Swiss Institute Research Articles

Reporting of somatic variants in clinical cancer care: recommendations of the Swiss Society of Molecular Pathology.

Somatic variant testing through next-generation sequencing (NGS) is well integrated into Swiss molecular pathology laboratories and has become a standard diagnostic method for numerous indications in cancer patient care. Currently, there is a wide variation in reporting practices within our country, and as patients move between different hospitals, it is increasingly necessary to standardize NGS reports to ease their reinterpretation. Additionally, as many different stakeholders-oncologists, hematologists, geneticists, pathologists, and patients-have access to the NGS report, it needs to contain comprehensive and detailed information in order to answer the questions of experts and avoid misinterpretation by non-experts. In 2017, the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics conducted a survey to assess the differences in NGS reporting practices across ten pathology institutes in Switzerland. The survey examined 68 reporting items and identified 48 discrepancies. Based on these findings, the Swiss Society of Molecular Pathology initiated a Delphi method to reach a consensus on a set of recommendations for NGS reporting. Reports should include clinical information about the patient and the diagnosis, technical details about the sample and the test performed, and a list of all clinically relevant variants and variants of uncertain significance. In the absence of a consensus on an actionability scheme, the five-class pathogenicity scheme proposed by the ACMG/AMP guideline must be included in the reports. The Swiss Society of Molecular Pathology recognizes the importance of including clinical actionability in the report and calls on the European community of molecular pathologists and oncologists to reach a consensus on this issue.

Cell scientist to watch – Virginie Hamel

ABSTRACT Virginie Hamel is a co-Group Leader and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) in Switzerland. She completed her PhD with Iain Mattaj at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, studying nuclear envelope re-assembly. To gain experience with bioimaging, she joined Pierre Gönczy's laboratory at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in Lausanne as a postdoc and later became a Staff Scientist. There, she began researching centriole assembly, combining biochemical approaches and super-resolution microscopy with expertise in structural biology from her partner in the lab and in life, Paul Guichard. In 2015, Virginie and Paul started their joint Centriolar Architecture lab at UNIGE, focusing on the structural cell biology of centrioles. Their development of advanced expansion microscopy (ExM) methods has helped unravel the roles of centriolar proteins in human disease and visualise cytoskeletal organisation in diverse eukaryotic cells. For our Special Issue on Imaging Cell Architecture and Dynamics, we spoke with Virginie over Zoom about her career, the benefits of running a joint lab with her partner, and the exciting advances being made with techniques like ExM.

In Silico SwissADME Analysis of Antibacterial NHC–Silver Acetates and Halides Complexes

This study investigates the antibacterial N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC)–silver complexes using the SwissADME platform, a web-based tool developed by the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB). NHCs, particularly their silver complexes, have gained significant interest in medicinal chemistry for their potential as antibacterial and anticancer agents. The effectiveness of these complexes is closely linked to their structure, including factors like lipophilicity, which enhance their ability to penetrate bacterial cells and sustain the release of active silver ions. SwissADME provides computational estimates of pharmacokinetic properties, including absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) characteristics, as well as drug-likeness and toxicity assessments. By evaluating parameters like molecular weight, topological polar surface area, lipophilicity (LogP), and water solubility, SwissADME offers insights into the drug-like potential of compounds. This study is inspired by a comprehensive review of antibacterial NHC–silver complexes published from 2006 to 2023, which identified superior structures with notable biological activity. The primary aim is to determine whether these active complexes exhibit distinct SwissADME parameters compared to others, providing a deeper understanding of the factors that influence their biological efficacy and aiding in the identification of promising drug candidates. Finally, experimental stabilities of exemplary complexes were confronted with absolute LUMO values derived from DFT calculations.

