Comparative translational, transcriptional and functional profiling of clear cell and papillary renal cell carcinoma

The biology of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) remains poorly understood. RCC, which accounts for up to 3% of all adult malignancies, is the most common neoplasm in the adult kidney and has been increasing in incidence. These tumors are classified into five main subtypes: clear cell, papillary, and chromophobe RCC, as well as collecting duct carcinoma and oncocytoma. Of these, clear cell and papillary are the two most frequently diagnosed subtypes and both arise from the proximal tube of the kidney. Despite sharing a common origin, they are histologically and genetically distinguishable and thus represent an optimal model system for studying tumor-specific and tumor-subtype specific expression patterns. The aim of this study was to identify potential marker genes for clear cell and papillary RCC, assess their specificity and relevance for the tumor-subtypes, and thus contribute to a better characterization of the tumor development and behavior of RCC. To address these questions, this study combined translational and transcriptional approaches to analyze the protein and gene expression of both tumor subtypes

Psychological Safety and Norm Clarity in Software Engineering Teams

In the software engineering industry today, companies primarily conduct their work in teams. To increase organizational productivity, it is thus crucial to know the factors that affect team effectiveness. Two team-related concepts that have gained prominence lately are psychological safety and team norms. Still, few studies exist that explore these in a software engineering context. Therefore, with the aim of extending the knowledge of these concepts, we examined if psychological safety and team norm clarity associate positively with software developers' self-assessed team performance and job satisfaction, two important elements of effectiveness. We collected industry survey data from practitioners (N = 217) in 38 development teams working for five different organizations. The result of multiple linear regression analyses indicates that both psychological safety and team norm clarity predict team members' self-assessed performance and job satisfaction. The findings also suggest that clarity of norms is a stronger (30\% and 71\% stronger, respectively) predictor than psychological safety. This research highlights the need to examine, in more detail, the relationship between social norms and software development. The findings of this study could serve as an empirical baseline for such, future work.Comment: Submitted to CHASE'201

Improving Software Development Efficiency – How Diversity and Collective Intelligence Shape Agile Team Efficiency

Information system development is largely dependent on social interaction and team work. Team composition, team processes, and behavior among, and agile practices used by team members play an important role for the success of information system development projects. Organizational psychology research found team diversity and collective intelligence to be important factors for team performance. In this research-in-progress paper, we propose a model and research design to investigate the effects of team diversity, collective intelligence, interpersonal relationships, and cognitive styles on team efficiency in agile software development. The proposed model combines recent research in the field of organizational psychology with agile information system research to provide a better understanding of the effects of team diversity, collective intelligence, and team efficiency

Team Performance in Agile Software Development Projects: The Effects of Requirements Changes, Time Pressure, Team Diversity, and Conflict

Information system development has traditionally been accompanied by changing requirements throughout projects. While recent research clarifies how time pressure affects team performance, the interplay between time pressure, requirements changes, and various other important factors such as team diversity is unclear. In this paper, we evaluate a novel and unified model based on extant research explaining the interactions of requirements changes, time pressure, temporal leadership, team diversity, and conflict as well as their effect on team performance. Further, we differentiate between the overall team performance and the team’s ability to respond both efficiently and extensively to requirements changes. The proposed model helps in composing and steering teams to increase their resilience towards requirements changes and time pressure. A first evaluation is based on a quantitative field study in multiple agile software development projects of student teams

Influence of Communication on Client Satisfaction in Information System Projects – A Quantitative Field Study

Divergences between perception and measurement of information system (IS) project success are phenomena known as successful failures or failed successes. Such projects either satisfy stakeholder expectations or are completed according to their plans, but do not succeed in both terms. Based on expectation-confirmation theory, we advance the understanding of project success by observing the role of client-vendor communication regarding the interaction of client expectations, perceptions, and satisfaction. By means of a quantitative field study with managers of IS projects on the client side, we show that perceptions of product performance are more relevant than perceptions of process performance for meeting client expectations in IS projects. Expectations towards the process (i.e., budget and schedule) are revealed to be considerably less relevant, which is a likely consequence of many projects failing to meet such expectations. An avenue for future research resulting from our study is the investigation of differences concerning communication mediums by contrasting agile and non-agile development projects

