Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Propensity for Early Metastatic Spread in Breast Cancer: Role of Tumor Vascularization Features and Tumor Immune Infiltrate

Simple Summary Neoangiogenesis and different components of tumor microenvironment exert crucial roles in early metastatic spreading of breast cancer. Due to the paucity of available factors for breast cancer that can estimate the risk of metastasis or response to a given treatment, there is an important need for new, additional biomarkers of the tumor stroma that can be prognostic and predictive at the early stages of the disease. This review is focused on the current understanding of breast tumor environment characteristics (tumor vasculature and immune infiltrate) in order to incorporate them in diagnostic algorithms together with the assessment of hormone receptors (ER and PR) and of HER2 status. Abstract Breast cancer is a complex and highly heterogeneous disease consisting of various subtypes. It is classified into human epidermal growth receptor 2 (HER-2)-enriched, luminal A, luminal B and basal-like/triple negative (TNBC) breast cancer, based on histological and molecular features. At present, clinical decision-making in breast cancer is focused only on the assessment of tumor cells; nevertheless, it has been recognized that the tumor microenvironment (TME) plays a critical biologic role in breast cancer. This is constituted by a large group of immune and non-immune cells, but also by non-cellular components, such as several cytokines. TME is deeply involved in angiogenesis, immune-evasion strategies, and propensity for early metastatic spread, impacting on prognosis and prediction of response to specific treatments. In this review, we focused our attention on the early morphological changes of tumor microenvironment (tumor vasculature features, presence of immune and non-immune cells infiltrating the stroma, levels of cytokines) during breast cancer development. At the same time, we correlate these characteristics with early metastatic propensity (defined as synchronous metastasis or early recurrence) with particular attention to breast cancer subtypes.
Vapour resistance of wind barrier tape: Laboratory measurements and hygrothermal performance implications

In the building industry, the interest into adhesive tape to achieve a more tight and robust building envelope has increased rapidly in recent years. With an increasing demand for energy efficiency in buildings, national building authorities are strengthening building requirements to mitigate and adapt to future climate impacts. This paper studies the water vapour permeability of adhesive tape for building purposes. A water vapour permeable wind barrier is essential to enable drying of the external side of the building envelope. Laboratory measurements have been conducted to evaluate how the drying conditions of the wind barrier layer are affected by the use of wind barrier tape. The results show that all the wind barrier tapes tested can be defined as significantly more vapour tight than the wind barrier itself. The wind barrier used as reference was found to have an sd-value of 0.03 m while tape ranged between 1.1 and 9.24 m. To ensure adequate drying and minimize the risk of moisture damages, the wind barrier layer should be vapour open. In an investigated construction project, the amount of tape constitutes 13% of the area of the building’s wind barrier. Further simulations need to be conducted to accurately determine the drying conditions and the following consequences.
Long Retention Intervals Impair the Confidence-Accuracy Relationship for Eyewitness Recall

A growing body of research suggests that confidence judgements can provide a useful indicator of memory accuracy under some conditions. One factor known to affect eyewitness accuracy, yet rarely examined in the confidence-accuracy literature, is retention interval. Using calibration analyses, we investigated how retention interval affects the confidence-accuracy relationship for eyewitness recall. In total, 611 adults watched a mock crime video and completed a cued-recall test either immediately, after 1 week, or after 1 month. Long (1 month) delays led to lower memory accuracy, lower confidence judgements, and impaired the confidence-accuracy relationship compared to shorter (immediate and 1 week) delays. Long-delay participants who reported very high levels of confidence tended to be over-confident in the accuracy of their memories compared to other participants. Self-rated memory ability, however, did not predict eyewitness confidence or the confidence-accuracy relationship. We discuss the findings in relation to cue-utilization theory and a retrieval-fluency account.
One plus one equals one: age-diverse friendship and its complex relation to employees’ job satisfaction and turnover intentions

ABSTRACT This research investigates age-diverse friendship and its complex relation to job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Based on self-expansion theory, we argue that age-diverse friendship can lead younger and older employees to perceive oneness (a sense of merged identity) with a colleague from the respective other age-group and that this perceived oneness has consequences. On the positive side, we hypothesize perceived oneness to facilitate motivation to cooperate, which should increase job satisfaction and decrease turnover intentions. On the negative side, we hypothesize perceived oneness to provoke interrole conflict, which should decrease job satisfaction and increase turnover intentions. We found support for our hypotheses in a two-wave dyadic study consisting of 93 German age-diverse employee dyads (N = 186 individuals). Results showed that perceived oneness resulting from age-diverse friendship was related to motivation to cooperate (positive path) and interrole conflict (negative path). In turn, interrole conflict was linked to lower job satisfaction and higher turnover intentions. Motivation to cooperate was however not significantly linked to job satisfaction and turnover intentions. By considering age-diverse friendships, this research provides an age-specific lens on the beneficial and detrimental effects of workplace friendship and contributes to the literatures on age diversity, cross-group friendship, and workplace friendship.
Servant School Leadership and Organisational Climate in South African Private Schools