VenSpec-H spectrometer on the ESA EnVision mission: Design, modeling, analysis

VenSpec is a spectrometer suite on board ESA’s EnVision mission to planet Venus, due for launch in November 2031. VenSpec consists of three spectrometers, VenSpec-M , VenSpec-U and VenSpec-H. VenSpec-H stands for Venus Spectrometer with High resolution. It operates in the near-infrared wavelength range between 1.15 and 2.5 μm and it aims at mapping the near surface atmosphere during the night and the atmosphere above the cloud deck during the day. More specific, VenSpec-H will measure gases related to volcanism and surface changes on Venus. It will perform its measurements by means of nadir observations.In this paper an overview is given of the main design requirements, followed by a description of the design activities performed during the feasibility study (phase A) and the preliminary definition (phase B1) of the instrument, including mathematical modeling and analysis, and prototyping. Focus is put on the optical working principle of the instrument, where an echelle grating, used as diffractive element, is combined with an inventive combination of filters for spectral band selection.The design and development of VenSpec-H is done in a consortium under Belgian management and with important contributions from Belgian, Swiss, Spanish, and Dutch research institutes, universities, and industrial partners.

Collaborations in publications on pediatric anesthesiology in the D-A-CH countries

Collaborations are an essential element of scientific activity and particularly important in fields such as pediatric anesthesiology, where the evidence base in general is relatively limited. Arecent scientometric analysis revealed ageographic diversification of publication activity in pediatric anesthesiology within the last two decades, accompanied by asurge in international collaborations. Given the hypothesis of asimilar growth in the activity and dynamics of publications in pediatric anesthesiology, the objective of this scientometric study was to analyze the publication activity and collaboration habits in research in pediatric anesthesiology from Germany, Austria and Switzerland (D-A-CH). This secondary analysis identified all publications on pediatric anesthesiology with an affiliation from the D‑A-CH countries between 2001 and 2020 from PubMed and Web of Science. The query parameters included the timeframe 2001-2020, authors' affiliations tied to anesthesiology departments (using various forms of the term "anesthesia"), and the mention of pediatric interest in titles or abstracts. The data underwent standardization to account for linguistic variations. The publications were assigned to astate, city and institution based on the correspondence address, to ayear based on the publication date and to asource based on the journal. The primary endpoint was publication activity and dynamics, represented by the number of publications and the respective growth rates (calculated as the linear regression slope). Secondary endpoints included the share of collaborations within and outside the D‑A-CH region (at the country and institutional level), the distribution of publication activity and the most prominent sources of publications. Between 2001 and 2020 atotal of 3406 publications on pediatric anesthesiology involving authors from the D‑A-CH countries were identified. Of these 2807 (82.4%) had acorrespondence address in D‑A-CH. The average annual growth rate of publications with acorrespondence address was + 2.9% for the D‑A-CH countries and + 7.7% for publications with collaborations. The number of publications in which an institution from D‑A-CH was named as acoauthor from acorrespondence address outside D‑A-CH also increased by an average of 7.4% per year during the study period. The majority of collaborations occurred between institutions within the D‑A-CH region, although Swiss institutions exhibited amuch higher proportion of collaborations outside the region. Of all publications with acorrespondence address 90% originated from 46cities. The most prominent source was Die Anästhesiologie for publications from Germany, and Pediatric Anesthesia for publications from Austria and Switzerland. The number of publications in pediatric anesthesiology from the D‑A-CH countries has increased over the past two decades, accompanied by asurge in collaborations. It is hoped that increased collaboration will contribute to ahigher level of evidence in pediatric anesthesiology care.

Cyber catalogue and revision of the nematode genus Enchodelus (Dorylaimida, Nordiidae).

