Universitätspublikationen
Refine
Year of publication
Document Type
- Article (12971)
- Part of Periodical (3427)
- Doctoral Thesis (3167)
- Contribution to a Periodical (2075)
- Book (2051)
- Working Paper (1869)
- Preprint (1297)
- Review (1048)
- Report (910)
- Conference Proceeding (659)
Language
- English (16251)
- German (13540)
- Portuguese (231)
- Spanish (123)
- Italian (65)
- French (64)
- Multiple languages (57)
- Turkish (12)
- Ukrainian (10)
- slo (7)
Keywords
- Deutschland (132)
- COVID-19 (93)
- inflammation (91)
- Financial Institutions (90)
- ECB (67)
- Capital Markets Union (64)
- SARS-CoV-2 (63)
- Financial Markets (61)
- Adorno (58)
- Banking Union (50)
Institute
- Medizin (6245)
- Präsidium (4979)
- Physik (3058)
- Wirtschaftswissenschaften (2242)
- Gesellschaftswissenschaften (2009)
- Biowissenschaften (1675)
- Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) (1455)
- Biochemie und Chemie (1370)
- Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe (SAFE) (1369)
- Informatik (1350)
Aim
In the CheckRad-CD8 trial patients with locally advanced head and neck squamous cell cancer are treated with a single cycle of induction chemo-immunotherapy (ICIT). Patients with pathological complete response (pCR) in the re-biopsy enter radioimmunotherapy. Our goal was to study the value of F-18-FDG PET/CT in the prediction of pCR after induction therapy.
Methods
Patients treated within the CheckRad-CD8 trial that additionally received FDG- PET/CT imaging at the following two time points were included: 3–14 days before (pre-ICIT) and 21–28 days after (post-ICIT) receiving ICIT. Tracer uptake in primary tumors (PT) and suspicious cervical lymph nodes (LN +) was measured using different quantitative parameters on EANM Research Ltd (EARL) accredited PET reconstructions. In addition, mean FDG uptake levels in lymphatic and hematopoietic organs were examined. Percent decrease (Δ) in FDG uptake was calculated for all parameters. Biopsy of the PT post-ICIT acquired after FDG-PET/CT served as reference. The cohort was divided in patients with pCR and residual tumor (ReTu).
Results
Thirty-one patients were included. In ROC analysis, ΔSUVmax PT performed best (AUC = 0.89) in predicting pCR (n = 17), with a decline of at least 60% (sensitivity, 0.77; specificity, 0.93). Residual SUVmax PT post-ICIT performed best in predicting ReTu (n = 14), at a cutpoint of 6.0 (AUC = 0.91; sensitivity, 0.86; specificity, 0.88). Combining two quantitative parameters (ΔSUVmax ≥ 50% and SUVmax PT post-ICIT ≤ 6.0) conferred a sensitivity of 0.81 and a specificity of 0.93 for determining pCR. Background activity in lymphatic organs or uptake in suspected cervical lymph node metastases lacked significant predictive value.
Conclusion
FDG-PET/CT can identify patients with pCR after ICIT via residual FDG uptake levels in primary tumors and the related changes compared to baseline. FDG-uptake in LN + had no predictive value.
Trial registry
ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03426657.
Bird-mediated seed dispersal is crucial for the regeneration and viability of ecosystems, often resulting in complex mutualistic species networks. Yet, how this mutualism drives the evolution of seed dispersing birds is still poorly understood. In the present study we combine whole genome re-sequencing analyses and morphometric data to assess the evolutionary processes that shaped the diversification of the Eurasian nutcracker (Nucifraga), a seed disperser known for its mutualism with pines (Pinus). Our results show that the divergence and phylogeographic patterns of nutcrackers resemble those of other non-mutualistic passerine birds and suggest that their early diversification was shaped by similar biogeographic and climatic processes. The limited variation in foraging traits indicates that local adaptation to pines likely played a minor role. Our study shows that close mutualistic relationships between bird and plant species might not necessarily act as a primary driver of evolution and diversification in resource-specialized birds.
Background and Aims
Prothrombin induced by vitamin K absence-II (PIVKA-II) is a serum biomarker linked to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), showing superiority to alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) for early disease detection. We aimed to assess the clinical and analytical performance of the Elecsys® PIVKA-II immunoassay in diagnosing HCC and evaluate PIVKA-II's technical performance.
Methods
Serum samples from adult cases (i.e. patients with a first-time HCC diagnosis; n = 168) and disease controls (i.e. patients without HCC with an at-risk condition; n = 208) were assessed. An AFP cut-off of 20 ng/mL was used to differentiate between HCC cases and disease controls. Clinical performance of the Elecsys PIVKA-II assay was compared with that of comparator assays (Lumipulse G PIVKA-II, μTASWako DCP, ARCHITECT PIVKA-II) using receiver operating characteristic curve analysis to determine the area under the curve (AUC) values.
Results
The Elecsys PIVKA-II assay compared favorably with comparator assays. Using a 28.4 ng/mL cut-off, the Elecsys PIVKA-II assay detected HCC with 86.9% sensitivity and 83.7% specificity. Clinical performance of the Elecsys PIVKA-II assay (AUC: 90.8%) was equivalent to that of comparator assays (AUC: 88.3–89.6%). Relatively high PIVKA-II concentrations were observed for cholangiocarcinoma and pancreatic cancer with the Elecsys assay in specificity panel analyses, indicating that high PIVKA-II concentrations should not be used alone in the absence of other clinical data.
