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Heterotrophic bacteria in the ocean initiate biopolymer degradation using extracellular enzymes that yield low molecular weight hydrolysis products in the environment, or by using a selfish uptake mechanism that retains the hydrolysate for the enzyme‐producing cell. The mechanism used affects the availability of hydrolysis products to other bacteria, and thus also potentially the composition and activity of the community. In marine systems, these two mechanisms of substrate processing have been studied in the water column, but to date, have not been investigated in sediments. In surface sediments from an Arctic fjord of Svalbard, we investigated mechanisms of biopolymer hydrolysis using four polysaccharides and mucin, a glycoprotein. Extracellular hydrolysis of all biopolymers was rapid. Moreover, rapid degradation of mucin suggests that it may be a key substrate for benthic microbes. Although selfish uptake is common in ocean waters, only a small fraction (0.5%–2%) of microbes adhering to sediments used this mechanism. Selfish uptake was carried out primarily by Planctomycetota and Verrucomicrobiota. The overall dominance of extracellular hydrolysis in sediments, however, suggests that the bulk of biopolymer processing is carried out by a benthic community relying on the sharing of enzymatic capabilities and scavenging of public goods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The southwestern United States is highly sensitive to drought, prompting efforts to understand and predict its hydroclimate. Oftentimes, the emphasis is on wintertime precipitation variability, yet the southwestern United States exhibits a summertime monsoon where a significant portion of annual precipitation falls through daily convection activities manifested by a midtropospheric ridge of high pressure. Here, we examine synoptic patterns of the southwestern ridge through a k-means clustering analysis and assess how these synoptic patterns translate into streamflow changes in the upper Colorado River basin. A linear perspective suggests ∼17% of upper Colorado River discharge at the Lee's Ferry, Arizona, gauge comes from summertime monsoon rains. The ridge of high pressure exhibits diversity in its intensity, structure, and position, inducing changes in moisture advection and precipitation. A ridge shifted north or east of its climatological center increases moisture and precipitation over the southwestern United States, while a ridge toward the south or northwest inhibits precipitation. A ridge east of its climatological center contributes to increased streamflow, whereas a ridge west or northwest of its climatological center decreases streamflow. Cooling in the central tropical Pacific and the Pacific meridional mode region favors an eastward shift of the ridge of high pressure corresponding to wet days. Eastern tropical Pacific warming favors a southward shift of the ridge corresponding to dry days. These results support an intermediate scale between climate forcing and summertime Colorado River discharge through changes in the intensity, structure, and position of the southwestern ridge of high pressure, integral to the U.S. Southwest hydroclimate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The protective effects of multiple language knowledge on the maintenance of cognitive functions in older adults have been discussed controversially, among others, because of methodological inconsistencies between studies. In a sample of N = 528 German monolinguals and multilinguals (speaking two or more languages) older than 60 years, this study examined (1) whether speaking multiple languages is positively related to performance on tasks of interference suppression, working memory, concept shifting, and phonemic and semantic fluency, and (2) whether language proficiency and age of second language acquisition (AoA) are associated with cognitive performance of multilinguals. Controlling for education and daily activity, we found small cognitive benefits of speaking multiple languages on interference suppression, working memory, and phonemic fluency, but not on concept shifting and semantic fluency. Furthermore, no substantive correlations were found between language proficiency or AoA and cognitive performance. In conclusion, multilingualism appears to have small incremental effects on cognitive performance beyond education and daily activity in older age that are task-specific and widely independent of proficiency and AoA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The protective effects of multiple language knowledge on the maintenance of cognitive functions in older adults have been discussed controversially, among others, because of methodological inconsistencies between studies. In a sample of N = 528 German monolinguals and multilinguals (speaking two or more languages) older than 60 years, this study examined (1) whether speaking multiple languages is positively related to performance on tasks of interference suppression, working memory, concept shifting, and phonemic and semantic fluency, and (2) whether language proficiency and age of second language acquisition (AoA) are associated with cognitive performance of multilinguals. Controlling for education and daily activity, we found small cognitive benefits of speaking multiple languages on interference suppression, working memory, and phonemic fluency, but not on concept shifting and semantic fluency. Furthermore, no substantive correlations were found between language proficiency or AoA and cognitive performance. In conclusion, multilingualism appears to have small incremental effects on cognitive performance beyond education and daily activity in older age that are task-specific and widely independent of proficiency and AoA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Networks are abstract and ubiquitous data structures, defined as a set of data points and relationships between them. Network visualization provides meaningful representations of these data, supporting researchers in understanding the connections, gathering insights, and detecting and identifying unexpected patterns. Research in this field is focusing on increasingly challenging problems, such as visualizing dynamic, complex, multivariate, and