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The ground penetrating radar WISDOM on board the Rover of the ExoMars 2022 mission (ESA/Roscosmos) will be a pioneer in the exploration of the Martian subsurface from the surface (until now, Martian sounding radars have been operated from orbit). WISDOM will image the first meters below the surface of Oxia Planum — the ExoMars 2022 landing site — with the objectives of revealing its geological history and identifying safe and promising scientific targets for subsurface sampling by the Rover drill. In this paper, we present the qualification, characterization and calibration tests that have been conducted on WISDOM flight model in order to assess its performance, build the data processing pipeline and prepare scientific return of this experiment. In most favorable but geologically plausible cases (low loss and homogeneous subsurface, smooth interface), WISDOM can detect a buried interface down to a depth of 8 ​m with a vertical resolution of 3 ​cm (for a subsurface dielectric constant of 4). Its penetration depth is typically 2 ​m in less favorable environments. For safety reason, WISDOM antennas are accommodated 38 ​cm above the ground; the amplitude of the surface echo will be used to estimate the top layer dielectric constant with an accuracy of 13% which translates into an accuracy of 6% on the distance/depth assessment. WISDOM data processing chain includes corrections aiming at removing parasitic signals of various origins (electronic coupling, antenna crosstalk, multiple surface echoes, etc.) and at correcting the data to a reference temperature and antenna elevation; it has been designed to automatically produce calibrated radargrams in less than 20 ​min as required for the mission operations. Additional more sophisticated processing will be manually run in parallel. The impact of the Rover structure on measurements has been investigated and can be partially removed. • The WISDOM radar of the ExoMars mission will investigate the Martian subsurface. • Qualification, characterization, calibration tests of the flight model are described. • The pipeline used to produce calibrated data that will be archived is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The EORTC QOL Group has recently completed the cross‐cultural development and validation of a standalone measure of spiritual well‐being (SWB) for cancer patients receiving palliative care: the EORTC QLQ‐SWB32. The measure includes four scales: Relationships with Others, Relationship with Self, Relationship with Someone or Something Greater, and Existential, plus a Global‐SWB item. This paper reports on further research investigating relationships between sex, age and SWB for patients receiving palliative care for cancer—adjusting for other socio‐demographic, clinical and function variables, including WHO performance status and EORTC QLQ‐C15‐PAL emotional and physical function scores. Methods: Cross‐sectional data from the validation study were used, and chi‐square, independent t tests, Mann–Whitney U tests and multiple regression analyses applied. Results: The study included 451 participants with advanced and incurable cancer, from 14 countries. Adjusted analyses found better scores for female participants than males on three of the four EORTC QLQ‐SWB32 subscales; Relationship with others, Relationship with Someone or Something Greater and Existential plus Global‐SWB. Older age was positively associated with better Relationship with Self. Conclusion: The findings from our participants suggest that it might be beneficial if healthcare providers seeking to address patients' spiritual needs pay particular attention to male patients, younger patients and those with poor emotional functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its unliganded form, the retinoic acid receptor (RAR) in heterodimer with the retinoid X receptor (RXR) exerts a strong repressive activity facilitated by the recruitment of transcriptional corepressors in the promoter region of target genes. By integrating complementary structural, biophysical, and computational information, we demonstrate that intrinsic disorder is a required feature for the precise regulation of RAR activity. We show that structural dynamics of RAR and RXR H12 regions is an essential mechanism for RAR regulation. Unexpectedly we found that, while mainly disordered, the corepressor N-CoR presents evolutionary conserved structured regions involved in transient intramolecular contacts. In the presence of RXR/RAR, N-CoR exploits its multivalency to form a cooperative multisite complex that displays equilibrium between different conformational states that can be tuned by cognate ligands and receptor mutations. This equilibrium is key to preserving the repressive basal state while allowing the conversion to a transcriptionally active form. • N-CoR-interacting domain is an IDP with three functional partially structured motifs • N-CoR presents a complex network of evolutionarily preserved long-range contacts • N-CoR forms a dynamic complex with RXR/RAR with singly and doubly bound states • N-CoR/RXR/RAR conformational equilibrium can be modulated with ligands and mutations In complex with the retinoic X receptor, the retinoic acid receptor regulates the transcription of numerous genes. Using multiple biophysical techniques, Cordeiro et al. have characterized the repressive complex of the heterodimer with N-CoR. The flexibility of the complex and the partners modulates the repression and facilitates the transition toward its active form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opinion. Discusses the viewpoint that medical research in poor countries is threatened by opinions published in 1997 issues of the `New England Journal of Medicine' and `The Lancet,' questioning the ethics of medical research in developing countries. Statistics of cause of death around the world; Examples and refutations of the opinions that are being criticized.