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The quantum sensing abilities of nanodiamonds can be used to improve the sensitivity of paper-based diagnostic tests, potentially allowing for earlier detection of diseases such as HIV, according to a study led by UCL researchers in the i-sense McKendry group.

Paper-based lateral flow tests work the same way as a pregnancy test in that a strip of paper is soaked in a fluid sample and a change in colour - or fluorescent signal - indicates a positive result and the detection of virus proteins or DNA. They are widely used to detect viruses ranging from HIV to SARS-CoV-2 (lateral flow tests for Covid-19 are currently being piloted across England) and can provide a rapid diagnosis, as the results do not have to be processed in a lab.

The new research, published in Nature, found that low-cost nanodiamonds could be used to signal the presence of an HIV disease marker with a sensitivity many thousands of times greater than the gold nanoparticles widely used in these tests.

This greater sensitivity allows lower viral loads to be detected, meaning the test could pick up lower levels of disease or detect the disease at an earlier stage, which is crucial for reducing transmission risk of infected individuals and for effective treatment of diseases such as HIV.

The research team are working on adapting the new technology to test for COVID-19 and other diseases over the coming months. A key next step is to develop a hand-held device that can "read" the results, as the technique was demonstrated using a microscope in a laboratory. Further clinical evaluation studies are also planned.

Lead author Professor Rachel McKendry, Professor of Biomedical Nanotechnology at UCL and Director of i-sense EPSRC IRC, said: "Our proof-of-concept study shows how quantum technologies can be used to detect ultralow levels of virus in a patient sample, enabling much earlier diagnosis.

"We have focused on the detection of HIV, but our approach is very flexible and can be easily adapted to other diseases and biomarker types. We are working on adapting our approach to COVID-19. We believe that this transformative new technology will benefit patients and protect populations from infectious diseases."

The researchers made use of the quantum properties of nanodiamonds manufactured with a precise imperfection. This defect in the highly regular structure of a diamond creates what is called a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre. NV centres have many potential applications, from fluorescent biomarking for use in ultra-sensitive imaging to information processing qubits in quantum computing.

The NV centres can signal the presence of an antigen or other target molecule by emitting a bright fluorescent light. In the past, fluorescent markers have been limited by background fluorescence, either from the sample or the test strip, making it harder to detect low concentrations of virus proteins or DNA that would indicate a positive test. However, the quantum properties of fluorescent nanodiamonds allow their emission to be selectively modulated, meaning the signal can be fixed at a set frequency using a microwave field and can be efficiently separated from the background fluorescence, addressing this limitation.

The optical results showed up to a five orders of magnitude (100,000 times) improvement in sensitivity compared to gold nanoparticles (that is, a much lower number of nanoparticles were required to generate a detectable signal). With the inclusion of a short 10-minute constant-temperature amplification step, in which copies of the RNA were multiplied, the researchers were able to detect HIV RNA at the level of a single molecule in a model sample.

The work was demonstrated in a laboratory setting but the team hopes to develop the tests so that the results could be read with a smartphone or portable fluorescence reader. This means that the test could, in future, be performed in low-resource settings, making it more accessible to users.

First author Dr Ben Miller (i-sense Postdoctoral Research Associate at the London Centre for Nanotechnology at UCL) said: "Paper-based lateral flow tests with gold nanoparticles do not require laboratory analysis, making them particularly useful in low resource settings and where access to healthcare is limited. They are low cost, portable, and user friendly.

"However, these tests currently lack the sensitivity to detect very low levels of biomarkers. By replacing commonly used gold nanoparticles with fluorescent nanodiamonds in this new design, and selectively modulating their (already bright) emission of light, we have been able to separate their signal from the unwanted background fluorescence of the test strip, dramatically improving sensitivity."

Co-author Professor John Morton, Director of UCL's Quantum Science and Technology Institute (UCLQ), said: "This interdisciplinary collaboration between UCLQ and the i-sense team in the LCN is a fantastic illustration of how foundational work on quantum systems, such as NV centre in diamond, can evolve from the lab and play a crucial role in real-world applications in sensing and diagnostics. Researchers at UCLQ are exploring and enabling the impact of these and other quantum technologies by working with industry and other academic research groups."

DES PLAINES, IL -- Advanced practice providers (APPs) have lower productivity compared with emergency department physicians, seeing fewer and less complex patients and generating less relative value units per hour, and having no apparent impact on patient satisfaction and safety metrics. That is the conclusion of a study to be published in the November 2020 issue of Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM), a journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM). This is the first known study to examine the impact of ED APP staffing on productivity, flow, safety, and experience

The lead author of the study is Dr. Jesse Pines, the national director for clinical innovation at US Acute Care Solutions (USACS) and a professor of emergency medicine at Drexel University, Philadelphia. In this role, he focuses on developing and implementing new care models including telemedicine, alternative payment models, and also leads the USACS opioid programs.

The study suggests that advanced practice providers can be effectively integrated into EDs with staffing models accounting for the lower productivity of advanced practice providers compared to physicians with no apparent negative impact on ED flow, clinical quality, or patient experience. Greater levels of advanced practice provider coverage appear to allow physicians to care for higher?acuity cases while also allowing advanced practice providers to care for a lower, but significant number of patients requiring hospital admission and other critical care services.