geospatial networked data. This ever‐growing, and widely varied, body of research led to several surveys being published, each covering one or more disciplines of network visualization. Despite this effort, the variety and complexity of this research represents an obstacle when surveying the domain and building a comprehensive overview of the literature. Furthermore, there exists a lack of clarification and uniformity between the terminology used in each of the surveys, which requires further effort when mapping and categorizing the plethora of different visualization techniques and approaches. In this paper, we aim at providing researchers and practitioners alike with a "roadmap" detailing the current research trends in the field of network visualization. We design our contribution as a meta‐survey where we discuss, summarize, and categorize recent surveys and task taxonomies published in the context of network visualization. We identify more and less saturated disciplines of research and consolidate the terminology used in the surveyed literature. We also survey the available task taxonomies, providing a comprehensive analysis of their varying support to each network visualization discipline and by establishing and discussing a classification for the individual tasks. With this combined analysis of surveys and task taxonomies, we provide an overarching structure of the field, from which we extrapolate the current state of research and promising directions for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computational models, such as simulations, are central to a wide range of fields in science and industry. Those models take input parameters and produce some output. To fully exploit their utility, relations between parameters and outputs must be understood. These include, for example, which parameter setting produces the best result (optimization) or which ranges of parameter settings produce a wide variety of results (sensitivity). Such tasks are often difficult to achieve for various reasons, for example, the size of the parameter space, and supported with visual analytics. In this paper, we survey visual parameter space exploration (VPSE) systems involving spatial and temporal data. We focus on interactive visualizations and user interfaces. Through thematic analysis of the surveyed papers, we identify common workflow steps and approaches to support them. We also identify topics for future work that will help enable VPSE on a greater variety of computational models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modelling the dynamics of a growing financial environment is a complex task that requires domain knowledge, expertise and access to heterogeneous information types. Such information can stem from several sources at different scales, complicating the task of forming a holistic impression of the financial landscape, especially in terms of the economical relationships between firms. Bringing this scattered information into a common context is, therefore, an essential step in the process of obtaining meaningful insights about the state of an economy. In this paper, we present Sabrina 2.0, a Visual Analytics (VA) approach for exploring financial data across different scales, from individual firms up to nation‐wide aggregate data. Our solution is coupled with a pipeline for the generation of firm‐to‐firm financial transaction networks, fusing information about individual firms with sector‐to‐sector transaction data and domain knowledge on macroscopic aspects of the economy. Each network can be created to have multiple instances to compare different scenarios. We collaborated with experts from finance and economy during the development of our VA solution, and evaluated our approach with seven domain experts across industry and academia through a qualitative insight‐based evaluation. The analysis shows how Sabrina 2.0 enables the generation of insights, and how the incorporation of transaction models assists users in their exploration of a national economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional noise control solutions used in the transportation industry have proven to be effective in minimizing structure-borne sound at mid to high frequencies; however, a lightweight means to control low-frequency structure-borne sound remains elusive. Recent advancements in additive manufacturing technologies have enabled researchers to develop novel acoustic metamaterial concepts capable of reducing low-frequency structure-borne sound. This work presents a methodology to numerically model and optimize an acoustic metamaterial to facilitate the development of more advanced acoustic metamaterial concepts. The investigated acoustic metamaterial consists of a periodic structure embedded with resonant inclusions that are tuned to resonate out of phase with the host structure causing an attenuation in surface vibrations. First, a numerical model of the metamaterial is created using the finite element method to generate mass and stiffness matrices for a honeycomb sandwich structure. Second, the system matrices are reduced using the Craig-Bampton Method, which are then modified to include the contribution of tuned vibration absorbers as resonant inclusions. Subsequently, the particle swarm optimization strategy is employed to optimize the mass, stiffness and damping properties of the tuned vibration absorbers to minimize the RMS surface velocity over a specified frequency range. Overall, the acoustic metamaterial exhibits a strong ability to reduce the RMS surface velocity within an optimized frequency range indicating reduced structure-borne sound emission compared to conventional honeycomb structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing guidance during a Visual Analytics session can support analysts in pursuing their goals more efficiently. However, the effectiveness of guidance depends on many factors: Determining the right timing to provide it is one of them. Although in complex analysis scenarios choosing the right timing could make the difference between a dependable and a superfluous guidance, an analysis of the literature suggests that this problem did not receive enough attention. In this paper, we describe a methodology to determine moments in