Connections between individuals facilitate the exchange of goods, resources, and information and create benefits. These connections may be exploited by adversaries to spread their attacks as well. ...What is the optimal way to design and defend networks in the face of attacks? We develop a model with a Designer and an Adversary. The Designer moves first and chooses a network and an allocation of defence resources across nodes. The Adversary then allocates attack resources on nodes; if an attack succeeds then the Adversary decides on how successful resources should navigate the network. We obtain two principal results. One, we show that in a wide variety of circumstances a star network with all defence resources allocated to the central node is optimal for the Designer. Two, we identify conditions on the technology of conflict, network value function, and the resource configuration for which networks with multiple hubs/components are optimal.
Testing for epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations is an essential recommendation in guidelines for metastatic non-squamous non-small-cell lung cancer, and is considered mandatory in ...European countries. However, in practice, challenges are often faced when carrying out routine biomarker testing, including access to testing, inadequate tissue samples and long turnaround times (TATs).
To evaluate the real-world EGFR testing practices of European pathology laboratories, an online survey was set up and validated by the Pulmonary Pathology Working Group of the European Society of Pathology and distributed to 64 expert testing laboratories. The retrospective survey focussed on laboratory organisation and daily EGFR testing practice of pathologists and molecular biologists between 2018 and 2021.
TATs varied greatly both between and within countries. These discrepancies may be partly due to reflex testing practices, as 20.8% of laboratories carried out EGFR testing only at the request of the clinician. Many laboratories across Europe still favour single-test sequencing as a primary method of EGFR mutation identification; 32.7% indicated that they only used targeted techniques and 45.1% used single-gene testing followed by next-generation sequencing (NGS), depending on the case. Reported testing rates were consistent over time with no significant decrease in the number of EGFR tests carried out in 2020, despite the increased pressure faced by testing facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. ISO 15189 accreditation was reported by 42.0% of molecular biology laboratories for single-test sequencing, and by 42.3% for NGS. 92.5% of laboratories indicated they regularly participate in an external quality assessment scheme.
These results highlight the strong heterogeneity of EGFR testing that still occurs within thoracic pathology and molecular biology laboratories across Europe. Even among expert testing facilities there is variability in testing capabilities, TAT, reflex testing practice and laboratory accreditation, stressing the need to harmonise reimbursement technologies and decision-making algorithms in Europe.
•Substantial heterogeneity exists in several aspects of EGFR mutation testing, including among expert testing facilities.•Targeted sequencing is commonly used in conjunction with or in place of NGS.•While the average TAT reported for EGFR mutation testing was 7-10 days, few laboratories reported TATs of up to 30 days.
The steadily increasing luminosity of the LHC requires an upgrade with high-rate and high-resolution detector technology for the inner end cap of the ATLAS muon spectrometer: the New Small Wheels ...(NSW). In order to achieve the goal of precision tracking at a hit rate of about 15 kHz/cm2 at the inner radius of the NSW, large area Micromegas quadruplets with 100µm spatial resolution per plane have been produced. IRFU, from the CEA research center of Saclay, is responsible for the production and validation of LM1 Micromegas modules. The construction, production, qualification and validation of the largest Micromegas detectors ever built are reported here. Performance results under cosmic muon characterization will also be discussed.
Inverse gas chromatographic analysis of Kevlar yarns reveals a major surface property difference between free-length annealed fibres and constant-length annealed fibres. The deviation in the ...retention diagram is studied and discussed along with four possible hypotheses. A surface microstructure change is the most realistic explanation of the observed phenomena.
Aroma compound properties in food matrices, such as volatility and diffusivity, have to be determined to understand the effect of composition and structure on aroma release and perception. This work ...illustrates the use of mass transfer modeling to identify diffusion and partition properties of ethyl hexanoate in water and in carrageenan matrices with various degrees of structure. The comparison of results obtained with a diffusive model to those obtained with a convective model highlights the importance of considering the appropriate transfer mechanism. Modeling of the preliminary experimental steps ensures correct estimation of the conditions for the main aroma release step. The obtained values of partition and diffusion coefficients are in agreement with those found in the literature (either experimentally determined or predicted by theoretical equations) and demonstrate that the structure level of carrageenan matrices has little influence on diffusion properties of ethyl hexanoate (less than 20%). Keywords: Aroma release; modeling; partition coefficient; mass transfer; convection; diffusion coefficient; volatile compound
Connections between individuals facilitate the exchange of goods, resources and information and create benefits. These connections may be exploited by adversaries to spread their attacks as well. ...What is the optimal way to design and defend networks in the face of attacks We develop a model with a Designer and an Adversary. The Designer moves first and chooses a network and an allocation of defense resources across nodes. The Adversary then allocates attack resources on nodes and determines how successful attacks should navigate the network. Our main result is that, in a wide variety of circumstances, a star network with all defense resources allocated to the central hub node is optimal for the Designer. The Adversary targets undefended peripheral nodes; upon capture of these nodes the resources mount a concerted attack on the center.
The present paper suggests a possible framework to analyze the impact of changes to the economic and social environment on the topology of networks formed. Economic (costs) and social (norms) ...constraints bind individuals in their ability to create ties with others. When global phenomena affect these constraints, the overall shapes of resulting networks naturally alter. I attempt to shed light on this relationship.
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