While advanced practice providers are currently utilized primarily for low?acuity cases, the finding of advanced practice providers independently evaluating critically ill ED patients suggests the potential for enhanced use of advanced practice providers in EDs. However, advanced practice provider use did not result in economies of scale given the higher productivity of physicians even when accounting for their similarly higher salary.

The findings are discussed with the author in a recent AEM podcast, "Taking Care of Patients Everyday With Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners." An accompanying invited commentary by Zane and Michael, "The Economics and Effectiveness of Advanced Practice Providers Are Decidedly Local Phenomena," provides expert perspective of APPs in contemporaneous emergency care.

The next time you visit a lake or the seashore, take a deep breath. As you exhale, take a moment to be thankful for the little things: specifically, for the microscopic, single-celled algae in the soil and waters all around you that are extracting the carbon dioxide you just exhaled and incorporating it into sugars that will eventually be used by every other organism in the biosphere. About 30% of this activity, globally, is carried out by a specialized structure in algae called the pyrenoid.

To visualize a pyrenoid, think of a pomegranate. The pyrenoid contains kernels of Rubisco, the enzyme that carries out the molecular work of incorporating carbon dioxide into sugars. These kernels are embedded in a supportive flesh, or matrix, of other proteins, that is itself surrounded by an outer shell made of starch. The fruit is a bit worm-eaten; it is riddled with fingerlike channels -- actually, tubules enclosed by membrane -- that deliver concentrated carbon dioxide to the Rubisco kernels. The tubules are important to pyrenoid function because waterborne algae such as Chlamydomonas reinhardtii would otherwise struggle to get enough carbon dioxide to keep Rubisco operating at peak capacity.

The pyrenoid presents several enigmas for scientists. For example, how the proteins that make up the pyrenoid are routed there, and how they organize into such a complex arrangement, has been an enduring mystery. New work from the laboratory of Martin Jonikas, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton, and collaborators, has now solved this riddle.

"The key initial discovery was made by chance," says Jonikas.

Research Molecular Biologist Moritz Meyer and colleagues were trying to identify what proteins are present in the pyrenoid besides Rubisco. To do this, they used an antibody: a protein that, like a key, attaches to other proteins that possess a specific, matching lock. Meyer and colleagues planned to crack open algae and then add an antibody that binds a particular matrix protein to the resulting molecular soup. By pulling on the antibody, the scientists could drag that protein out. Any other proteins that bind to the antibody's target protein would come along for the ride, and the scientists could then determine whether any of them were previously unknown pyrenoid components. But the experiment didn't turn out as expected.

"We noticed that the antibody directly bound to several pyrenoid-localized proteins," says Jonikas. In other words, they'd just discovered that all these proteins possess a lock matching their antibody's key. Closer examination of the proteins revealed the existence of a sequence of amino acids, or motif, that is present in the antibody's original target and also appears in all of the other proteins.

"We hypothesized that this motif may serve as a signal that targets the proteins to the pyrenoid, and the experiments we did support this hypothesis," explains Jonikas. "Removing the motif from one of the motif-containing proteins caused it to no longer localize to the pyrenoid, while adding it to non-pyrenoid proteins caused them to localize to the pyrenoid."

Meyer and colleagues found that the motif binds to Rubisco. This explains how the pyrenoid forms: its component proteins remain loose in the cell until they bump into Rubisco and become trapped.

"Several of the proteins do not simply localize to the pyrenoid matrix, but rather appear to localize to the interfaces between the matrix and the pyrenoid's two other sub-compartments, the pyrenoid tubules and the starch sheath," notes Jonikas. This may allow the proteins to self-organize into the complex pyrenoid structure.

"The study represents an exquisite example of investigative science," says Dr. Howard Griffiths, Professor of Plant Science at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. Dr. Griffiths has collaborated with Jonikas's group on other studies, but he was not involved in this work.

"They used clever experimental manipulations to prove that a common motif could allow the specific linker to form the Rubisco matrix, and anchor other key elements both internally to the thylakoid tubules, and the starch sheath towards the periphery," says Griffiths. "Overall, the report by Meyer and colleagues has made a significant contribution to our understanding of pyrenoid form and function, with relevance both for understanding aquatic primary productivity, and to underpin approaches seeking to incorporate such a mechanism to 'turbocharge' photosynthesis in terrestrial crop plants."

Despite their reputation, rats are surprisingly sociable and actually regularly help each other out with tasks. Researchers at the Universities of Göttingen, Bern and St Andrews have now shown that a rat just has to smell the scent of another rat that is engaged in helpful behaviour to increase his or her own helpfulness. This is the first study to show that just the smell of a cooperating individual rat is enough to trigger an altruistic and helpful response in another. The research was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

It is well known that rats will help each other out. What the researchers wanted to know was whether the rat's odour during this behaviour had any effect on another rat's helpfulness. They therefore carried out a series of tests to study the importance of the scent of a rat while making cooperative decisions. The rats being studied could choose to help another rat by pulling a platform containing a reward towards the other rat's cage. This provided food for the other rat but did not have any immediate benefit for them personally. The researchers then provided the test rats either with the smell of a rat that was being helpful to another rat in a different room or with the smell of a rat that was not engaged in helpful behaviour. The researchers were surprised to find that just the scent of a rat engaged in helpful behavior was enough to illicit helpful behaviour in the other.

