Abstract This paper presents a new method of data hiding using Catalan numbers and Dyck words. The proposed steganographic solution belongs to the category of techniques based on the key generating process, rather than steganographic techniques such as injecting or substituting bits. The complex stego key consists of three sets of values that provide the technique of a hidden message generation completely. Hidden message is generated based on the data carrier and an adequate complex stego key. An important characteristic of the proposed method is that the data carrier retains its original shape, without supplements or modifications. Proposed method is explained in detail through the general scenario and through concrete examples. State of the art steganographic analysis of the proposed solution is presented in this paper, as well as possible suggestions for application in business information systems, authentication and distribution of secret cryptographic keys.

Com melhores condições de vida e os avanços na medicina, a expectativa de vida do brasileiro está cada vez maior. A fim de promover melhorias de vida para uma parcela da população que está aumentando, o presente projeto buscou desenvolver um produto de moda que atenda às necessidades do público idoso, particularmente dos que apresentam limitações nos membros superiores. Em visitas feitas à abrigos de idosos, foram realizadas entrevistas, obtendo informações mais precisas para nortear a pesquisa de maneira eficiente, e assim contribuir para o desenvolvimento de um produto que facilita o ato de vestir, ergonômico, e com maiores chances de sucesso no mercado. A pesquisa é de natureza aplicada, de caráter exploratório e utiliza uma abordagem qualitativa. Além disso, os procedimentos técnicos utilizados foram bibliográficos e de pesquisa-ação, o que possibilitou uma investigação mais profunda e subjetiva do público-alvo, permitindo a compreensão de seus comportamentos e experiências individuais, culminando em um maior conhecimento sobre o grupo analisado. Ao final do projeto, foi criada uma peça eficiente destinada aos idosos, proporcionando conforto e facilidade de uso, facilitando seu dia-a-dia.

BACKGROUND Morbidity and mortality attributed to prescription opioids are a crisis in the US and spreading globally. Sex differences related to these conditions have not been adequately assessed. METHODS Through our community engagement program, data on demographics, health status, and substance use, including prescription opioids (e.g., Vicodin®, Oxycodone), were collected from community members in Florida (primarily North Central Florida) during a health needs assessment. Participants over 18 years of age were classified by opioid use: past 30-day, lifetime but not past 30-day, or no lifetime prescription opioid use. Descriptive statistics and chi-square tests were calculated, and multinomial logistic regression was used to calculate adjusted odds ratios (aOR; CI). Analyses were conducted for men and women separately to examine sex specific effects. RESULTS Among 9221 community members assessed, the mean age was 45 years, 60% were female, and 58% were black. Respondents who endorsed past 30-day use and lifetime use were more likely to be female. Prescription sedative use was the strongest risk factor for past 30-day (aOR = 3.96; 95% CI, 3.35-4.68) and lifetime (aOR = 2.67; 95% CI, 2.34-3.04) prescription opioid use, regardless of sex. Other factors including marijuana use and history of cancer were significantly associated with prescription opioid use; they varied by sex. CONCLUSIONS The risk factors identified in this community sample provide additional information not accounted for by national studies. Future examinations of the consequences of concomitant opioid and sedative use, especially among women, are needed.

Recent development in wireless technology enabling communication between vehicles led to introduction of the concept of Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC), which uses wireless vehicle-to-vehicle communication and aims at string stable behavior in a platoon of vehicles. Degradation cascades have been proposed as a way to maintain a certain level of the system functionality in presence of failures. Such degradation behaviour is usually controlled by a runtime/state manager that performs fault detection and transitions the system into states where it will remain acceptably safe. In this paper, we propose a dynamic controller manager that focuses on both safety and performance of the system. In particular, it monitors the channel quality within the platoon and reacts by degrading platoon performance in presence of communication failures, or upgrading the performance when the communication quality is high enough. The reaction can include, e.g., adjusting the inter-vehicle distance or switching to another suitable platoon controller to prevent collisions. We focus on the functional and operational safety and evaluate the performance of the dynamic controller manager under different scenarios and settings in simulation experiments to demonstrate that it can avoid rear-end collisions in a platoon, continue platooning operation even in dense traffic scenarios where the state-of-the-art controllers fail to do so.

