers from 1st to 8th grade. Furthermore, Waldorf education also provides its own unique teacher training. All of these aspects have been explored and evaluated from different points of view and with different methods. The results show strengths as well as weaknesses of Waldorf education in the daily practice in schools, which indicates the kinds of challenges Waldorf education will have to face in the upcoming decades. The authors themselves have contributed in several investigations to the field of Waldorf education

Application of a risk-management framework for integration of stromal tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in clinical trials

Stromal tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (sTILs) are a potential predictive biomarker for immunotherapy response in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). To incorporate sTILs into clinical trials and diagnostics, reliable assessment is essential. In this review, we propose a new concept, namely the implementation of a risk-management framework that enables the use of sTILs as a stratification factor in clinical trials. We present the design of a biomarker risk-mitigation workflow that can be applied to any biomarker incorporation in clinical trials. We demonstrate the implementation of this concept using sTILs as an integral biomarker in a single-center phase II immunotherapy trial for metastatic TNBC (TONIC trial, NCT02499367), using this workflow to mitigate risks of suboptimal inclusion of sTILs in this specific trial. In this review, we demonstrate that a web-based scoring platform can mitigate potential risk factors when including sTILs in clinical trials, and we argue that this framework can be applied for any future biomarker-driven clinical trial setting

Application of a risk-management framework for integration of stromal tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in clinical trials

Funder: Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/100001006Abstract: Stromal tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (sTILs) are a potential predictive biomarker for immunotherapy response in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). To incorporate sTILs into clinical trials and diagnostics, reliable assessment is essential. In this review, we propose a new concept, namely the implementation of a risk-management framework that enables the use of sTILs as a stratification factor in clinical trials. We present the design of a biomarker risk-mitigation workflow that can be applied to any biomarker incorporation in clinical trials. We demonstrate the implementation of this concept using sTILs as an integral biomarker in a single-center phase II immunotherapy trial for metastatic TNBC (TONIC trial, NCT02499367), using this workflow to mitigate risks of suboptimal inclusion of sTILs in this specific trial. In this review, we demonstrate that a web-based scoring platform can mitigate potential risk factors when including sTILs in clinical trials, and we argue that this framework can be applied for any future biomarker-driven clinical trial setting