which guidance is needed. Our assumption is that the need of guidance would influence the user state-of-mind, as in distress situations during the analytical process, and we hypothesize that such moments could be identified by analyzing the user's facial expressions. We propose a framework composed by a facial recognition software and a machine learning model trained to detect when to provide guidance according to changes of the user facial expressions. We trained the model by interviewing eight analysts during their work and ranked multiple facial features based on their relative importance in determining the need of guidance. Finally, we show that by applying only minor modifications to its architecture, our prototype was able to detect a need of guidance on the fly and made our methodology well suited also for real-time analysis sessions. The results of our evaluations show that our methodology is indeed effective in determining when a need of guidance is present, which constitutes a prerequisite to providing timely and effective guidance in VA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: EAU guidelines recommend multiparametric MRI of the prostate (mpMRI) prior to biopsy to increase accuracy and reduce biopsies. Whether biopsy can be avoided in case of negative mpMRI remains unclear. Aim of this study is to evaluate predictors of overall prostate cancer (PCa) in negative mpMRI. Methods: A total of 216 patients from 2018 to 2020 with suspicion of PCa and negative mpMRI (PI-RADS ≤ 2) were interviewed by telephone about outcome and further follow-up. Clinically significant PCa (csPCa) was defined as ISUP ≥ 2. Patients with vs. without biopsy and with vs. without PCa were compared. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to evaluate predictors of PCa occurrence in patients with negative mpMRI. Results: 15.7% and 5.1% of patients with PI-RADS ≤ 2 on mpMRI showed PCa and csPCa, respectively. PCa patients had higher PSAD (0.14 vs. 0.09 ng/ml2; p = 0.001) and lower prostate volume (50.5 vs. 74.0 ml; p = 0.003). Patients without biopsy (25%) after MRI were older (69 vs. 65.5 years; p = 0.027), showed lower PSA (5.7 vs. 6.73 ng/ml; p = 0.033) and lower PSA density (0.09 vs. 0.1 ng/ml2; p = 0.027). Multivariate analysis revealed age (OR 1.09 [1.02–1.16]; p = 0.011), prostate volume (OR 0.982 [0.065; 0.997]; p = 0.027), total PSA level (OR 1.22 [1.01–1.47], p = 0.033), free PSA (OR 0.431 [0.177; 0.927]; p = 0.049) and no PI-RADS lesion vs PI-RADS 1–2 lesion (OR 0.38 [0.15–0.91], p = 0.032.) as predictive factors for the endpoint presence of PCa. Conclusions: Biopsy for selected patient groups (higher age, prostate volume and free PSA as well as lower PSA-Density) with negative mpMRI can be avoided, if sufficient follow-up care is guaranteed. Detailed counseling regarding residual risk for undetected prostate cancer should be mandatory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Non-resectability is common in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) due to local invasion or distant metastases. Then, biliary or gastroenteric bypasses or both are often established despite associated morbidity and mortality. The current study explores outcomes after palliative bypass surgery in patients with non-resectable PDAC.Methods: From the prospectively maintained German StuDoQ|Pancreas registry, all patients with histopathologically confirmed PDAC who underwent non-resective pancreatic surgery between 2013 and 2018 were retrospectively identified, and the influence of the surgical procedure on morbidity and mortality was analyzed.Results: Of 389 included patients, 127 (32.6%) underwent explorative surgery only, and a biliary, gastroenteric or double bypass was established in 92 (23.7%), 65 (16.7%) and 105 (27.0%). After exploration only, patients had a significantly shorter stay in the intensive care unit (mean 0.5 days [SD 1.7] vs. 1.9 [3.6], 2.0 [2.8] or 2.1 [2.8]; P < 0.0001) and in the hospital (median 7 days [IQR 4-11] vs. 12 [10-18], 12 [8-19] or 12 [9-17]; P < 0.0001), and complications occurred less frequently (22/127 [17.3%] vs. 37/92 [40.2%], 29/65 [44.6%] or 48/105 [45.7%]; P < 0.0001). In multivariable logistic regression, biliary stents were associated with less major (Clavien-Dindo grade ≥ IIIa) complications (OR 0.49 [95% CI 0.25-0.96], P = 0.037), whereas-compared to exploration only-biliary, gastroenteric, and double bypass were associated with more major complications (OR 3.58 [1.48-8.64], P = 0.005; 3.50 [1.39-8.81], P = 0.008; 4.96 [2.15-11.43], P < 0.001).Conclusions: In patients with non-resectable PDAC, biliary, gastroenteric or double bypass surgery is associated with relevant morbidity and mortality. Although surgical palliation is indicated if interventional alternatives are inapplicable, or life expectancy is high, less invasive options should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In social networks, individuals’ decisions are strongly influenced by recommendations from their friends, acquaintances, and favorite renowned personalities. The popularity of online social networking platforms makes them the prime venues to advertise products and promote opinions. The Influence Maximization (IM) problem entails selecting a seed set of users that maximizes the influence spread, i.e., the expected number of users positively influenced by a stochastic diffusion process triggered by the seeds. Engineering and analyzing IM algorithms remains a difficult and demanding task due to the NP-hardness of the problem and the stochastic nature of the diffusion processes. Despite several heuristics being introduced, they often fail in providing enough information on how the network topology affects the diffusion process, precious insights that could help researchers improve their seed set selection. In this paper, we present VAIM, a visual analytics system that supports users in analyzing, evaluating, and comparing information diffusion processes determined by different IM algorithms. Furthermore, VAIM provides useful insights that the analyst can use to modify the seed set of an IM algorithm, so to improve its influence spread. We assess our system by: $(i)$ (i) a qualitative evaluation based on a guided experiment with two domain experts on two different