Introduction/Background Aberrant Hedgehog (Hh) pathway signaling has been implicated in pathogenesis of several human cancers. Recent studies have indicated its active role in serous ovarian carcinomas. Smoothened protein (SMO), a transmembrane co-receptor in Hh pathway signal transduction, is inhibited in non-dividing cells, thus its disinhibition might be a trigger for uncontrolled cell proliferation and growth. Very few studies have explored the role of SMO in serous ovarian cancers. The aim of the study was to assess the expression of SMO protein and to explore the Smoothened gene promoter methylation in a cohort of serous ovarian carcinomas. Methodology SMO protein expression was immunohistochemically quantified in 40 high-grade serous carcinomas (HGSC), 12 low-grade serous carcinomas (LGSC), 20 normal ovarian and 9 normal fallopian tube samples (controls). SMO gene promoter methylation status was analyzed using methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (MSP) in randomly selected HGSCs (n=10), LGSCs (n=10), and normal fallopian tube (n=9) samples. Kaplan-Meier survival plots were used to estimate the impact of SMO expression on patients‘ overall survival (OS). Results SMO nuclear expression was significantly higher in HGSCs and LGSCs compared with the fallopian tube samples (p=0.010 and p=0.003, respectively). LGSCs, compared with normal ovarian tissue, exhibited higher total, cytoplasmic/membrane and nuclear expression (p=0.000, p=0.001 and p=0.000, respectively). Comparing HGSCs and LGSCs, significantly higher total and cytoplasmic/membrane expression was found in HGSC (p=0.026 and p=0.030, respectively). SMO gene promoter was unmethylated in both LGSCs and HGSCs as well as in fallopian tube. In addition, the SMO protein expression had no significant impact on patients‘ OS (p=0.07). Conclusion Our data indicate the lack of SMO gene promoter methylation while a significant overexpression (particularly nuclear) of SMO protein characterized a substantial proportion of serous ovarian carcinomas. Further functional studies should elucidate the clinical relevance of these findings. Disclosure Nothing to disclose.

As the majority of cancers and gestational diseases are prognostically stage- and grade-dependent, the ultimate goal of ongoing studies in precision medicine is to provide early and timely diagnosis of such disorders. These studies have enabled the development of various new diagnostic biomarkers, such as free circulating nucleic acids, and detection of their epigenetic changes. Recently, extracellular vesicles including exosomes, microvesicles, oncosomes, and apoptotic bodies have been recognized as powerful diagnostic tools. Extracellular vesicles carry specific proteins, lipids, DNAs, mRNAs, and miRNAs of the cells that produced them, thus reflecting the function of these cells. It is believed that exosomes, in particular, may be the optimal biomarkers of pathological pregnancies and cancers, especially those that are frequently diagnosed at an advanced stage, such as ovarian cancer. In the present review, we survey and critically appraise novel epigenetic biomarkers related to free circulating nucleic acids and extracellular vesicles, focusing especially on their status in trophoblasts (pregnancy) and neoplastic cells (cancers).

