Graphing methods for Kendall's {\tau}

Ranked data is commonly used in research across many fields of study including medicine, biology, psychology, and economics. One common statistic used for analyzing ranked data is Kendall's {\tau} coefficient, a non-parametric measure of rank correlation which describes the strength of the association between two monotonic continuous or ordinal variables. While the mathematics involved in calculating Kendall's {\tau} is well-established, there are relatively few graphing methods available to visualize the results. Here, we describe a visualization method for Kendall's {\tau} which uses a series of rigid Euclidean transformations along a Cartesian plane to map rank pairs into discrete quadrants. The resulting graph provides a visualization of rank correlation which helps display the proportion of concordant and discordant pairs. Moreover, this method highlights other key features of the data which are not represented by Kendall's {\tau} alone but may nevertheless be meaningful, such as the relationship between discrete pairs of observations. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach through several examples and compare our results to other visualization methods

Time-resolved nanoseconds dynamics of ultrasound contrast agent microbubbles

Optical tweezers enable non-destructive, contact-free manipulation of ultrasound contrast agent (UCA) microbubbles, which are used in medical imaging for enhancing the echogenicity of the blood pool and to quantify organ perfusion. The understanding of the fundamental dynamics of ultrasound-driven contrast agent microbubbles is a first step for exploiting their acoustical properties and to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic applications. In this respect, optical tweezers can be used to study UCA microbubbles under controlled and repeatable conditions, by positioning them away from interfaces and from neighboring bubbles. In addition, a high-speed imaging system is required to record the dynamics of UCA microbubbles in ultrasound, as their oscillations occur on the nanoseconds timescale. In this work, we demonstrate the use of an optical tweezers system combined with a high-speed camera capable of 128-frame recordings at up to 25 million frames per second (Mfps), for the study of individual UCA microbubble dynamics as a function of the distance from solid interfaces

History force on coated microbubbles propelled by ultrasound

In this paper the unsteady translation of coated microbubbles propelled by acoustic radiation force is studied experimentally. A system of two pulsating microbubbles of the type used as contrast agent in ultrasound medical imaging is considered, which attract each other as a result of the secondary Bjerknes force. Optical tweezers are used to isolate the bubble pair from neighboring boundaries so that it can be regarded as if in an unbounded fluid and the hydrodynamic forces acting on the system can be identified unambiguously. The radial and translational dynamics, excited by a 2.25 MHz ultrasound wave, is recorded with an ultrahigh speed camera at 15×106 frames/s. The time-resolved measurements reveal a quasisteady component of the translational velocity, at an average translational Reynolds number 〈Ret〉 ≈ 0.5, and an oscillatory component at the same frequency as the radial pulsations, as predicted by existing models. Since the coating enforces a no-slip boundary condition, an increased viscous dissipation is expected due to the oscillatory component, similar to the case of an oscillating rigid sphere that was first described by Stokes [“On the effect of the internal friction of fluids on the motion of pendulums,” Trans. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 9, 8 (1851) ]. A history force term is therefore included in the force balance, in the form originally proposed by Basset and extended to the case of time-dependent radius by Takemura and Magnaudet [“The history force on a rapidly shrinking bubble rising at finite Reynolds number,” Phys. Fluids 16, 3247 (2004) ]. The instantaneous values of the hydrodynamic forces extracted from the experimental data confirm that the history force accounts for the largest part of the viscous force. The trajectories of the bubbles predicted by numerically solving the equations of motion are in very good agreement with the experiment

Time-resolved nanoseconds dynamics of ultrasound contrast agent microbubbles manipulated and controlled by optical tweezers

Optical tweezers enable non-destructive, contact-free manipulation of ultrasound contrast agent (UCA) microbubbles, which are used in medical imaging for enhancing the echogenicity of the blood pool and to quantify organ perfusion. The understanding of the fundamental dynamics of ultrasound-driven contrast agent microbubbles is a first step for exploiting their acoustical properties and to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic applications. In this respect, optical tweezers can be used to study UCA microbubbles under controlled and repeatable conditions, by positioning them away from interfaces and from neighboring bubbles. In addition, a high-speed imaging system is required to record the dynamics of UCA microbubbles in ultrasound, as their oscillations occur on the nanoseconds timescale. In this work, we demonstrate the use of an optical tweezers system combined with a high-speed camera capable of 128-frame recordings at up to 25 million frames per second (Mfps), for the study of individual UCA microbubble dynamics as a function of the distance from solid interfaces.</p

Interrogating open issues in cancer precision medicine with patient-derived xenografts

Patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) have emerged as an important platform to elucidate new treatments and biomarkers in oncology. PDX models are used to address clinically relevant questions, including the contribution of tumour heterogeneity to therapeutic responsiveness, the patterns of cancer evolutionary dynamics during tumour progression and under drug pressure, and the mechanisms of resistance to treatment. The ability of PDX models to predict clinical outcomes is being improved through mouse humanization strategies and the implementation of co-clinical trials, within which patients and PDXs reciprocally inform therapeutic decisions. This Opinion article discusses aspects of PDX modelling that are relevant to these questions and highlights the merits of shared PDX resources to advance cancer medicine from the perspective of EurOPDX, an international initiative devoted to PDX-based research.status: publishe

Erratum: Interrogating open issues in cancer medicine with patient-derived xenografts.

status: accepte