ALBERT

Description: The most important prognostic factors for Wilms tumor (WT) patients seem to be stage, histological subtype, and 1p/16q loss of heterozygosity (LOH) in chemotherapy-naive WTs. Over the last decade, age at diagnosis also was suggested to be an important risk factor for WT recurrence in Children’s Oncology Group (COG), United Kingdom (UK), and International Society of Pediatric Oncology (SIOP) studies. Several studies have analyzed age as a prognostic factor; these studies revealed age 〈2 years as a favorable prognostic factor, while age 〉4 years has been described as an adverse prognostic factor. In adults (〉18 years of age), WT represents less than 1% of all diagnosed renal tumors; therefore, diagnosis of WT in adults is often unexpected and poorly recognized, thereby inducing treatment delay with subsequent adverse outcome. One explanation for the higher risk of recurrence with increasing patient age is the higher frequency of anaplasia at higher age. Other suggested reasons are delay in diagnosis, advanced tumor stage at presentation, and intrinsically different biological behaviors. Whether age is really an independent risk factor, and whether age is a stronger prognostic factor than stage, histology, and LOH 1p/16q, needs to be further explored. This may provide some insight into whether older patients need to be treated more intensively, as is already advised for adult WT patients.

Description: Published

Description: Wilms’ tumour (WT) is the most common paediatric renal tumour, which can present as a single nodule, as multifocal unilateral lesions or as bilateral tumours. Typically, WT comprises three histological components namely blastemal, epithelial and stromal. The proportion and the degree of maturation of these components vary significantly, making the histological appearance of each tumour unique. Classical triphasic WT rarely presents diagnostic difficulty for pathologists, but when only one component is present, especially in a small biopsy specimen, the differential diagnosis may include renal cell carcinoma, metanephric adenoma and hyperplastic nephrogenic rest for epithelial elements and clear cell sarcoma of the kidney, mesoblastic nephroma and synovial sarcoma for stromal elements. Pure blastemal-type WT may be difficult to distinguish from other embryonal ‘small round blue cell tumours’, including neuroblastoma, primitive neuroectodermal tumour/Ewing sarcoma, desmoplastic small round cell tumour and lymphoma. All the three components, though usually blastema, can become anaplastic, leading to the diagnosis of either focal or diffuse anaplasia. WT with diffuse anaplasia and WT with blastemal predominance (after preoperative che¬motherapy) are regarded as high-risk tumours and require more aggressive treatment. Careful assessment of the tumour and the normal kidney is critical for accurate subtyping and staging of WT, which is the basis for post-operative treatment. In addition, the identification and correct interpretation of nephrogenic rests may affect prognosis and management. Histological distinction between WT and nephrogenic rest is not always possible based on morphology alone, and implementation of new molecular genetic tools may aid in this regard. Other molecular genetic signatures of WT, such as P53 mutation and MYCN dysregulation, may provide future additional prognostic and therapeutic information.

Description: Published

Description: Palaeoclimate proxy records (such as time series derived from ice cores or stalagmites) from the same or nearby location would be expected to represent similar climate variation. This is called replication of proxy records but is often difficult to achieve, because either the proxies are not reflecting the paleoclimate variation, external factors overprint the climate signal in the proxy record, or chronological uncertainties cause a serious mismatch between the individual records. In order to minimize the later issue and take the chronological uncertainties into account, we combine a Monte Carlo based approach (COPRA) with an ensemble based windowed cross-correlation analysis. This allows the investigation of potential replication of proxy records from a statistical perspective. We demonstrate this approach by comparing two stalagmite δ18O records from Heshang cave and Sanbao cave, both strongly influenced by the East Asian Summer Monsoon and covering the period between 9000 yr BP and 500 yrBP. We find that both proxy records reproduce well, although not perfectly. Main issues are differences between the records caused by unresolved geochemical processes influencing the U-series system and possibly kinetic fractionation in the oxygen isotope system. Overall, the proposed approach can provide a means to extract a correction function which reduces the uncertainties in the dating procedure. This method is a precursory step towards composite reconstructions that are based on multiple, replicating, time series.

Description: Data and information are central to policy processes, as they frame the policy problem, the design and the implementation of policy, and evaluation of policy impacts. Better data and information infrastructure is expected to lead to better policies and outcomes, for example, by enabling transparent decision making and enhancing capacity and accountability. However, the collection, selection, representation, framing and application of data are not merely technical and apolitical procedures, but are dependent on the interests represented in the policy processes they aim to inform. Social scientists have pointed to the “politics of numbers” and their effects on forests and trees and on the people relying on them, as well as on those involved in their measurements. We use the case of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) international initiative and focus on the central aspect of understanding drivers of deforestation and measures of REDD+ performance to unpack the politics of policy processes. Data and information are socially constructed, and their interpretations are shaped by the contexts in which they emerge. Dominant beliefs in the transformative power of new data and technologies cannot explain why, often, new information does not translate into policy change and action to halt deforestation. Technological advances in making new and ever larger amounts of data available for analysis are a necessary yet insufficient condition for changing the business as usual in deforestation. Through openness, reflexivity and the tackling of silences in data and information related to the global political economy of deforestation the scientific community can make a key contribution to more equitable policy change.