data sets; $(ii)$ (i i) a quantitative estimation of the value of the proposed visualization through the ICE-T methodology by Wall et al. (IEEE TVCG - 2018). The twofold assessment indicates that VAIM effectively supports our target users in the visual analysis of the performance of IM algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: PSMA-TO-1 ("Tumor-Optimized-1") is a novel PSMA ligand with longer circulation time than PSMA-617. We compared the biodistribution in subcutaneous tumor-bearing mice of PSMA-TO-1, PSMA-617 and PSMA-11 when labeled with 68Ga and 177Lu, and the survival after treatment with 225Ac-PSMA-TO-1/-617 in a murine model of disseminated prostate cancer. We also report dosimetry data of 177Lu-PSMA-TO1/-617 in prostate cancer patients. Methods: First, PET images of 68Ga-PSMA-TO-1/-617/-11 were acquired on consecutive days in three mice bearing subcutaneous C4-2 xenografts. Second, 50 subcutaneous tumor-bearing mice received either 30 MBq of 177Lu-PSMA-617 or 177Lu-PSMA-TO-1 and were sacrificed at 1, 4, 24, 48 and 168 h for ex vivo gamma counting and biodistribution. Third, mice bearing disseminated lesions via intracardiac inoculation were treated with either 40 kBq of 225Ac-PSMA-617, 225Ac-PSMA-TO-1, or remained untreated and followed for survival. Additionally, 3 metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer patients received 500 MBq of 177Lu-PSMA-TO-1 under compassionate use for dosimetry purposes. Planar images with an additional SPECT/CT acquisition were acquired for dosimetry calculations. Results: Tumor uptake measured by PET imaging of 68Ga-labeled agents in mice was highest using PSMA-617, followed by PSMA-TO-1 and PSMA-11. 177Lu-PSMA tumor uptake measured by ex vivo gamma counting at subsequent time points tended to be greater for PSMA-TO-1 up to 1 week following treatment (p > 0.13 at all time points). This was, however, accompanied by increased kidney uptake and a 26-fold higher kidney dose of PSMA-TO-1 compared with PSMA-617 in mice. Mice treated with a single-cycle 225Ac-PSMA-TO-1 survived longer than those treated with 225Ac-PSMA-617 and untreated mice, respectively (17.8, 14.5 and 7.7 weeks, respectively; p < 0.0001). Kidney, salivary gland, bone marrow and mean ± SD tumor dose coefficients (Gy/GBq) for 177Lu-PSMA-TO-1 in patients #01/#02/#03 were 2.5/2.4/3.0, 1.0/2.5/2.3, 0.14/0.11/0.10 and 0.42 ± 0.03/4.45 ± 0.07/1.8 ± 0.57, respectively. Conclusions: PSMA-TO-1 tumor uptake tended to be greater than that of PSMA-617 in both preclinical and clinical settings. Mice treated with 225Ac-PSMA-TO-1 conferred a significant survival benefit compared to 225Ac-PSMA-617 despite the accompanying increased kidney uptake. In humans, PSMA-TO-1 dosimetry estimates suggest increased tumor absorbed doses; however, the kidneys, salivary glands and bone marrow are also exposed to higher radiation doses. Thus, additional preclinical studies are needed before further clinical use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal networks can naturally model real‐world complex phenomena such as contact networks, information dissemination and physical proximity. However, nodes and edges bear real‐time coordinates, making it difficult to organize them into discrete timeslices, without a loss of temporal information due to projection. Event‐based dynamic graph drawing rejects the notion of a timeslice and allows each node and edge to retain its own real‐valued time coordinate. While existing work has demonstrated clear advantages for this approach, they come at a running time cost. We investigate the problem of accelerating event‐based layout to make it more competitive with existing layout techniques. In this paper, we describe the design, implementation and experimental evaluation of MultiDynNoS, the first multi‐level event‐based graph layout algorithm. We consider three operators for coarsening and placement, inspired by Walshaw, GRIP and FM3, which we couple with an event‐based graph drawing algorithm. We also propose two extensions to the core algorithm: AutoTau and Bend Transfer. We perform two experiments: first, we compare MultiDynNoS variants to existing state‐of‐the‐art dynamic graph layout approaches; second, we investigate the impact of each of the proposed algorithm extensions. MultiDynNoS proves to be competitive with existing approaches, and the proposed extensions achieve their design goals and contribute in opening new research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mobile health (mHealth) interventions for self-management are a promising way to meet the needs of patients with chronic diseases in primary care practices. Therefore, an mHealth intervention, TelePraCMan, was developed and evaluated for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, high blood pressure, or heart failure in a German primary care setting. TelePraCMan entails a symptom diary, an appointment manager, a manager to document goals, and a warning system. The app should foster the self-management of participating patients. Objective: We aimed to examine the effects of TelePraCMan on patient activation and quality of life and explored the underlying contextual factors, impacts, and degree of implementation. Methods: In a prospective observational study design, we collected data by using interviews and written questionnaires from participating patients (intervention and control groups) and primary care workers (physicians and practice assistants). The primary outcomes of interest were patient-reported quality of life (12-Item Short Form Survey) and patient activation (patient activation measure). The quantitative analysis focused on differences between patients in the intervention and control groups, as well as before (T0) and after (T1) the intervention. Interviews were analyzed by using qualitative content analysis via MAXQDA (VERBI GmbH). Results: At baseline, 25 patients and 24 primary care workers completed the questionnaire, and 18 patients and 21 primary care workers completed the follow-up survey. The patients were predominantly male and, on average, aged 64 (SD 11) years (T0). The primary care workers were mostly female (62%) and, on average, aged 47 (SD 10) years (T0). No differences were observed in the outcomes before and after the intervention or