The genus Enchodelus is an intriguing free-living dorylaimid nematode taxon. Its representatives display a distinct distributional pattern as they are mainly spread in high altitudinal enclaves of the Northern Hemisphere, being often associated with mosses and cliff vegetation. Although their feeding habits have not been studied with experimental protocols, it is traditionally assumed that they are omnivorous.The genus Enchodelus has not been recently revised; descriptions of many 'old species' (that have been described long ago and have not been reported since their original discovery) are of poor quality, hardly discoverable and do not conform to the nowadays taxonomical standards. Thus, a comprehensive compilation and analysis of their literature data is indispensable to provide new insights into the taxonomy of the genus and to elucidate its evolutionary relationships. This contribution provides a cyber catalogue of all Enchodelus species, 28 in total. It compiles available information from the key European Research Infrastructures, such as TreatmentBank, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics Literature Services (SIBiLS), the Catalogue of Life (CoL), Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) and Biodiversity Literature Repository (BLR). Data about their distribution (geographical records and habitats) are incorporated too and all brought together. It is completed with discussion and notes for some species, along with information on species distributions and microhabitats. Here, all available information on Enchodelus species is brought together. This will contribute to a more complete assessment of species diversity and distribution and support further biogeographical and ecological research.Besides, type material Enchodelusvestibulifer Altherr, 1952, deposited in the Museo Cantonale di Storia Naturale di Lugano (Switzerland), is re-examined and the species is considered as incertae sedis. Further, a new species of the genus found in Caucasus, Georgia is described after its morphological and molecular study; also morphological and molecular data for E.macrodorus (de Man, 1880) Thorne, 1939, the type species of the genus, collected from Spain are provided.

BiotXplorer: Navigating Evidence-Based Biotic Interactions

BiotXplorer is an exploration tool to navigate biotic interactions in BiodiversityPMC (Pasche et al. 2023, Gobeill et al. 2020), a digitally native research library of articles for biomedical, biodiversity and environmental sciences stored in Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS)/BioC formats (Comeau et al. 2019). BiotXplorer pre-processes all documents and supplementary data thanks to the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) Literature Services (SIBiLS) to build pairs of species co-occurring in the same sentence together with a biotic interaction concept as defined in the Relation Ontology. A search service is built on top of this database, which aggregates all triplets matching the query and using taxonomic hierarchies to expand the search. Researchers can thus discover new biotic interactions and understand how they are supported by published evidence. We manually evaluated the precision of BiotXplorer with two benchmarks: 100 randomly selected biotic interactions from BiotXplorer and GLOBI (Global Biotic Interactions), a database of biotic interactions based on tabular datasets. Out of the 100 random triples generated by BiotXplorer, we achieved a precision of 31% when identifying the interacting species. For 74% of the correct interacting species, we accurately identified the type of interaction between the two species. The main causes of error were instances where passages listed multiple species, which can be automatically filtered out. For the second benchmark, we focused on a set of validated biotic interactions—instead of using potential ones—with 85% of the returned passages confirming an interaction between the two species. Our primary goal is to support the detection of biotic interactions across all species. While the precision is dependent on many factors, the vast amount of data it processes can reveal new insights and patterns. The inclusion of evidence for each triplet can support a wide range of One Health/Biosecurity (Hulme 2020) applications (e.g., eDNA characterization, virus spillover prediction). Furthermore, we are working on refining the system using different post-processing methods, such as reducing the volumes of triples by retaining only top-ranked, and therefore most reliable, triples.

Globalization, Urbanization, Energy Consumption, Economic Expansion and Industrialization: Pathway to Tanzania’s Environmental Sustainability Agenda 2030

This study delves into a comprehensive analysis of interconnectedness between globalization, urbanization, energy consumption, industrialization, and economic expansion as the pathway towards Tanzania’s 2030 environmental sustainability agenda utilizing time series data spanning from 1990 to 2022. This data was sourced from the World Bank and KOF Swiss Institute. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model was utilized in this study. Unit root test, ARDL bound cointegration test, Akaike Information Criterion, Serial correlation test, Heteroscedasticity test, and Jarque-Bera test were used for data analysis. The study revealed that the lag of environmental sustainability, industrialization, and economic expansion affects CO2 emissions in the short term by 0.516%, 0.153%, and -0.179% respectively. The study further shows that urbanization increases CO2 emissions by 1.02 percent in the long run, while globalization reduces CO2 by 0.298 percent, which consequently improves environmental sustainability. ECM (Error Correction Mechanisms) suggests 54% speed adjustment of environmental sustainability within one year after shocks on explanatory variables. The study further recommends an appropriate policy that will encourage conservation of the environment, monitoring and evaluation, technology and innovation of green-friendly energy sources, workshops, and community inclusion on matters concerning the environment