Introduction/Background Malignant ovarian germ cell tumors (MOGCTs) account for 2–5% of all ovarian cancers and among them pure embryonal cell cancer is rare condition.1 2 3 4 Methodology Aim: To show successful pregnancy after unilateral salpingooopherectomy and chemotherapy in a girl with embryonal carcinoma of ovary (ECO). Results Case report: A 11 year old girl presented in January 2008. with pain in abdomen and abdominal wall hardness. CT revealed a 12 × 10 × 11 cm heterodense mass. Right sided salpingoophorectomy, omentectomy, biopsy left sided ovary was done. Histopathology examination and immunohistochemistry revealed embryonal cell cancer of ovary. Patient had FIGO stage III c disease. After the surgical removal of the tumour, the patient underwent six cycles of adjuvant chemotherapy with bleomycin, etoposide and cisplatin. Within eight year after the completion of chemotherapy she conceived spontaneously. At 39th gestational week, laparotomy as well as a C-section was done and the patient was managed successfully in giving birth to a healthy female baby (birth weight and lenth 3,430 gm/53 cm, Apgar score: 9/9). At the last follow-up visit (May 5, 2018), all the tumor markers were negative, and the control MRI and ultrasound examinations did not reveal tumor recurrence or pathological lymph nodes. Conclusion Fertility preservation surgery followed by chemotherapy may be considered as standard care of treatment in embryonal carcinoma of ovary in young girls, who want to retain fertility. Disclosure Nothing to disclose.

This article presents a low-cost laboratory that has been designed and developed to enhance learning experience and help students gain skills and knowledge in the field of distributed systems. In order to build a comprehensive distributed file system, we used the laboratory consisting of 40 card-sized Raspberry Pi devices, with the accent on stability, scalability, and low cost. Aiming to assess the impact of this new learning environment on the learning process and its outcomes, we surveyed students following the completion of three project stages during the 17 laboratory exercises in one academic year, ensuring that we maintained the same subjects of study during the experiments. Supported by interesting answers on various sets of questions, we provide a valuable insight into students' experience, obstacles and observations during system's implementation. This particular insight paves the way toward further laboratory improvement, adopting this approach in other courses related to ours, and encouraging teachers to embrace similar practice regardless of the field of education.

Abstract Background Multiple genomic and transciptomic biomarkers have been associated with response to immune checkpoint inhibitor (CPI) therapy. Emerging evidence suggests that each solid tumour type has a unique mix of factors determining CPI response, reflecting the subtle differences in antigen repertoire and immune microenvironment across histologies. Compiling large-scale sequencing datasets of patients treated with CPI therapy, from a range of solid tumour types, allows detailed comparison of the contrasting immune drivers per histology. Understanding these differences enhances our understanding of the pathways influencing CPI response, which may be of utility for therapeutic and biomarker development. Methods We compiled data from 13 CPI treated cohorts, across 6 solid tumour types, encompassing 1,453 patients (n = 1,453 with exome data, n = 674 with RNAseq data). All raw data was accessed, and reprocessed through a standardised state of the art bioinformatics pipeline. A comphrehensive range of genomic & transcriptomic biomarker metrics were derived across the cohort. A combined predictive model was constructred encompassing all biomarkers, & the importance weighting was calculated for each biomarker, in each tumour type. Results TMB was found to be a universal predictor of response across all tumour types, except for renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Instead CPI response in RCC appears to be strongly driven by expression of human endogeneuos retroviruses (hERV). In malignant melanoma, while TMB (nsSNVs) was associated with CPI response, the number of expressed indel mutations was found to be a stronger predictor. Shared antigen expression also demonstrated tumour specific predictive patterns. A signature of high immune inflitatation was found to be another universal predictor of response across multiple tumour types, however differences in the varying importance of immune cell subsets across histologies was observed. The rate of HLA LOH, and other immune evasion mechanisms also varied dramatically by cancer type. Conclusions The determinants of immunotherapy response vary across solid tumour types, offering unique insight into both tumour intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of immunogenicity. Legal entity responsible for the study The Francis Crick Institute. Funding Has not received any funding. Disclosure All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

E-learning represents novel learning way, which increase teaching flexibility and availability of learning resources. This paper explores the evaluation of student success at e-learning platform. Authors used multi-method approach for data analysis (i.e. Social Network Analysis, K-means Clustering and Linear Regression). This approach presents novelty in the field of e-learning, which provides more detailed analysis that enable more relevant results. The research was conducted with student group at the University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Technical Sciences, Serbia. Results indicate that digital resources at the e-learning platform make strong effects on student success. Moreover, results indicate that students with the similar grades belongs to the same clusters.