Deutsche Montan Technologie (Germany)

Background:Recent studies reveal that 5–18% of children with cancer harbor pathogenic variants in known cancer predisposing genes. However, DNA damage repair (DDR) genes, which are frequently somatically altered in pediatric tumors, have not been systematically examined as a source of novel cancer predisposing signals.Methods:To address this gap, we interrogated 189 DDR genes for presence of germline predisposing variants (PV) among 5,993 childhood cancer cases and 14,477 adult non-cancer controls (discovery cohort). PV were determined using a tiered approach incorporating ClinVar annotations, InterVar classification, and in silico tools (REVEL, CADD, MetaSVM). Using logistic and firth regression, we identified genes with PV statistically enriched in tumors and replicated findings among 1,497additional childhood cancer cases across three independent cohorts.Findings:Analysis across all cancers revealed enrichment of TP53 PV. Cancer-specific analyses confirmed known associations including germline TP53 PV in adrenocortical carcinoma, high-grade glioma (HGG), and medulloblastoma (MB), PMS2 in HGG and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), MLH1 in HGG, BRCA2 in NHL, and BARD1 in neuroblastoma. In addition, four novel associations were uncovered, including BRCA1 in ependymoma, SPIDR in HGG, SMC5 in MB, and SMARCAL1 in osteosarcoma (OS). Importantly, the SMARCAL1:OS association was significant in the discovery (6/230, 2.6%, FDRlogistic=0.0189) as well as all three replication cohorts (Childhood Cancer Survivor Study: 8/275, 2.9%; PFisher<0.0001; German Childhood Cancer Registry: 4/135, 3%, PFisher=0.002; INdividualized Therapy FOr Relapsed Malignancies in Childhood: 4/217, 1.8%, PFisher=0.012). The remaining wildtype SMARCAL1 allele was deleted in three of four OS tumors with available data.Interpretation:Our study confirms the relevance DDR genetic variation in pediatric cancer risk and establishes SMARCAL1 as a novel OS predisposing gene, providing insights into tumor biology and creating opportunities to optimize care for patients with this challenging tumor.

Abstract The machinability of two copper alloys with lead: CuZn40Pb2 and CuSn5Zn5Pb2, was assessed. Turning tests were performed based on the selection of parameters that will result in the tool being worn out after 1 minute. Tool wear was assessed by observing dimensional and microstructural changes in the blade. When assessing machinability, power consumption, chip shape, changes in the surface layer and surface roughness were taken into account. The research aims to determine the custom machinability index of materials used in SANHA Polska. A publicly available index must be adapted to a given application, and such adaptation is often quite time-consuming. Therefore, a 1-minute test was carried out as a quick and cheap alternative to a large fleet of machines with various machining properties. The developed methodology and the results obtained are the basis for further research conducted as part of the implementation doctorate, the aim of which is to implement the production of well-machinable lead-free materials for drinking water installations, characterized by good solderability and corrosion resistance. As a result of the conducted research, the role of lead in the machining of copper alloys was identified, which is important due to European restrictions on the elimination of this element and its replacement in a way that allows for precise removal processing.

Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, is the coldest capital in the world. In the winter months, temperatures of minus 30° C are commonplace. Old coal-fired power stations without flue gas filters and traditional heating with coal, wood and waste are used for heating. The population suffers from the extreme air pollution caused by this. Three years ago, the PV-to-Heat project, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), set itself the goal of finding sustainable, clean and safe CO2-free heating systems for households and neighborhoods in Mongolia. To realize this vision, the German-Mongolian researchers and industry partners has developed the technology of PV-2-Heat systems, which was successfully adapted to the harsh climatic conditions of Mongolia and tested pilot systems in various areas of the city.In order to utilize solar energy to meet the heating demands of public and residential building during the winter in Mongolia, a hybrid heating system combining grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) system and Phase Change Material (PCM) thermal storage was designed. Preliminary experiments to monitor its performance were conducted during the winter period of 2022-2024. In this paper, we analyze the efficiency of the energy utilization of the 16,56kWp ground mounted PV system in combination of the KraftBoxx PV-to-Heat Systems with PCM heatStixx installed for space heating purpose in cold climates of Mongolia. The paper presents technical feasibility of the PV heating system coupled with a novel PCM heatStixx. The effects of PCM storage usage on the heating performance of a pilot test Kindergarten building are studied.

This study presents a fully coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) constitutive model for clay rocks. The model is formulated within the elastic-viscoplasticity framework, which considers nonlinearity and softening after peak strength, anisotropy of stiffness and strength, as well as permeability variation due to damage. In addition, the mechanical properties are coupled with thermal phenomena and accumulated plastic strains. The adopted nonlocal and viscoplastic approaches enhance numerical efficiency and provide the possibility to simulate localization phenomena. The model is validated against experimental data from laboratory tests conducted on Callovo-Oxfordian (COx) claystone samples that are initially unsaturated and under suction. The tests include a thermal phase where the COx specimens are subjected to different temperature increases. A good agreement with experimental data is obtained. In addition, parametric analyses are carried out to investigate the influence of the hydraulic boundary conditions (B.C.) and post-failure behavior models on the THM behavior evolution. It is shown that different drainage conditions affect the thermally induced pore pressures that, in turn, influence the onset of softening. The constitutive model presented constitutes a promising approach for simulating the most important features of the THM behavior of clay rocks. It is a tool with a high potential for application to several relevant case studies, such as thermal fracturing analysis of nuclear waste disposal systems.