A baselard by any other name? A Swiss short sword in the Royal Armouries’ collection

The aim of this article is to examine in detail a Swiss baselard in the Royal Armouries collection, IX.3482. The original catalogue entry for the object described it as a 14th or early fifteenth century English baselard. However, by comparing IX.3482 with similar examples held in Swiss institutions, monumental effigies and contemporaneous artistic depictions, this article will seek to establish a more accurate identification, reinforced by careful analysis of previous scholarship. In addition, the article will also seek to further explore the broader typology of baselards, focussing specifically on the Swiss sub-types and how we might clarify both the typology, and the terminology currently applied to them.

Building Solid-State Batteries: Insights from Swiss Research Labs

This review article delves into the growing field of solid-state batteries as a compelling alternative to conventional lithium-ion batteries. The article surveys ongoing research efforts at renowned Swiss institutions such as ETH Zurich, Empa, Paul Scherrer Institute, and Berner Fachhochschule covering various aspects, from a fundamental understanding of battery interfaces to practical issues of solid-state battery fabrication, their design, and production. The article then outlines the prospects of solid-state batteries, emphasizing the imperative practical challenges that remain to be overcome and highlighting Swiss research groups’ efforts and research directions in this field.

SwissGenVar: A Platform for Clinical-Grade Interpretation of Genetic Variants to Foster Personalized Healthcare in Switzerland

Large-scale next-generation sequencing (NGS) germline testing is technically feasible today, but variant interpretation represents a major bottleneck in analysis workflows. This includes extensive variant prioritization, annotation, and time-consuming evidence curation. The scale of the interpretation problem is massive, and variants of uncertain significance (VUSs) are a challenge to personalized medicine. This challenge is further compounded by the complexity and heterogeneity of the standards used to describe genetic variants and the associated phenotypes when searching for relevant information to support clinical decision making. To address this, all five Swiss academic institutions for Medical Genetics joined forces with the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) to create SwissGenVar as a user-friendly nationwide repository and sharing platform for genetic variant data generated during routine diagnostic procedures and research sequencing projects. Its aim is to provide a protected environment for expert evidence sharing about individual variants to harmonize and upscale their significance interpretation at the clinical grade according to international standards. To corroborate the clinical assessment, the variant-related data will be combined with consented high-quality clinical information. Broader visibility will be achieved by interfacing with international databases, thus supporting global initiatives in personalized healthcare.

LLMs in Automated Essay Evaluation: A Case Study

This study delves into the application of large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT-4, for the automated evaluation of student essays, with a focus on a case study conducted at the Swiss Institute of Business Administration. It explores the effectiveness of LLMs in assessing German-language student transfer assignments, and contrasts their performance with traditional evaluations by human lecturers. The primary findings highlight the challenges faced by LLMs in terms of accurately grading complex texts according to predefined categories and providing detailed feedback. This research illuminates the gap between the capabilities of LLMs and the nuanced requirements of student essay evaluation. The conclusion emphasizes the necessity for ongoing research and development in the area of LLM technology to improve the accuracy, reliability, and consistency of automated essay assessments in educational contexts.

Global Citizenship and Internationalization at Home: Insights from the BRASUIS Virtual Exchange Project

This paper reports on the BRASUIS Virtual Exchange (VE) Project carried out in two universities in Brazil and another one in Switzerland. The theoretical framework informing the research is that of Collaborative Online International Learning COIL/VE as a strategy to develop Global Citizenship (GC) and Internationalization at Home (IaH) in the three institutions involved. The BRASUIS project involved 26 students from the universities involved and eight international scholars as guest speakers. The project included both synchronous and asynchronous exchanges carried out over 14 weeks. The methodology employed to analyze the impact of the BRASUIS project on the institution’s IaH and GC approach is qualitative, using content analysis to look at data from reflection reports and observations produced by the project participants and lecturers. Results of the analysis reveal a varying degree of institutionalised internationalisation when comparing Brazilian and Swiss institutions and suggest that the BRASUIS project made a significant contribution to the development of GC and IaH in the Brazilian institutions involved and though it was a teacher-led innovation, there is potential to institutionalize VE projects beyond individual teachers’ efforts in those institutions. Results are discussed in terms of the challenges and benefits of VE to develop GC and IaH.

