Optimizing the Diagnosis and Biomarker Testing for Patients with Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma: A Multidisciplinary Approach

Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a heterogenous group of malignancies originating in the biliary tree, and associated with poor prognosis. Until recently, treatment options have been limited to surgical resection, liver-directed therapies, and chemotherapy. Identification of actionable genomic alterations with biomarker testing has revolutionized the treatment paradigm for these patients. However, several challenges exist to the seamless adoption of precision medicine in patients with CCA, relating to a lack of awareness of the importance of biomarker testing, hurdles in tissue acquisition, and ineffective collaboration among the multidisciplinary team (MDT). To identify gaps in standard practices and define best practices, multidisciplinary hepatobiliary teams from the University of California (UC) Davis and UC Irvine were convened; discussions of the meeting, including optimal approaches to tissue acquisition for diagnosis and biomarker testing, communication among academic and community healthcare teams, and physician education regarding biomarker testing, are summarized in this review.

Software Development for Information System - Achieving Optimum Quality with Security

Information Systems acquisition, implementation, and development have been taking place in business organization to gain the competitive advantage. Rapid advancement of Technology is also popping up unethical issues involving violations of End users' data protection and privacy. This article discusses standard quality practices adhere to which a good quality software product is guaranteed while supporting the organizational strategic needs. It presents a framework that bridges Quality software development process improvement with strategic needs of an organization. Standard practices under consideration includes Capability Maturity Model for Development (CMMI-DEV) while using multi-model Process Improvement approach where an organization could use Balance Score Card technique while setting its strategic goals and monitoring their performance related to Information System development, and also link it with Information System management framework “Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology” (COBIT) - 5 released by Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), so that users could easily switch between the two standards. In last benefits are reported for using quality practices to realize attainment of competitive advantage.

Advances in the Determination of Anabolic-Androgenic Steroids: From Standard Practices to Tailor-Designed Multidisciplinary Approaches

Anabolic-androgenic steroids (AASs), a group of compounds frequently misused by athletes and, unfortunately, also by the general population, have lately attracted global attention; thus, significant demands for more precise, facile, and rapid AAS detection have arisen. The standard methods ordinarily used for AAS determination include liquid and gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. However, good knowledge of steroid metabolism, pretreatment of samples (such as derivatization), and well-trained operators of the instruments are required, making this procedure expensive, complicated, and not routinely applicable. In the drive to meet current AAS detection demands, the scientific focus has shifted to developing novel, tailor-made approaches leading to time- and cost-effective, routine, and field-portable methods for AAS determination in various matrices, such as biological fluids, food supplements, meat, water, or other environmental components. Therefore, herein, we present a comprehensive review article covering recent advances in AAS determination, with a strong emphasis on the increasingly important role of chemically designed artificial sensors, biosensors, and antibody- and fluorescence-based methods.

Sex, Gender, and Diversity Analysis in Research Policies of Major Public Granting Agencies: A Global Review

National research agencies are funded by taxpayer monies and, as such, are responsible for promoting excellent research that benefits all of society. Integrating sex, gender and diversity analysis (SG&DA) into the design of research, where relevant, can improve research methodology and provide new insights. To realize this potential, funding agencies have developed policies for integrating this type of analysis into the grant proposal process. This study reviews those policies for 23 agencies across six continents. Overall, one agency achieved superior performance, six agencies scored excellent performance, five showed average performance, two need some improvement and nine require improvement. Our study developed a five-part SG&DA policy roadmap for agencies and collected best practices across that guide. Standard practices, tailored as appropriate to country-specific cultures and regulatory landscapes, will enhance collaboration potential, global equity, research excellence and reproducibility.

Etiologies of Childhood Hearing Impairment in Schools for the Deaf in Mali

Objectives: To identify the etiologies of hearing impairment (HI) in schools for students who are deaf and to use a systematic review to summarize reports on the etiologies and clinical and genetic features of HI in Mali.Methods: We included individuals with HI that started before the age of 15 years old. Patients were carefully evaluated under standard practices, and pure-tone audiometry was performed where possible. We then searched for articles published on HI in the Malian population from the databases' inception to March 30, 2020.Results: A total of 117 individuals from two schools for the deaf were included, and a male predominance (sex ratio 1.3; 65/52) was noted. HI was pre-lingual in 82.2% (n = 117), and the median age at diagnosis was 12 years old. The etiologies were environmental in 59.4% (70/117), with meningitis being the leading cause (40%, 20/70), followed by cases with genetic suspicion (29.3%, 21/117). In 11.3% (8/117) of patients, no etiology was identified. Among cases with genetic suspicion, three were syndromic, including two cases of Waardenburg syndrome, while 15 individuals had non-syndromic HI. An autosomal recessive inheritance pattern was observed in 83.3% of families (15/18), and consanguinity was reported in 55.5% (10/18) of putative genetic cases.Conclusion: This study concludes that environmental factors are the leading causes of HI in Mali. However, genetic causes should be investigated, particularly in the context of a population with a high consanguinity rate.