Dr Nina Gerber from the Wildlife Sciences at the University of Göttingen, who led the research, says: "Test rats increased their own helping behaviour when they were presented with the smell of a helpful rat. Remarkably, this holds true even though they did not experience this helpful behaviour themselves." She goes on to say, "Furthermore, such a 'smell of cooperation' depends on the actual activity of helping and is not connected to an individual rat. There isn't a "special smell" for certain nice rats: the same individual can release the scent of being helpful or not, depending solely on their behaviour."

The researchers concluded that physical cues - such as smell - might be even more important for rats to encourage cooperation than actual experiences. Gerber adds, "Even though people do not seem to rely on communication through scent in the way rats do, some studies indicate that scent is key for finding partners, or that smelling certain chemicals can increase trust in others. Whether there is such a 'smell of cooperation' in humans, however, would be an interesting question for future studies."

Astrophysicists from Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) joined the international research team for explaining the difference in the results of observation of the comet 41P/ Tuttle - Giacobini - Kresak. Researchers believe that data obtained by three independent teams are complementary and its complex analysis helps to unravel the mystery of dust chemical composition of comet 41P and other conundrums of the Universe. A related article appears in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The activity of comets is more complex than it appeared to be, one of the research outcomes says. The chemical composition of a cometary coma (gas-dusty environment of the nucleus) is able to change very rapidly, literally during the day. That is because of the Sun affects the nucleus of a comet approaching.

Researchers all over the Globe try to get data on the chemical composition of comets via analyses of the light refracted by its dust particles. However, the information about the color spectrum of comets differs every time, depending on different observation epochs and different phase angles (angle Earth-comet-Sun).

The present research paper postulates the controversial data sets obtained due to different sets of photometric filters and areas (apertures) of research are steady.

"At least three groups of researchers who observed comet 41P in 2017 came up with different results. The comet color ranged from red to blue. We have explained in detail why this happened", Anton Kochergin says", one of the authors of the study, a PhD student FEFU School of Natural Sciences. "Usually, the final color is normalized by taking into account the different bandwidths of the photometric filters applied. However, in many studies, the color of celestial bodies is interpreted independently of a particular set of photometric filters. We show that this is not valid for all cases. The reason the comet color differs is exactly sets of various photometric filters. In addition, the choice of the size of the calculation area, i.e. aperture, is of great importance. This is a certain radius around the cometary coma in the pictures from observatories, which scientists define as an area of research. Having decided on the aperture, they analyze only the signal inside this field".

The choice of the aperture determines which processes and results are included in the analysis. For example, a gas from a diatomic carbon molecule (C2): there are parent molecules (called CHON particles in the literature), which become a source of C2 upon photodissociation. This dissociation occurs at a certain distance from the comet's nucleus, which in turn depends on the comet's distance from the Sun. With the right aperture chosen, one can exclude most of the signals that C2 molecules give focusing on analyses of the dust component of the coma.

Anton Kochergin emphasized that the opposite data about the color of the comet, collected by different groups using different sets of photometric filters, only benefits the researchers. It is impossible to give a thorough description of the color (the color is directly related to the chemical composition of the dust of a cometary coma), and the chemical composition after just one observation. It is necessary to observe and determine the characteristics in dynamics. The more measurements made, the more accurate the conclusions are.

"In practice, this allows us to probe into the microphysical properties of cometary dust, and the processes run in a cometary coma. With such information, we will shed light on the evolutionary processes of the Solar system. Many scientific groups around the world are working inside this fundamental area", explains Anton Kochergin.

Scientists were able to model the results of color measurements of comet 41P, receives almost simultaneously via different photometric filters in different locations. Although the blue color was gained in one case and the red in the other, the researchers found that both results were consistent with the actual behavior of cometary dust particles in coma 41P. One can copy these results via simulating light scattering by dust particles of the pyroxene mineral. Pyroxene is a silicate material that is part of the lunar soil and was also delivered from the asteroid Itokawa and discovered in the comet 81P / Wild 2. Pyroxenes are a part of cometary matter and are well studied in laboratories.

Researchers to further cooperate in observing celestial bodies from different Earth locations. The routine helps to catch up with the object under investigation in case of adverse weather conditions at the location of one of the observatories. This also brings additional data in the case of different sets of filters applied by different teams. In the observation schedule of the international collaborators, all comets and asteroids their gear is capable of tracing.

The present results became possible due to the collaboration of scientists from Astronomical Observatory, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Humanitas College, Kyung Hee University (South Korea), Space Science Institute (USA), Astronomical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Main Astronomical Observatory of National Academy of Sciences, School of Natural Sciences, Far Eastern Federal University, Ussuriysk Observatory of the Institute of Applied Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Previously, FEFU astrophysicists teamed up with Russian and foreign colleagues to observe the ATLAS comet, which disintegrated when approaching the Sun. They brought up a conclusion that carbon found in the nucleus of the comet would help to determine the age of comets in the Solar system.

Bottom Line: Among patients with glioblastoma receiving an immune checkpoint inhibitor, those who received the corticosteroid dexamethasone at baseline for cerebral edema had significantly worse overall survival.

