Despite the availability of potent antifungal compounds, invasive fungal diseases (IFD) are still a major cause for morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised pediatric and adult patients, and risk and outcome of IFDs are determined by the degree of the suppression of the specific arms of the immune system. This prompted us to review the current knowledge of immunotherapeutic antifungal approaches. We critically review important in vitro and animal data as well as clinical studies of immunotherapy for IFD, in particular granulocyte transfusion, the adoptive transfer of primary and genetically modified Natural Killer cells and fungal-specific T cells, and the use of colony-stimulating factors and cytokines. Although promising data of in vitro and animal models have been reported for many strategies, no clear benefit has been demonstrated in the clinical setting to date.
This paper provides a review of Late-Paleozoic skarns in the Erzgebirge/Krusne hory region (Germany/Czech Republic) with a particular emphasis on the Aue-Schwarzenberg and Geyer-Ehrenfriedersdorf Districts that host the most prolific skarn systems. Most skarns in the Erzgebirge replace carbonate units that occur intercalated with metamorphosed sedimentary and volcano-sedimentary host rock successions of pre-Variscan age. Skarn compositions range from calcic to magnesian, depending on the protolith. The timing of skarn formation is constrained by U-Pb ages of garnet and cassiterite, ranging from similar to 340 to similar to 295 Ma, broadly coinciding with different episodes of late- to post-Variscan magmatism. Textural and geochronological data implies that many of the skarns are multi-generational, with hiatuses between individual stages of up to 5 -10 Ma, indicating that they are the product of several magmatic-hydrothermal events. Early skarns are commonly characterized by skarnoid textures typical for heat-dominated metasomatism (rock-buffered), whereas younger skarns mainly show metasomatic textures and open space-infill typical for fluid-dominated metasomatism (fluid-buffered). We postulate that the relationship between timing and texture is related to uplift and exhumation of the Erzgebirge following the collisional phase of the Variscan orogeny. Most of the Sn mineralization is hosted in cassiterite, commonly intergrown with retrograde actinolite and chlorite. However, a significant portion of Sn remains locked within prograde calc-silicate phases (e.g., malayaite, Sn-bearing garnet), rendering it inaccessible for economic extraction. Indium mineralization is mainly hosted by sphalerite and less importantly other sulfides that are also associated with the retrograde stage. Scheelite is the main host of W, which shows a preferred affiliation to calcic skarns and occurs during the pro- and retrograde stage.
Transcription factors (TFs) are essential players in the regulation of gene expression and thus have been the subject of interest in the context of diseases and the manipulation of specific cell functions or pathways. The complex interplay of TFs and genes can be modeled as a network, in which each edge represents a regulatory influence. A challenge in such networks is the identification of a set of TFs with the maximum regulatory influence, which is of particular importance in the context of perturbation studies. We model the task of finding a set of TFs to maximize the influence on a set of genes as a probing problem in a bipartite graph. We test different adaptive and non-adaptive algorithms on simulated graphs and discuss their properties and adaptivity gap. Then, we apply the algorithms on real-life data to find TFs regulating genes involved in T-cell mediated immunity and lymphoid leukemia. The approach has minimal data requirements and can be readily applied to all other types of bipartite networks.
Much has been said about the relation between credences and beliefs. Surprisingly little, however, has been said about how credences more specifically relate to probability beliefs. In this paper, I will argue that they are normatively related. This proposal goes against belief-first reductionism, which says that credences just are probability beliefs. Against the most popular version of this view, I will offer a novel counterexample in which intuitively there is an irrational subject with mismatching credences and probability beliefs. Such cases motivate what I call the Interdoxastic Coordination Principle (ICP), according to which a subject is epistemically rational only if (roughly put) her credences and her beliefs' epistemically probabilistic contents match. I will show that ICP gets right various data points about the interplay between credences and probability beliefs.
Owing to the availability and easy usability of bibliometric computer tools, the number of bibliometric literature reviews has soared, especially in active and dynamic research fields such as digital finance and fintech. This leads to the paradoxical situation of a high number of bibliometric literature reviews with diverging quantitative results, which ultimately results in confusion instead of consistency and clarity. To counter this trend and make the results comprehensible and reproducible, we propose a new methodology for systematic bibliometric literature reviews that relies on a robust two-stage approach to ensure a comprehensive identification of relevant literature, especially for developed research landscapes. We apply this 2-Stage Literature Search and Selection (2SLSS) approach to the literature on digital finance and fintech, present our findings, and discuss existing research gaps. Therefore, we contribute both to the analysis of the evolution of the digital finance literature and the fintech literature and to the methodological foundation of systematic bibliometric literature reviews.