Unpacking Silencing to Make Black Lives Matter: Ethnographies of Racism in Public Space

This article focuses on the debates surrounding decolonisation and antiracism in the wake of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in Switzerland. They sparked new discussions within Swiss institutions, particularly city governments, about racism, colonialism, and physical changes to the material environment for which activists have advocated. Based on an empirical example in Zurich, the article examines the dynamics of (un)silencing when city governments respond to demands by local antiracist groups who ask for the removal of racist street names in public spaces. We draw on postcolonial and subaltern studies to examine practices of silencing and being heard, combining it with Rancière’s understanding of depoliticisation. The empirical case study shows that the actions and voices of people directly affected by racism were key in advocating for institutional change as well as addressing colonial remnants in urban spaces. This case shows how the demands of social movements can amplify marginalised voices and how they can also lead to new forms of silencing. This article explores the complexity of silencing practices that disregard the plurality of voices, and political movements focusing on the depoliticising of interpretations of antiracism in public debates while simultaneously neglecting the diversity of voices affected by racism. It contributes to debates on how racism is voiced and silenced in progressive and liberal urban institutions.

Sivelestat (Neutrophil Elastase Inhibitor) as an Anti-inflammatory and Anti-viral Agent: An In Silico Study.

Background Sivelestat is a potent and specific neutrophil elastase inhibitor. It is clinically used in treating lung injury and respiratory distress syndrome. This engaged us to undertake the present study in which sivelestat was studied as an anti-inflammatory and anti-viral agent. Methodology The docking study of sivelestat on matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2), matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), chikungunya virus nonstructural protein-2 (CVnsP2) protease, and influenza A (H1N9) virus neuraminidase was assessed using the Chemistry at Harvard Macromolecular Mechanics (CHARMM) Dock (CDOCK) method. Furthermore, molecular physicochemical; bioactivity; absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME); toxicity; and Search Tool for Interacting Chemicals (STITCH) analyses were performed by using the Molinspiration (Molinspiration Cheminformatics, Slovensky Grob, Slovak Republic), SwissADME SwissADME (Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Quartier Sorge - Bâtiment Amphipôle, Switzerland), pkCSM (University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia), and STITCH-free online tools. Results The molecular physicochemical assessment of the ligand (sivelestat) showed no (zero) violation and agreed with the thumb rule of five, otherwise known as Lipinski's rule of five. ADME prediction of the ligand (sivelestat) is shown to possess a low gastrointestinal absorption (GIA) property. Similarly, toxicity analysis of the ligand (sivelestat) is predicted to have a hepatotoxicity effect. STITCH analysis reveals that the ligand (sivelestat) has exhibited interactions with the three human proteins. Conclusions The present molecular docking studies showed that the ligand (sivelestat) has successfully docked with all four enzymes of interest. Hence, the current finding has provided a good understanding of sivelestat as an effective suppressor activity against all four enzymes: MMP-2, MMP-9, CVnsP2 protease, and influenza neuraminidase.

The distribution of robotic surgery in general and visceral surgery departments in Switzerland- a nationwide inquiry.