between the intervention and control groups. In the additional interviews, 4 patients and 11 primary care workers were included. The interviewees perceived that the intervention was useful for some patients. However, contextual factors and problems with implementation activities negatively affected the use of the app with patients. The main reasons for the low participation were the COVID-19 pandemic and the target group, which seemed to have less interest in mHealth; the interviewees attributed this to the older age of patients. However, the respondents felt that the app would be better accepted in 5 or 10 years. Conclusions: Although the TelePraCMan app was rated as very good and important by the participants, few patients used it. The digital intervention was hardly implemented and had limited impact in the current setting of German primary care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guidance has been proposed as a conceptual framework to understand how mixed‐initiative visual analytics approaches can actively support users as they solve analytical tasks. While user tasks received a fair share of attention, it is still not completely clear how they could be supported with guidance and how such support could influence the progress of the task itself. Our observation is that there is a research gap in understanding the effect of guidance on the analytical discourse, in particular, for the knowledge generation in mixed‐initiative approaches. As a consequence, guidance in a visual analytics environment is usually indistinguishable from common visualization features, making user responses challenging to predict and measure. To address these issues, we take a system perspective to propose the notion of guidance tasks and we present it as a typology closely aligned to established user task typologies. We derived the proposed typology directly from a model of guidance in the knowledge generation process and illustrate its implications for guidance design. By discussing three case studies, we show how our typology can be applied to analyze existing guidance systems. We argue that without a clear consideration of the system perspective, the analysis of tasks in mixed‐initiative approaches is incomplete. Finally, by analyzing matchings of user and guidance tasks, we describe how guidance tasks could either help the user conclude the analysis or change its course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of spatial multivariate data, i.e., measurements at irregularly‐spaced locations, is a challenging topic in visualization and statistics alike. Such data are inteGral to many domains, e.g., indicators of valuable minerals are measured for mine prospecting. Popular analysis methods, like PCA, often by design do not account for the spatial nature of the data. Thus they, together with their spatial variants, must be employed very carefully. Clearly, it is preferable to use methods that were specifically designed for such data, like spatial blind source separation (SBSS). However, SBSS requires two tuning parameters, which are themselves complex spatial objects. Setting these parameters involves navigating two large and interdependent parameter spaces, while also taking into account prior knowledge of the physical reality represented by the data. To support analysts in this process, we developed a visual analytics prototype. We evaluated it with experts in visualization, SBSS, and geochemistry. Our evaluations show that our interactive prototype allows to define complex and realistic parameter settings efficiently, which was so far impractical. Settings identified by a non‐expert led to remarkable and surprising insights for a domain expert. Therefore, this paper presents important first steps to enable the use of a promising analysis method for spatial multivariate data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnetic resonance techniques at nuclei and electrons are applied to characterize the electronic structure and collective magnetic excitations throughout the magnetic phase diagrams of the lacunar spinels GaV4S8 and GaV4Se8 showing cycloidal, Néel‐type skyrmion lattice and ferromagnetically polarized phases. 71Ga nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) provides a local probe of the rhombohedral distortion and the resulting uniaxial magnetic anisotropy via the detection of electric field gradients (EFGs) and hyperfine coupling at the gallium sites of these lacunar spinels. Broadband electron spin resonance (ESR) allows identifying clockwise, counterclockwise, and breathing modes of the skyrmion‐lattice phase supported by theoretical simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, the mechanisms how lung cancer cells evade the immune system remain incompletely understood. Here, we discovered IL-9-dependent signaling mechanisms that drive immune evasion in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We found increased IL-9 and IL-21 production by T cells in the tumoral region of the lung of patients with NSCLC, suggesting the presence of Th9 cells in the lung tumor microenvironment. Moreover, we noted IL-9 producing Tregs in NSCLC. IL-9 target cells in NSCLC consisted of IL-9R+ tumor cells and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. In two murine experimental models of NSCLC, and in vitro , IL-9 prevented cell death and controlled growth of lung adenocarcinoma cells. Targeted deletion of IL-9 resulted in successful lung tumor rejection in vivo associated with an induction of IL-21 and reduction of Treg cells. Finally, anti-IL-9 antibody immunotherapy resulted in suppression of tumor development even in established experimental NSCLC and was associated with reduced IL-10 production in the lung. In conclusion, our findings indicate that IL-9 drives immune escape of lung tumor cells via effects on tumor cell survival and tumor infiltrating T cells. Thus, strategies blocking IL-9 emerge as a new approach for clinical therapy of lung cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent wave of detections of interstellar aromatic molecules has sparked interest in the chemical behaviour of aromatic molecules under astrophysical conditions. In most cases, these detections have been made through chemically related molecules, called