Search results for "FOCUS"

High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound- and Radiation Therapy-Induced Immuno-modulation: Comparison and Potential Opportunities

2017

In recent years, high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has emerged as a new and promising non-invasive and non-ionizing ablative technique for the treatment of localized solid tumors. Extensive pre-clinical and clinical studies have evidenced that, in addition to direct destruction of the primary tumor, HIFU-thermoablation may elicit long-term systemic host anti-tumor immunity. In particular, an important consequence of HIFU treatment includes the release of tumor-associated antigens (TAAs), the secretion of immuno-suppressing factors by cancer cells and the induction of cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) activity. Radiation therapy (RT) is the main treatment modality used for many types of tu…

Next-generation sequencing in clinical practice: from the patients' preferences to the informed consent process

2016

International audience

A simple method to estimate the isoelectric point of modified Tomato bushy stunt virus (TBSV) particles

2017

We present a simple method to estimate the isoelectric point (pI) of Tomato Bushy Stunt particles. We demonstrate that the combination of agarose gels with different pH buffers can be used to electrophorese the virus particles and their migration patterns can be compared. This method allows us to estimate the pI of the virus particles (wild type, wt, and genetically modified particles) and to monitor the effect of the pI of modified peptide side chains of the viral capsid subunit on the pI of the whole virus particle.

Pasta experience: Eating with the five senses - a pilot study

2018

Dried pasta is the Italian food “par excellence”. Traditional foods have characteristics that can stimulate or evoke in the consumer sensorial stimuli and experiences, especially when these foods are consumed in a typical-traditional restaurant. Traditional restaurants can use sensory marketing as a promotional advantage, creating a unique and original atmosphere that can represent their main way of differentiation. The aims of this paper are to know consumer liking with regard to two high quality types of Sicilian pasta, common dried pasta, and whole-wheat pasta, consumed in three different venues of a typical-traditional Italian franchised restaurant, and to measure the influence of envir…

The European consumers’ understanding and perceptions of the “organic” food regime

2004

This paper explores consumer understanding and perception of organic food, with specific reference to the relatively new concept of organic farmed salmon. Key themes associated with the term “organic” and its meaning, as determined by consumers, are explored and the role of labelling and regulatory authorities considered. Focus groups in five countries (UK, Germany, Spain, Norway and France) consisting of 196 participants showed that most consumers are confused about the meaning of the term organic and are largely unaware of the organic certification and labelling process. Many consumers were unsure, even sceptical about the concept of organic farmed salmon and display a large amount of dis…

Towards identifying drug side effects from social media using active learning and crowd sourcing.

2019

Motivation Social media is a largely untapped source of information on side effects of drugs. Twitter in particular is widely used to report on everyday events and personal ailments. However, labeling this noisy data is a difficult problem because labeled training data is sparse and automatic labeling is error-prone. Crowd sourcing can help in such a scenario to obtain more reliable labels, but is expensive in comparison because workers have to be paid. To remedy this, semi-supervised active learning may reduce the number of labeled data needed and focus the manual labeling process on important information. Results We extracted data from Twitter using the public API. We subsequently use Ama…

Double validation of translated questionnaires in international studies

2018

Background Study questionnaires developed in one country can be translated and used for similar studies in other countries. The main problem of this process is that people speaking different languages can understand the meaning of some questions differently due to disparate mentalities and backgrounds. To avoid a misunderstanding, to perform correct conclusions in accordance to the mentality of each country, and to permit the comparison of results in different countries, the intellectual validation of questionnaires is widely used. The main problem of such a validation is its qualitative nature that can be biased by the subjective approach of the investigator. Therefore, there is a necessit…

Dissenting voices in a consenting village: lessons from implementation of free, prior and informed consent at a REDD+ pilot in Tanzania

2020

Free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) is a key institutional tool in meeting social safeguards. Its implementation ensures respect of the local people's rights in an intervention. This paper presents a case of FPIC implementation at a REDD+ pilot site. Data were obtained through key informant interviews and focus group discussions with proponents and village members of the Lindi REDD+ project. Findings indicate that the inclusive approach to FPIC by taking the consultations to the hamlet level did not deliver a flawless process. The consent decision was reached by a majority vote, not consensus. There was some dissent, prompting the early establishment of project implementation committees…

2017

Children’s improved performance with age in analogy tasks has been explained by an increase in semantic knowledge of the items and the relations between them or by the development of an increased ability to inhibit irrelevant information. We tested the so-called "unbalanced attentional focus hypothesis" that claims that a failure to choose the "analogical" match can be the result of a difficulty to focus on all the relevant information available. Previous eye-tracking research has suggested, in analogies of the A:B::C:D format, that 5-6 year-olds organize their search around the C item. They focused significantly less than adults on the A:B pair, thereby hindering their discovering the rela…

Continuous and discontinuous nominal expressions in flexible (or “free”) word order languages: Patterns and correlates

2020

AbstractThis study explores continuous and discontinuous word order patterns of multi-word nominal expressions in flexible word order languages (traditionally referred to as “free word order” or “non-configurational” languages). Besides describing syntagmatic patterns, this paper seeks to identify any functional or other correlates that can be associated with different word orders. The languages under investigation are a number of Australian languages as well as Vedic Sanskrit, all of which have long been known for their syntagmatic flexibility. With respect to continuous order, evidence from several of these languages suggests that default ordering is primarily governed by functional templ…