Since its introduction as a clinical technique, robotic surgery has been extended to different fields of surgery. However, the indications as well as the number of robotic procedures varied in different institutions. The aim of this investigation was to evaluate the current use of robotic surgery in general and digestive surgery in Switzerland. All Swiss surgical departments that are recognized training institutes for postgraduate training in surgery by the Swiss Institute of Medical Education (SIWF) were queried with a detailed questionnaire regarding the use of robotic surgery techniques and were analyzed regarding hospital size and type of hospital. Ninety-three departments were queried, and 67 % (n=63) answered the survey. Fifty-eight were public, and five were private institutions. Seventeen (26 %) of the queried departments used robotic surgery in digestive surgery. Four out of 17 (23 %) of the departments that performed robotic surgery were private hospitals, while 13 (77 %) were public institutions. In the majority of departments, robotic surgery of the rectum (n=12; 70.6 %) and colon (n=11; 64.7 %) was performed, followed by hernia procedures (n=8; 47.1 %) and fundoplication (n=7; 41.2 %). Less frequently, pancreatic resections (n=5; 29.4 %), cholecystectomy (n=4; 23.5 %), adrenalectomy (n=4; 23.5 %), gastric bypass (n=3; 17.7 %), gastric sleeve (n=3; 17.7 %), hepatic procedures (n=2; 11.7 %), or small bowel resections (n=1; 5.9 %) were performed as robotic procedures. More than 25 procedures per year per department were performed for hernia surgery (n=5 departments), gastric bypass (n=2 departments), cholecystectomy, fundoplication, and colon surgery (each n=1 department). The number and range of robotic procedures performed in Switzerland varied widely. Higher accreditation for general surgery or subspecialization of visceral surgery of the department was positively associated with the use of robotic techniques, reflecting an unequal availability of robotic surgery.

Exploring Medical Career Choice to Better Inform Swiss Physician Workforce Planning: Protocol for a National Cohort Study.

A medical student's career choice directly influences the physician workforce shortage and the misdistribution of resources. First, individual and contextual factors related to career choice have been evaluated separately, but their interaction over time is unclear. Second, actual career choice, reasons for this choice, and the influence of national political strategies are currently unknown in Switzerland. The overall objective of this study is to better understand the process of Swiss medical students' career choice and to predict this choice. Our specific aims will be to examine the predominately static (ie, sociodemographic and personality traits) and predominately dynamic (ie, learning context perceptions, anxiety state, motivation, and motives for career choice) variables that predict the career choice of Swiss medical school students, as well as their interaction, and to examine the evolution of Swiss medical students' career choice and their ultimate career path, including an international comparison with French medical students. The Swiss Medical Career Choice study is a national, multi-institution, and longitudinal study in which all medical students at all medical schools in Switzerland are eligible to participate. Data will be collected over 4 years for 4 cohorts of medical students using questionnaires in years 4 and 6. We will perform a follow-up during postgraduate training year 2 for medical graduates between 2018 and 2022. We will compare the different Swiss medical schools and a French medical school (the University of Strasbourg Faculty of Medicine). We will also examine the effect of new medical master's programs in terms of career choice and location of practice. For aim 2, in collaboration with the Swiss Institute for Medical Education, we will implement a national career choice tracking system and identify the final career choice of 2 cohorts of medical students who graduated from 4 Swiss medical schools from 2010 to 2012. We will also develop a model to predict their final career choice. Data analysis will be conducted using inferential statistics, and machine learning approaches will be used to refine the predictive model. This study was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation in January 2023. Recruitment began in May 2023. Data analysis will begin after the completion of the first cohort data collection. Our research will inform national stakeholders and medical schools on the prediction of students' future career choice and on key aspects of physician workforce planning. We will identify targeted actions that may be implemented during medical school and may ultimately influence career choice and encourage the correct number of physicians in the right specialties to fulfill the needs of currently underserved regions. DERR1-10.2196/53138.

Genes Differentially Expressed Across Major Arteries Are Enriched in Endothelial Dysfunction-Related Gene Sets: Implications for Relative Inter-artery Atherosclerosis Risk.