proxies, that implicitly indicate the presence of a parent molecule. In this study, we present the results of the theoretical evaluation of the hydrogenation reactions of different aromatic molecules (benzene, pyridine, pyrrole, furan, thiophene, silabenzene, and phosphorine). The viability of these reactions allows us to evaluate the resilience of these molecules to the most important reducing agent in the interstellar medium, the hydrogen atom (H). All significant reactions are exothermic and most of them present activation barriers, which are, in several cases, overcome by quantum tunnelling. Instanton reaction rate constants are provided between 50 and 500 K. For the most efficiently formed radicals, a second hydrogenation step has been studied. We propose that hydrogenated derivatives of furan and pyrrole, especially 2,3-dihydropyrrole, 2,5-dihydropyrrole, 2,3-dihydrofuran, and 2,5-dihydrofuran, are promising candidates for future interstellar detections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose: Salvage radiotherapy (SRT) is the main potentially curative treatment option for prostate cancer patients with post-prostatectomy PSA progression. Improved diagnostics by positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) can lead to adjustments in treatment procedures (e.g. target volume of radiotherapy, androgen deprivation therapy). We analyzed the impact of 68Ga-PSMA-11-PET/CT on the target volume in early biochemical recurrence (PSA up to 0.5 ng/ml). Patients and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 76 patients with biochemical recurrence after radical prostatectomy in whom SRT was planned after 68Ga-PSMA-11-PET/CT. All patients had a PSA ≤0.5 ng/ml. An experienced radiation oncologist determined the radiotherapy concept, first with consideration of the PET/CT, second hypothetically based on the clinical and pathological features excluding PET/CT results. Results: Without considering the PET/CT, all 76 patients would have been assigned to RT, 60 (79%) to the bed of the prostate and seminal vesicles alone, and 16 (21%) also to the pelvic lymph nodes because of histopathologic risk factors. Uptake indicative for tumor recurrence in 68Ga-PSMA-11-PET/CT was found in 54% of the patients. The median pre-PET/CT PSA level was 0.245 ng/ml (range 0.07–0.5 ng/ml). The results of the PET/CT led to a change in the radiotherapeutic target volume in 21 patients (28%). There were major changes in the target volume including the additional irradiation of lymph nodes or the additional or exclusive irradiation of bone metastases in 13 patients (17%). Minor changes including the additional irradiation of original seminal vesicle (base) position resulted in eight patients (11%). Conclusion: Using 68Ga-PSMA-11-PET/CT for radiation planning, a change in the treatment concept was indicated in 28% of patients. With PET/CT, the actual extent of the tumor can be precisely determined even with PSA values of ≤0.5 ng/ml. Thus, the treatment concept can be improved and individualized. This may have a positive impact on progression free survival. Our results warrant further prospective studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid ethnography and data mining approaches have been used individually to study clinical workflows, but have seldom been used together to overcome the limitations inherent in either type of method. For rapid ethnography, how reliable are the findings drawn from small samples? For data mining, how accurate are the discoveries drawn from automatic analysis of big data, when compared with observable data? This paper explores the combined use of rapid ethnography and process mining, aka ethno-mining, to study and compare metrics of a typical clinical documentation task, vital signs charting. The task was performed with different electronic health records (EHRs) used in three different hospital sites. The individual methods revealed substantial discrepancies in task duration between sites. Specifically, means of 159.6(78.55), 38.2(34.9), and 431.3(283.04) seconds were captured with rapid ethnography. When process mining was used, means of 518.6(3,808), 345.5(660.6), and 119.74(210.3) seconds were found. When ethno-mining was applied instead, outliers could be identified, explained and removed. Without outliers, mean task duration was similar between sites (78.1(66.7), 72.5(78.5), and 71.7(75) seconds). Results from this work suggest that integrating rapid ethnography and data mining into a single process may provide more meaningful results than a siloed approach when studying of workflow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The importance of platelets in the pathogenesis of metastasis formation is increasingly recognized. Although evidence from epidemiologic studies suggests positive effects of aspirin on metastasis formation, there is little clinical data on the perioperative use of this drug in pancreatic cancer patients.Methods: From all patients who received curative intent surgery for pancreatic cancer between 2014 and 2016 at our institution, we identified 18 patients that took aspirin at time of admission and continued to throughout the inpatient period. Using propensity score matching, we selected a control group of 64 patients without aspirin intake from our database and assessed the effect of aspirin medication on overall, disease-free, and hematogenous metastasis-free survival intervals as endpoints.Results: Aspirin intake proved to be independently associated with improved mean overall survival (OS) (46.5 vs. 24.6 months, *p = 0.006), median disease-free survival (DFS) (26 vs. 10.5 months, *p = 0.001) and mean hematogenous metastasis-free survival (HMFS) (41.9 vs. 16.3 months, *p = 0.005). Three-year survival rates were 61.1% in patients with aspirin intake vs. 26.3% in patients without aspirin intake. Multivariate cox regression showed significant independent association of aspirin with all three survival endpoints with hazard ratios of 0.36 (95% CI 0.15-0.86) for OS (*p = 0.021), 0.32 (95% CI 0.16-0.63) for DFS (**p = 0.001), and 0.36 (95% CI 0.16-0.77) for HMFS (*p = 0.009).Conclusions: Patients in our retrospective, propensity-score matched study showed significantly better overall survival when taking aspirin while undergoing