Analysis of the treg cell population in the peripheral blood of ovarian cancer patients in relation to the long-term outcomes

Objectives: There is growing evidence that Treg cell infiltration into the cancer nest is associated with poor prognosis. How- ever, the Treg cell population in the peripheral blood may change when a different type of anticancer therapy is applied. Since Treg cells may support tumor growth by enhancing the suppressive profile of the cancer microenvironment, the assessment of Treg cells can bring to light important information regarding prognosis. Thus we decided to analyze the Treg cell population in the peripheral blood in relation to long-term outcomes in the group of patients with ovarian cancer.  Material and methods: The 80 patients included in the study were treated surgically followed by chemiotherapy for ovar- ian cancer between October 2010 through May 2011.The peripheral blood samples from the patients were collected directly prior to chemotherapy. Information on any patients who died was retrieved from the database of the Cuiavia-Pomerania Regional Office of the National Health System of Poland. CD4+CD25+FOXP3+ lymphocytes T were assed by flow cytometry. We have analyzed the long term outcomes of treatment regarding to the level of Treg cells in peripheral blood.  Results: We found that patients with serous adenocarcinomas had significantly higher Treg levels compared to those patients with non-serous types. Patients who had a higher percentage of Treg cells within the CD4+ cell population prior to the beginning of the treatment had worse long-term outcomes from the applied therapy.  Conclusions: The assessment of Treg levels prior to the start of chemotherapy is clinically useful and may predict overall survival in ovarian cancer patients.

The InSight-HP³ mole on Mars: Lessons learned from attempts to penetrate to depth in the Martian soil

The NASA InSight lander mission to Mars payload includes the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package HP3 to measure the surface heat flow. The package was designed to use a small penetrator - nicknamed the mole - to implement a vertical string of temperature sensors in the soil to a depth of 5 m. The mole itself is equipped with sensors to measure a thermal conductivity-depth profile as it proceeds to depth. The heat flow is calculated from the product of the temperature gradient and the thermal conductivity. To avoid the perturbation caused by annual surface temperature variations, the measurements need to be taken at a depth between 3 m and 5 m. The mole is designed to penetrate cohesionless soil similar in rheology to quartz sand which is expected to provide a good analogue material for Martian sand. The sand would provide friction to the buried mole hull to balance the remaining recoil of the mole hammer mechanism that drives the mole forward. Unfortunately, the mole did not penetrate more than 40 cm, roughly a mole length. The failure to penetrate deeper is largely due to a cohesive duricrust of a few tens of centimeter thickness that failed to provide the required friction. Although a suppressor mass and spring as part of the mole hammer mechanism absorb much of the recoil, the available mass did not allow designing a system that fully eliminated the recoil. The mole penetrated to 40 cm depth benefiting from friction provided by springs in the support structure from which it was deployed and from friction and direct support provided by the InSight Instrument Deployment Arm. In addition, the Martian soil provided unexpected levels of penetration resistance that would have motivated designing a more powerful mole. The low weight of the mole support structure was not sufficient to guide the mole penetrating vertically. Roughly doubling the overall mass of the instrument package would have allowed to design a more robust system with little or no recoil, more energy of the mole hammer mechanism and a more massive support structure. In addition, to cope with duricrust a mechanism to support the mole to a depth of about two mole lengths should be considered

The InSight HP3 Penetrator (Mole) on Mars: Soil Properties Derived from the Penetration Attempts and Related Activities

The NASA InSight Lander on Mars includes the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package HP3 to measure the surface heat flow of the planet. The package uses temperature sensors that would have been brought to the target depth of 3–5 m by a small penetrator, nicknamed the mole. The mole requiring friction on its hull to balance remaining recoil from its hammer mechanism did not penetrate to the targeted depth. Instead, by precessing about a point midway along its hull, it carved a 7 cm deep and 5–6 cm wide pit and reached a depth of initially 31 cm. The root cause of the failure – as was determined through an extensive, almost two years long campaign – was a lack of friction in an unexpectedly thick cohesive duricrust. During the campaign – described in detail in this paper – the mole penetrated further aided by friction applied using the scoop at the end of the robotic Instrument Deployment Arm and by direct support by the latter. The mole tip finally reached a depth of about 37 cm, bringing the mole back-end 1–2 cm below the surface. It reversed its downward motion twice during attempts to provide friction through pressure on the regolith instead of directly with the scoop to the mole hull. The penetration record of the mole was used to infer mechanical soil parameters such as the penetration resistance of the duricrust of 0.3–0.7 MPa and a penetration resistance of a deeper layer (> 30 cm depth) of 4.9±0.4 MPa. Using the mole’s thermal sensors, thermal conductivity and diffusivity were measured. Applying cone penetration theory, the resistance of the duricrust was used to estimate a cohesion of the latter of 2–15 kPa depending on the internal friction angle of the duricrust. Pushing the scoop with its blade into the surface and chopping off a piece of duricrust provided another estimate of the cohesion of 5.8 kPa. The hammerings of the mole were recorded by the seismometer SEIS and the signals were used to derive P-wave and S-wave velocities representative of the topmost tens of cm of the regolith. Together with the density provided by a thermal conductivity and diffusivity measurement using the mole’s thermal sensors, the elastic moduli were calculated from the seismic velocities. Using empirical correlations from terrestrial soil studies between the shear modulus and cohesion, the previous cohesion estimates were found to be consistent with the elastic moduli. The combined data were used to derive a model of the regolith that has an about 20 cm thick duricrust underneath a 1 cm thick unconsolidated layer of sand mixed with dust and above another 10 cm of unconsolidated sand. Underneath the latter, a layer more resistant to penetration and possibly containing debris from a small impact crater is inferred. The thermal conductivity increases from 14 mW/m K to 34 mW/m K through the 1 cm sand/dust layer, keeps the latter value in the duricrust and the sand layer underneath and then increases to 64 mW/m K in the sand/gravel layer below

