Host immunity has critical roles in tumour surveillance. Tertiary lymphoid organs (TLOs) are induced in various inflamed tissues. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinicopathological and ...pathobiological characteristics of tumour microenvironment in pancreatic ductal carcinoma (PDC) with TLOs.
We examined 534 PDCs to investigate the clinicopathological impact of TLOs and their association with tumour-infiltrating immune cells, the cytokine milieu, and tissue characteristics.
There were two different localisations of PDC-associated TLOs, intratumoral and peritumoral. A better outcome was observed in patients with intratumoral TLOs, and this was independent of other survival factors. The PDC tissues with intratumoral TLOs showed significantly higher infiltration of T and B cells and lower infiltration of immunosuppressive cells, as well as significantly higher expression of Th1- and Th17-related genes. Tertiary lymphoid organs developed with an association with arterioles, venules, and nerves. These structures were reduced in an association with cancer invasion in PDC tissues, except for those with intratumoral TLOs. The PDC tissues with intratumoral TLOs had capillaries consisting of mature endothelial cells covered by pericytes.
Our results suggest that the presence of intratumoral TLOs represents a microenvironment that has an active immune reaction, and shows a relatively intact vascular network retained.
We describe a dynamic science portal called the GROWTH Marshal that allows time-domain astronomers to define science programs; program filters to save sources from different discovery streams; ...coordinate follow-up with various robotic or classical telescopes; analyze the panchromatic follow-up data; and generate summary tables for publication. The GROWTH marshal currently serves 137 scientists, 38 science programs, and 67 telescopes. Every night, in real time, several science programs apply various customized filters to the 105 nightly alerts from the Zwicky Transient Facility. Here, we describe the schematic and explain the functionality of the various components of this international collaborative platform.
The host immune reaction is represented by immune/inflammatory cell infiltrates. Here we systematically analysed tumour-infiltrating immune/inflammatory cells in pancreatic ductal carcinoma (PDC) and ...evaluated their clinicopathological impact.
Using immunohistochemistry, we examined tumour-infiltrating CD68(+) pan-macrophages, HLA-DR(+)CD68(+) M1 macrophages (M1), CD163(+) or CD204(+) M2 macrophages (M2), CD66b(+) neutrophils (Neu), CD4(+) T cells (CD4(+)T), CD8(+) T cells (CD8(+)T), and FOXP3(+)CD4(+) regulatory T cells (Treg) in 212 cases of PDC, and conducted correlation and survival analyses using the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards model.
Higher levels of tumour-infiltrating pan-macrophages, M2, Neu, or the ratio of Tregs to CD4(+)T (%Treg) were significantly associated with shorter survival, whereas higher levels of tumour-infiltrating CD4(+)T, CD8(+)T, or the ratio of M1 to pan-macrophages (%M1) were significantly associated with longer survival. Survival analysis of pairs of these variables revealed that some of the resulting patient groups had exclusively longer survival. We then connected the apparently related factors, and two significant variables emerged: tumour-infiltrating CD4(+)T(high)/CD8(+)T(high)/%Treg(low) and tumour-infiltrating %M1(high)/M2(low). Multivariate survival analysis revealed that these variables were significantly correlated with longer survival and had a higher hazard ratio.
Tumour-infiltrating CD4(+)T(high)/CD8(+)T(high)/%Treg(low) and %M1(high)/M2(low) are independent prognosticators useful for evaluating the immune microenvironment of PDC.
We present multi-wavelength follow-up campaigns by the AstroSat CZTI and GROWTH collaborations in search of an electromagnetic counterpart to the gravitational wave event GW 170104. At the time of ...the GW 170104 trigger, the AstroSat CZTI field of view covered 50.3% of the sky localization. We do not detect any hard X-ray (>100 keV) signal at this time, and place an upper limit of , for a 1 s timescale. Separately, the ATLAS survey reported a rapidly fading optical source dubbed ATLAS17aeu in the error circle of GW 170104. Our panchromatic investigation of ATLAS17aeu shows that it is the afterglow of an unrelated long, soft GRB 170105A, with only a fortuitous spatial coincidence with GW 170104. We then discuss the properties of this transient in the context of standard long GRB afterglow models.
