Search results for: random differential inclusion

Authors: Amer Ait Sidhoum

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Interest in sustainability has gained ground among practitioners, academics and policy-makers due to growing stakeholders’ awareness of environmental and social concerns. This is particularly true for agriculture. However, relatively little research has been conducted on the quantification of social sustainability and the contribution of social issues to the agricultural production efficiency. This research's main objective is to propose a method for evaluating prices of social outputs, more precisely shadow prices, by allowing for the stochastic nature of agricultural production that is to say for production uncertainty. In this article, the assessment of social outputs’ shadow prices is conducted within the methodological framework of nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). An output-oriented directional distance function (DDF) is implemented to represent the technology of a sample of Catalan arable crop farms and derive the efficiency scores the overall production technology of our sample is assumed to be the intersection of two different sub-technologies. The first sub-technology models the production of random desirable agricultural outputs, while the second sub-technology reflects the social outcomes from agricultural activities. Once a nonparametric production technology has been represented, the DDF primal approach can be used for efficiency measurement, while shadow prices are drawn from the dual representation of the DDF. Computing shadow prices is a method to assign an economic value to non-marketed social outcomes. Our research uses cross sectional, farm-level data collected in 2015 from a sample of 180 Catalan arable crop farms specialized in the production of cereals, oilseeds and protein (COP) crops. Our results suggest that our sample farms show high performance scores, from 85% for the bad state of nature to 88% for the normal and ideal crop growing conditions. This suggests that farm performance is increasing with an improvement in crop growth conditions. Results also show that average shadow prices of desirable state-contingent output and social outcomes for efficient and inefficient farms are positive, suggesting that the production of desirable marketable outputs and of non-marketable outputs makes a positive contribution to the farm production efficiency. Results also indicate that social outputs’ shadow prices are contingent upon the growing conditions. The shadow prices follow an upward trend as crop-growing conditions improve. This finding suggests that these efficient farms prefer to allocate more resources in the production of desirable outputs than of social outcomes. To our knowledge, this study represents the first attempt to compute shadow prices of social outcomes while accounting for the stochastic nature of the production technology. Our findings suggest that the decision-making process of the efficient farms in dealing with social issues are stochastic and strongly dependent on the growth conditions. This implies that policy-makers should adjust their instruments according to the stochastic environmental conditions. An optimal redistribution of rural development support, by increasing the public payment with the improvement in crop growth conditions, would likely enhance the effectiveness of public policies.

Keywords: data envelopment analysis, shadow prices, social sustainability, sustainable farming

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Authors: Kitti Supchukun, Kris Angkanaporn, Teerapong Yata

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The product innovation using a nutraceutical delivery system on improving the growth performance of broilers is the product planning and development to solve the antibiotics banning policy incurred in the local and global livestock production system. Restricting the use of antibiotics can reduce the quality of chicken meat and increase pathogenic bacterial contamination. Although other alternatives were used to replace antibiotics, the efficacy was inconsistent, reflecting on low chicken growth performance and contaminated products. The product innovation aims to effectively deliver the selected active ingredients into the body. This product is tested on the pharmaceutical lab scale and on the farm-scale for market feasibility in order to create product innovation using the nutraceutical delivery system model. The model establishes the product standardization and traceable quality control process for farmers. The study is performed using mixed methods. Starting with a qualitative method to find the farmers' (consumers) demands and the product standard, then the researcher used the quantitative research method to develop and conclude the findings regarding the acceptance of the technology and product performance. The survey has been sent to different organizations by random sampling among the entrepreneur’s population including integrated broiler farm, broiler farm, and other related organizations. The mixed-method results, both qualitative and quantitative, verify the user and lead users' demands since they provide information about the industry standard, technology preference, developing the right product according to the market, and solutions for the industry problems. The product innovation selected nutraceutical ingredients that can solve the following problems in livestock; bactericidal, anti-inflammation, gut health, antioxidant. The combinations of the selected nutraceutical and nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC) technology aim to improve chemical and pharmaceutical components by changing the structure of active ingredients into nanoparticle, which will be released in the targeted location with accurate concentration. The active ingredients in nanoparticle form are more stable, elicit antibacterial activity against pathogenic Salmonella spp and E.coli, balance gut health, have antioxidant and anti-inflammation activity. The experiment results have proven that the nutraceuticals have an antioxidant and antibacterial activity which also increases the average daily gain (ADG), reduces feed conversion ratio (FCR). The results also show a significant impact on the higher European Performance Index that can increase the farmers' profit when exporting. The product innovation will be tested in technology acceptance management methods from farmers and industry. The production of broiler and commercialization analyses are useful to reduce the importation of animal supplements. Most importantly, product innovation is protected by intellectual property.

Keywords: nutraceutical, nano structure lipid carrier, anti-microbial drug resistance, broiler, Salmonella

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Authors: Ariesny Vera, Rodrigo Montecinos

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The rare-earth elements (REEs) or rare-earth metals (REMs), correspond to seventeen chemical elements composed by the fifteen lanthanoids, as well as scandium and yttrium. Lanthanoids corresponds to lanthanum and the f-block elements, from cerium to lutetium. Scandium and yttrium are considered rare-earth elements because they have ionic radii similar to the lighter f-block elements. These elements were called rare earths because they are simply more difficult to extract and separate individually than the most metals and, generally, they do not accumulate in minerals, they are rarely found in easily mined ores and are often unfavorably distributed in common ores/minerals. REEs show unique chemical and physical properties, in comparison to the other metals in the periodic table. Nowadays, these physicochemical properties are utilized in a wide range of synthetic, catalytic, electronic, medicinal, and military applications. Because of their applications, the global demand for rare earth metals is becoming progressively more important in the transition to a self-sustaining society and greener economy. However, due to the difficult separation between lanthanoid ions, the high cost and pollution of these processes, the scientists search the development of a method that combines selectivity and quantitative separation of lanthanoids from the leaching liquor, while being more economical and environmentally friendly processes. This motivation has favored the design and development of more efficient and environmentally friendly cation extractors with the incorporation of compounds as ionic liquids, membrane inclusion polymers (PIM) and supramolecular systems. Supramolecular chemistry focuses on the development of host-guest systems, in which a host molecule can recognize and bind a certain guest molecule or ion. Normally, the formation of a host-guest complex involves non-covalent interactions Additionally, host-guest interactions can be influenced among others effects by the structural nature of host and guests. The different macrocyclic hosts for lanthanoid species that have been studied are crown ethers, cyclodextrins, cucurbituryls, calixarenes and pillararenes.Among all the factors that can influence and affect lanthanoid (III) coordination, perhaps the most basic of them is the systematic control using macrocyclic substituents that promote a selective coordination. In this sense, macrocycles pillar[n]arenes (P[n]As) present a relatively easy functionalization and they have more π-rich cavity than other host molecules. This gives to P[n]As a negative electrostatic potential in the cavity which would be responsible for the selectivity of these compounds towards cations. Furthermore, the cavity size, the linker, and the functional groups of the polar headgroups could be modified in order to control the association of lanthanoid cations. In this sense, different P[n]As systems, specifically derivatives of the pentamer P[5]A functionalized with amide, amine, phosphate and sulfate derivatives, have been designed in terms of experimental synthesis and molecular dynamics, and the interaction between these P[5]As and some lanthanoid ions such as La³+, Eu³+ and Lu³+ has been studied by physicochemical characterization by 1H-NMR, ITC and fluorescence in the case of Eu³+ systems. The molecular dynamics study of these systems was developed in hexane as solvent, also taking into account the lanthanoid ions mentioned above, and the respective comparison studies between the different ions.

Keywords: lanthanoids, macrocycles, pillar[n]arenes, rare-earth metal extraction, supramolecular chemistry, supramolecular complexes.

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Authors: Pedro Felgueiras, Ana Miguel, Nélson Almeida, Raquel Silva

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Objective: Through the study of a clinical case of delusional somatic disorder secondary to phantogeusia, we aim to highlight the importance of considering psychosomatic conditions in differential diagnosis, as well as to emphasize the complexity of its comprehension, treatment, and respective impact on patients’ functioning. Methods: Bearing this in mind, we conducted a critical analysis of a case series based on patient observations, clinical data, and complementary diagnostic methods, as well as a non-systematic review of the literature on the subject. Results: A 61-year-old female patient with no history of psychiatric conditions. Family psychiatric history of mood disorder (depression), with psychotic features found in her mother. Medical history of many comorbidities affecting different organ systems (endocrine, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, ophthalmological). Documented neuroticism traits of personality. The patient’s family described a persistent concern about several physical symptoms across her life, with a continuous effort to obtain explanations about any sensation out of her normal perception. Since being subjected to endoscopy in 2018, she started complaints of persistent phantogeusia (acid taste) and developed excessive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors associated with this somatic symptom. The patient was evaluated by several medical specialties, and an extensive panel of medical exams was carried out, excluding any disease. Besides all the investigation and with no evidence of disease signs, acute anxiety, time, and energy dispended to this symptom culminated in severe psychosocial impairment. The patient was admitted to a psychiatric ward for investigation and treatment of this clinical picture, leading to the diagnosis of the delusional somatic disorder. In order to exclude the acute organic etiology of this psychotic disorder, an analytic panel was carried out with no abnormal results. In the context of a psychotic clinical picture, a CT scan was performed, which revealed a right cortical vascular lesion. Neuropsychological evaluation was made, with the description of cognitive functioning being globally normative. During treatment with an antipsychotic (pimozide), a complete remission of the somatic delusion was associated with the disappearance of gustative perception disturbance. In follow-up, a relapse of gustative sensation was documented, and her thoughts and speech were dominated by concerns about multiple somatic symptoms. Conclusion: In terms of abnormal bodily sensations, the oral cavity is one of the frequent sites of delusional disorder. Patients with these gustatory perception distortions complain about unusual sensations without corresponding abnormal findings in the oral area. Its pathophysiology has not been fully elucidated yet. In terms of its comprehensive psychopathology, this case was hypothesized as a paranoid development of a delusional somatic disorder triggered by a post-invasive procedure phantogeusia (which is described as a possible side effect of an endoscopy) in a patient with an anankastic personality. This case presents interesting psychopathology, reinforcing the complexity of psychosomatic disorders in terms of their etiopathogenesis, clinical treatment, and long-term prognosis.