Journal in Which the Study was Published: Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research

Author: David A. Reardon, MD, clinical director of the Center for Neuro-Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston

Background: "Dexamethasone is a potent corticosteroid that is often prescribed to patients with glioblastoma to treat symptoms related to cerebral edema, or swelling in the brain," said Reardon. "Cerebral edema is a common yet potentially life-threatening complication for patients with glioblastoma, and treatment with corticosteroids can help to suppress the inflammation in the brain," he added.

"Historically, patients with glioblastoma have been empirically treated with dexamethasone, even without symptoms, with many clinicians prescribing steroids for prolonged periods of time, out of a concern that patients may start to develop edema," Reardon continued. "Our study was designed to look at that paradigm of clinical practice, particularly in the immunotherapy era, and determine if there could be negative consequences associated with dexamethasone use among patients with glioblastoma treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors."

How the Study was Conducted & Results: Reardon and colleagues evaluated the effect of concurrent dexamethasone administration with an immune checkpoint inhibitor (anti-PD-1 therapy) in syngeneic murine glioblastoma models. In an immunosensitive mouse model, which is inherently responsive to immune checkpoint blockade, the researchers found that the addition of dexamethasone to anti-PD-1 therapy resulted in reduced survival in a dose-dependent manner. Additionally, in an immunoresistant mouse model, which Reardon noted is more representative of human glioblastoma, the addition of dexamethasone to anti-PD-1 therapy or anti-PD-1 therapy plus radiotherapy also resulted in reduced survival.

"In our preclinical studies, we found that steroids had a significant detrimental effect on the efficacy of anti-PD-1 therapy, even in an immunosensitive model, which over-predicts the benefit of immune checkpoint blockade in glioblastoma patients," said Reardon.

The researchers next analyzed overall survival data from 181 patients with glioblastoma treated with either anti-PD-1 or anti-PD-L1 therapy at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who were diagnosed before April 1, 2019. This patient population was heterogeneous, with patients receiving treatment through a clinical trial or on a compassionate use basis; roughly 76 percent were treated for recurrence, and roughly 24 percent were treated for a new diagnosis. Of these 181 patients, around 35 percent were taking dexamethasone at baseline.

Reardon and colleagues evaluated the potential detrimental effect of dexamethasone using multivariable analysis, where they adjusted for a variety of factors, including disease setting (newly diagnosed versus recurrent), tumor volume at treatment initiation, age, and extent of resection, among the 163 patients that had complete annotated data for relevant prognostic factors. Compared with patients who were not taking dexamethasone at baseline, patients treated with dexamethasone had roughly twice the risk of death. Further, baseline use of dexamethasone was the strongest identified negative risk factor for overall survival.

Author's Comments: "Our results suggest that we should try to avoid dexamethasone among patients with glioblastoma who are treated with immunotherapy, and if corticosteroids are clinically required, we should use these drugs judiciously," Reardon said. "Further, our results highlight that other strategies for the treatment of cerebral edema that do not have such a broad anti-inflammatory effect critically need to be investigated."

Study Limitations: Limitations of the study include the retrospective nature of the clinical analyses. Further, in their preclinical studies, the researchers solely evaluated the effect of dexamethasone on the efficacy of anti-PD-1 treatment. "Whether the same observations would occur with other immunomodulatory checkpoint targeting agents, or even other immunotherapy treatments--such as vaccines, adoptive cellular therapies, or genetically engineered oncolytic viruses--remains to be evaluated," Reardon said.

Funding & Disclosures: This study was sponsored by The Jennifer Oppenheimer Cancer Research Initiative; The Ben and Catherine Ivy Foundation; Hope It's A Beach Thing, an annual 5K for brain tumor research; and the Pan- Mass Challenge, a bike-a-thon that raises money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. This study was also funded by the National Institutes of Health.

OTTAWA, ON - NOV. 25, 2020 - A new study published in The BMJ shows that people who had surgery to improve blood flow in their legs under spinal or epidural anesthesia were less likely to die than those who were given general anesthesia.

General anesthesia involves using drugs to make a patient unconscious and inserting a tube into their windpipe to help with breathing. Spinal and epidural anesthesia directly freeze the nerves to the legs and can be combined with lighter forms of sedation which do not involve a breathing tube.

This study, the largest of its kind, looked at medical records of 20,988 people who had leg artery bypass surgery in Ontario, Canada, between 2002 and 2015. Approximately two thirds of these surgeries used general anesthesia and a third used spinal or epidural anesthesia.

The researchers found that 646 of the patients who had general anesthesia (4.4 percent) died within 30 days of their surgery compared to 204 of the patients who had spinal or epidural anesthesia (3.2 per cent). The results remained the same after the researchers adjusted for differences between the groups, such as how sick the patients were before surgery.

"We estimate that this finding could save at least 100 of the patients' lives who undergo leg artery bypass surgeries every year both in Canada and the United States," said lead author Dr. Derek Roberts, a vascular and endovascular surgeon at The Ottawa Hospital and incoming assistant professor at the University of Ottawa. "We hope to conduct a randomized controlled trial to confirm these results, but in the meantime our findings suggest that we should increasingly perform more of these types of surgeries using spinal or epidural anesthesia techniques."

"We were surprised to find that some hospitals did these types of surgeries under spinal or epidural anesthesia more than 90 per cent of the time, while in others it was less than one per cent," said senior author Dr. Daniel McIsaac, associate scientist and anesthesiologist at The Ottawa Hospital, associate professor at the University of Ottawa, and adjunct scientist at ICES. "We hope this study will help patients and physicians make more informed decisions about what type of anesthetic is best for each patient."