The leadership of companies influences the organisational climate of companies by creating a cycle of continuous improvement or failing to do so. The same applies to educational leadership in their search for favourable teaching and learning conditions for all learners, especially those of underperforming schools whose academic results are not up to standard. Critical dialogue and new thinking regarding school leadership are mandatory to improve the status quo. It is proposed that the servant leadership paradigm, when practiced by school leadership, may have a significant influence on the school environment. A qualitative approach was utilised to measure the impact of servant school leadership on the organisational climate of private schools in South Africa, with the aim of learning valuable lessons to implement in the public school domain and especially the underperforming school sector. A purposive convenience sampling approach was applied to select participants for three focus group interviews. A theoretical thematic, semantic, and essentialist analytical approach served as the foundation for this study. The focus group interviews confirmed that the participants perceived their school leaderships to implement specific characteristics of servant leadership and organisational climate to enhance a positive school environment for teachers and learners to succeed. The participants also perceived definite links between servant leadership and organisational climate. It is recommended that the servant leadership paradigm and its impact on the organisational climate of underperforming schools be researched and considered for implementation nationally and internationally.
Clinical and Sonographic Classification of Neurofibromas in Children with Neurofibromatosis Type 1 – A Cluster Analysis

Abstract Purpose High-frequency ultrasound allows the accurate identification of neurofibromas in neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1). This study aimed to analyze the ultrasound features of neurofibromas in children with NF1, to establish a classification based on the clinical and sonographic patterns of the different types of neurofibromas, and to evaluate the interobserver correlation coefficient (κ) of this classification. Materials and Methods In this prospective, single referral center observational study, clinical and ultrasound findings of neurofibromas in children diagnosed with NF 1 were analyzed. To identify the ultrasound patterns, a cluster analysis allowing the inclusion of both clinical and ultrasound data was designed. The κ coefficient was calculated using 9 external evaluators. Results 265 ultrasound scans were performed on a total of 242 neurofibromas from 108 children diagnosed with NF1. Cluster analysis allowed the identification of 9 patterns (Snedecorʼs F, P < 0.001) classified as “classic” cutaneous neurofibroma, blue-red neurofibroma, pseudoatrophic neurofibroma, nodular subcutaneous neurofibroma, diffuse subcutaneous neurofibroma, congenital cutaneous neurofibroma, congenital plexiform neurofibroma, congenital diffuse and plexiform neurofibroma, and subfascial neurofibroma. The κ coefficient of the interobserver ratings was 0.82. Conclusion Patterns identified in the cluster analysis allow neurofibromas to be classified with a very high interobserver correlation.
The Oleaginous Yeast Metschnikowia pulcherrima Displays Killer Activity against Avian-Derived Pathogenic Bacteria

Simple Summary Pathogenic bacteria in poultry and the widespread use of antibiotics to manage them are costly in terms of production, environmental risk and human health. Probiotic and other low-cost, non-antibiotic treatments offer attractive alternatives to antibiotic applications, but relatively few of these options exist. In this research, we investigated the potential of an otherwise-useful industrial yeast, Metschnikowia pulcherrima, for the active suppression of poultry pathogenic bacteria. We tested multiple strains of yeast against several important bacterial pathogens and found that the more inhibitory strains of yeast supressed bacterial growth and actively killed the most recalcitrant bacteria. Less aggressive yeast strains could increase the growth of some bacterial strains in some environments. The yeast produced novel molecules in response to the presence of the bacteria and we identified several potential mechanisms by which the yeast inhibited or killed bacteria. Together, these results point towards a useful application of a novel yeast for enhanced, antibiotic-free pathogen control. Abstract Metschnikowia pulcherrima is a non-conventional yeast with potential to be used in biotechnological processes, especially those involving low-cost feedstock exploitation and biocontrol applications. The combination of traits that supports these industrial applications in M. pulcherrima also makes it an attractive option to study in the context of livestock health. In this study, we examined the specific interactions between M. pulcherrima and multiple avian pathogenic bacteria. We tested individual bacteria–yeast interactions and bacterial combinations in both solid and liquid media and in variable nutrient environments. Across multiple isolates of M. pulcherrima, we observed different levels of antimicrobial activity, varying from supporting the growth of competing bacteria through suppression and bacterial killing, and we found that these responses varied depending on the bacterial strains and media. We identified multiple molecular routes, including proteins produced by M. pulcherrima strains, that acted to control these microbial interactions. Furthermore, protein screening revealed that M. pulcherrima strains were induced to produce proteins specifically when exposed to bacterial strains, suggesting that fine-tuned mechanisms allow M. pulcherrima to function as a potential lynchpin in a microbial community.
Government websites as data: a methodological pipeline with application to the websites of municipalities in the United States

