Liquid Biopsies for Molecular Biology-Based Radiotherapy

Molecular alterations drive cancer initiation and evolution during development and in response to therapy. Radiotherapy is one of the most commonly employed cancer treatment modalities, but radiobiologic approaches for personalizing therapy based on tumor biology and individual risks remain to be defined. In recent years, analysis of circulating nucleic acids has emerged as a non-invasive approach to leverage tumor molecular abnormalities as biomarkers of prognosis and treatment response. Here, we evaluate the roles of circulating tumor DNA and related analyses as powerful tools for precision radiotherapy. We highlight emerging work advancing liquid biopsies beyond biomarker studies into translational research investigating tumor clonal evolution and acquired resistance.     

Toward a 2D/3D Finite-Element–Based Digital Shadow for the Approximation of Metrologically Inaccessible Dynamic Fields of State Variables during Heavy Plate Rolling

While innovations in metal forming technology are closely linked to material science, automation, and mechatronization in recent decades, nowadays, and in the upcoming years, they are supposed to be driven by digital transformation and virtualization. Motivated by this expectation and the fact that the dynamic, process-relevant thermophysical state variables in plates during rolling are difficult or even impossible to measure, a modularly structured 2D/3D model, integrated into a digital shadow, is built and validated against a metrologically accessible process data. The decisive innovation of the presented modeling strategy is the investigation of the state during longitudinal rolling in the fillet, depending on the width direction. The fillet marks the heavy plate without head and tail crops, developed during longitudinal rolling. Application of the simulation tool reveals significant temperature gradients near the plate surfaces, both horizontally and vertically, but also a region of nearly constant temperature near the core. The development of the fillet cross-section shape, including the emergence of bulges or contractions at the side surfaces, is predicted within the simulation. The digital shadow is scalable and has a parameterized structure so that rolling schedules of different compositions can be simulated.     

Rotaxane Assemblies with Dendritic Architecture

Strategies towards the synthesis of well‐defined, mechanically interlocked, dendritic assemblies of rotaxanes are developed, one using a divergent, and the other a convergent approach. For the first time covalent bonds are not directly involved in the branching of dendrimers, only mechanical bonds act as unique branching elements.     

SPATIAL RESPONSES TO FORDIST AND POST-FORDIST ACCUMULATION AND REGULATION

ABSTRACT This paper deals with the political geography of regional economic development under Fordism and its transition to post-Fordism. It summarises international, national and regional trends in Fordist accumulation and regulation. Second, it indicates haw Fordism dissolves and is replaced by a so tar insufficiently perceived and defined "post-Fordism." A general sketch of the political and economic geography for this, perhaps, new stage in capitalist development is put forward. Third, the authors discuss which elements in different institutional and neo-Marxian theories of the state are the most helpful to understand the role of the state under Fordism and the transition to post-Fordism.     

Rupture Pathway of Phosphatidylcholine Liposomes on Silicon Dioxide

We have investigated the pathway by which unilamellar POPC liposomes upon adsorption undergo rupture and form a supported lipid bilayer (SLB) on a SiO₂ surface. Biotinylated lipids were selectively incorporated in the outer monolayer of POPC liposomes to create liposomes with asymmetric lipid compositions in the outer and inner leaflets. The specific binding of neutravidin and anti-biotin to SLBs formed by liposome fusion, prior to and after equilibrated flip-flop between the upper and lower monolayers in the SLB, were then investigated. It was concluded that the lipids in the outer monolayer of the vesicle predominantly end up on the SLB side facing the SiO₂ substrate, as demonstrated by having maximum 30–40% of lipids in the liposome outer monolayer orienting towards the bulk after forming the SLB.     

Algorithmic Graph Minor Theory: Improved Grid Minor Bounds and Wagner’s Contraction

We explore three important avenues of research in algorithmic graph-minor theory, which all stem from a key min-max relation between the treewidth of a graph and its largest grid minor. This min-max relation is a keystone of the Graph Minor Theory of Robertson and Seymour, which ultimately proves Wagner’s Conjecture about the structure of minor-closed graph properties. First, we obtain the only known polynomial min-max relation for graphs that do not exclude any fixed minor, namely, map graphs and power graphs. Second, we obtain explicit (and improved) bounds on the min-max relation for an important class of graphs excluding a minor, namely, K _3,k -minor-free graphs, using new techniques that do not rely on Graph Minor Theory. These two avenues lead to faster fixed-parameter algorithms for two families of graph problems, called minor-bidimensional and contraction-bidimensional parameters, which include feedback vertex set, vertex cover, minimum maximal matching, face cover, a series of vertex-removal parameters, dominating set, edge dominating set, R-dominating set, connected dominating set, connected edge dominating set, connected R-dominating set, and unweighted TSP tour. Third, we disprove a variation of Wagner’s Conjecture for the case of graph contractions in general graphs, and in a sense characterize which graphs satisfy the variation. This result demonstrates the limitations of a general theory of algorithms for the family of contraction-closed problems (which includes, for example, the celebrated dominating-set problem). If this conjecture had been true, we would have had an extremely powerful tool for proving the existence of efficient algorithms for any contraction-closed problem, like we do for minor-closed problems via Graph Minor Theory.     

Sensor placement for fault isolation in linear differential-algebraic systems

An algorithm is proposed for computing which sensor additions make a diagnosis requirement specification regarding fault detectability and isolability attainable for a given linear differential-algebraic model. Restrictions on possible sensor locations can be given, and if the diagnosis specification is not attainable with any available sensor addition, the algorithm provides the solutions that maximize specification fulfillment. Previous approaches with similar objectives have been based on the model structure only. Since the proposed algorithm utilizes the analytical expressions, it can handle models where structural approaches fail.