The detailed investigation of the broadband flux variability in the blazar 3C 273 allowed us to probe the location and size of emission regions and their physical conditions. We conducted correlation ...studies of the flaring activity in 3C 273, which was observed for the period between 2008 and 2012. The observed broadband variations were investigated using the structure function and the discrete correlation function methods. Starting from the commonly used power spectral density (PSD) analysis at X-ray frequencies, we extended our investigation to characterise the nature of variability at radio, optical, and γ-ray frequencies. The PSD analysis showed that the optical and infrared light-curve slopes are consistent with the slope of white-noise processes, while the PSD slopes at radio, X-ray, and γ-ray energies are consistent with red-noise processes. We found that the estimated fractional variability amplitudes strongly depend on the observed frequency. The flux variations at γ-ray and mm-radio bands are found to be significantly correlated. Using the estimated time lag of (110 ± 27) days between γ-ray and radio light-curves, where γ-ray variations lead the radio bands, we constrained the location of the γ-ray emission region at a de-projected distance of 1.2 ± 0.9 pc from the jet apex. Flux variations at X-ray bands were found to have a significant correlation with variations at both radio and γ-ray energies. The correlation between X-ray and γ-ray light curves indicates two possible time lags, which suggests that two components are responsible for the X-ray emission. A negative time lag of −(50 ± 20) days, where the X-rays are leading the emission, suggests that X-rays are emitted closer to the jet apex from a compact region (0.02–0.05 pc in size), most likely from the corona at a distance of (0.5 ± 0.4) pc from the jet apex. A positive time lag of (110 ± 20) days (γ-rays are leading the emission) suggests a jet-base origin of the other X-ray component at ~4 to 5 pc from the jet apex. The flux variations at radio frequencies were found to be well correlated with each other such that the variations at higher frequencies are leading the lower frequencies, which is expected from the standard shock-in-jet model.
This paper studies the model for the three-phase contactless power transfer system. A phase winding in the three-phase contactless power transformer has the magnetic couplings with all of the other ...phase windings. Moreover, the magnetic couplings depend on the displacement of the secondary armature with respect to the primary armature. The equivalent model of the three-phase system with the complicated mutual inductances due to such magnetic couplings is presented. The model is transformed into the single-phase model that is similar to the model for the conventional system. The simplified model allows the easy consideration of the operation of the three-phase system. By using the model, the resonant capacitances for the three-phase system are available. The model is confirmed to successfully simulate the performance of the actual system. In addition, the experimental and theoretical results confirm that the three-phase system has the stable performance of the power transfer independently of the displacement of the secondary.
We report on a recent multiband optical photometric and polarimetric observational campaign of the blazar OJ 287 that was carried out during 2016 September-2017 December. We employed nine telescopes ...in Bulgaria, China, Georgia, Japan, Serbia, Spain, and the United States. We collected over 1800 photometric image frames in BVRI bands and over 100 polarimetric measurements over ∼175 nights. In 11 nights with many quasi-simultaneous multiband (V, R, I) observations, we did not detect any genuine intraday variability in flux or color. On longer timescales, multiple flaring events were seen. Large changes in color with respect to time and in a color-magnitude diagram were seen, and while only a weak systematic variability trend was noticed in color with respect to time, the color-magnitude diagram shows a bluer-when-brighter trend. Large changes in the degree of polarization and substantial swings in the polarization angle were detected. The fractional Stokes parameters of the polarization showed a systematic trend with time in the beginning of these observations, followed by chaotic changes and then an apparently systematic variation at the end. These polarization changes coincide with the detection and duration of the source at very high energies as seen by VERITAS. The spectral index shows a systematic variation with time and V-band magnitude. We briefly discuss possible physical mechanisms that could explain the observed flux, color, polarization, and spectral variability.
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