Patterns d'Analyse pour l'Ingénierie de Systèmes d'Information à base d'Agents : Une Application au Domaine du Transport

National audienceIntelligent Transport Information Systems may find benefit of using agent-based solutions. Actually, transport information systems require adaptability to varying changes in offers, and unexpected occurring events. Agents and multiagent systems provide such requirements. Unfortunately, agent-based information systems such as other distributed, asynchronous, loose-coupling applications are difficult to design and implement due to lack of best practices to ease development. This paper describes an approach based on software pattern reuse facilitating engineering of such systems. Patterns are generic solutions to frequently occurring problems. Metamodel represents and structures agent concepts. Fourteen analysis patterns have been specified from this metamodel and describe conceptual entities for the design of an agent-based IS application. Reuse support patterns help designers to reuse former patterns during the information system application engineering

Patterns for Agent-Based Information Systems: A Case Study in Transport

International audienceIntelligent Transport Information Systems may find benefit of using agent-based solutions. Actually, transport information systems require adaptability to varying changes in offers, and unexpected occurring events. Agents and multiagent systems provide such requirements. Unfortunately, agent-based information systems such as other distributed, asynchronous, loose coupling applications are difficult to design and implement due to lack of best practices to ease development. This paper describes an approach based on software pattern reuse that facilitates engineering of these systems. Some patterns have been specified for the analysis and design of such information systems and are described here. Implementation patterns for a specific platform are sketched in perspectives of this research

Tracking the consequences of design decisions in mechatronic systems engineering

19 pagesInternational audienceThe design of mechatronic systems involves several technical and scientific disciplines. It is often difficult to anticipate, at the outset, the consequences of design decisions on the ultimate effectiveness of such complex systems, in which case the evaluation process is required to support the designers each time engineering choices must be made or justified. Since designers may belong to different technical and scientific cultures however, their understanding of both the design stakes and the evaluation process is too often biased. Moreover, design choices take place in an uncertain context and according to multiple criteria, some of which may be contradictory. In order to track the consequences of design decisions, we are proposing a conceptual data model to perform evaluations within the MBSE framework of Systems Engineering. We then proceed by relying on the relationships demonstrated by such a model to identify the potential impacts of design choices on future product performance. Since data available during the conceptual phase of the design are typically uncertain or imprecise, an original research protocol is extended to a qualitative impact analysis for the purpose of highlighting the most promising alternative system design solutions (ASDS). An example in the mechatronics field serves to illustrate our proposals

A proposal for a high performance γ\gamma-camera based on liquid Xenon converter and gaseous photomultiplier for PET

présenté par D. Ther

Assessing HER2 gene amplification as a potential target for therapy in invasive urothelial bladder cancer with a standardized methodology: results in 1005 patients

Background: This study assessed the human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) protein expression and its relationship with gene amplification in invasive bladder carcinoma, using the same criteria than for breast cancer

HER2 status of bone marrow micrometastasis and their corresponding primary tumours in a pilot study of 27 cases: a possible tool for anti-HER2 therapy management?

Discrepancies have been reported between HER2 status in primary breast cancer and micrometastatic cells in bone marrow. The aim of this study was to assess HER2 gene status in micrometastatic cells in bone marrow and corresponding primary tumour. Micrometastatic cells were detected in bone marrow aspirations in a prospective series of 27 breast cancer patients by immunocytochemistry (pancytokeratin antibody). HER2 status of micrometastatic cells was assessed by fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH), respectively in 24 out of 27. Primary tumour HER2 status was assessed by immunohistochemistry (CB11 antibody) and by FISH in 20 out of 27 of the cases. HER2 was amplified or overexpressed in five out of 27 (18.5%) primary tumours and in four out of 27 (15%) micrometastatic cells. In two cases, HER2 was overexpressed and amplified in primary tumour, but not in micrometastatic cells, whereas, in one case, HER2 presented a low amplification rate (six copies) in micrometastatic cells not found in the primary tumour. We demonstrated that negative and positive HER2 status remained, in the majority of the cases, stable between the bone marrow micrometastasis and the primary tumour. Therefore, the efficiency of anti-HER2 adjuvant therapy could be evaluated, in a clinical trial, by sequential detection of HER2-positive micrometastatic cells within the bone marrow, before and after treatment

Agreement between chromogenic in situ hybridisation (CISH) and FISH in the determination of HER2 status in breast cancer