ABSTRACT The content of a government’s website is an important source of information about policy priorities, procedures, and services. Existing research on government websites has relied on manual methods of website content collection and processing, which imposes cost limitations on the scale of website data collection. In this research note, we propose that the automated collection of website content from large samples of government websites can offer relief from the costs of manual collection, and enable contributions through large-scale comparative analyses. We also provide software to ease the use of this data collection method. In an illustrative application, we collect textual content from the websites of over two hundred municipal governments in the United States, and study how website content is associated with mayoral partisanship. Using statistical topic modeling, we find that the partisanship of the mayor predicts differences in the contents of city websites that align with differences in the platforms of Democrats and Republicans. The application illustrates the utility of website content data extracted via our methodological pipeline.
Robust Design Methodology: Status in the Swedish Manufacturing Industry

While robust design methodology is a fairly common subject in the literature on quality and statistics, this paper shows that only 17% of Swedish manufacturing companies apply robust design methodology. The low level of use of robust design methodology is surprising since a majority of the companies think it is important to minimize performance variation. However, although knowledge and use of robust design methodology is poor, methods suitable in robust design methodology are often used. For example, 53% of the companies use design of experiments to some extent. The data presented in this paper were collected in a telephone survey of 105 companies in the Swedish manufacturing industry; the response rate was 83%. The sample was stratified with respect to company size, and it is shown that robust design methodology and related methods are used to a greater extent in large companies than in small and medium‐sized ones. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Shaking table tests of steel frame with superelastic Cu–Al–Mn SMA tension braces

Shaking table tests are performed on a one‐bay one‐story steel frame with superelastic Cu–Al–Mn shape memory alloy (SMA) tension braces. The frame is subjected to a series of scaled ground motions recorded during the 1995 Kobe earthquake, Japan. The test results demonstrate that the SMA braces are effective to prevent residual deformations and pinching. It is also shown that the time history responses observed from the shaking table tests agree well with the numerical predictions using a rate‐independent piecewise‐linear constitutive model calibrated to the quasi‐static component tests of the SMA braces. This suggests that the loading rate dependence of Cu–Al–Mn SMAs as well as the modeling error due to the piecewise linear approximation can be neglected in capturing the global response of the steel frame. Numerical simulations under a suite of near‐fault ground motion records are further performed using the calibrated analytical models to demonstrate the effectiveness of the SMA braces when the variability of near‐fault ground motions is taken into account. A stopper, or a deformation restraining device, is also proposed to prevent premature fracture of SMA bars in unexpectedly large ground motions while keeping the self‐centering capability in moderate to large ground motions. The effectiveness of the stopper is also demonstrated in the quasi‐static component and shaking table tests. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Exploring the Generalizability of Spatio-Temporal Traffic Prediction: Meta-Modeling and an Analytic Framework

The Spatio-Temporal Traffic Prediction (STTP) problem is a classical problem with plenty of prior research efforts that benefit from traditional statistical learning and recent deep learning approaches. While STTP can refer to many real-world problems, most existing studies focus on quite specific applications, such as the prediction of taxi demand, ridesharing order, traffic speed, and so on. This hinders the STTP research as the approaches designed for different applications are hardly comparable, and thus how an application-driven approach can be generalized to other scenarios is unclear. To fill in this gap, this paper makes three efforts: (i) we propose an analytic framework, called STAnalytic, to qualitatively investigate STTP approaches regarding their design considerations on various spatial and temporal factors, aiming to make different application-driven approaches comparable; (ii) we design a spatio-temporal meta-model, called STMeta, which can flexibly integrate generalizable temporal and spatial knowledge identified by STAnalytic, (iii) we build an STTP benchmark platform including ten real-life datasets with five scenarios to quantitatively measure the generalizability of STTP approaches. In particular, we implement STMeta with different deep learning techniques, and STMeta demonstrates better generalizability than state-of-the-art approaches by achieving lower prediction error on average across all the datasets.
Potential of hydrogen/diesel reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) combustion from the perspective of the second law of thermodynamics