The study also found that patients who had spinal or epidural anesthesia were able to leave the hospital half a day earlier than those who had general anesthesia.

The researchers estimate that if all leg artery bypass surgeries were done with spinal or epidural anesthesia, it could save $50 million in health care costs each year in Canada. In Ontario, the vast majority of these surgeries are done in specialty centres that can easily perform spinal or epidural anesthesia.

Close to 20,000 people have leg artery bypass surgery in Canada and the United States every year.

Researchers from Boston University and University of Virginia published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines how consumers respond to AI recommenders when focused on the functional and practical aspects of a product (its utilitarian value) versus the experiential and sensory aspects of a product (its hedonic value).

The study, forthcoming in the the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Artificial Intelligence in Utilitarian vs. Hedonic Contexts: The 'Word-of-Machine' Effect" and is authored by Chiara Longoni and Luca Cian.

More and more companies are leveraging technological advances in AI, machine learning, and natural language processing to provide recommendations to consumers. As these companies evaluate AI-based assistance, one critical question must be asked: When do consumers trust the "word of machine," and when do they resist it?

A new Journal of Marketing study explores reasons behind the preference of recommendation source (AI vs. human). The key factor in deciding how to incorporate AI recommenders is whether consumers are focused on the functional and practical aspects of a product (its utilitarian value) or on the experiential and sensory aspects of a product (its hedonic value).

Relying on data from over 3,000 study participants, the research team provides evidence supporting a word-of-machine effect, defined as the phenomenon by which the trade-offs between utilitarian and hedonic aspects of a product determine the preference for, or resistance to, AI recommenders. The word-of-machine effect stems from a widespread belief that AI systems are more competent than humans at dispensing advice when functional and practical qualities (utilitarian) are desired and less competent when the desired qualities are experiential and sensory-based (hedonic). Consequently, the importance or salience of utilitarian attributes determine preference for AI recommenders over human ones, while the importance or salience of hedonic attributes determine resistance to AI recommenders over human ones.

The researchers tested the word-of-machine effect using experiments designed to assess people's tendency to choose products based on consumption experiences and recommendation source. Longoni explains that "We found that when presented with instructions to choose products based solely on utilitarian/functional attributes, more participants chose AI-recommended products. When asked to only consider hedonic/experiential attributes, a higher percentage of participants chose human recommenders."

When utilitarian features are most important, the word-of-machine effect was more distinct. In one study, participants were asked to imagine buying a winter coat and rate how important utilitarian/functional attributes (e.g., breathability) and hedonic/experiential attributes (e.g., fabric type) were in their decision making. The more utilitarian/functional features were highly rated, the greater the preference for AI over human assistance, and the more hedonic/experiential features were highly rated, the greater the preference for human over AI assistance.

Another study indicated that when consumers wanted recommendations matched to their unique preferences, they resisted AI recommenders and preferred human recommenders regardless of hedonic or utilitarian preferences. These results suggest that companies whose customers are known to be satisfied with "one size fits all" recommendations (i.e., not in need of a high level of customization) may rely on AI-systems. However, companies whose customers are known to desire personalized recommendations should rely on humans.

Although there is a clear correlation between utilitarian attributes and consumer trust in AI recommenders, companies selling products that promise more sensorial experiences (e.g., fragrances, food, wine) may still use AI to engage customers. In fact, people embrace AI's recommendations as long as AI works in partnership with humans. When AI plays an assistive role, "augmenting" human intelligence rather than replacing it, the AI-human hybrid recommender performs as well as a human-only assistant.

Overall, the word-of-machine effect has important implications as the development and adoption of AI, machine learning, and natural language processing challenges managers and policy-makers to harness these transformative technologies. As Cian says, "The digital marketplace is crowded and consumer attention span is short. Understanding the conditions under which consumers trust, and do not trust, AI advice will give companies a competitive advantage in this space."

Singapore, 25 November 2020 - From climate change to the ongoing pandemic and beyond, the issues facing today's world are increasingly complex and dynamic. Yet solving problems like these - which interweave social, environmental, physical, and political factors - requires new approaches that extend beyond traditional ways of thinking. It requires people to draw upon and integrate seemingly disparate areas of knowledge, such as the arts and the sciences. This kind of integrative thinking, or the ability to combine knowledge from diverse fields, is critical for generating effective, innovative solutions to tackle local and global problems. A study led by Yale-NUS College Assistant Professor of Psychology, Paul A. O'Keefe, found that having a "growth mindset of interest" may spark this type of innovation.

Asst Prof O'Keefe, who also holds a courtesy appointment with the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School, had established in an earlier set of studies that people hold different beliefs about the nature of interest. Those with a growth mindset of interest tend to believe that interests can be developed and cultivated, while those with a fixed mindset of interest tend to believe that interests are inherent and simply need to be 'found.' In their foundational research, they showed that those with a growth mindset were more open to areas outside of their core, pre-existing interests than were those with a fixed mindset.

