Tech

Lung cancer has the highest mortality rate of all cancers, and treatment options are extremely limited, especially for patients with oncogenic mutations in the KRAS gene. A great deal of hope was invested in the licensing of immune checkpoint inhibitors, but the reality is that some patients respond very well to this treatment while it is completely ineffective in others. In a paper just published in Science Translational Medicine, a MedUni Vienna research group led by Herwig Moll (Center for Physiology and Pharmacology) identified a potential marker for the success of immunotherapy in lung cancer patients and explained the underlying molecular processes.

K-Ras it is a monomeric G protein that plays a key role in the growth of malignant tumours. KRAS-mutated lung carcinomas frequently occur in chronically inflamed lungs, particularly in heavy smokers. The inflammatory processes promote the growth of cancer cells. The research group has now shown that the expression of the highly anti-inflammatory protein A20, formed in the body itself, is often very low in these malignant cells and that there is a direct correlation between a patient's life expectancy and the expression of this protein. Moll explains: "Both in humans and in the animal model, the loss of A20 leads to downgraded immune surveillance of cancer cells. Cancer cells with low levels of A20 are able to escape detection by the immune system." This results in significantly faster tumour growth.

During the course of this study, which was co-funded by MedUni Vienna's Cancer Research Initiative and associated with the Comprehensive Cancer Center Vienna, the research team discovered that it is primarily an enhanced sensitivity of the cancer cells to the immunomodulatory cytokine interferon gamma that is responsible for this. Moreover, tumour cells with downregulated A20 responded particularly well to immune checkpoint inhibitors, in the same way as patients suffering from melanoma (skin cancer) with a similar gene expression structure.

"In A20 we have discovered a previously unknown tumour suppressor in lung cancer, the loss of which as an immune checkpoint contributes to the development of this malignant disease," explains co-author Emilio Casanova from the Institute of Pharmacology. Since patients with low A20 expression have few tumour-fighting immune cells and so, in the advanced stage, express little of the important immune checkpoint molecule PD-L1, these patients could be excluded from immunotherapies directed against PD-L1. Indeed, the strength of expression of this molecule is currently regarded as an aid for deciding whether or not they should be treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors. "Based on our results and the data available from melanoma patients, we are convinced that we have identified a group of lung cancer patients who would really benefit from this immunotherapy. Exclusion from such treatment would significantly reduce the survival rate of such patients."

In a further study, the researchers want to find out whether it is possible to manipulate the expression of A20 in the cancer cells, in order to intensify the effect of immunotherapies. "However, smoking is still the most easily avoided risk factor for lung cancer. We must therefore support laws to protect the general public from inhaling harmful smoke, while at the same time appealing to people's personal responsibility to refrain from smoking altogether," says Moll. According to the MedUni Vienna experts, it is nevertheless important to continue to investigate new therapeutic approaches to improve the quality-of-life and chances of survival of those affected.

A new study conducted before COVID-19 busted open the leaky pipeline for women in leadership underscores the bias that men are naturally presumed to have leadership potential and women are not and highlights the increased efforts needed by organizations to address the incorrect stereotype post-pandemic.

The research published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology highlights the continuing bias in leadership assessments of women, explores the contradictions between the perception and the reality of women's leadership, and shows why the slow rate of career advancement for women will likely continue at a snail's pace.

"The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women's career progression will likely be felt for years to come as many women stepped away from the workforce," said Dr. Margaret Hopkins, professor of management in The University of Toledo's John B. and Lillian E. Neff College of Business and Innovation and lead author of the study. "This can only exacerbate the slow progress of women moving more fully into senior leadership roles -- something that organizations and society must be fully attentive to correcting."

The contemporary view of effective leadership places a strong emphasis on social skills, flexibility and engaging others, behaviors typically associated with women.

But when women exhibit gender role behaviors such as teamwork and empathy, they also pay a price in their leadership performance assessments.

Based on data collected from a sample of 91 senior leaders in one U.S. financial services organization over three years, women were penalized in performance evaluations when they displayed those leadership characteristics.