curative surgery for pancreatic cancer. This was mainly due to a prolonged metastasis-free interval following surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-dimensional organic conductors show a rich phase diagram, which has, despite all efforts, still some unexplored regions. Charge ordered phases present in many compounds of the (TMTTF) 2 X family are typically studied with their unique electronic properties in mind. An influence on the spin arrangement is, however, not expected at first glance. Here, we report temperature and angle dependent electron spin resonance (ESR) measurements on the quasi one-dimensional organic conductor (TMTTF) 2 NO 3 . We found that the (TMTTF) 2 NO 3 compound develops a peculiar anisotropy with a doubled periodicity ( a b ′ -plane) of the ESR linewidth below about T CO = (250 ± 10) K . This behavior is similar to observations in the related compounds (TMTTF) 2 X ( X = PF 6 , SbF 6 and AsF 6 ), where it has been attributed to relaxation processes of magnetically inequivalent sites in the charge-ordered state. For the structural analogous (TMTTF) 2 ClO 4 , known for the absence of charge order, such angular dependence of the ESR signal is not observed. Therefore, our ESR measurements lead us to conclude that a charge-order phase is stabilized in the title compound below T CO ≈ 250 K . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: 68Ga-PSMA-11-PET/CT is increasingly used in early-stage biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer to detect potential lesions for an individualized radiotherapy concept. However, subtle findings especially concerning small local recurrences can still be challenging to interpret and are prone to variability between different readers. Thus, we analyzed interobserver variability, detection rate, and lesion patterns systematically in a homogeneous patient population with low-level biochemical recurrence. Methods: We analyzed 68Ga-PSMA-11-PET/CTs in 116 patients with status post-prostatectomy and PSA levels up to 0.6 ng/ml. None of them received ADT or radiotherapy beforehand. Images were interpreted and blinded by two nuclear medicine physicians (R1 and R2). Findings were rated using a 5-point scale concerning local recurrence, lymph nodes, bone lesions, and other findings (1: definitely benign, 2: probably benign, 3: equivocal, 4: probably malignant, 5: definitely malignant). In findings with substantial discrepancies of 2 or more categories and/or potentially leading to differences in further patient management, a consensus reading was done with a third reader (R3). Interobserver agreement was measured by Cohens Kappa analysis after sub-categorizing our classification system to benign (1 + 2), equivocal (3), and malignant (4 + 5). Time course of PSA levels after salvage treatment of patients rated as positive (4 + 5) was analyzed. Results: The overall detection rate (categories 4 and 5) was 50% (R1/R2, 49%/51%) and in the PSA subgroups 0–0.2 ng/ml, 0.21–0.3 ng/ml, and 0.31–0.6 ng/ml 24%/27%, 57%/57%, and 65%/68%, respectively. Local recurrence was the most common lesion manifestation followed by lymphatic and bone metastases. The overall agreement in the Cohens Kappa analysis was 0.74 between R1 and R2. For local, lymphatic, and bone sites, the agreement was 0.76, 0.73, and 0.58, respectively. PSA levels of PSMA PET/CT-positive patients after salvage treatment decreased in 75% (27/36) and increased in 25% (9/36). A decrease of PSA, although more frequent in patients with imaging suggesting only local tumor recurrence (86%, 18/21), was also observed in 67% (10/15) of patients with findings of metastatic disease. Conclusions: In a highly homogeneous group of prostate cancer patients with early-stage biochemical recurrence after radical prostatectomy, we could show that 68Ga-PSMA-11-PET/CT has a good detection rate of 50% which is in accordance with literature, with clinically relevant findings even in patients with PSA < 0.21 ng/ml. The interobserver variability is low, particularly concerning assessment of local recurrences and lymph nodes. Therefore, PSMA-PET/CT is a robust diagnostic modality in this patient group for therapy planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust‐ability, reputation, security and quality are the main concerns for public and private financial institutions. To detect fraudulent behaviour, several techniques are applied pursuing different goals. For well‐defined problems, analytical methods are applicable to examine the history of customer transactions. However, fraudulent behaviour is constantly changing, which results in ill‐defined problems. Furthermore, analysing the behaviour of individual customers is not sufficient to detect more complex structures such as networks of fraudulent actors. We propose NEVA (Network dEtection with Visual Analytics), a Visual Analytics exploration environment to support the analysis of customer networks in order to reduce false‐negative and false‐positive alarms of frauds. Multiple coordinated views allow for exploring complex relations and dependencies of the data. A guidance‐enriched component for network pattern generation, detection and filtering support exploring and analysing the relationships of nodes on different levels of complexity. In six expert interviews, we illustrate the applicability and usability of NEVA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guidance is an emerging topic in the field of visual analytics. Guidance can support users in pursuing their analytical goals more efficiently and help in making the analysis successful. However, it is not clear how guidance approaches should be designed and what specific factors should be considered for effective support. In this paper, we approach this problem from the perspective of guidance designers. We present a framework comprising requirements and a set of specific phases designers should go through when designing guidance for visual analytics. We relate this process with a set of quality criteria we aim to support with our framework, that are necessary for obtaining a suitable and effective guidance solution. To demonstrate the practical usability of our methodology, we apply our framework to the design of guidance in three analysis scenarios and a design