Building on these findings, the latest research examined how a growth mindset of interest can boost integrative thinking across the traditional disciplinary boundaries of arts and sciences. Conducted by a team from Yale-NUS College, comprising Asst Prof O'Keefe, Senior Research Fellow E. J. Horberg and Yale-NUS alumni Anandita Sabherwal, Gabrielle C. Ibasco, and Adlin Binti Zainal, this new research was recently published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

The study found that a growth mindset of interest can increase people's tendency and ability to generate ideas that bridge their well-established area of interest (say, in the arts) with one outside of it (like the sciences). For example, in one task, research participants were instructed to create new college majors by combining two or more existing academic Arts or Science programmes at their university. After coding and analysing the ideas they generated, the team found that people with a growth, as compared to a fixed, mindset of interest were more likely to bridge programmes across the arts and sciences to create new majors like computational linguistics - the use of computer modelling to understand natural language - rather than creating majors that drew from only one of those areas, like computational chemistry - the use of computer modelling to understand chemical processes. The analysis also revealed higher quality integrative ideas from individuals with a growth mindset.

Asst Prof O'Keefe emphasised that understanding these connections can have important implications for organisations. "This research provides a useful direction for organisations whose products and services call for integrated and creative solutions. Take smartphones, for example. You not only need computer science and engineering knowledge, but also an understanding of psychology and visual design to create a product that is useful and resonates with the user. When organisations hire people with a growth mindset, or promote it among their employees, those employees may be more likely to devise innovative ideas that bridge multiple areas of knowledge to achieve better solutions," Asst Prof O'Keefe elaborated.

The benefits of a growth mindset of interest may also extend to those seeking employment. This is a pressing issue because many people are becoming unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as developments in automation and artificial intelligence. Added Asst Prof O'Keefe, "Having a growth mindset of interest can help job seekers expand their vocational interests and become more adaptable and open to different fields, and take the initiative to learn new skills. For example, whereas some engineers may restrict themselves to technical roles, an engineer who develops an interest in marketing might accrue the skills and knowledge needed to gain employment in the sales team of an engineering firm."

In addition, the research supports the rationale for interdisciplinary learning to better prepare students for the unpredictable future, as well as for training them to be flexible thinkers and problem solvers. An interdisciplinary education enables students to develop a breadth of knowledge across different fields and teaches them to integrate these ideas. However, Asst Prof O'Keefe noted that there is more to this than simply designing an interdisciplinary curriculum. While undergraduates with a growth mindset of interest are more likely to take advantage of the diversity of learning opportunities that universities offer, those with a fixed mindset may remain fixated on their pre-existing interests or "calling," and may fail to see how outside areas of knowledge can be connected and integrated with their existing interests. Over time, those with a growth mindset are more likely to become interdisciplinary thinkers and carry that tendency to their working life, better preparing them to succeed in an economy that increasingly values innovative, interdisciplinary solutions.

Given the potential of a growth mindset of interest for innovation, this begs the question: Can a growth mindset of interest be cultivated? "Under the right circumstances, absolutely," said Asst Prof O'Keefe. "People can be influenced to adopt a growth mindset of interest if they are immersed in an environment with a culture that promotes and reinforces the idea that interests can grow and develop. Moreover, there must be opportunities for people to act on their belief that new interests can develop. Therefore, universities and organisations, among others, may wish to provide opportunities to explore new topics and activities, be it through workshops, elective courses, or facilitating collaborations among people with different areas of interest and expertise."

Asst Prof O'Keefe elaborated, "Understanding that interests can develop is the first step. It takes time and conducive environments to develop and reinforce that mindset. Ultimately, that may spark out-of-the-box thinking and game-changing innovations."

The Loricifera is a microscopic, sediment-dwelling marine invertebrate, with a head covered in over 200 spines and an abdomen with a protective shell - known as a lorica. Since it was first discovered in 1983, just under 40 species have been written about. Now, that number is one more thanks to a group of scientists who reported on a new genus and species of Loricifera.

Their findings were published in the Journal Marine Biodiversity.

"Loricifera is a rare animal that is still under-researched, but our recent finding improves our understanding of the species' diversity," said lead author Shinta Fujimoto.

Loricifera typically inhabit the space between sand and mud particles in the ocean. Fossils exist from the Cambrian period, suggesting a long existence on Earth. They have complicated life cycles and a few species are reported to live in anoxic environments. Their exact position on the animal tree of life is unknown.

Researchers from Tohoku University, Kyushu University, Mie University, Hiroshima University and the University of Copenhagen reported on a new species of Loricifera inhabiting Japan's area from the continental slope to the deeper sea - roughly 177 m to 1059 m below the sea. This marks the second time a new Loricifera species has been found near Japan; the last one was discovered in 1988 in the Izu-Ogasawara Trench.

Fujimoto and his team hope to uncover as much as they can about this rare species. "Each new species provides us with answers, but also more questions. We will keep on looking for these extraordinary animals to understand the species' diversity, ecology, life history and evolution."

Perovskite solar cells are attracting attention as the next-generation solar battery material thanks to their low processing cost and excellent photovoltaic quality. However, it is difficult to commercialize them because their key material - perovskite - is vulnerable to light and moisture.

Recently, a POSTECH research team has developed an organic spacer molecular additive that can improve both the photoelectric efficiency and stability of perovskite.