On the other hand, women also were viewed negatively when exhibiting stereotypical masculine behaviors such as a competitive drive to achieve, task orientation and directing others. Men were positively evaluated for their leadership potential when exhibiting those same behaviors.

"Entrenched archetypes that define leadership as a masculine enterprise remain in spite of data that relates more stereotypical feminine behaviors to effective leadership," said Hopkins, an expert on women in leadership, executive coaching and emotional intelligence. "Our study found no evidence of acknowledging this more contemporary view of leadership when organizations actually assess women's performance and potential for leadership."

The researchers discovered that whether women demonstrated people-oriented, relational skills or whether they exhibited achievement-oriented behaviors, there was a negative effect on their leadership performance assessments and leadership potential appraisals. However, this was not the case for the male leaders in the study.

In order to change the dynamic, Hopkins said there are best-practice strategies that both women and organizations can take.

"My co-authors and I do not support the notion that the onus is on the women to change," Hopkins said. "Rather, organizational structures and systems must change to provide leadership opportunities for both women and men in equal measure."

She said organizational decision-makers can investigate organizational policies and practices to determine how they might be contributing to impediments for women in leadership roles.

Not only should leadership assessment instruments be examined for possible bias, but also the methods by which individuals conduct assessments of women leaders should be reviewed for inherent bias.

"Hiring procedures, training and development opportunities, benefits packages, leave policies, and performance, salary and promotional evaluations can all play a part in contributing to gender stereotypes," Hopkins said. "Organizational systems that rely on a limited framework for essential leadership behaviors will restrict their ability to recruit and develop outstanding leaders."

To help mitigate these inaccurate perceptions and biases of their leadership performance and potential, Hopkins suggests that women find both female and male allies and sponsors, create strategic networks, seek high-profile assignments to highlight their skills and abilities, and develop and communicate their individual definitions of career success.

The financial services organization at the focus of this study is one of the Top 100 U.S. Best Banks named by Forbes magazine. The sample of senior leaders included 26 women and 65 men, representative of the gender composition of the senior leadership team.

The researchers said a comparison of males and females in one organization ensured that any observed gender differences were not due to factors such as differences in industries or management hierarchies across organizations.

Researchers from UToledo, Bowling Green State University, Case Western Reserve University and San Diego Gas and Electric collaborated on the study.

A research team at the University of Córdoba has developed and evaluated models for the prediction of solar radiation in nine locations in southern Spain and North Carolina (USA).

Measuring solar radiation is costly, as are all the tasks related to the maintenance and calibration of the most commonly used sensors: pyranometers and radiometers. The result is a paucity of reliable data. Hence, a research group from the University of Córdoba has developed and evaluated several Machine Learning models to predict solar radiation in nine locations (southern Spain and North Carolina, USA) spanning a range of different geo-climatic conditions (aridity, distance to the sea, and elevation). The work has been featured in the journal Applied Energy.

One of the main breakthroughs of the models they created is that they only need thermal data to estimate daily solar radiation. "Measuring and having air temperature data today, thanks to low-cost sensorization and IoT (Internet of Things) technologies, is quite affordable," added Javier Estévez Gualda, a researcher and professor at the UCO. Most of the existing meteorological stations around the world have thermal and rainfall sensors, but very few measure solar radiation.

Juan Antonio Bellido, the main author of the work, highlights that one of the problems that currently exist in models based on Artificial Intelligence is the configuration of internal parameters, termed hyperparameters. "We might compare these hyperparameters to the controls on a sound technician's mixing board; their adjustment is essential, as the modification of potentiometers must be constantly prevented from causing sound problems," he explains. To solve this problem, they used an automatic algorithm called Bayesian Optimization (based on Bayes' theory), which is responsible for efficiently and quickly searching for suitable parameters so that the models obtain efficient and accurate results.

All the models used can be classified as supervised models; that is, they require data training. However, they can be classified into several groups: models based on neural networks, whose functioning is similar to that of neurons (Multilayer Perceptron - MLP, Extreme Learning Machine - ELM - and Generalized Regression Neural Networks - GRNN); models based on a tree typology (Random Forest - RF - and Extreme Gradient Boost - XGBoost), and others, such as Support Vector Machine (SVM).