Determination of the HER2/neu (HER2) status in breast carcinoma has become necessary for the selection of breast cancer patients for trastuzumab therapy. Amplification of the gene analysed by fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) or overexpression of the protein determined by immunohistochemistry (IHC) are the two major methods to establish this status. A strong correlation has been previously demonstrated between these two methods. However, FISH is not always feasible in routine practice and weakly positive IHC tumours (2+) do not always correspond to a gene amplification. Our study was performed in order to evaluate the contribution of chromogenic in situ hybridisation (CISH), which enables detection of the gene copies through an immunoperoxidase reaction. CISH was performed in 79 breast carcinomas for which the HER2 status was previously determined by IHC and FISH. The results of IHC, FISH and CISH were compared for each tumour. CISH procedures were successful in 95% of our cases. Whatever the IHC results, we found a very good concordance (96%) between CISH and FISH. Our study confirms that CISH may be an alternative to FISH for the determination of the gene amplification status in 2+ tumours. Our results allow us to think that, in many laboratories, CISH may also be an excellent method to calibrate the IHC procedures or, as a quality control test, to check regularly that the IHC signal is in agreement with the gene statu

Mise à jour des recommandations du GEFPICS pour l’évaluation du statut HER2 dans les cancers du sein en France

En Europe, les patientes atteintes d’un cancer du sein invasif susceptibles de recevoir un traitement ciblé anti-HER2 sont actuellement sélectionnées sur la base d’un test immunohistochimique (IHC). Les techniques d’hybridation in situ (HIS) doivent être utilisées pour l’évaluation des cas IHC ambigus (2+) et pour l’étalonnage de la technique IHC. Les patientes éligibles au traitement ciblant HER2 présentent un statut HER2 positif défini par un test IHC 3+ ou un test 2+ amplifié. Une détection correcte du statut HER2 est indispensable à une utilisation optimale des thérapeutiques ciblées puisque leur efficacité est limitée aux patientes surexprimant HER2. Il est capital que l’évaluation du statut HER2 soit optimisée et fiable. Ces recommandations du groupe d’étude des facteurs pronostiques IHC dans le cancer du sein (GEFPICS) détaillent et commentent les différentes étapes des techniques IHC et HIS, les contrôles utilisables et les règles générales de l’apprentissage de la lecture. Une fois acquis, ce savoir-faire doit être pérennisé par l’observation de règles de bonnes pratiques techniques (utilisation rigoureuse de témoins internes et externes et participation régulière à des programmes d’Assurance qualité [AQ])., Summary In Europe, patients who may benefit from an HER2 targeted drug are currently selected by immunohistochemistry (IHC). In situ hybridization (ISH) techniques should be used for complementary assessment of ambiguous 2+ IHC cases and for the calibration of the IHC technique. Eligibility to an HER2 target treatment is defined by an HER2 positive status being IHC test 3+ or 2+ amplified. Reliable detection of HER2 status is essential to the appropriate usage of HER2 targeted drugs because its specificity is limited to tumors overexpressing HER2. It is essential that the IHC evaluation of the HER2 status of a mammary carcinoma is optimized and reliable. This GEFPICS’ guidelines look over the different steps of the IHC technique, the controls and, the rules for interpretation. Once acquired, this knowledge must be perpetuated by the observation of rules of good technical practice (internal and external controls, quality assurance programs)

HER2 Status in Ovarian Carcinomas: A Multicenter GINECO Study of 320 Patients

BACKGROUND: Despite a typically good response to first-line combination chemotherapy, the prognosis for patients with advanced ovarian cancer remains poor because of acquired chemoresistance. The use of targeted therapies such as trastuzumab may potentially improve outcomes for patients with ovarian cancer. HER2 overexpression/amplification has been reported in ovarian cancer, but the exact percentage of HER2-positive tumors varies widely in the literature. In this study, HER2 gene status was evaluated in a large, multicentric series of 320 patients with advanced ovarian cancer, including 243 patients enrolled in a multicenter prospective clinical trial of paclitaxel/carboplatin-based chemotherapy. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The HER2 status of primary tumors and metastases was evaluated by both immunohistochemistry (IHC) and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis of paraffin-embedded tissue on conventional slides. The prognostic impact of HER2 expression was analyzed. HER2 gene was overexpressed and amplified in 6.6% of analyzed tumors. Despite frequent intratumoral heterogeneity, no statistically significant difference was detected between primary tumors and corresponding metastases. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results show that the decision algorithm usually used in breast cancer (IHC as a screening test, with equivocal results confirmed by FISH) is appropriate in ovarian cancer. In contrast to previous series, HER2-positive status did not influence outcome in the present study, possibly due to the fact that patients in our study received paclitaxel/carboplatin-based chemotherapy. This raises the question of whether HER2 status and paclitaxel sensitively are linked