A POSTECH research team led by Professor Kilwon Cho and Ph.D. candidate Sungwon Song of the Department of Chemical Engineering has succeeded in fabricating perovskite solar cells that are highly efficient and stable by drastically reducing the concentration of internal defects in the crystals as well as increasing the moisture resistance of perovskite by introducing a new organic spacer molecule additive in the perovskite crystal. The study was published as a cover paper in the latest issue of Advanced Energy Materials, one of the most authoritative journals in the field of energy.

By adding organic spacer ions to solve the problem, the research team developed a hybrid perovskite photovoltaic layer where two- and three-dimensional perovskite coexist. Organic spacers create two-dimensional perovskite structures on the surface of 3D perovskite crystals. These structures act as stabilizing layer that increases resistance to moisture due to its property of repelling water.

In addition, it was discovered for the first time that this newly introduced organic spacer minimizes mechanical stress of the two- and three-dimensional perovskite crystal interfaces, thus promoting the nuclear production and growth of the 3D perovskite crystal. As a result, the internal defects of the photoreactive layer - the 3D perovskite crystals - have been dramatically reduced.

The solar cells developed by the research team achieved 21.3 % efficiency and secured moisture stability to maintain more than 80% of their initial efficiency even after 500 hours under 60% of relative humidity conditions.

"This study has presented a new perspective on organic spacer molecular design for the realization of high performing and stable perovskite solar cells," remarked Professor Kilwon Cho who led the study. He added, "It is anticipated to be a source technology that can contribute to the commercialization of perovskite solar cell technology."

Space-momentum domain interferometer is a key technique in modern precision measurements, and has been widely for applications that require superb spatial resolution in engineering metrology and astronomy. Extending such interferometric technique to the time-energy domain is a significant complement to spatial domain measurements and is anticipated to provide time resolving capability for tracing ultrafast processes. However, such applications for high precision time domain measurement, especially the state of the art attosecond time resolved measurement is less explored despite its great significance.

Recently, the ultrafast optics team from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China made exciting progress and developed an all-optical attosecond few slit interferometer and demonstrated its applications in time-energy domain high precision measurement. It is based on laser driven high order harmonics, which is essentially a time domain Young's interferometer with the attosecond pulse train as the diffraction slits. By introducing an external weak field to perturb the harmonic generation process, the phase of the attosecond temporal slits changes resulting in a noticeable energy shift of the harmonics. The authors have derived a simple intuitive formula to depict the energy shift induced by the perturbing field, from which a wave-front controlled attosecond interferometry preserving attosecond temporal resolution and hundreds of meV energy resolution is implemented.

As the first application, the authors utilized the time resolving capability of the interferometer for real-time probing of a petahertz electromagnetic field. The strong field approximation analysis shows that the energy shift of the harmonics is proportional to a linear combination of two delayed perturbing pulses. Following a trivial Fourier analysis, the electric field of the perturbing pulse can be readily retrieved. Such method can be easily generalized for reconstructing signals with an arbitrary state of polarization

As the second application, the authors utilized the energy resolving capability of the interferometer to interrogate the abnormal phase jump of the transition dipole near a Cooper minimum in argon. When multiple harmonics are considered simultaneously, the time separation of attosecond slits becomes trackable in an energy resolved manner, and the reshaping of EUV temporal structure near a Cooper minimum in argon is clearly revealed. This novel attosecond interferometry has extended the interferometer-based high precision measurement to time-energy domain with an all-optical approach. It can potentially find significant applications in probing structural dynamics of complex targets.

WASHINGTON, November 24, 2020 -- Plasma medicine is an emerging field, as plasmas show promise for use in a wide range of therapies from wound healing to cancer treatment. Plasma jets are the main plasma sources typically used in plasma-surface applications. Before applications can progress, however, a better understanding of how plasma jets modify the surfaces of biological tissue is required.

To help with this understanding, researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences conducted computer simulations of the interaction between an atmospheric pressure plasma jet with a surface that has properties similar to blood serum. They present their analysis in the Journal of Applied Physics, from AIP Publishing.

"While using the plasma jets for the purpose of plasma medicine, it is important to know that the presence or absence of the treated surface in vicinity of a jet significantly influences jet parameters," said Natalia Babaeva, one of the authors. "For example, the wounds with blood serum can have different properties. These properties can also vary during the plasma treatment."

Depending on the characteristics of the tissue being treated, the plasma jet can behave in a number of different ways. The ionization waves produced by plasma jets may reflect back and forth, or they can spread over the tissue as surface discharge.

For the type of plasma Babaeva and her team studied, they found that the biomaterial-like surface can lead to multiple reflections of the plasma jet, and with each passage, the number of electrons and radicals -- a type of very reactive molecule -- increases. Specifically, the radicals identified are oxygen, hydroxide, hydrogen peroxide, ozone, and nitric oxide, also known as reactive oxygen species and reactive nitrogen species.

"Reactive oxygen species and reactive nitrogen species are important for the actions of antimicrobial drugs, cancer, and wound healing therapies," Babaeva said, adding that they both play an active role in the immune systems of animals and plants.

Quantifying these radicals and understanding the direction and magnitude of their flow is important for optimizing plasmas for use in biomedical applications, where the ability to control their behavior to some degree is crucial. The team's simulations provide the means to predict this behavior.

"This prediction is very important, as it determines the plasma treatment potential," Babaeva said. "Our research adds some knowledge on the particular behavior of the jet in the presence of highly conductive surfaces."