Keywords: psychosomatics, delusional somatic disorder, phantogeusia, paranoid development

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Authors: A. J. Al-Graitti, G. A. Khalid, P. Berthelson, A. Mason-Jones, R. Prabhu, M. D. Jones

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Motor vehicle related pedestrian road traffic collisions are a major road safety challenge, since they are a leading cause of death and serious injury worldwide, contributing to a third of the global disease burden. The auto rickshaw, which is a common form of urban transport in many developing countries, plays a major transport role, both as a vehicle for hire and for private use. The most common auto rickshaws are quite unlike ‘typical’ four-wheel motor vehicle, being typically characterised by three wheels, a non-tilting sheet-metal body or open frame construction, a canvas roof and side curtains, a small drivers’ cabin, handlebar controls and a passenger space at the rear. Given the propensity, in developing countries, for auto rickshaws to be used in mixed cityscapes, where pedestrians and vehicles share the roadway, the potential for auto rickshaw impacts with pedestrians is relatively high. Whilst auto rickshaws are used in some Western countries, their limited number and spatial separation from pedestrian walkways, as a result of city planning, has not resulted in significant accident statistics. Thus, auto rickshaws have not been subject to the vehicle impact related pedestrian crash kinematic analyses and/or injury mechanics assessment, typically associated with motor vehicle development in Western Europe, North America and Japan. This study presents a parametric analysis of auto rickshaw related pedestrian impacts by computational simulation, using a Finite Element model of an auto rickshaw and an LS-DYNA 50^th percentile male Hybrid III Anthropometric Test Device (dummy). Parametric variables include auto rickshaw impact velocity, auto rickshaw impact region (front, centre or offset) and relative pedestrian impact position (front, side and rear). The output data of each impact simulation was correlated against reported injury metrics, Head Injury Criterion (front, side and rear), Neck injury Criterion (front, side and rear), Abbreviated Injury Scale and reported risk level and adds greater understanding to the issue of auto rickshaw related pedestrian injury risk. The parametric analyses suggest that pedestrians are subject to a relatively high risk of injury during impacts with an auto rickshaw at velocities of 20 km/h or greater, which during some of the impact simulations may even risk fatalities. The present study provides valuable evidence for informing a series of recommendations and guidelines for making the auto rickshaw safer during collisions with pedestrians. Whilst it is acknowledged that the present research findings are based in the field of safety engineering and may over represent injury risk, compared to “Real World” accidents, many of the simulated interactions produced injury response values significantly greater than current threshold curves and thus, justify their inclusion in the study. To reduce the injury risk level and increase the safety of the auto rickshaw, there should be a reduction in the velocity of the auto rickshaw and, or, consideration of engineering solutions, such as retro fitting injury mitigation technologies to those auto rickshaw contact regions which are the subject of the greatest risk of producing pedestrian injury.

Keywords: auto rickshaw, finite element analysis, injury risk level, LS-DYNA, pedestrian impact

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Authors: Weixiao Wei, Chris Shei

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This paper describes Mandate of Heaven as a source of justification for the ruling regime from ancient China approximately three thousand years ago. Initially, the kings of Shang dynasty simply nominated themselves as the sons of Heaven sent to Earth to rule the common people. As the last generation of the kings became corrupted and ruled withbrutal force and crueltywhich directly caused their destruction, the successive kings of Zhou dynasty realised the importance of virtue and the provision of goods to the people. Legitimacy of the ruling regimes became rested not entirely on random allocation of the throne by an unknown supernatural force but on a foundation comprising morality and the ability to provide goods. The latter composite was picked up by the current ruling regime, the Chinese Communist Party, and became the cornerstone of its political legitimacy, also known as ‘performance legitimacy’ where economic development accounts for the satisfaction of the people in place of election and other democratic means of providing legal-rational legitimacy. Under this circumstance, it becomes important as well for the ruling party to use political rhetoric to convince people of the good performance of the government in the economy, morality, and foreign policy. Thus, we see a lot of propaganda materials in both government policy statements and international press conference announcements. The former consists mainly of important speeches made by prominent figures in Party conferences which are not only made publicly available on the government websites but also become obligatory reading materials for university entrance examinations. The later consists of announcements about foreign policies and strategies and actions taken by the government regarding foreign affairsmade in international conferences and offered in Chinese-English bilingual versions on official websites. This documentation strategy creates an impressive image of the Chinese Communist Party that is domestically competent and international strong, taking care of the people it governs in terms of economic needs and defending the country against any foreign interference and global adversities. This political discourse system comprising reading materials fully extractable from government websites also becomes excellent repertoire for teaching and researching in contemporary Chinese language, discourse and rhetoric, Chinese culture and tradition, Chinese political ideology, and Chinese-English translation. This paper aims to provide a detailed and comprehensive description of the current Chinese political discourse system, arguing about its lineage from the rhetorical convention of Mandate of Heaven in ancient China and its current concentration on serving the people in place of election, human rights, and freedom of speech. The paper will also provide guidelines as to how this discourse system and the manifestation of official documents created under this system can become excellent research and teaching materials in applied linguistics.

Keywords: mandate of heaven, Chinese communist party, performance legitimacy, serving the people, political discourse

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Authors: Sonia P. Marrero Duran, Lilian Noya Dominguez, Lisandra Quintana Alvarez, Evert Martinez Perez, Ana Julia Acevedo Urquiaga

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Cuban business and economic policy are in the constant update as well as facing a client ever more knowledgeable and demanding. For that reason become fundamental for companies competitiveness through the optimization of its processes and services. One of the Cuban’s pillars, which has been sustained since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution back in 1959, is the free health service to all those who need it. This service is offered without any charge under the concept of preserving human life, but it implied costly management processes and logistics services to be able to supply the necessary medicines to all the units who provide health services. One of the key actors on the medicine supply chain is the Havana Distribution Center (HDC), which is responsible for the delivery of medicines in the province; as well as the acquisition of medicines from national and international producers and its subsequent transport to health care units and pharmacies in time, and with the required quality. This HDC also carries for all distribution centers in the country. Given the eminent need to create an actor in the supply chain that specializes in the medicines supply, the possibility of centralizing this operation in a logistics service provider is analyzed. Based on this decision, pharmacies operate as clients of the logistic service center whose main function is to centralize all logistics operations associated with the medicine supply chain. The HDC is precisely the logistic service provider in Havana and it is the center of this research. In 2017 the pharmacies had affectations in the availability of medicine due to deficiencies in the distribution routes. This is caused by the fact that they are not based on routing studies, besides the long distribution cycle. The distribution routs are fixed, attend only one type of customer and there respond to a territorial location by the municipality. Taking into consideration the above-mentioned problem, the objective of this research is to optimize the routes system in the Havana Distribution Center. To accomplish this objective, the techniques applied were document analysis, random sampling, statistical inference and tools such as Ishikawa diagram and the computerized software’s: ArcGis, Osmand y MapIfnfo. As a result, were analyzed four distribution alternatives; the actual rout, by customer type, by the municipality and the combination of the two last. It was demonstrated that the territorial location alternative does not take full advantage of the transportation capacities or the distance of the trips, which leads to elevated costs breaking whit the current ways of distribution and the currents characteristics of the clients. The principal finding of the investigation was the optimum option distribution rout is the 4th one that is formed by hospitals and the join of pharmacies, stomatology clinics, polyclinics and maternal and elderly homes. This solution breaks the territorial location by the municipality and permits different distribution cycles in dependence of medicine consumption and transport availability.

Keywords: computerized geographic software, distribution, distribution routs, vehicle problem routing (VPR)

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Authors: Yi-Hao Wong, Li-Li Chan, Chee-Onn Leong, Stephen Ambu, Joon-Wah Mak, Priyasashi Sahu

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Background: Acanthamoeba is a genus of amoebae which lives as a free-living in nature or as a human pathogen that causes severe brain and eye infections. Virulence potential of Acanthamoeba is not constant and can change with growth conditions. DNA methylation, an epigenetic process which adds methyl groups to DNA, is used by eukaryotic cells, including several human parasites to control their gene expression. We used qPCR, siRNA gene silencing, and RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) to study DNA-methyltransferase gene family (DNMT) in order to indicate the possibility of its involvement in programming Acanthamoeba virulence potential. Methods: A virulence-attenuated Acanthamoeba isolate (designation: ATCC; original isolate: ATCC 50492) was subjected to mouse passages to restore its pathogenicity; a virulence-reactivated isolate (designation: AC/5) was generated. Several established factors associated with Acanthamoeba virulence phenotype were examined to confirm the succession of reactivation process. Differential gene expression of DNMT between ATCC and AC/5 isolates was performed by qPCR. Silencing on DNMT gene expression in AC/5 isolate was achieved by siRNA duplex. Total RNAs extracted from ATCC, AC/5, and siRNA-treated (designation: si-146) were subjected to RNA-Seq for comparative transcriptomic analysis in order to identify the genome-wide effect of DNMT in regulating Acanthamoeba gene expression. qPCR was performed to validate the RNA-Seq results. Results: Physiological and cytophatic assays demonstrated an increased in virulence potential of AC/5 isolate after mouse passages. DNMT gene expression was significantly higher in AC/5 compared to ATCC isolate (p ≤ 0.01) by qPCR. si-146 duplex reduced DNMT gene expression in AC/5 isolate by 30%. Comparative transcriptome analysis identified the differentially expressed genes, with 3768 genes in AC/5 vs ATCC isolate; 2102 genes in si-146 vs AC/5 isolate and 3422 genes in si-146 vs ATCC isolate, respectively (fold-change of ≥ 2 or ≤ 0.5, p-value adjusted (padj) < 0.05). Of these, 840 and 1262 genes were upregulated and downregulated, respectively, in si-146 vs AC/5 isolate. Eukaryotic orthologous group (KOG) assignments revealed a higher percentage of downregulated gene expression in si-146 compared to AC/5 isolate, were related to posttranslational modification, signal transduction and energy production. Gene Ontology (GO) terms for those downregulated genes shown were associated with transport activity, oxidation-reduction process, and metabolic process. Among these downregulated genes were putative genes encoded for heat shock proteins, transporters, ubiquitin-related proteins, proteins for vesicular trafficking (small GTPases), and oxidoreductases. Functional analysis of similar predicted proteins had been described in other parasitic protozoa for their survival and pathogenicity. Decreased expression of these genes in si146-treated isolate may account in part for Acanthamoeba reduced pathogenicity. qPCR on 6 selected genes upregulated in AC/5 compared to ATCC isolate corroborated the RNA sequencing findings, indicating a good concordance between these two analyses. Conclusion: To the best of our knowledge, this study represents the first genome-wide analysis of DNA methylation and its effects on gene expression in Acanthamoeba spp. The present data indicate that DNA methylation has substantial effect on global gene expression, allowing further dissection of the genome-wide effects of DNA-methyltransferase gene in regulating Acanthamoeba pathogenicity.