Description: A promising way to speedup coupled reactive transport simulations is offered by the use of statistical surrogates instead of the "full-physics" geochemical submodels, which usually represent the computational bottleneck of such simulations. Data-driven surrogates are simplified statistical models obtained by fitting on an ensemble of precalculated full-physics simulations, capturing their behaviour while being fast to compute. Our previous work demonstrates the achievable speedups on a benchmark scenario [1]. However, more complex models require exponentially larger computational resources for surrogate fitting and tuning. For application in coupled reactive transport, it is required that the geochemical surrogates honour the charge and mass balance of chemical elements and species across the fluid and mineral phases, a feature which is not guaranteed by regressors. We evaluate the balance equations themselves as criteria for accuracy of surrogates. This allows the use of simple but fast surrogates in the parameter space regions where they are most accurate. The correctness of balance, evaluated at runtime during coupled simulations, can discriminate whether a surrogate response can be accepted or a costly full-physics geochemical simulation is needed. We present the performance evaluation of different surrogate models on reactive transport examples of increasing complexity, with geochemistry both at local thermodynamic equilibrium and kinetically controlled.

Description: The Mufushan area, which has abundant rare-metal pegmatites within and around the Mufushan Granite Complex, has become a major target for Ta-Nb-(Li-Be) exploration in South China. The age and origin of the pegmatites and associated rare-metal mineralization are still under debate. Here, we report the in situ U-Pb ages and geochemical characteristics of granites and pegmatites in the Guanyuan and Duanfengshan districts, which are located in the central and northern parts of the Mufushan Complex. Combined zircon, apatite and monazite U-(Th)-Pb dating revealed that biotite, two-mica, and muscovite granites from the Guanyuan and Duanfengshan districts were emplaced at 143–139 Ma, which overlaps with the U-Pb ages of columbite-group minerals (CGM) from different internal zones of the Duanfengshan pegmatites (142–140 Ma). Whole-rock major and trace element compositions and Sr-Nd-Hf isotope data reveal that the granites and pegmatites experienced continuous evolution from biotite, two-mica, and muscovite granites to pegmatite and that the magma originated from the partial melting of mica schists that are abundant in the Mufushan area. Temporal, chemical and mineralogical evidence indicates a genetic link between muscovite granite and Ta-Nb pegmatites. The textures and chemical compositions of CGM from different pegmatites exhibit features typical of magmatic CGM, indicating that fractional crystallization was the driving force that promoted Ta-Nb enrichment. The increasing alumina satu- ration index [ASI: molar Al/(Ca–1.67P + Na + K)] of pegmatitic melt due to albite crystallization may have been the main factor controlling CGM deposition, explaining why major Ta-Nb mineralization is bound to albite pegmatites. The Duanfengshan and other rare-metal pegmatites in the Mufushan area are derivatives of the most evolved granitic facies (i.e., muscovite granite) of the Mufushan Complex. The Duanfengshan and Renli pegmatite fields indicate that the Early Cretaceous (~140 Ma) may have been an important, underappreciated epoch for the formation of pegmatite-related rare-metal resources in the Mufushan area and beyond in South China.

Description: The St1 Deep Heat Project was started in 2014 by the Finnish energy companies St1 and Fortum. This site is at Fortum's district heating plant at the Aalto University campus, west of Helsinki. The project began with the drilling of a cored 2015 m pilot hole, which encountered a few meters of alluvium over the expected crystalline basement. Follow-on ~6000 m deviated injection-andproduction wells were completed in 2018 and 2020. These wells were extensively logged, and the deep wells were stimulated after completion. In Oct 2018 the ~2500 m to ~5000 m vertical portion of the injection well was profiled with the GFZ German Geoscience Center 17 level, 10 m spaced Sercel borehole geophone array (a Vertical Seismic Profile - VSP). Near-surface shots at 4 offset and 1 near-well shot-points were used as sources. These data were analyzed and compared to (a) drilling data, (b) logging data, (c) surface geology, and (d) a short run of Seismic While Drilling (SWD) data recorded in the pilot hole using hammer-drill signals from the production hole. The VSP data establishes that a seismic velocity reversal - from a P-velocity of ~6.5 to ~6.1 km/s - extends from ~3000 m down at least to the bottom VSP position at 5000 m and is also seen in the well logs. Aside from several shallower structures, the most significant reflection feature found in these data is a ~400 m thick horizon that intersects the ~6000 m wells at ~5000 m. This horizon includes internal reflections that appear to correlate with a drilling-encountered and loginterpreted fracture zone. Owing to complex surrounding velocity structure, this feature's lateral continuation and ultimate attitude have been difficult to resolve. In one interpretation it appears as a 45 ENE dipping extension of a shallower reflector seen in the SWD data. The productionwell's trajectory was based on this interpretation - which drilling seems to confirm. Its consequences for the EGS project will be tested with a circulation campaign over the next months.

Description: Geomechanics play an important role in any underground activity, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2) geo-storage, owing to the considerable hazards linked to the injection and withdrawal of fluids into and from the subsurface. In order to quantify these risks, knowledge of full stress tensor is required. Yet, most of our stress information in the Australian target basins for geo-storage is limited to the stress orientations, while stress magnitude data is sparse. 3D geomechanical modelling has proved to be an invaluable tool for prediction of full stress tensor. Nevertheless, a model requires some stress magnitude data in order to tune the model to be representative of real stress state. In situations where stress magnitude data is lacking, this means that the model is susceptible to significant uncertainties. Herein, we present a novel strategy for stress modelling, which involves the utilisation of indirect data such as borehole breakouts, drilling-induced fractures, seismic activity records, and formation integrity tests to calibrate a 3D geomechanical model. We employ the northern Bowen Basin, an onshore basin in Queensland, Australia, as a case study for a comprehensive 3D geomechanical modelling approach. We assess all the indirect information in the model’s volume to narrow down the model predictions and find the most reliable stress state. This innovative approach is an important step forward in stress modelling of Australian basins, where lack of stress magnitudes is a great challenge for geomechanical assessment of geo-storage.