The permanent terrestrial laser scanning (PLS) system has opened the possibilities for efficient data acquisition with high-temporal and spatial resolution, thus allowing for improved capture and analyses of complex geomorphological changes on the Earth's surface. Accurate georeferencing of generated four-dimensional point clouds (4DPC) from PLS is the prerequisite of the following change analysis. Due to the massive data volume and potential changes between scans, however, efficient, robust, and automatic georeferencing of 4DPC remains challenging, especially in scenarios lacking signalized and reliable targets. This georeferencing procedure can be typically realized by designating a reference epoch and registering all other scans to this epoch. Addressing the challenges in targetless registration of topographic 4DPC, we propose a simple and efficient registration method called Piecewise-ICP, which first segments point clouds into piecewise patches and aligns them in a piecewise manner.Assuming the stable areas on monitored surfaces are locally planar, supervoxel-based segmentation is employed to generate small planes from adjacent point clouds. These planes are then refined and classified by comparing defined correspondence distances to a monotonically decreasing distance threshold, thus progressively eliminating unstable planes in an efficient iterative process as well as preventing local minimization in the ICP process. Finally, point-to-plane ICP is performed on the centroids of the remaining stable planes. We introduce the level of detection in change analysis to determine the minimum distance threshold, which mitigates the influence of outliers and deformed areas on registration accuracy. Besides, the spatial distribution of empirical registration uncertainties on registered point clouds is derived based on the variance-covariance propagation law.Our registration method is demonstrated on two datasets: (1) Synthetic point cloud time series with defined changes and transformation parameters, and (2) a 4DPC dataset from a PLS system installed in the Vals Valley (Tyrol, Austria) for monitoring a rockfall. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm exhibits higher registration accuracy compared to the existing robust ICP variants. The real-time capability of Piecewise-ICP is significantly improved owing to the centroid-based point-to-plane ICP and the efficient iteration process.

Media są takie, jacy są ludzie je tworzący, a jakość komunikacji jest odpowiednikiem relacji, jaką osoba żywi wobec drugiej lub całej społeczności. Niniejszy tekst ma charakter postulatywny, a celem opracowania jest przestawienie modelu komunikacji ewangelizacyjnej w Kościele w odniesieniu do ludzi młodych. Został on stworzony na bazie studiów literatury, analiz językowych i medialnych, prowadzonych wywiadów oraz badań empirycznych z użyciem neuronarzędzi. Zastosowanie metodologii analizy kontentu, mediometrii oraz postulatów krakowskiej szkoły personalizmu medialnego dało możliwość przygotowania funkcjonalnego narzędzia do badań nad językiem i komunikacją na poziomie akademickim, a praktykom pozwoli na zastosowanie zaproponowanych wyznaczników profesjonalnej komunikacji z młodymi w celu osiągnięcia zaplanowanych celów.

An attractive approach to reduce the carbon footprint for ground improvement application is to replace Portland cementbased binders by non-cementitious binders for instance by geopolymers based on metakaolin in deep soil mixing applications or by colloidal silica and acrylates in permeation based applications. Safe design requires a good understanding of the mechanical and hydraulic properties of the improved ground but little is known about how soil is improved by these products. Besides, for permeation grouting applicability criteria are frequently set in terms of the host soil water permeability. However, for novel binders the threshold value is not known and published empirical basis for available criteria is relatively scarce. This paper summarizes results from a laboratory characterization campaign of soils of variable permeability improved with different novel binders, focusing on the effect on strength, stiffness and permeability. Observations relative to the effect of curing conditions are also provided, as well as the insight gained by examining the injection process outcomes with computed tomography. Results show how these novel products have the potential to significantly improve the mechanical properties and reduce permeability in a large range of soils.

In situ free fall penetration tests (FFP) are performed for cable routes development due to their cost and efficient way to geotechnical characterize near-surface marine sediments. FFP readings differs from quasi-static observations due the higher impact velocity and nonlinear penetration rate of the cone probe. Therefore, application of FFP observations to geotechnical parameters estimation requires a strain-rate correction according to some strain-rate laws. The commonly employed procedure requires matched (i.e., closely located in space and time) quasi-static and FFP measurements, therefore losing the cost and time efficiency of FFP tests. This work illustrates a Bayesian methodology for FFP cone resistance correction from limited unmatched quasi-static CPTU readings. Three different stain-rate laws are exploited in order to assess the most plausible data conversion. The methodology is applied to the port of Nice (France), where in situ investigations are available from previous studies.