Keywords: Acanthamoeba, DNA methylation, RNA sequencing, virulence

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Authors: Lya Porto, Giulia Giacchè, Mario Aquino Alves

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The paper aims to describe the linkage between government and civil society proposing a study on agro-ecological agriculture policy and urban action in São Paulo city underling the main achievements obtained. The negotiation processes between social movements and the government (inputs) and its results on political regulation and public action for Urban Agriculture (UA) in São Paulo city (outputs) have been investigated. The method adopted is qualitative, with techniques of semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and documental analysis. The authors conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with organic farmers, activists, governmental and non-governmental managers. Participant observation was conducted in public gardens, urban farms, public audiences, democratic councils, and social movements meetings. Finally, public plans and laws were also analyzed. São Paulo city with around 12 million inhabitants spread out in a 1522 km2 is the economic capital of Brazil, marked by spatial and socioeconomic segregation, currently aggravated by environmental crisis, characterized by water scarcity, pollution, and climate changes. In recent years, Urban Agriculture (UA) social movements gained strength and struggle for a different city with more green areas, organic food production, and public occupation. As the dynamics of UA occurs by the action of multiple actresses and institutions that struggle to build multiple senses on UA, the analysis will be based on literature about solidarity economy, governance, public action and networks. Those theories will mark out the analysis that will emphasize the approach of inter-subjectivity built between subjects, as well as the hybrid dynamics of multiple actors and spaces in the construction of policies for UA. Concerning UA we identified four main typologies based on land ownership, main function (economic or activist), form of organization of the space, and type of production (organic or not). The City Hall registers 500 productive unities of agriculture, with around 1500 producers, but researcher estimated a larger number of unities. Concerning the social movements we identified three categories that differ in goals and types of organization, but all of them work by networks of activists and/or organizations. The first category does not consider themselves as a movement, but a network. They occupy public spaces to grow organic food and to propose another type of social relations in the city. This action is similar to what became known as the green guerrillas. The second is configured as a movement that is structured to raise awareness about agro-ecological activities. The third one is a network of social movements, farmers, organizations and politicians that work focused on pressure and negotiation with executive and legislative government to approve regulations and policies on organic and agro-ecological Urban Agriculture. We conclude by highlighting how the interaction among institutions and civil society produced important achievements for recognition and implementation of UA within the city. Some results of this process are awareness for local production, legal and institutional recognition of the rural zone around the city into the planning tool, the investment on organic school public procurements, the establishment of participatory management of public squares, the inclusion of UA on Municipal Strategic Plan and Master Plan.

Keywords: public action, policies, agroecology, urban and peri-urban agriculture, Sao Paulo

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Authors: Bassem M. Darwish, Robert H. Ablove

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Introduction: Total knee arthroscopy (TKA) is a commonly performed procedure in patients with end-stage osteoarthritis and inaccuracy of component alignment in TKA has been shown to have many adverse post-operative outcomes such as accelerated implant wear, reduced functional outcomes, and shorter overall implant survival. Robotic surgical systems have been introduced to try and improve joint alignment and functional outcomes in knee arthroscopy, one recent iteration is the ROSA knee system, released to the market in 2019. The objective of this scoping review is to map the available evidence, identify the current types of evidence, and identify knowledge gaps to guide future studies on patient outcomes following ROSA-assisted total knee arthroplasties. Methods: An electronic search was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) extension for scoping reviews. Search terms included ROSA, knee arthroscopy, osteoarthritis, robotic, and malalignment. Types of study participants included patients with osteoarthritis, ages 18 and older, male or female, who received manual TKA (mTKA) or ROSA-assisted TKA (rTKA), and human patients or cadavers. Published, peer-reviewed controlled trials, observational studies, and case series were included. Case reports were not included in article review. Resulting articles were first screened based on title and abstract. Articles meeting inclusion criteria based on title and abstract review then underwent full-text review by the same reviewer. Results: This scoping review identified 11 total studies, 3 prospective observational studies, and 8 retrospective observational studies - a total of 970 rTKA patients and 1745 mTKA patients. There were no case series or randomized controlled trials comparing rTKA and mTKA. Patient-centered outcomes showed promise for rTKA, where it frequently showed significantly favorable functional outcomes, measured via KOOS-JR, VAS, KSS, OKS, FJS, and PROMIS scores, at various times postoperatively. However, there was much discrepancy about which score yielded significance at which postoperative follow-up. Complication rates, reoperation rates, and LOS were very similar between mTKA and rTKA groups. Studies also showed rTKA had more accurate joint alignment within the 0 ± 3o corridor and had significantly higher rates of achieving postoperative joint angles similar to the preoperative plan. Finally, there was major agreement that rTKA cases take significantly longer time at the start, however, there is a rapid learning curve. Once past the learning curve, rTKA cases are performed in a similar time to mTKA and reduced physician stress and strain. Conclusion: The ROSA knee system represents a promising option for the management of osteoarthritis via total knee arthroscopy. The studies reviewed in this paper favor the patient-centered function outcomes, joint alignments, and physician health implications of the ROSA knee system to conventional total knee arthroscopy. Further study is warranted, however, to better understand recovery periods, longer-term functional outcomes, operative fatigue, and reduction in radiation exposure.

Keywords: arthroplasty, knee, robotics, malalignment

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Authors: Artur Cichowicz

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The last active mine in the Central Rand Goldfields area (50 km x 15 km) ceased operations in 2008. This resulted in the closure of the pumping stations, which previously maintained the underground water level in the mining voids. As a direct consequence of the water being allowed to flood the mine voids, seismic activity has increased directly beneath the populated area of Johannesburg. Monitoring of seismicity in the area has been on-going for over five years using the network of 17 strong ground motion sensors. The objective of the project is to improve strategies for mine closure. The evolution of the seismicity pattern was investigated in detail. Special attention was given to seismic source parameters such as magnitude, scalar seismic moment and static stress drop. Most events are located within historical mine boundaries. The seismicity pattern shows a strong relationship between the presence of the mining void and high levels of seismicity; no seismicity migration patterns were observed outside the areas of old mining. Seven years after the pumping stopped, the evolution of the seismicity has indicated that the area is not yet in equilibrium. The level of seismicity in the area appears to not be decreasing over time since the number of strong events, with Mw magnitudes above 2, is still as high as it was when monitoring began over five years ago. The average rate of seismic deformation is 1.6x1013 Nm/year. Constant seismic deformation was not observed over the last 5 years. The deviation from the average is in the order of 6x10^13 Nm/year, which is a significant deviation. The variation of cumulative seismic moment indicates that a constant deformation rate model is not suitable. Over the most recent five year period, the total cumulative seismic moment released in the Central Rand Basin was 9.0x10^14 Nm. This is equivalent to one earthquake of magnitude 3.9. This is significantly less than what was experienced during the mining operation. Characterization of seismicity triggered by a rising water level in the area can be achieved through the estimation of source parameters. Static stress drop heavily influences ground motion amplitude, which plays an important role in risk assessments of potential seismic hazards in inhabited areas. The observed static stress drop in this study varied from 0.05 MPa to 10 MPa. It was found that large static stress drops could be associated with both small and large events. The temporal evolution of the inter-event time provides an understanding of the physical mechanisms of earthquake interaction. Changes in the characteristics of the inter-event time are produced when a stress change is applied to a group of faults in the region. Results from this study indicate that the fluid-induced source has a shorter inter-event time in comparison to a random distribution. This behaviour corresponds to a clustering of events, in which short recurrence times tend to be close to each other, forming clusters of events.

Keywords: inter-event time, fluid induced seismicity, mine closure, spectral parameters of seismic source

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Authors: Claudio Loconsole, Daniele Leonardis, Antonio Brunetti, Gianpaolo Francesco Trotta, Nicholas Caporusso, Vitoantonio Bevilacqua

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Unfortunately, many people still do not have access to communication, with specific regard to reading and writing. Among them, people who are blind or visually impaired, have several difficulties in getting access to the world, compared to the sighted. Indeed, despite technology advancement and cost reduction, nowadays assistive devices are still expensive such as Braille-based input/output systems which enable reading and writing texts (e.g., personal notes, documents). As a consequence, assistive technology affordability is fundamental in supporting the visually impaired in communication, learning, and social inclusion. This, in turn, has serious consequences in terms of equal access to opportunities, freedom of expression, and actual and independent participation to a society designed for the sighted. Moreover, the visually impaired experience difficulties in recognizing objects and interacting with devices in any activities of daily living. It is not a case that Braille indications are commonly reported only on medicine boxes and elevator keypads. Several software applications for the automatic translation of written text into speech (e.g., Text-To-Speech - TTS) enable reading pieces of documents. However, apart from simple tasks, in many circumstances TTS software is not suitable for understanding very complicated pieces of text requiring to dwell more on specific portions (e.g., mathematical formulas or Greek text). In addition, the experience of reading\writing text is completely different both in terms of engagement, and from an educational perspective. Statistics on the employment rate of blind people show that learning to read and write provides the visually impaired with up to 80% more opportunities of finding a job. Especially in higher educational levels, where the ability to digest very complex text is key, accessibility and availability of Braille plays a fundamental role in reducing drop-out rate of the visually impaired, thus affecting the effectiveness of the constitutional right to get access to education. In this context, the Braille Lab project aims at overcoming these social needs by including affordability in designing and developing assistive tools for visually impaired people. In detail, our awarded project focuses on a technology innovation of the operation principle of existing assistive tools for the visually impaired leaving the Human-Machine Interface unchanged. This can result in a significant reduction of the production costs and consequently of tool selling prices, thus representing an important opportunity for social entrepreneurship. The first two assistive tools designed within the Braille Lab project following the proposed approach aims to provide the possibility to personally print documents and handouts and to read texts written in Braille using refreshable Braille display, respectively. The former, named ‘Braille Cartridge’, represents an alternative solution for printing in Braille and consists in the realization of an electronic-controlled dispenser printing (cartridge) which can be integrated within traditional ink-jet printers, in order to leverage the efficiency and cost of the device mechanical structure which are already being used. The latter, named ‘Braille Cursor’, is an innovative Braille display featuring a substantial technology innovation by means of a unique cursor virtualizing Braille cells, thus limiting the number of active pins needed for Braille characters.