A Preliminary Assessment of a Newly-Defined Multispectral Hue Space for Retrieving River Depth with Optical Imagery and In Situ Calibration Data

Bathymetry is a key element in the modeling of river systems for flood mapping, geomorphology, or stream habitat characterization. Standard practices rely on the interpolation of in situ depth measurements obtained with differential GPS or total station surveys, while more advanced techniques involve bathymetric LiDAR or acoustic soundings. However, these high-resolution active techniques are not so easily applied over large areas. Alternative methods using passive optical imagery present an interesting trade-off: they rely on the fact that wavelengths composing solar radiation are not attenuated at the same rates in water. Under certain assumptions, the logarithm of the ratio of radiances in two spectral bands is linearly correlated with depth. In this study, we go beyond these ratio methods in defining a multispectral hue that retains all spectral information. Given n coregistered bands, this spectral invariant lies on the (n−2)-sphere embedded in Rn−1, denoted Sn−2 and tagged ‘hue hypersphere’. It can be seen as a generalization of the RGB ‘color wheel’ (S1) in higher dimensions. We use this mapping to identify a hue-depth relation in a 35 km reach of the Garonne River, using high resolution (0.50 m) airborne imagery in four bands and data from 120 surveyed cross-sections. The distribution of multispectral hue over river pixels is modeled as a mixture of two components: one component represents the distribution of substrate hue, while the other represents the distribution of ‘deep water’ hue; parameters are fitted such that membership probability for the ‘deep’ component correlates with depth.

MCDM-Based R&D Project Selection: A Systematic Literature Review

From small spin-offs deploying innovative software to big pharmaceutical complexes making vaccines, Research and Development (R&D) Project Portfolio Selection (PPS) is an essential strategic process for various companies. It was never easy to select a set of projects among many feasible possibilities, even for yesterday’s paces. However, the world is rapidly changing, and so is R&D PPS. The portfolio objectives excel profit in the same manner that model constraints go beyond budget limitations. In parallel, project selection approaches and solving algorithms followed the increase of computational power. Despite all those changes, the importance of Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods and the decision criteria used for R&D PPS, there is still room for a systematic literature review (SLR) for the topic. Thus, this paper offers an SLR of the existing literature from the half-century, 1970, and onward MCDM-based R&D PPS performed in Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection. We provide a comprehensive picture of this field, show how it is changing, and highlight standard practices and research opportunities in the area. We perform a broad classification of the MCDM methods, categorized by the nature of alternatives, types of integration approach, the MCDM method itself, and types of uncertainty, by the 66 studies in the SLR database. The portfolios’ classification obeys the application domain and the number of projects. We have also explored all the 263 criteria found in the literature by grouping them according to experts from five Brazilian R&D organizations that together manage portfolios valued around US$ 5 billion a year, accounting for 38% of all Brazilian annual expenditure in R&D projects. We also include a bibliometric analysis of the considered papers and research opportunities highlighted or not explored by researchers. Given the increasing number of decision-making approaches and new technologies available, we hope to provide guidance on the topic and promote knowledge production and growth concerning the usage of MCDM methods and decision criteria in R&D PPS.

Are interactions important in estimating flood damage to economic entities? The case of wine-making in France

Estimating flood damage, although crucial for assessing flood risk and for designing mitigation policies, continues to face numerous challenges, notably the assessment of indirect damage. It is widely accepted that damage other than direct damage can account for a significant proportion of total damage. Yet due to scarcer data sources and lack of knowledge on links within and between economic activities, indirect impacts have received less attention than direct impacts. Furthermore, attempts to grasp indirect damage through economic models have not gone below regional levels. Even though local communities can be devastated by flood events without this being reflected in regional accounts, few studies have been conducted from a microeconomic perspective at local level. What is more, the standard practices applied at this level of analysis tackle entities but ignore how they may be linked. This paper addresses these two challenges by building a novel agent-based model of a local agricultural production chain (a French cooperative wine-making system), utilized as a virtual laboratory for the ex ante estimation of flood impacts. We show how overlooking existing interactions between economic entities in production chains can result in either overestimation (double counting) or underestimation (wrong estimation of the consequences for the activity) of flood damage. Our results also reveal that considering interactions requires thorough characterization of their spatial configuration. Based on both the application of our method and the results obtained, we propose balanced recommendations for flood damage estimation at local level.

Role of Professional Societies on Increasing Indigenous Peoples’ Participation and Leadership in STEMM

Indigenous people are the most underrepresented racial/ethnic group in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) in the United States. Most prior research suggests this trend is the result broadly of settler colonialism, and more specifically of cultural differences between students and school/university environments; poor academic preparation in K-12 schools; vague constructs of educational or vocational goals; insufficient financial aid; unwelcoming school and university environments; prejudice and racism; and social isolation. There is also a vast body of published work on the unique epistemologies and knowledge systems held by Indigenous peoples, which are only recently being acknowledged within mainstream STEMM communities. One potential reason for lower participation in STEMM programs and professions by Indigenous people that has generally gone unexplored relates to unique cultural and spiritual factors that could deter Indigenous people from STEMM fields. Our research investigates the range and variation of cultural/spiritual/ethical practical issues that may be affecting Indigenous people’s success in STEMM. Our research provides valuable insights for policy and practices within higher education institutions and industry to provide flexible pathways for Indigenous people to reduce or eliminate barriers related to culturally- and spiritually-informed issues. In this paper, we explore how our findings can be used by professional societies to provide leadership to higher education institutions and industry in the area of changing some standard practices to be more inclusive of Indigenous people. An important mode of systemic change in STEMM fields is through professional societies that guide future practices in various STEMM disciplines.