Atherosclerosis differs across major arteries. Although the biological basis is not fully understood, limited evidence of genetic differences has been documented. This study, therefore, was aimed to identify differentially expressed genes between clinically relevant major arteries and investigate their enrichment in endothelial dysfunction-related gene sets. A bioinformatic analysis of publicly available gene-level read counts for coronary, aortic, and tibial arteries was performed. Differential gene expression was conducted with DeSeq2 at a false discovery rate of 0.05. Differentially expressed genes were then subjected to over-representation analysis and active-subnetwork-oriented enrichment analysis, both at a false discovery rate of 0.005. Enriched terms common to both analyses were categorized for each contrast into immunity/inflammation-, membrane biology-, lipid metabolism-, and coagulation-related terms, and the top differentially expressed genes validated against Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics' Bgee database. There was mostly upregulation of differentially expressed genes for the coronary/tibial and aorta/tibial contrasts, but milder changes for the coronary/aorta contrast. Transcriptomic differences between coronary or aortic versus tibial samples largely involved immunity/inflammation-, membrane biology-, lipid metabolism-, and coagulation-related genes, suggesting potential to modulate endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis. These results imply atheroprone coronary and aortic environments compared with tibial artery tissue, which may explain observed relative inter-artery atherosclerosis risk.

INVOLVEMENT OF UKRAINE IN THE PROCESSES OF GLOBAL INTERACTION

Objective. The objective of the article is the analysis of the level of involvement of Ukraine in the processes of global interaction in the period of 2017-2021. Methods. The following cognitive methods and techniques are applied in the research process: theoretical generalisation and comparison, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, tabular and graphical methods. Results. It is established that globalization is the main mega trend at the current stage of development. It is determined that one of the most representative and authoritative indicators of globalization in general, the inclusion of countries in the processes of global interaction in particular, is the KOF Globalisation Index, which, from 2002, is systematically calculated and published by the Swiss Institute of Economics at the Federal University of Technology in Zurich. It is identified that the KOF Globalisation Index is detailed by indicators of economic (trade and financial globalisation), social (interpersonal globalisation, information globalisation, cultural globalisation) and political globalisation, each of which is given in three dimensions: average value, de facto value (actual level of globalisation - the real level of global interaction) and de jure (politics and other factors contributing to the development of globalisation; varies within 0-100, where 0 is the minimum value, 100 is the maximum). It is substantiated that in 2017-2021 Ukraine is a country that is actively involved in the processes of global interaction, which is reflected both in the dynamics of the actual participation of the country in the processes of international cooperation, and in the further development of institutions, facilities and other components of the pool of determinants of the development of international cooperation of countries. It is established that in the analysed period Ukraine achieved the greatest success in the sphere of political and social globalisation. It is proved that in the sphere of economic globalisation Ukraine is most actively involved in the processes of global trade interaction, in the sphere of social globalisation - in information interaction. It is established that in most spheres the level of de jure globalisation of Ukraine is higher than the similar de facto indicator (the exception is the sphere of economic globalisation, where the opposite situation is observed - the level of economic globalisation of Ukraine is de facto higher than the de jure indicator).

Focus on Text Producers: Plain and Easy Language in the Swiss Multilingual Institutional Context

This paper was carried out as part of the MACSI project (Multilingual Accessible Communication in Swiss Institutions) and focuses on a case study carried out with the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). The broad aim of this cooperation with the FSO is to evaluate ways of implementing multilingual accessible expert-lay communication on statistics. Switzerland boasts a long-established tradition of clear writing at institutional level. Being a multilingual country, accessible communication is institutionally mandatory in all its official languages.
 While most of the research on accessible communication is text and recipient-based, in this study we focused primarily on drafters, who are specialized experts in different domains, as well as on translators, who have to face the challenges of interlinguistic transfer of both specialized and plain communication. This paper presents the results from a questionnaire on accessibility submitted to drafters and translators within the FSO. The answers show that drafters address several target groups with the same text and or they produce different texts for different target groups. Moreover, both drafters and translators have little knowledge and experience with plain and easy language, although most of them are interested in putting more effort into writing lay-friendly texts. Thus, there is a need for sensitising and training drafters and translators so that they are able to adapt content, level of technicality and language to the different levels of expertise when producing different multilingual accessible texts.