Keywords: Human rights, social challenges and technology innovations, visually impaired, affordability, assistive tools

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Authors: Pawel Martynowicz

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Vibrations are a crucial problem for slender structures such as towers, masts, chimneys, wind turbines, bridges, high buildings, etc., that is why most of them are equipped with vibration attenuation or fatigue reduction solutions. In this work, a slender structure (i.e., wind turbine tower-nacelle model) equipped with nonlinear, semiactive tuned vibration absorber(s) is analyzed. For this study purposes, magnetorheological (MR) dampers are used as semiactive actuators. Several optimal-based approaches to structural vibration attenuation are investigated against the standard ‘ground-hook’ law and passive tuned vibration absorber(s) implementations. The common approach to optimal control of nonlinear systems is offline computation of the optimal solution, however, so determined open loop control suffers from lack of robustness to uncertainties (e.g., unmodelled dynamics, perturbations of external forces or initial conditions), and thus perturbation control techniques are often used. However, proper linearization may be an issue for highly nonlinear systems with implicit relations between state, co-state, and control. The main contribution of the author is the development as well as numerical and experimental verification of the Pontriagin maximum-principle-based vibration control concepts that produce directly actuator control input (not the demanded force), thus force tracking algorithm that results in control inaccuracy is entirely omitted. These concepts, including one-step optimal control, quasi-optimal control, and optimal-based modified ‘ground-hook’ law, can be directly implemented in online and real-time feedback control for periodic (or semi-periodic) disturbances with invariant or time-varying parameters, as well as for non-periodic, transient or random disturbances, what is a limitation for some other known solutions. No offline calculation, excitations/disturbances assumption or vibration frequency determination is necessary, moreover, all of the nonlinear actuator (MR damper) force constraints, i.e., no active forces, lower and upper saturation limits, hysteresis-type dynamics, etc., are embedded in the control technique, thus the solution is optimal or suboptimal for the assumed actuator, respecting its limitations. Depending on the selected method variant, a moderate or decisive reduction in the computational load is possible compared to other methods of nonlinear optimal control, while assuring the quality and robustness of the vibration reduction system, as well as considering multi-pronged operational aspects, such as possible minimization of the amplitude of the deflection and acceleration of the vibrating structure, its potential and/or kinetic energy, required actuator force, control input (e.g. electric current in the MR damper coil) and/or stroke amplitude. The developed solutions are characterized by high vibration reduction efficiency – the obtained maximum values of the dynamic amplification factor are close to 2.0, while for the best of the passive systems, these values exceed 3.5.

Keywords: magnetorheological damper, nonlinear tuned vibration absorber, optimal control, real-time structural vibration attenuation, wind turbines

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Authors: Mingxin Li, Liya Ni

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Autonomous parking is a valuable feature applicable to many robotics applications such as tour guide robots, UV sanitizing robots, food delivery robots, and warehouse robots. With auto-parking, the robot will be able to park at the charging zone and charge itself without human intervention. As compared to self-driving vehicles, auto-parking is more challenging for a small-scale mobile robot only equipped with a front camera due to the camera view limited by the robot’s height and the narrow Field of View (FOV) of the inexpensive camera. In this research, auto-parking of a small-scale mobile robot with a front camera only was achieved in a four-step process: Firstly, transfer learning was performed on the AlexNet, a popular pre-trained convolutional neural network (CNN). It was trained with 150 pictures of empty parking slots and 150 pictures of occupied parking slots from the view angle of a small-scale robot. The dataset of images was divided into a group of 70% images for training and the remaining 30% images for validation. An average success rate of 95% was achieved. Secondly, the image of detected empty parking space was processed with edge detection followed by the computation of parametric representations of the boundary lines using the Hough Transform algorithm. Thirdly, the positions of the entrance point and center of available parking space were predicted based on the robot kinematic model as the robot was driving closer to the parking space because the boundary lines disappeared partially or completely from its camera view due to the height and FOV limitations. The robot used its wheel speeds to compute the positions of the parking space with respect to its changing local frame as it moved along, based on its kinematic model. Lastly, the predicted entrance point of the parking space was used as the reference for the motion control of the robot until it was replaced by the actual center when it became visible again by the robot. The linear and angular velocities of the robot chassis center were computed based on the error between the current chassis center and the reference point. Then the left and right wheel speeds were obtained using inverse kinematics and sent to the motor driver. The above-mentioned four subtasks were all successfully accomplished, with the transformed learning, image processing, and target prediction performed in MATLAB, while the motion control and image capture conducted on a self-built small scale differential drive mobile robot. The small-scale robot employs a Raspberry Pi board, a Pi camera, an L298N dual H-bridge motor driver, a USB power module, a power bank, four wheels, and a chassis. Future research includes three areas: the integration of all four subsystems into one hardware/software platform with the upgrade to an Nvidia Jetson Nano board that provides superior performance for deep learning and image processing; more testing and validation on the identification of available parking space and its boundary lines; improvement of performance after the hardware/software integration is completed.

Keywords: autonomous parking, convolutional neural network, image processing, kinematics-based prediction, transfer learning

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Authors: Priyajeet Kaur Kaleka

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Introduction: A dentist is often the first responder in the battle for a patient’s healthy body and maybe the first health professional to observe signs of child abuse, be it physical, emotional, and/or sexual mistreatment. Therefore, it is an ethical responsibility for the dental clinician to detect and report suspected cases of child abuse and neglect (CAN). The main reasons for not reporting suspected cases of CAN, with special emphasis on the third: 1) Uncertainty of the diagnosis, 2) Lack of knowledge of the reporting procedure, and 3) Child abuse and neglect somewhat remained the subject of ignorance among dental professionals because of a lack of advance clinical training. Given these epidemic proportions, there is a scope of further research about dental school curriculum design. Purpose: This study aimed to assess the knowledge and attitude of dentists in Canada regarding signs and symptoms of child abuse and neglect (CAN), reporting procedures, and whether educational strategies followed by dental schools address this sensitive issue. In pursuit of that aim, this abstract summarizes the evidence related to this question. Materials and Methods: Data was collected through a specially designed questionnaire adapted and modified from the author’s previous cross-sectional study on (CAN), which was conducted in Pune, India, in 2016 and is available on the database of PubMed. Design: A random sample was drawn from the targeted population of registered dentists and dental students in Canada regarding their knowledge, professional responsibilities, and behavior concerning child abuse. Questionnaire data were distributed to 200 members. Out of which, a total number of 157 subjects were in the final sample for statistical analysis, yielding response of 78.5%. Results: Despite having theoretical information on signs and symptoms, 55% of the participants indicated they are not confident to detect child physical abuse cases. 90% of respondents believed that recognition and handling the CAN cases should be a part of undergraduate training. Only 4.5% of the participants have correctly identified all signs of abuse due to inadequate formal training in dental schools and workplaces. Although nearly 96.3% agreed that it is a dentist’s legal responsibility to report CAN, only a small percentage of the participants reported an abuse case in the past. While 72% stated that the most common factor that might prevent a dentist from reporting a case was doubt over the diagnosis. Conclusion: The goal is to motivate dental schools to deal with this critical issue and provide their students with consummate training to strengthen their capability to care for and protect children. The educational institutions should make efforts to spread awareness among dental students regarding the management and tackling of CAN. Clinical Significance: There should be modifications in the dental school curriculum focusing on problem-based learning models to assist graduates to fulfill their legal and professional responsibilities. CAN literacy should be incorporated into the dental curriculum, which will eventually benefit future dentists to break this intergenerational cycle of violence.

Keywords: abuse, child abuse and neglect, dentist knowledge, dental school curriculum, problem-based learning

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Authors: M. Regina Carreira-Lopez

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Lightweight ontologies seek to concrete union relationships between a parent node, and a secondary node, also called "child node". This logic relation (L) can be formally defined as a triple ontological relation (LO) equivalent to LO in ⟨LN, LE, LC⟩, and where LN represents a finite set of nodes (N); LE is a set of entities (E), each of which represents a relationship between nodes to form a rooted tree of ⟨LN, LE⟩; and LC is a finite set of concepts (C), encoded in a formal language (FL). Mondoc enables more refined searches on semantic and classified facets for retrieving specialized knowledge about Atlantic migrations, from the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America (1776) and to the end of the Spanish Civil War (1939). The model looks forward to increasing documentary relevance by applying an inverse frequency of co-ocurrent hypernymy phenomena for a concrete dataset of textual corpora, with RMySQL package. Mondoc profiles archival utilities implementing SQL programming code, and allows data export to XML schemas, for achieving semantic and faceted analysis of speech by analyzing keywords in context (KWIC). The methodology applies random and unrestricted sampling techniques with RMySQL to verify the resonance phenomena of inverse documentary relevance between the number of co-occurrences of the same term (t) in more than two documents of a set of texts (D). Secondly, the research also evidences co-associations between (t) and their corresponding synonyms and antonyms (synsets) are also inverse. The results from grouping facets or polysemic words with synsets in more than two textual corpora within their syntagmatic context (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.) state how to proceed with semantic indexing of hypernymy phenomena for subject-heading lists and for authority lists for documentary and archival purposes. Mondoc contributes to the development of web directories and seems to achieve a proper and more selective search of e-documents (classification ontology). It can also foster on-line catalogs production for semantic authorities, or concepts, through XML schemas, because its applications could be used for implementing data models, by a prior adaptation of the based-ontology to structured meta-languages, such as OWL, RDF (descriptive ontology). Mondoc serves to the classification of concepts and applies a semantic indexing approach of facets. It enables information retrieval, as well as quantitative and qualitative data interpretation. The model reproduces a triple tuple ⟨LN, LE, LT, LCF L, BKF⟩ where LN is a set of entities that connect with other nodes to concrete a rooted tree in ⟨LN, LE⟩. LT specifies a set of terms, and LCF acts as a finite set of concepts, encoded in a formal language, L. Mondoc only resolves partial problems of linguistic ambiguity (in case of synonymy and antonymy), but neither the pragmatic dimension of natural language nor the cognitive perspective is addressed. To achieve this goal, forthcoming programming developments should target at oriented meta-languages with structured documents in XML.