Conclusions
The Elecsys PIVKA-II assay showed good analytical performance under routine laboratory conditions, comparing favorably with comparator assays. These findings support the suitability of the Elecsys PIVKA-II assay as an aid in HCC diagnosis.
In narratology, a widely recognized method involves exploring the connection between implied authors and implied readers. It entails correlating abstract narrative components within a text to understand the conveyed message and the multitude of interpretations it can offer. The present study adopts an implied reader-oriented approach to analyze three selected novels from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries—one Nigerian, one Caribbean, and one Kurdish. The aim is to explore the potential readings within these texts, considering the hermeneutic process of critical reading. The selected texts include Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, (1958), Same Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners, (1956), and Karwan Kakesur’s The Channels of the Armed Monkeys, (2011). This approach closely examines the communication between the author and reader of the text, with a special focus on the varying levels of communication between the components of the narration, including fictional and implied fictional communication.
The implied fictional communication occurs between a narrative agent known as ‘the implied author’ and its fictional counterpart ‘the implied reader’ rather than between the real, flesh and blood authors and readers. I argue that this level of communication is coded, and the act of decoding it is part of the reading process performed by the reader. Certain texts can propose different and sometimes opposing readings which are initially and purposefully designed by the implied author and addressed to different implied readers. These readings are not necessarily the results of different real readers but rather incorporated ones predetermined by the implied author only to be acknowledged and uncovered by the readers. In other words, the latent meaning is and always was an integral part of the text and is not something created by the imaginative reader or critic. The core interest of my thesis lies in identifying prompts and suggestions within the narrative of the selected texts and ultimately understanding the readerships prestructured in them. Identifying the different readers within those texts will provide new reinterpretations that can add undetected values to the reading process and sometimes suggests opposing readings to how those texts have so far been read. Additionally, it is the objective of this thesis to propose new ways that readers can interact with reading literature that would result in a more aesthetic and entertaining reading experience besides providing ways to be more informed and aware of the cues certain narrative texts contain.
There have been numerous critical studies on both narratology and postcolonial or minority literatures; however, there has been little scholarly work that attempts to utilize narratology as a theoretical foundation for understanding postcolonial and minority fiction.
This study examines fictional texts from Nigerian, Caribbean, and Kurdish literature, employing the narratological concept known as ‘Multiple Implied Readers’. By incorporating concepts from Brian Richardson’s ‘Singular Text, Multiple Implied Readers’, and Peter J. Rabinowitz’s ‘authorial audiences’, I explore the various readerships that the texts could encompass. This exploitation may lead to the discovery of new readings, interpretations, and meanings that would otherwise remain undetected. These structures introduce provocative indeterminacies that challenge the reader’s synthesis of information into coherent configurations of meaning. Consequently, this approach not only enhances the reading experience but also opens doors to new interpretations of the text. In some cases, these interpretations could even dismantle prior understandings and propose entirely new readings.
The concepts of the implied author and implied reader have been studied before in relation to various disciplines of narratology. However, by applying them in conjunction with the relatively less researched subject of multiple implied readers, I aim to shed light on important aspects of these readings. This exploration could prove beneficial for literature students as well as critical readers of literary texts, revealing the potential of these texts to accommodate more than one implied reader within their narratives.
Annotationes Epigraphicae XIII. Zu einigen Inschriften aus der römischen Provinz Gallia Lugdunensis
(2023)
Die seit einigen Jahren andauernde Arbeit an einem kommentierenden Onomastikon für die römische Provinz Gallia Lugdunensis, das in absehbarer Zeit erscheinen soll, lenkte die Aufmerksamkeit des Autors auf mehrere bemerkenswerte Inschriften aus der zentralgallischen Provinz, die ausführlichere Betrachtungen rechtfertigen. Alle folgenden Anmerkungen zu 15 ausgewählten Inschriften beziehen sich auf epigraphische und onomastische Denkwürdigkeiten, die in wesentlich kürzerer Form auch in dem angekündigten Namenskatalog verschriftlicht wurden.
Im Bellum Iudaicum des Flavius Josephus geht es sehr häufig um Schuldzuweisungen und Niederlagenerklärungen bzw. Deutungen und Umdeutungen von Scheitern: Das eigene Versagen des Josephus als Feldherr der Juden in Galiläa, das Scheitern des syrischen Statthalters Cestius Gallus und dessen Niederlage bei Beth Horon, das ‚Versagen‘ (?) des Titus als Kommandeur beim Brand des Tempels. Josephus nimmt durchaus verschiedene Perspektiven ein, die es genauer zu betrachten gilt. Was war die Absicht hinter seinen Deutungen, Umdeutungen, bei eventuellem Verschweigen und Verdrängen? Wer war jeweils sein Publikum? Wie kann man insbesondere die Darstellung des Titus verstehen? Mit Bezug auf die Zerstörung des Tempels von Jerusalem, schließlich religiöses wie politisches Symbol jüdischer Integrität und Identität, ist die Darstellung des Feldherrn jedenfalls objektiv vernichtend – er verliert die Kontrolle über die Truppen. Josephus findet die Lösung zur Entlastung des Titus, aber auf Kosten seines Renommees als Feldherr!