These have been tested in different arid conditions, such as southern Spain, and in North Carolina (USA); that is, in arid, semi-arid, sub-humid, dry and humid areas. 31% of the earth's surface is arid/semi-arid/dry sub-humid, while 67% is humid. In this way, they are applicable to the entire surface of the Earth. When evaluating the efficiency of the models trained in new locations whose data has not been used during the same, significant improvements are yielded in all the locations. For example, those trained with time series from Cabra (Córdoba) and then applied in El Campillo (Huelva) show a considerable improvement.

Professor and researcher Amanda P. García-Marín, who is also part of the team, stated that the results improve on current models, obtaining great precision in estimating daily solar radiation values. "This is crucial in locations with no available or missing/low-quality data sets, and can be used to optimize the determination of potential locations for the construction of solar power plants," concluded researcher Javier Estévez Gualda.

Another of the work's strengths is that the models are available to any researcher,via the free-access GitHub repository, so their use can be extended to any area of the planet, depending on its aridity. In addition, from the agronomic point of view, the precise estimation of solar radiation is vital, since it is a key variable in the development of crops.

This study is part of the Smarity project (AGL2017-87658-R), funded by the Ministry of Science's Social Challenges National R&D Plan, which seeks solutions to climatic aridity in southern Spain and to intelligently predict the spatio-temporal variability of aridity and its effects on agriculture and the environment.

Researchers have used the latest wireless technology to develop a new radio receiver for astronomy. The receiver is capable of capturing radio waves at frequencies over a range several times wider than conventional ones, and can detect radio waves emitted by many types of molecules in space at once. This is expected to enable significant progresses in the study of the evolution of the Universe and the mechanisms of star and planet formation.

Interstellar molecular clouds of gas and dust provide the material for stars and planets. Each type of molecule emits radio waves at characteristic frequencies and astronomers have detected emissions from various molecules over a wide range of frequencies. By observing these radio waves, we can learn about the physical properties and chemical composition of interstellar molecular clouds. This has been the motivation driving the development of a wideband receiving system.

In general, the range of radio frequencies that can be observed simultaneously by a radio telescope is very limited. This is due to the characteristics of the components that make up a radio receiver. In this new research, the team of researchers in Osaka Prefecture University (OPU) and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) has widened the bandwidth of various components, such as the horn that brings radio waves into the receiver, the waveguide (metal tube) circuit that propagates the radio waves, and the radio frequency converter. By combining these components into a receiver system, the team has achieved a range of simultaneously detectable frequencies several times larger than before. Furthermore, this receiver system was mounted on the OPU 1.85-m radio telescope in NAOJ's Nobeyama Radio Observatory, and succeeded in capturing radio waves from actual celestial objects. This shows that the results of this research are extremely useful in actual astronomical observations.

"It was a very emotional moment for me to share the joy of receiving radio waves from the Orion Nebula for the first time with the members of the team, using the receiver we had built," comments Yasumasa Yamasaki, an OPU graduate student and the lead author of the paper describing the development of the wideband receiver components. "I feel that this achievement was made possible by the cooperation of many people involved in the project."

When compared to the receivers currently used in the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the breadth of frequencies that can be simultaneously observed with the new receivers is striking. To cover the radio frequencies between 211 and 373 GHz, ALMA uses two receivers, Band 6 and 7, but can use only one of them at a given time. In addition, ALMA receivers can observe two strips of frequency ranges with widths of 5.5 and 4 GHz using the Band 6 and 7 receivers, respectively. In contrast, the new wideband receiver can cover all the frequencies with a single unit. In addition, especially in the higher frequency band, the receiver can detect radio waves in a frequency range of 17 GHz at a time.

"It was a very valuable experience for me to be involved in the development of this broadband receiver from the beginning to successful observation," says Sho Masui, a graduate student at OPU and the lead author of the research paper reporting the development of the receiver and the test observations. "Based on these experiences, I would like to continue to devote further efforts to the advancement of astronomy through instrument development."