Keywords: hypernymy, information retrieval, lightweight ontology, resonance

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Authors: John Lachapelle

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Introduction: Neural stimulation is increasingly targeted toward treatment of back pain, PTSD, Parkinson’s disease, and for sensory perception. Sensory recording during stimulation is important in order to examine neural response to stimulation. Most neural amplifiers (headstages) focus on noise efficiency factor (NEF). Conversely, neural headstages need to handle artifacts from several sources including power lines, movement (EMG), and neural stimulation itself. In this work a layered approach to artifact rejection is used to reduce corruption of the neural ENG signal by 60dBv, resulting in recovery of sensory signals in rats and primates that would previously not be possible. Methods: The approach combines analog techniques to reduce and handle unwanted signal amplitudes. The methods include optimized (1) sensory electrode placement, (2) amplifier configuration, and (3) artifact blanking when necessary. The techniques together are like concentric moats protecting a castle; only the wanted neural signal can penetrate. There are two conditions in which the headstage operates: unwanted artifact < 50mV, linear operation, and artifact > 50mV, fast-settle gain reduction signal limiting (covered in more detail in a separate paper). Unwanted Signals at the headstage input: Consider: (a) EMG signals are by nature < 10mV. (b) 60 Hz power line signals may be > 50mV with poor electrode cable conditions; with careful routing much of the signal is common to both reference and active electrode and rejected in the differential amplifier with <50mV remaining. (c) An unwanted (to the neural recorder) stimulation signal is attenuated from stimulation to sensory electrode. The voltage seen at the sensory electrode can be modeled Φ_m=I_o/4πσr. For a 1 mA stimulation signal, with 1 cm spacing between electrodes, the signal is <20mV at the headstage. Headstage ASIC design: The front end ASIC design is designed to produce < 1% THD at 50mV input; 50 times higher than typical headstage ASICs, with no increase in noise floor. This requires careful balance of amplifier stages in the headstage ASIC, as well as consideration of the electrodes effect on noise. The ASIC is designed to allow extremely small signal extraction on low impedance (< 10kohm) electrodes with configuration of the headstage ASIC noise floor to < 700nV/rt-Hz. Smaller high impedance electrodes (> 100kohm) are typically located closer to neural sources and transduce higher amplitude signals (> 10uV); the ASIC low-power mode conserves power with 2uV/rt-Hz noise. Findings: The enhanced neural processing ASIC has been compared with a commercial neural recording amplifier IC. Chronically implanted primates at MGH demonstrated the presence of commercial neural amplifier saturation as a result of large environmental artifacts. The enhanced artifact suppression headstage ASIC, in the same setup, was able to recover and process the wanted neural signal separately from the suppressed unwanted artifacts. Separately, the enhanced artifact suppression headstage ASIC was able to separate sensory neural signals from unwanted artifacts in mouse-implanted peripheral intrafascicular electrodes. Conclusion: Optimizing headstage ASICs allow observation of neural signals in the presence of large artifacts that will be present in real-life implanted applications, and are targeted toward human implantation in the DARPA HAPTIX program.

Keywords: ASIC, biosensors, biomedical signal processing, biomedical sensors

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Authors: Ricardo Alberto Chiong Zevallos, Eduardo Moraes Rego Reis

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Pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patients have a less than 10% 5-year survival rate. PDAC has no defined diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. Gemcitabine is the first-line drug in PDAC and several other cancers. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) contribute to the tumorigenesis and are potential biomarkers for PDAC. Although lncRNAs aren’t translated into proteins, they have important functions. LncRNAs can decoy or recruit proteins from the epigenetic machinery, act as microRNA sponges, participate in protein translocation through different cellular compartments, and even promote chemoresistance. The chromatin remodeling enzyme EZH2 is a histone methyltransferase that catalyzes the methylation of histone 3 at lysine 27, silencing local expression. EZH2 is ambivalent, it can also activate gene expression independently of its histone methyltransferase activity. EZH2 is overexpressed in several cancers and interacts with lncRNAs, being recruited to a specific locus. EZH2 can be recruited to activate an oncogene or silence a tumor suppressor. The lncRNAs misregulation in cancer can result in the differential recruitment of EZH2 and in a distinct epigenetic landscape, promoting chemoresistance. The relevance of the EZH2-lncRNAs interaction to chemoresistant PDAC was assessed by Real Time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) and RNA Immunoprecipitation (RIP) experiments with naïve and gemcitabine-resistant PDAC cells. The expression of several lncRNAs and EZH2 gene targets was evaluated contrasting naïve and resistant cells. Selection of candidate genes was made by bioinformatic analysis and literature curation. Indeed, the resistant cell line showed higher expression of chemoresistant-associated lncRNAs and protein coding genes. RIP detected lncRNAs interacting with EZH2 with varying intensity levels in the cell lines. During RIP, the nuclear fraction of the cells was incubated with an antibody for EZH2 and with magnetic beads. The RNA precipitated with the beads-antibody-EZH2 complex was isolated and reverse transcribed. The presence of candidate lncRNAs was detected by RT-qPCR, and the enrichment was calculated relative to INPUT (total lysate control sample collected before RIP). The enrichment levels varied across the several lncRNAs and cell lines. The EZH2-lncRNA interaction might be responsible for the regulation of chemoresistance-associated genes in multiple cancers. The relevance of the lncRNA-EZH2 interaction to PDAC was assessed by siRNA knockdown of a lncRNA, followed by the analysis of the EZH2 target expression by RT-qPCR. The chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) of EZH2 and H3K27me3 followed by RT-qPCR with primers for EZH2 targets also assess the specificity of the EZH2 recruitment by the lncRNA. This is the first report of the interaction of EZH2 and lncRNAs HOTTIP and PVT1 in chemoresistant PDAC. HOTTIP and PVT1 were described as promoting chemoresistance in several cancers, but the role of EZH2 is not clarified. For the first time, the lncRNA LINC01133 was detected in a chemoresistant cancer. The interaction of EZH2 with LINC02577, LINC00920, LINC00941, and LINC01559 have never been reported in any context. The novel lncRNAs-EZH2 interactions regulate chemoresistant-associated genes in PDAC and might be relevant to other cancers. Therapies targeting EZH2 alone weren’t successful, and a combinatorial approach also targeting the lncRNAs interacting with it might be key to overcome chemoresistance in several cancers.

Keywords: epigenetics, chemoresistance, long non-coding RNAs, pancreatic cancer, histone modification

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Authors: Omer Leshem, Michael F. Schober

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This paper introduces a new method for assessing how audience members and performers feel and think during live concerts, and how audience members' recognized and felt emotions are related. Two hypotheses were tested in a live concert setting: (1) that audience members’ cognitive perspective taking ability predicts their accuracy in identifying an emotion that a jazz improviser intended to express during a performance, and (2) that audience members' affective empathy predicts their likelihood of feeling the same emotions as the performer. The aim was to stage a concert with audience members who regularly attend live jazz performances, and to measure their cognitive and affective reactions during the performance as non-intrusively as possible. Pianist and Grammy nominee Andy Milne agreed, without knowing details of the method or hypotheses, to perform a full-length solo improvised concert that would include an ‘unusual’ piece. Jazz fans were recruited through typical advertising for New York City jazz performances. The event was held at the New School’s Glass Box Theater, the home of leading NYC jazz venue ‘The Stone.’ Audience members were charged typical NYC jazz club admission prices; advertisements informed them that anyone who chose to participate in the study would be reimbursed their ticket price after the concert. The concert, held in April 2018, had 30 attendees, 23 of whom participated in the study. Twenty-two minutes into the concert, the performer was handed a paper note with the instruction: ‘Perform a 3-5-minute improvised piece with the intention of conveying sadness.’ (Sadness was chosen based on previous music cognition lab studies, where solo listeners were less likely to select sadness as the musically-expressed emotion accurately from a list of basic emotions, and more likely to misinterpret sadness as tenderness). Then, audience members and the performer were invited to respond to a questionnaire from a first envelope under their seat. Participants used their own words to describe the emotion the performer had intended to express, and then to select the intended emotion from a list. They also reported the emotions they had felt while listening using Izard’s differential emotions scale. The concert then continued as usual. At the end, participants answered demographic questions and Davis’ interpersonal reactivity index (IRI), a 28-item scale designed to assess both cognitive and affective empathy. Hypothesis 1 was supported: audience members with greater cognitive empathy were more likely to accurately identify sadness as the expressed emotion. Moreover, audience members who accurately selected ‘sadness’ reported feeling marginally sadder than people who did not select sadness. Hypotheses 2 was not supported; audience members with greater affective empathy were not more likely to feel the same emotions as the performer. If anything, members with lower cognitive perspective-taking ability had marginally greater emotional overlap with the performer, which makes sense given that these participants were less likely to identify the music as sad, which corresponded with the performer’s actual feelings. Results replicate findings from solo lab studies in a concert setting and demonstrate the viability of exploring empathy and collective cognition in improvised live performance.