What The Study Did: Researchers looked at changes in the rates of emergency department visits for children who swallowed small high-powered magnets over a period of change in federal regulations of these magnets.

Authors: Michael R. Flaherty, D.O., of MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jama.2020.19153)

Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

Men who have the Western world's most common genetic disorder, haemochromatosis, are ten times more likely to develop liver cancer, according to a major new study.

Research led by the University of Exeter and published in the internationally renowned journal JAMA has led to renewed calls for routine early testing for the iron overload condition haemochromatosis, previously thought to be a lower-level health risk. The finding could add more weight to calls for the UK National Screening Committee to recommend screening for the condition, which is currently under consultation.

The new study projected that more than seven per cent of men with two copies of the faulty haemochromatosis genes would develop liver cancer by age 75, compared to just 0.6 per cent in the general population. An estimated 175,000 men and boys of European ancestry in the UK have these faulty genes. They are particularly prevalent in Celtic bloodlines, meaning the UK and parts of North America have some of the highest rates in the world.

The research is led by the University of Exeter Medical School in the UK, in collaboration with the University of Connecticut, and Western University in Ontario, and South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust. Funded by the UK Medical Research Council, the study adds to the evidence to back widespread early testing for the condition. Previously, the Exeter team found that having the haemochromatosis double faulty gene quadruples the risk of liver disease and doubles the risk of arthritis and frailty in older age groups. It also causes higher risk of diabetes and chronic pain.

Reliable tests are available to identify those at risk - blood tests for measuring iron levels (serum ferritin, transferrin saturation) and genetic testing (HFE C282Y genetic blood test). Symptoms can include feeling tired all the time, muscle weakness and joint pains, meaning it is often misdiagnosed as the signs of ageing. Most of those with liver cancer develop liver damage first, often progressing to cirrhosis of the liver. Once diagnosed, the condition is easily treated by a process similar to donating blood several times a year, to lower iron levels.

The team analysed data from 2,890 men and women with two copies of the faulty gene (called HFE C282Y homozygous), from the UK Biobank, a large biomedical database of more than half a million British men and women recruited between 2006 and 2010 from across England, Scotland and Wales. People were aged 40 to 70 at the start of the study and were followed for a nine-year period. Twenty-one of the 1,294 men with the faulty genes studied have developed liver cancer thus far, of whom 14 died due to their liver cancer. Ten of these 21 men were not diagnosed with haemochromatosis by the time they had a liver cancer diagnosis.

Haemochromatosis is more serious in men, with women partially protected because they lose iron through menstruation and childbirth, although some younger women do develop the disease. The study found no increase in liver cancer risk in women with faulty haemochromatosis genes.

Dr Janice Atkins, Research Fellow at the University of Exeter and first author of the paper, said: "The haemochromatosis faulty genes are relatively common in people with European ancestries, and are causing potentially fatal diseases such as liver cancer. Unfortunately, haemochromatosis is often diagnosed too late. Earlier diagnosis could prevent so much unnecessary disease."

Professor David Melzer, who led the team, said: "Tragically, men with the haemochromatosis faulty genes have been dying of liver cancer for many years, but this was thought to be rare. The large scale of UK Biobank study allowed us to measure cancer risk accurately. We were shocked to find that more than seven per cent of men with two faulty genes are likely to develop liver cancer by age 75, particularly considering that the UK has the second highest rate of these faulty genes in the world. Fortunately most of these cancers could be prevented with early treatment. Blood donations made during routine treatment of haemochromatosis can be used for other patients, so early diagnosis would actually be a win-win for the NHS."

Dr Jeremy Shearman, a specialist in liver disease and an adviser to the charity Haemochromatosis UK, said: "Physicians and scientists have long acknowledged that iron overload is an important co-factor fuelling the development of many serious diseases including cancer. This research is a vital step towards quantifying that risk and should raise awareness of the importance of iron in the minds of both clinicians and patients. Measurement of iron stores and recognition of the genetic risk of iron overload needs to become a routine part of health assessment and monitoring in the UK."

Professor Paul Adams Western University's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, who has been studying haemochromatosis in Canada for more than four decades, said: "The UK Biobank project is a glimpse into the future of medicine where all known genes are tested and then treatable conditions are offered treatment before serious complications develop. An early diagnosis of haemochromatosis can be treated by regular blood donation in Canada."

Neil McClements, Chief Executive of Haemochromatosis UK, said: "This paper underlines the need for early diagnosis to save lives. We know from our work as the UK's only charity supporting people affected by genetic haemochromatosis that many men experience unnecessary suffering from liver cancer, caused by their genetic condition. But it's not just men who suffer - their families and loved ones do, too."

The NHS advises that it is important to talk to your GP if you have a parent or sibling with haemochromatosis, even if you don't have symptoms yourself - tests can be done to check if you're at risk of developing problems. People are also advised to talk to their GPs about haemochromatosis if they have the following persistent or worrying symptoms - particularly if you have a northern European family background. Typical symptoms include feeling very tired all the time (fatigue); weight loss; weakness and joint pain. Also, some men with haemochromatosis develop an inability to get or maintain an erection (erectile dysfunction), and some women have irregular periods or absent periods. These symptoms usually come on between ages 30 and 60.