QUALITY CONTROL IN DISPERSION MODELING: VALIDATION OF A SCREENING MODEL FOR PM10 AND NO2

The validation of the screening model IMMISluft with recent measurement data from the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia is described. The aspect of statistically deriving NO2 values from NOx model results is discussed in the light of increasing NO2 direct emissions

The Impact of Modes, Styles, and Congruence of Control on Agile Teams: Insights from a Multiple Case Study

Agile software development (ASD) strongly relies on social interaction and teamwork. Team processes and agile practices adopted by team members play an important part for the outcome of software development projects. Agile practices promise teams to be able to respond to change by granting them autonomy. Existing studies, however, imply that these projects can benefit from different elements of control. Our objective is to improve our understanding of how to enact control in agile teams and how these control mechanisms influence team autonomy and team performance. In this paper, we present our findings from four case studies conducted within two insurance companies and two software development firms. We found that it is not a question of ‘what’ controls should be exercised, but rather ‘how’ controls are implemented in practice. Our results prompt to the need for further studies on control mechanisms in ASD

AIR QUALITY ASSESSMENT IN THE EUROPEAN MEGA CITY RUHR AREA: EFFECTS OF A LOW EMISSION ZONE

The Ruhr area is the biggest German megalopolis, a conglomerate of several intertwining major cities, with more than 3.5 million inhabitants. In spite of many efforts in recent years to improve the air quality in the Ruhr area, especially residents in street canyons with a high traffic density are still exposed to poor air quality, and meeting the limit values of European air quality directives for PM10 and NO2 remains a challenge. In this study, the hot spots in the area have been identified by a combination of measurements and modeling. Shares of industry, shipping, rail traffic, off-road traffic and heating were calculated. The road network of the Ruhr area was mapped with housing data in order to identify road sections with possibly affected inhabitants. The concentrations caused by local road traffic were then calculated with the screening model IMMISluft. Such, a road network of more than 3000 km in length and with over 8000 inhabited sections was investigated. In quite a large number of these sections, air quality was identified to be rather poor and measures have to be taken to improve the situation. One possible measure is the implementation of low emission zones. In the study, effects on air quality have been calculated for different scenarios of low emission zones. Due to the methodology, source apportionments for hot spots are easily available

Phylogenic analysis of additional Neurospora crassa isolates

The ascomycete Neurospora crassa is classical model organisms in biology. So far, a phylogenetic analysis based on genomic sequences of four non-functional nuclear loci has been reported for 44 natural isolates of N. crassa. Three subgroups (clades) with a distinct geographical distribution have been identified: clade A (Caribbean Basin and Ivory Coast), clade B (Europe, Ivory Coast and India), and clade C (India). Here, we report the results of a phylogenetic analysis of 16 additional isolates. Six of these were from the Caribbean Basin, eight from Europe and one from Pakistan and one from Thailand. The previously described clades and their geographical distribution were generally confirmed. All Caribbean isolates belonged to clade A and all European isolates belonged to clade B, with the exception of one isolate from Italy, which also belonged to clade A, suggesting a transport from the Caribbean Basin or the Ivory Coast to Europe. Interestingly, the isolates from Pakistan and Thailand were found in a separate group, basal to all other clades. Their phylogenetic classification is not yet clear as they might belong to N. crassa but as well to N. perkinsii, potentially representing yet undescribed phylogenetic groups or species of Neurospora, or hybrids

NO2-Belastung in Sachsen

Die Veröffentlichung analysiert die Ursachen der NO2-Belastung in Sachsen und prognostiziert deren Entwicklung. Die aktualisierte Version des Handbuchs der Emissionsfaktoren des Straßenverkehrs (HBEFA 3.1) ist eine der Datengrundlagen. Hauptverursacher von NO2-Grenzwertüberschreitungen in sächsischen Städten ist der Kfz-Verkehr. Die sächsischen Daten von Verkehrsstationen im Zeitraum von 1995 bis 2009 bestätigen den bundesweit abnehmenden Trend. An hoch belasteten Straßen sind weitere dauerhafte und/oder temporäre Maßnahmen erforderlich, um den NO2-Grenzwert bis spätestens 2015 einzuhalten. Die Erneuerung der Kfz-Flotte reicht dafür nicht aus. Als sofort wirkende Maßnahme hat auch unter Berücksichtigung des neuen HBEFA 3.1 die Umweltzone ihre Berechtigung. Die Festlegung von wirksamen Maßnahmen erfordert eine individuelle Planung