Keywords: audience, cognition, collective cognition, emotion, empathy, expressed emotion, felt emotion, improvisation, live performance, recognized emotion

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Authors: Tatiana Rizova

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The migrant crisis, which peaked in 2015-2016, posed an unprecedented challenge to the European Union’s (EU) newest member states, including Bulgaria and Hungary. Their governments had to formulate sound migration policies with expediency and sensitivity to the needs of millions of people fleeing violent conflicts in the Middle East and failed states in North Africa. Political leaders in post-communist countries had to carefully coordinate with other EU member states on joint policies and solutions while minimizing the risk of alienating their increasingly anti-migrant domestic constituents. Post-communist member states’ governments chose distinct policy responses to the crisis, which were dictated by factors such as their governments’ partisan stances on migration, their views of the European Union, and the decision to frame the crisis as a security or a humanitarian issue. This paper explores how two Bulgarian governments (Boyko Borisov’s second and third government formed during the 43rd and 44th Bulgarian National Assembly, respectively) navigated the processes of EU migration policy making and managing the expectations of their electorates. Based on a comparative analysis of refugee policies in Bulgaria and Hungary during the height of the crisis (2015-2016) and a temporal analysis of refugee policies in Bulgaria (2015-2018), the paper advances the following conclusions. Drawing on insights of the Copenhagen school of security studies, the paper argues that cultural concerns dominated domestic debates in both Bulgaria and Hungary; both governments framed the issue predominantly as a matter of security rather than humanitarian disaster. Regardless of the similarities in issue framing, however, the two governments sought different paths of tackling the crisis. While the Bulgarian government demonstrated its willingness to comply with EU decisions (such as the proposal for mandatory quotas for refugee relocation), the Hungarian government defied EU directives and became a leading voice of dissent inside the EU. The current Bulgarian government (April 2017 - present) appears to be committed to complying with EU decisions and accepts the strategy of EU burden-sharing, while the Hungarian government has continually snubbed the EU’s appeals for cooperation despite the risk of hefty financial penalties. Hungary’s refugee policies have been influenced by the parliamentary representation of the far right-wing party Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik), which has encouraged the majority party (FIDESZ) to adopt harsher anti-migrant rhetoric and more hostile policies toward refugees. Bulgaria’s current government is a coalition of the center-right Citizens for a European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) and its far right-wing junior partners – the United Patriots (comprised of three nationalist political parties). The parliamentary presence of Jobbik in Hungary’s parliament has magnified the anti-migrant stance, rhetoric, and policies of Mr. Orbán’s Civic Alliance; we have yet to observe a substantial increase in the anti-migrant rhetoric and policies in Bulgaria’s case. Analyzing responses to the migrant/refugee crisis is a critical opportunity to understand how issues of cultural identity and belonging, inclusion and exclusion, regional integration and disintegration are debated and molded into policy in Europe’s youngest member states in the broader EU context.

Keywords: Copenhagen School, migrant crisis, refugees, security

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Authors: Fouzia Khanam, Belal Hossain, Kaosar Afsana, Mahfuzar Rahman

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Aim: Although cardiovascular diseases (CVD) has already been recognized as a major cause of death in developed countries, its prevalence is rising in developing countries as well, and engendering a challenge for the health sector. Bangladesh has experienced an epidemiological transition from communicable to non-communicable diseases over the last few decades. So, the rising prevalence of CVD and its risk factors are imposing a major problem for the country. We aimed to examine the prevalence of CVDs and socioeconomic and lifestyle factors related to it from a population-based survey. Methods: The data used for this study were collected as a part of a large-scale cross-sectional study conducted to explore the overall health status of children, mothers and senior citizens of Bangladesh. Multistage cluster random sampling procedure was applied by considering unions as clusters and households as the primary sampling unit to select a total of 11,428 households for the base survey. Present analysis encompassed 12338 respondents of ≥ 35 years, selected from both rural areas and urban slums of the country. Socio-economic, demographic and lifestyle information were obtained through individual by a face-to-face interview which was noted in ODK platform. And height, weight, blood pressure and glycosuria were measured using standardized methods. Chi-square test, Univariate modified Poisson regression model, and multivariate modified Poisson regression model were done using STATA software (version 13.0) for analysis. Results: Overall, the prevalence of CVD was 4.51%, of which 1.78% had stroke and 3.17% suffered from heart diseases. Male had higher prevalence of stroke (2.20%) than their counterparts (1.37%). Notably, thirty percent of respondents had high blood pressure and 5% population had diabetes and more than half of the population was pre-hypertensive. Additionally, 20% were overweight, 77% were smoker or consumed smokeless tobacco and 28% of respondents were physically inactive. Eighty-two percent of respondents took extra salt while eating and 29% of respondents had deprived sleep. Furthermore, the prevalence of risk factor of CVD varied according to gender. Women had a higher prevalence of overweight, obesity and diabetes. Women were also less physically active compared to men and took more extra salt. Smoking was lower in women compared to men. Moreover, women slept less compared to their counterpart. After adjusting confounders in modified Poisson regression model, age, gender, occupation, wealth quintile, BMI, extra salt intake, daily sleep, tiredness, diabetes, and hypertension remained as risk factors for CVD. Conclusion: The prevalence of CVD is significant in Bangladesh, and there is an evidence of rising trend for its risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes especially in older population, women and high-income groups. Therefore, in this current epidemiological transition, immediate public health intervention is warranted to address the overwhelming CVD risk.

Keywords: cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, hypertension, stroke

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Authors: Adriana Haulica

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Powered by Machine Learning, Precise medicine is tailored by now to use genetic and molecular profiling, with the aim of optimizing the therapeutic benefits for cohorts of patients. As the majority of Machine Language algorithms come from heuristics, the outputs have contextual validity. This is not very restrictive in the sense that medicine itself is not an exact science. Meanwhile, the progress made in Molecular Biology, Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Precise Medicine, correlated with the huge amount of human biology data and the increase in computational power, opens new healthcare challenges. A more accurate diagnosis is needed along with real-time treatments by processing as much as possible from the available information. The purpose of this paper is to present a deeper vision for the future of Artificial Intelligence in Precise medicine. In fact, actual Machine Learning algorithms use standard mathematical knowledge, mostly Euclidian metrics and standard computation rules. The loss of information arising from the classical methods prevents obtaining 100% evidence on the diagnosis process. To overcome these problems, we introduce MEDICOMPILLS, a new architectural concept tool of information processing in Precise medicine that delivers diagnosis and therapy advice. This tool processes poly-field digital resources: global knowledge related to biomedicine in a direct or indirect manner but also technical databases, Natural Language Processing algorithms, and strong class optimization functions. As the name suggests, the heart of this tool is a compiler. The approach is completely new, tailored for omics and clinical data. Firstly, the intrinsic biological intuition is different from the well-known “a needle in a haystack” approach usually used when Machine Learning algorithms have to process differential genomic or molecular data to find biomarkers. Also, even if the input is seized from various types of data, the working engine inside the MEDICOMPILLS does not search for patterns as an integrative tool. This approach deciphers the biological meaning of input data up to the metabolic and physiologic mechanisms, based on a compiler with grammars issued from bio-algebra-inspired mathematics. It translates input data into bio-semantic units with the help of contextual information iteratively until Bio-Logical operations can be performed on the base of the “common denominator “rule. The rigorousness of MEDICOMPILLS comes from the structure of the contextual information on functions, built to be analogous to mathematical “proofs”. The major impact of this architecture is expressed by the high accuracy of the diagnosis. Detected as a multiple conditions diagnostic, constituted by some main diseases along with unhealthy biological states, this format is highly suitable for therapy proposal and disease prevention. The use of MEDICOMPILLS architecture is highly beneficial for the healthcare industry. The expectation is to generate a strategic trend in Precise medicine, making medicine more like an exact science and reducing the considerable risk of errors in diagnostics and therapies. The tool can be used by pharmaceutical laboratories for the discovery of new cures. It will also contribute to better design of clinical trials and speed them up.

Keywords: bio-semantic units, multiple conditions diagnosis, NLP, omics

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Authors: Abha Gupta, Deepak K. Mishra

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Food security issue in India has surrounded over availability and accessibility of cereal which is regarded as the only food group to check hunger and improve nutrition. Significance of fruits, vegetables, meat and other food products have totally been neglected given the fact that they provide essential nutrients to the body. There is a need to shift the emphasis from cereal-based approach to a more diverse diet so that aim of achieving food security may change from just reducing hunger to an overall health. This paper attempts to analyse how far dietary diversity level has been achieved across different socio-economic groups in India. For this purpose, present paper sets objectives to determine (a) percentage share of different food groups to total food expenditure and consumption by background characteristics (b) source of and preference for all food items and, (c) diversity of diet across socio-economic groups. A cross sectional survey covering 304 households selected through proportional stratified random sampling was conducted in six villages of Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh, India. Information on amount of food consumed, source of consumption and expenditure on food (74 food items grouped into 10 major food groups) was collected with a recall period of seven days. Per capita per day food consumption/expenditure was calculated through dividing consumption/expenditure by household size and number seven. Food variety score was estimated by giving 0 values to those food groups/items which had not been eaten and 1 to those which had been taken by households in last seven days. Addition of all food group/item score gave result of food variety score. Diversity of diet was computed using Herfindahl-Hirschman index. Findings of the paper show that cereal, milk, roots and tuber food groups contribute a major share in total consumption/expenditure. Consumption of these food groups vary across socio-economic groups whereas fruit, vegetables, meat and other food consumption remain low and same. Estimation of dietary diversity show higher concentration of diet due to higher consumption of cereals, milk, root and tuber products and dietary diversity slightly varies across background groups. Muslims, Scheduled caste, small farmers, lower income class, food insecure, below poverty line and labour families show higher concentration of diet as compared to their counterpart groups. These groups also evince lower mean intake of number of food item in a week due to poor economic constraints and resultant lower accessibility to number of expensive food items. Results advocate to make a shift from cereal based diet to dietary diversity which not only includes cereal and milk products but also nutrition rich food items such as fruits, vegetables, meat and other products. Integrating a dietary diversity approach in food security programmes of the country would help to achieve nutrition security as hidden hunger is widespread among the Indian population.