The potential of reactivity controlled compression ignition (RCCI) combustion fueled with hydrogen and diesel (i.e. hydrogen/diesel RCCI) was evaluated using multi-dimensional simulations embedded with a reduced chemical mechanism. In hydrogen/diesel RCCI, the premixed hydrogen is ignited by the diesel, which is directly injected into the cylinder well before the top dead center. To investigate the potential benefits of hydrogen/diesel RCCI, its combustion characteristics were compared with that of gasoline/diesel RCCI from the perspective of the second law of thermodynamics. Meanwhile, the impacts of premixed energy ratio and initial pressure on the exergy distribution for hydrogen/diesel RCCI were explored. The results show that hydrogen/diesel RCCI has an advantage over gasoline/diesel RCCI in the reduction of exergy destruction due to higher combustion temperature, shorter combustion duration, and the distinctive oxidation pathways between hydrogen and gasoline. A higher proportion of exergy output work can be achieved for hydrogen/diesel RCCI under the conditions with the same total input energy and 50% heat release (CA50) point. Moreover, a larger premixed energy ratio (i.e. larger hydrogen proportion) is helpful to elevate exergy output work and reduce exergy destruction owing to higher combustion temperature and the undergoing oxidation pathways of hydrogen with less exergy destruction. A higher initial pressure yields raised exergy destruction because of lower combustion temperature and longer combustion duration, but exergy output work is increased owing to the significantly reduced exergy transfer through heat transfer.
Colorectal Cancer Stem Cells: An Overview of Evolving Methods and Concepts

Simple Summary In recent years, colorectal cancer stem cells (cCSCs) have been the object of intense investigation for their promise to disclose new aspects of colorectal cancer cell biology, as well as to devise new treatment strategies for colorectal cancer (CRC). However, accumulating studies on cCSCs by complementary technologies have progressively disclosed their plastic nature, i.e., their capability to acquire different phenotypes and/or functions under different circumstances in response to both intrinsic and extrinsic signals. In this review, we aim to recapitulate how a progressive methodological development has contributed to deepening and remodeling the concept of cCSCs over time, up to the present. Abstract Colorectal cancer (CRC) represents one of the most deadly cancers worldwide. Colorectal cancer stem cells (cCSCs) are the driving units of CRC initiation and development. After the concept of cCSC was first formulated in 2007, a huge bulk of research has contributed to expanding its definition, from a cell subpopulation defined by a fixed phenotype in a plastic entity modulated by complex interactions with the tumor microenvironment, in which cell position and niche-driven signals hold a prominent role. The wide development of cellular and molecular technologies recent years has been a main driver of advancements in cCSCs research. Here, we will give an overview of the parallel role of technological progress and of theoretical evolution in shaping the concept of cCSCs.
Interior Joints with Variable Anchorage Lengths

Four half‐scale R.C. interior beam‐column joints were tested to assess the validity of current anchorage provisions for interior beam‐column joints. The specimens had beam bars with anchorage lengths of 16, 20, 24, and 28 bar diameters through the joint. The tests show that anchorage length is as important as shear stress in design, and that there is no experimental evidence to support lowering the current anchorage requirements of 20 bar diameters. Current design recommendations are adequate for moderate earthquakes, but would probably lead to significant stiffness and strength losses under a major earthquake. The data on bar slippage and anchorage indicate that 24 bar diameters is very close to the ideal anchorage length for interior beam‐column joints.
Multiple Groups of Methanotrophic Bacteria Mediate Methane Oxidation in Anoxic Lake Sediments

Freshwater lakes represent an important source of the potent greenhouse gas methane (CH4) to the atmosphere. Methane emissions are regulated to large parts by aerobic (MOx) and anaerobic (AOM) oxidation of methane that are important sinks in lakes. In contrast to marine benthic environments, our knowledge about the modes of AOM and the related methanotrophic microorganisms in anoxic lake sediments is still rudimentary. Here we demonstrate the occurrence of AOM in the anoxic sediments of Lake Sempach (Switzerland), with maximum in situ AOM rates observed within the surface sediment layers in presence of multiple groups of methanotrophic bacteria and various oxidants known to support AOM. However, substrate-amended incubations (with NO2−, NO3−, SO42−, Fe3+ and Mn4+) revealed that none of the electron acceptors previously reported to support AOM enhanced methane turnover in Lake Sempach sediments under anoxic conditions. In contrast, the addition of oxygen to the anoxic sediments resulted in an approximately tenfold increase in methane oxidation relative to the anoxic incubations. Phylogenetic and isotopic evidence indicate that both Type I and Type II aerobic methanotrophs were growing on methane under both oxic and anoxic conditions, although methane assimilation rates were an order of magnitude higher under oxic conditions. While the anaerobic electron acceptor responsible for AOM could not be identified, these findings expand our understanding of the metabolic versatility of canonically aerobic methanotrophs under anoxic conditions, with important implications for future investigations to identify methane oxidation processes. Bacterial AOM by facultative aerobic methane oxidizers might be of much larger environmental significance in reducing methane emissions than previously thought.