walk‐through session. Moreover, we list the emerging challenges and report how the framework can be used to design guidance solutions that mitigate these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Reporting of adverse events is an important aspect of patient safety management in hospitals, which may help to prevent future adverse events. Yet, only a small proportion of such events is actually reported in German hospitals. Therefore, it is crucial to evaluate attitudes of clinical staff towards reporting of adverse events. The aim of this study was to translate the Reporting of Clinical Adverse Events Scale (RoCAES) developed by Wilson, Bekker and Fylan (2008) and validate it in a sample of German-speaking health professionals.Methods: The questionnaire covers five factors (perceived blame, perceived criteria for identifying events that should be reported, perceptions of colleagues' expectations, perceived benefits of reporting, and perceived clarity of reporting procedures) and was translated into German language according to translation guidelines. Within a cross-sectional study in a sample of 120 health professionals in German hospitals, internal consistency (omega) and construct validity (confirmatory factor analysis) of the German scale RoCAES-D was assessed.Results: The reliability was high (omega = 0.87) and the factor analysis showed a poor model fit (RMSEA: 0.074, χ2/df: 1.663, TLI: 0.690). Resulting from lower model fit of the original model (RMSEA: 0.082, χ2/df: 1.804, TLI: 0.606), one item was deleted due to low factor loadings and a low R2 (0.001), and two items were reallocated from the factor 'perceived benefits' to 'perceived blame'.Conclusion: The successful translation and initial validation of the RoCAES-D might be a good starting point for further research. A cultural adaptation of the scale needs to be done to initiate a large-scale usage of the questionnaire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural object collections attract and delight spectators since ancient times. Yet, they also easily overwhelm visitors due to their perceptual richness and associated information. Similarly, digitized collections appear as complex, multifaceted phenomena, which can be challenging to grasp and navigate. Though visualizations can create various types of collection overviews for that matter, they do not easily assemble into a "big picture" or lead to an integrated understanding. We introduce coherence techniques to maximize connections between multiple views and apply them to the prototype PolyCube system of collection visualization: with map, set, and network visualizations it makes spatial, categorical, and relational collection aspects visible. For the essential temporal dimension, it offers four different views: superimposition, animation, juxtaposition, and space–time cube representations. A user study confirmed that better integrated visualizations support synoptic, cross-dimensional insights. An outlook is dedicated to the system's applicability within other arts and humanities data domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different from more traditional policy-making avenues, the courts provide an antipolitical arena that does not require broad agreement from various constituents for policy enactment. Seeking to guide court decisions on these policy issues, individuals and organizations have filed amicus briefs that increasingly include social science to support their arguments. The Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin Supreme Court case presents an ideal example to study the use of social science evidence in amicus briefs to shape educational policy. Findings from this study identify differences in the use of social science research that suggest many ways in which our current understanding of the efforts of actors to shape educational policy via the highest court in the nation is incomplete. This study also highlights why developing this understanding could be extremely useful to both the creation of educational policy and the use of antipolitical approaches to change such policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how wastewater containing 2 mg l−1 of sulfamethoxazole (SMX) and 2 mg l−1 of diclofenac (DCF) affects the composition of bacterial communities present in the roots and rhizomes of Miscanthus × giganteus plants grown in laboratory-scale constructed wetlands. Bacterial communities in plant roots and rhizomes were identified in treated and control samples by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Moreover, bacterial endophytes were isolated in R2A and 1/10 869 media and screened for their ability to metabolize SMX and DCF in liquid medium by HPLC. Our results show significant changes in the abundance of main genera, namely Sphingobium and Streptomyces between control and treated plants. Around 70% of the strains isolated from exposed plants belonged to the phylum Actinobacteria and were classified as Streptomyces, Microbacterium, and Glycomyces. In non-exposed plants, Proteobacteria represented 43.5% to 63.6% of the total. We identified 17 strains able to remove SMX and DCF in vitro. From those, 76% were isolated from exposed plants. Classified mainly as Streptomyces, they showed the highest SMX (33%) and DCF (41%) removal efficiency. These isolates, alone or in combination, might be used as bio-inoculants in constructed wetlands to enhance the phytoremediation of SMX and DCF during wastewater treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an instrument to perform frequency-domain electron spin resonance experiments that is based on coplanar waveguides and field modulation. A large parameter space in frequency (up to 25 GHz), magnetic field (up to 8 T), and temperature (down to 1.6 K) is accessible. We performed experiments on DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) as a standard to calibrate the field modulation as well as on a carbon fiber sample to estimate the overall sensitivity of the instruments. Spectra of a ruby sample in a broad frequency and field range at cryogenic temperatures are recorded with and without field modulation. The comparison reveals the improved signal-to-noise ratio achieved by field modulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]