Keywords: dietary diversity, food Security, India, socio-economic groups

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Authors: Iñaki Iturria, Pasquale Russo, Montserrat Nacher-Vázquez, Giuseppe Spano, Paloma López, Miguel Angel Pardo

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Introduction: It is known that some Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) present an interesting probiotic effect. Probiotic bacteria stimulate host resistance to microbial pathogens and thereby aid in immune response, and modulate the host's immune responses to antigens with a potential to down-regulate hypersensitivity reactions. Therefore, probiotic therapy is valuable against intestinal infections and may be beneficial in the treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Several in vitro tests are available to evaluate the probiotic potential of a LAB strain. However, an in vivo model is required to understand the interaction between the host immune system and the bacteria. During the last few years, zebrafish (Danio rerio) has gained interest as a promising vertebrate model in this field. This organism has been extensively used to study the interaction between the host and the microbiota, as well as the host immune response under several microbial infections. In this work, we report on the use of the zebrafish model to investigate in vivo the colonizing ability and the immunomodulatory effect of probiotic LAB. Methods: Lactobacillus strains belonging to different LAB species were fluorescently tagged and used to colonize germ-free zebrafish larvae gastrointestinal tract (GIT). Some of the strains had a well-documented probiotic effect (L. acidophilus LA5); while others presented an exopolysaccharide (EPS) producing phenotype, thus allowing evaluating the influence of EPS in the colonization and immunomodulatory effect. Bacteria colonization was monitored for 72 h by direct observation in real time using fluorescent microscopy. CFU count per larva was also evaluated at different times. The immunomodulatory effect was assessed analysing the differential expression of several innate immune system genes (MyD88, NF-κB, Tlr4, Il1β and Il10) by qRT- PCR. The anti-inflammatory effect was evaluated using a chemical enterocolitis zebrafish model. The protective effect against a pathogen was also studied. To that end, a challenge test was developed using a fluorescently tagged pathogen (Vibrio anguillarum-GFP+). The progression of the infection was monitored up to 3 days using a fluorescent stereomicroscope. Mortality rates and CFU counts were also registered. Results and conclusions: Larvae exposed to EPS-producing bacteria showed a higher fluorescence and CFU count than those colonized with no-EPS phenotype LAB. In the same way, qRT-PCR results revealed an immunomodulatory effect on the host after the administration of the strains with probiotic activity. A downregulation of proinflammatory cytoquines as well as other cellular mediators of inflammation was observed. The anti-inflammatory effect was found to be particularly marked following exposure to LA% strain, as well as EPS producing strains. Furthermore, the challenge test revealed a protective effect of probiotic administration. As a matter of fact, larvae fed with probiotics showed a decrease in the mortality rate ranging from 20 to 35%. Discussion: In this work, we developed a promising model, based on the use of gnotobiotic zebrafish coupled with a bacterial fluorescent tagging in order to evaluate the probiotic potential of different LAB strains. We have successfully used this system to monitor in real time the colonization and persistence of exogenous LAB within the gut of zebrafish larvae, to evaluate their immunomodulatory effect and for in vivo competition assays. This approach could bring further insights into the complex microbial-host interactions at intestinal level.

Keywords: gnotobiotic, immune system, lactic acid bacteria, probiotics, zebrafish

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Authors: Danyi Wang, Andrew Schriefer, Dennis O'Rourke, Brajendra Kumar, Yang Liu, Fei Zhong, Juergen Scheuenpflug, Zheng Feng

Abstract:

Purpose: It has been recognized that the microbiome plays critical roles in disease pathogenesis, including cancer, autoimmune disease, and multiple sclerosis. To develop a clinical-grade assay for exploring microbiome-derived clinical biomarkers across disease areas, a two-phase approach is implemented. 1) Identification of the optimal sample preparation reagents using pre-mixed bacteria and healthy donor stool samples coupled with proprietary Sigma-Aldrich® bioinformatics solution. 2) Exploratory analysis of patient samples for enabling precision medicine. Study Procedure: In phase 1 study, we first compared the 16S sequencing results of two ATCC® microbiome standards (MSA 2002 and MSA 2003) across five different extraction kits (Kit A, B, C, D & E). Both microbiome standards samples were extracted in triplicate across all extraction kits. Following isolation, DNA quantity was determined by Qubit assay. DNA quality was assessed to determine purity and to confirm extracted DNA is of high molecular weight. Bacterial 16S ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) amplicons were generated via amplification of the V3/V4 hypervariable region of the 16S rRNA. Sequencing was performed using a 2x300 bp paired-end configuration on the Illumina MiSeq. Fastq files were analyzed using the Sigma-Aldrich® Microbiome Platform. The Microbiome Platform is a cloud-based service that offers best-in-class 16S-seq and WGS analysis pipelines and databases. The Platform and its methods have been extensively benchmarked using microbiome standards generated internally by MilliporeSigma and other external providers. Data Summary: The DNA yield using the extraction kit D and E is below the limit of detection (100 pg/µl) of Qubit assay as both extraction kits are intended for samples with low bacterial counts. The pre-mixed bacterial pellets at high concentrations with an input of 2 x106 cells for MSA-2002 and 1 x106 cells from MSA-2003 were not compatible with the kits. Among the remaining 3 extraction kits, kit A produced the greatest yield whereas kit B provided the least yield (Kit-A/MSA-2002: 174.25 ± 34.98; Kit-A/MSA-2003: 179.89 ± 30.18; Kit-B/MSA-2002: 27.86 ± 9.35; Kit-B/MSA-2003: 23.14 ± 6.39; Kit-C/MSA-2002: 55.19 ± 10.18; Kit-C/MSA-2003: 35.80 ± 11.41 (Mean ± SD)). Also, kit A produced the greatest yield, whereas kit B provided the least yield. The PCoA 3D visualization of the Weighted Unifrac beta diversity shows that kits A and C cluster closely together while kit B appears as an outlier. The kit A sequencing samples cluster more closely together than both the other kits. The taxonomic profiles of kit B have lower recall when compared to the known mixture profiles indicating that kit B was inefficient at detecting some of the bacteria. Conclusion: Our data demonstrated that the DNA extraction method impacts DNA concentration, purity, and microbial communities detected by next-generation sequencing analysis. Further microbiome analysis performance comparison of using healthy stool samples is underway; also, colorectal cancer patients' samples will be acquired for further explore the clinical utilities. Collectively, our comprehensive qualification approach, including the evaluation of optimal DNA extraction conditions, the inclusion of positive controls, and the implementation of a robust qualified bioinformatics pipeline, assures accurate characterization of the microbiota in a complex matrix for deciphering the deep biology and enabling precision medicine.

Keywords: 16S rRNA sequencing, analytical validation, bioinformatics pipeline, metagenomics

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Authors: E. Tan, O. McKay, T. Clarnette T., D. Croagh

Abstract:

Background: Historically with pancreatic trauma, complete disruption of the main pancreatic duct (MPD), classified as Grade IV-V by the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST), necessitated a damage-control laparotomy. This was to avoid mortality, shorten diet upgrade timeframe, and hence shorter length of stay. However, acute pancreatic resection entailed complications of pancreatic fistulas and leaks. With the advance of imaging-guided interventions, non-operative management such as percutaneous and transpapillary drainage of traumatic peripancreatic collections have been trialled favourably. The aim of this case series is to evaluate the efficacy of endoscopic ultrasound-guided (EUS) transmural drainage in managing traumatic peripancreatic collections as a less invasive alternative to traditional approaches. This study also highlights the importance of anatomical knowledge regarding peripancreatic collection’s common location in the lesser sac, the pancreas relationship to adjacent organs, and the formation of the main pancreatic duct in regards to the feasibility of therapeutic internal drainage. Methodology: A retrospective case series was conducted at a single tertiary endoscopy unit, analysing patient data over a 5-year period. Inclusion criteria outlined patients age 5 to 80-years-old, traumatic pancreatic injury of at least Grade IV and haemodynamic stability. Exclusion criteria involved previous episodes of pancreatitis or abdominal trauma. Patient demographics and clinicopathological characteristics were retrospectively collected. Results: The study identified 7 patients with traumatic pancreatic injuries that were managed from 2018-2022; age ranging from 5 to 34 years old, with majority being female (n=5). Majority of the mechanisms of trauma were a handlebar injury (n=4). Diagnosis was confirmed with an elevated lipase and computerized tomotography (CT) confirmation of proximal pancreatic transection with MPD disruption. All patients sustained an isolated single organ grade IV pancreatic injury, except case 4 and 5 with other intra-abdominal visceral Grade 1 injuries. 6 patients underwent early ERCP-guided transpapillary drainage with 1 being unsuccessful for pancreatic duct stent insertion (case 1) and 1 complication of stent migration (case 2). Surveillance imaging post ERCP showed the stents were unable to bridge the disrupted duct and development of symptomatic collections with an average size of 9.9cm. Hence, all patients proceeded to EUS-guided transmural drainage, with 2/7 patients requiring repeat drainages (case 6 and 7). Majority (n=6) had a cystogastrostomy, whilst 1 (case 6) had a cystoenterostomy due to feasibility of the peripancreatic collection being adjacent to duodenum rather than stomach. However, case 6 subsequently required repeat EUS-guided drainage with cystogastrostomy for ongoing collections. Hence all patients avoided initial laparotomy with an average index length of stay of 11.7 days. Successful transmural drainage was demonstrated, with no long-term complications of pancreatic insufficiency; except for 1 patient requiring a distal pancreatectomy at 2 year follow-up due to chronic pain. Conclusion: The early results of this series support EUS-guided transmural drainage as a viable management option for traumatic peripancreatic collections, showcasing successful outcomes, minimal complications, and long-term efficacy in avoiding surgical interventions. More studies are required before the adoption of this procedure as a less invasive and complication-prone management approach for traumatic peripancreatic collections.