New methods to engineer and seamlessly reconfigure time triggered ethernet based systems during runtime based on the PROFINET IRT example

The objective of this dissertation is to design a concept that would allow to increase the flexibility of currently available Time Triggered Ethernet based (TTEB) systems, however, without affecting their performance and robustness. The main challenges are related to scheduling of time triggered communication that may take significant amount of time and has to be performed on a powerful platform. Additionally, the reliability has to be considered and kept on the required high level. Finally, the reconfiguration has to be optimally done without affecting the currently running system

REGIONALNA BIORÓŻNORODNOŚĆ UPRAW W POLSKIM ROLNICTWIE – ZMIANY W OKRESIE CZŁONKOSTWA W UNII EUROPEJSKIEJ

The aim of the research was to assess regional changes in the biodiversity of the plant crops on farms. The subject of the study was the structure of crops and groups of crops consisting of 16 species. The spatial scope of the study is Poland in the system of 16 voivodeships, while the time range is the years 2004-2021. The basic method was the Shannon- -Wiener index, which was calculated for individual years and regions. In addition, Pearson’s linear correlation coefficient was used to identify the relationship between the level of biodiversity and selected agricultural characteristics; and linear regression to determine the trend. The results were presented using choropleth maps and line charts. It was shown that during the period of membership in the EU the evenness of the analyzed structure was characterized by relatively small changes. The regional analysis made it possible to divide Poland into the north-western-central part, where the structure of crops over the years under study became more and more even (Łódź Voivodeship is the clear leader) and the south-eastern part, where the differences between individual crops/groups of crops became more and more even are getting bigger (in this case, this applies in particular to the Małopolskie and Podkarpackie voivodeships). A positive relationship was found between the diversity of the structure of crops and groups of crops and the level of global agricultural production, which indicates that biodiversity can create high-performance agriculture, which is the food base of the country

REGIONALNA BIORÓŻNORODNOŚĆ UPRAW W POLSKIM ROLNICTWIE – ZMIANY W OKRESIE CZŁONKOSTWA W UNII EUROPEJSKIEJ

The aim of the research was to assess regional changes in the biodiversity of the plant crops on farms. The subject of the study was the structure of crops and groups of crops consisting of 16 species. The spatial scope of the study is Poland in the system of 16 voivodeships, while the time range is the years 2004-2021. The basic method was the Shannon- -Wiener index, which was calculated for individual years and regions. In addition, Pearson’s linear correlation coefficient was used to identify the relationship between the level of biodiversity and selected agricultural characteristics; and linear regression to determine the trend. The results were presented using choropleth maps and line charts. It was shown that during the period of membership in the EU the evenness of the analyzed structure was characterized by relatively small changes. The regional analysis made it possible to divide Poland into the north-western-central part, where the structure of crops over the years under study became more and more even (Łódź Voivodeship is the clear leader) and the south-eastern part, where the differences between individual crops/groups of crops became more and more even are getting bigger (in this case, this applies in particular to the Małopolskie and Podkarpackie voivodeships). A positive relationship was found between the diversity of the structure of crops and groups of crops and the level of global agricultural production, which indicates that biodiversity can create high-performance agriculture, which is the food base of the country

Heterogeneous and Dependable Networks in Industry - a Survey

The real and effective ground of all new concepts dedicated to the current advanced factories, as well as to the future digital ones, is close cooperativity of scattered applications in highly heterogeneous systems. Communication is the key enabling component, and all new approaches are inspired in practice to the demanding characteristics of industrial networks. These kinds of computer networks, together with new technologies derived from distant application fields, are the main technological means to accelerate the fast evolution of modern factory systems. Due to various communication requirements coming from the plurality of structures, components and application contexts, communication subsystems must be increasingly heterogeneous. Let us say clearly: this evolution cannot be stopped at this stage, no special universal solution is possible, and thinking about monogamous networking is a kind of dreamland. This paper is an analysis of the state of the art in the matter of heterogeneous networking in industry. It deeply investigates both wired and wireless technologies from the point of view of technological aspects and relevant key performance indicators, such as those related to dependability, and it contains a prospective estimation of future trends

Heterogeneous and Dependable Networks in Industry - a Survey

The real and effective ground of all new concepts dedicated to the current advanced factories, as well as to the future digital ones, is close cooperativity of scattered applications in highly heterogeneous systems. Communication is the key enabling component, and all new approaches are inspired in practice to the demanding characteristics of industrial networks. These kinds of computer networks, together with new technologies derived from distant application fields, are the main technological means to accelerate the fast evolution of modern factory systems. Due to various communication requirements coming from the plurality of structures, components and application contexts, communication subsystems must be increasingly heterogeneous. Let us say clearly: this evolution cannot be stopped at this stage, no special universal solution is possible, and thinking about monogamous networking is a kind of dreamland. This paper is an analysis of the state of the art in the matter of heterogeneous networking in industry. It deeply investigates both wired and wireless technologies from the point of view of technological aspects and relevant key performance indicators, such as those related to dependability, and it contains a prospective estimation of future trends