Keywords: endoscopic ultrasound, cystogastrostomy, pancreatic trauma, traumatic peripancreatic collection, transmural drainage

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Authors: Mohammed S. Razali, Kamel Khimeche, Dahah Hichem, Ammar Boudjellal, Djamel E. Kaderi, Nourddine Ramdani

Abstract:

The use of additive manufacturing technologies has revolutionized various aspects of our daily lives. In particular, 3D printing has greatly advanced biomedical applications. While fused filament fabrication (FFF) technologies have made it easy to produce or prototype various medical devices, it is crucial to minimize the risk of contamination. New materials with antibacterial properties, such as those containing compounded silver nanoparticles, have emerged on the market. In a previous study, we prepared a newly sintered seashell filler (SSh) from bio-based seashells found along the Mediterranean coast using a suitable heat treatment process. We then prepared a series of polylactic acid (PLA) and polybutylene succinate (PBS) biocomposites filled with these SSh particles using a melt mixing technique with a twin-screw extruder to use them as feedstock filaments for 3D printing. The study consisted of two parts: evaluating the antibacterial activity of newly prepared biocomposites made of PLA and PBS reinforced with a sintered seashell in the first part and experimental and modeling analysis of the non-isothermal crystallization kinetics of these biocomposites in the second part. In the first part, the bactericidal activity of the biocomposites against three different bacteria, including Gram-negative bacteria such as (E. coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa), as well as Gram-positive bacteria such as (Staphylococcus aureus), was examined. The PLA-based biocomposite containing 20 wt.% of SSh particles exhibited an inhibition zone with radial diameters of 8mm and 6mm against E. coli and Pseudo. Au, respectively, while no bacterial activity was observed against Staphylococcus aureus. In the second part, the focus was on investigating the effect of the sintered seashell filler particles on the non-isothermal crystallization kinetics of PLA and PBS 3D-printing composite materials. The objective was to understand the impact of the filler particles on the crystallization mechanism of both PLA and PBS during the cooling process of a melt-extruded filament in (FFF) to manage the dimensional accuracy and mechanical properties of the final printed part. We conducted a non-isothermal melt crystallization kinetic study of a series of PLA-SS and PBS-SS composites using differential scanning calorimetry at various cooling rates. We analyzed the obtained kinetic data using different crystallization kinetic models such as modified Avrami, Ozawa, and Mo's methods. Dynamic mode describes the relative crystallinity as a function of temperature; it found that time half crystallinity (t1/2) of neat PLA decreased from 17 min to 7.3 min for PLA+5 SSh and the (t1/2) of virgin PBS was reduced from 3.5 min to 2.8 min for the composite containing 5wt.% of SSh. We found that the coated SS particles with stearic acid acted as nucleating agents and had a nucleation activity, as observed through polarized optical microscopy. Moreover, we evaluated the effective energy barrier of the non-isothermal crystallization process using the Iso conversional methods of Flynn-Wall-Ozawa (F-W-O) and Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose (K-A-S). The study provides significant insights into the crystallization behavior of PLA and PBS biocomposites.

Keywords: avrami model, bio-based reinforcement, dsc, gram-negative bacteria, gram-positive bacteria, isoconversional methods, non-isothermal crystallization kinetics, poly(butylene succinate), poly(lactic acid), antbactirial activity

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Authors: Hannah R. Devens, Phillip L. Davidson, Dione Deaker, Kathryn E. Smith, Gregory A. Wray, Maria Byrne

Abstract:

Marine invertebrate species with calcifying larvae are especially vulnerable to ocean acidification (OA) caused by rising atmospheric CO₂ levels. Acidic conditions can delay development, suppress metabolism, and decrease the availability of carbonate ions in the ocean environment for skeletogenesis. These stresses often result in increased larval mortality, which may lead to significant ecological consequences including alterations to the larval settlement, population distribution, and genetic connectivity. Importantly, many of these physiological and developmental effects are caused by genetic and molecular level changes. Although many studies have examined the effect of near-future oceanic pH levels on gene expression in marine invertebrates, little is known about the impact of OA on gene expression in a developmental context. Here, we performed mRNA-sequencing to investigate the impact of environmental acidity on gene expression across three developmental stages in the sea urchin Heliocidaris erythrogramma. We collected RNA from gastrula, early larva, and 1-day post-metamorphic juvenile sea urchins cultured at present-day and predicted future oceanic pH levels (pH 8.1 and 7.7, respectively). We assembled an annotated reference transcriptome encompassing development from egg to ten days post-metamorphosis by combining these data with datasets from two previous developmental transcriptomic studies of H. erythrogramma. Differential gene expression and time course analyses between pH conditions revealed significant alterations to developmental transcription that are potentially associated with pH stress. Consistent with previous investigations, genes involved in biomineralization and ion transport were significantly upregulated under acidic conditions. Differences in gene expression between the two pH conditions became more pronounced post-metamorphosis, suggesting a development-dependent effect of OA on gene expression. Furthermore, many differences in gene expression later in development appeared to be a result of broad downregulation at pH 7.7: of 539 genes differentially expressed at the juvenile stage, 519 of these were lower in the acidic condition. Time course comparisons between pH 8.1 and 7.7 samples also demonstrated over 500 genes were more lowly expressed in pH 7.7 samples throughout development. Of the genes exhibiting stage-dependent expression level changes, over 15% of these diverged from the expected temporal pattern of expression in the acidic condition. Through these analyses, we identify novel candidate genes involved in development, metabolism, and transcriptional regulation that are possibly affected by pH stress. Our results demonstrate that pH stress significantly alters gene expression dynamics throughout development. A large number of genes differentially expressed between pH conditions in juveniles relative to earlier stages may be attributed to the effects of acidity on transcriptional regulation, as a greater proportion of mRNA at this later stage has been nascent transcribed rather than maternally loaded. Also, the overall downregulation of many genes in the acidic condition suggests that OA-induced developmental delay manifests as suppressed mRNA expression, possibly from lower transcription rates or increased mRNA degradation in the acidic environment. Further studies will be necessary to determine in greater detail the extent of OA effects on early developing marine invertebrates.

Keywords: development, gene expression, ocean acidification, RNA-sequencing, sea urchins

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Authors: Banu Pradheepa Kamarajan, Muthusamy Ananthasubramanian

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Biofilm forming Pseudomonads occupy the top third position in causing hospital acquired infections. P. aeruginosa is notoriously known for its tendency to develop drug resistance. Major classes of drug such as β-lactams, aminoglycosides, quinolones, and polymyxins are found ineffective against multi-drug resistance Pseudomonas. To combat the infections, rather than administration of a single antibiotic, use of combinations (tobramycin and essential oils from plants and/or silver nanoparticles, chitosan, nitric oxide, cis-2-decenoic acid) in single formulation are suggested to control P. aeruginosa biofilms. Conventional techniques to prevent hospital-acquired implant infections such as coatings with antibiotics, controlled release of antibiotics from the implant material, contact-killing surfaces, coating the implants with functional DNase I and, coating with glycoside hydrolase are being followed. Coatings with bioactive components besides having limited shelf-life, require cold-chain and, are likely to fail when bacteria develop resistance. Recently identified nano-scale physical architectures on the insect wings are expected to have potential bactericidal property. Nanopillars are bactericidal to Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, K. pnuemoniae and few species of Pseudomonas. Our study aims to investigate the survival rate of biofilm forming Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain over non-biofilm forming strain on the nanopillar architecture of dragonfly (Pantala flavescens) wing. Dragonflies were collected near house-hold areas and, insect identification was carried out by the Department of Entomology, Tamilnadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India. Two strains of P. aeruginosa such as PAO1 (potent biofilm former) and MTCC 1688 (non-weak biofilm former) were tested against the glass coverslip (control) and wings of dragonfly (test) for 48 h. The wings/glass coverslips were incubated with bacterial suspension in 48-well plate. The plates were incubated at 37 °C under static condition. Bacterial attachment on the nanopillar architecture of the wing surface was visualized using FESEM. The survival rate of P. aeruginosa was tested using colony counting technique and flow cytometry at 0.5 h, 1 h, 2 h, 7 h, 24 h, and 48 h post-incubation. Cell death was analyzed using propidium iodide staining and DNA quantification. The results indicated that the survival rate of non-biofilm forming P. aeruginosa is 0.2 %, whilst that of biofilm former is 45 % on the dragonfly wings at the end of 48 h. The reduction in the survival rate of biofilm and non-biofilm forming P. aeruginosa was 20% and 40% respectively on the wings compared to the glass coverslip. In addition, Fourier Transformed Infrared Radiation was used to study the modification in the surface chemical composition of the wing during bacterial attachment and, post-sonication. This result indicated that the chemical moieties are not involved in the bactericidal property of nanopillars by the conserved characteristic peaks of chitin pre and post-sonication. The nanopillar architecture of the dragonfly wing efficiently deters the survival of non-biofilm forming P. aeruginosa, but not the biofilm forming strain. The study highlights the ability of biofilm formers to survive on wing architecture. Understanding this survival strategy will help in designing the architecture that combats the colonization of biofilm forming pathogens.

Keywords: biofilm, nanopillars, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, survival rate

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Authors: Pippa Sipanoun, Jo Wray, Kate Oulton, Faith Gibson

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Background: With rapidly evolving digital health innovation, there is a need for digital health transformation that is accessible and sustainable, that demonstrates utility for all stakeholders while maintaining data safety. Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children aimed to future-proof the hospital by transitioning to an electronic patient record (EPR) system with a tethered patient portal (MyGOSH) in April 2019. MyGOSH patient portal enables patients 12 years or older (with their parent's consent) to access their digital health data. This includes access to results, documentation, and appointments that facilitate communication with their care team. As part of the Going Digital Study conducted between 2018-2021, data were collected from a sample of all relevant stakeholders before and after EPR and MyGOSH implementation. Data collection reach was wide and included the hospital legal and ethics teams. Aims: This study aims to understand the ethical and legal implications of young people and their parents accessing their digital health data. Methods: A focus group was conducted. Recruited participants were members of the Great Ormond Street Hospital Paediatric Bioethics Centre. Participants included expert and lay members from the Committee from a variety of professional or academic disciplines. Written informed consent was provided by all participants (n=7). The focus group was recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: Six themes were identified: access, competence and capacity - granting access to the system; inequalities in access resulting in inequities; burden, uncertainty and responding to change - managing expectations; documenting, risks and data safety; engagement, empowerment and understanding – how to use and manage personal information; legal considerations and obligations. Discussion: If healthcare professionals are to empower young people to be more engaged in their care, the importance of including them in decisions about their health is paramount, especially when they are approaching the age of becoming the consenter for treatment. Complexities exist in assessing competence or capacity when granting system access, when disclosing sensitive information, and maintaining confidentiality. Difficulties are also present in managing clinician burden, managing user expectations whilst providing an equitable service, and data management that meets professional and legal requirements. Conclusion: EPR and tethered-portal implementation at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children was not only timely, due to the need for a rapid transition to remote consultations during the COVID-19 pandemic, which would not have been possible had EPR/MyGOSH not been implemented, but also integral to the digital health revolution required in healthcare today. This study is highly relevant in understanding the complexities around young people and their parents accessing their digital health data and, although the focus of this research related to portal use and access, the findings translate to young people in the wider digital health context. Ongoing support is required for all relevant stakeholders following MyGOSH patient portal implementation to navigate the ethical and legal complexities. Continued commitment is needed to balance the benefits and burdens, promote inclusion and equity, and ensure portal utility for patient benefit, whilst maintaining an individualized approach to care.

Keywords: patient portal, young people and their parents, ethical, legal

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