This wideband technology has made it possible to observe the interstellar molecular clouds along the Milky Way more efficiently using the 1.85-m radio telescope. In addition, widening the receiver bandwidth is listed as one of the high priority items in the ALMA Development Roadmap which aims to further improve the performance of ALMA. This achievement is expected to be applied to ALMA and other large radio telescopes, and to make a significant contribution to enhance our understanding of the evolution of the Universe.

Coastal wetlands - such as salt marshes - provide even more flood protection than previously thought, reducing the risk to lives and homes in estuaries, a new study has revealed.

The researchers' simulations showed that wetlands that grow in estuaries, such as salt marshes, can reduce water levels by up to 2 metres and provide protection far inland up estuary channels.

This subsequently saved up to $38 (£27) million in avoided flood damage costs per estuary during a large storm thanks to the wetlands' role in preventing storm floods.

The research is timely as wetlands are facing growing threats from continued urban development. 22 of the largest 32 cities in the world - including London, New York and Tokyo - are built on low-lying land around estuaries, which puts them at increasing risk of flooding in a warming climate.

At the same time climate change is driving increases in the magnitude and frequency of storms, and sea level rise.

The flood prevention role of coastal wetlands, which are common throughout Wales - the focus of this study - as well as the rest of the world, is therefore vital.

Previous research has focused on wetlands along open coastlines, where the plants absorb wave energy and stop waves pushing inland. However, the new study focuses on estuarine environments, including looking at what happens in upstream estuary areas where waves tend to be much smaller.

Taking this fuller picture into account, the researchers demonstrate that wetlands can have a much bigger storm flood prevention role because they not only absorb wave energy, but simultaneously reduce storm surges as they move up estuary channels.

This happens because the marshes along the estuary edges cause drag or friction, slowing down surges of water caused by storms, and protecting vulnerable upstream areas from flooding.

The research team included experts from Swansea University, with colleagues from the universities of Bangor and Exeter, Plymouth Marine Laboratory and from CSIRO in Tasmania.

The team used hydrodynamic models of eight estuaries of very different size and character in various parts of Wales. They simulated storms of different strengths and modelled the damage they would be likely to cause.

They found that coastal wetlands:

Reduced flooding across all eight estuaries in the study

Lowered storm water levels by as much as 2 metres in upstream areas

Made the biggest difference when faced with the most powerful storms - reducing average flood extents by 35% and damages caused by 37% ($8.4M).

Lead researcher Dr Tom Fairchild of Swansea University said:

'Our study shows that coastal wetlands play a crucial role in reducing storm-driven flooding in estuaries. They are nature's flood defences and we need them now more than ever.

Until now, the role of wetlands for coastal defence has been undervalued because of the focus on open coasts. Traditionally, estuaries -where waves tend to be much smaller - have been assumed to be less important, despite containing extensive wetland areas. Our research challenges that idea, showing that focussing on single processes, or even coastal environments, may risk grossly underestimating the true value of our wetlands'.

Dr John Griffin, co-author of the study and also from Swansea University, added:

'Our work shows that when big storms hit, nature works extra hard for us, preventing or reducing coastal flooding... for free. The upshot is, by protecting and restoring coastal wetlands, we help protect ourselves from the growing threat of flooding. It's a no-brainer.'

Augmented reality (AR) is poised to revolutionise the way people complete essential everyday tasks, yet older adults - who have much to gain from the technology - will be excluded from using it unless more thought goes into designing software that makes sense to them.

The danger of older adults falling through the gaps has been highlighted by research carried out by scientists at the UK's University of Bath and the Bath-based charity Designability. A Paper describing their work has received an honourable mention at this year's Human Computer Interaction Conference (CHI2021) - the world's largest conference of its kind.

The study concludes that adults aged 50+ are more likely to be successful at completing AR-prompted tasks (such as 'pick up the cube' followed by 'move the cube to the blue area') when the steps are shown by a 'ghosthand' demonstrating the action rather than the more commonly used arrow or some other visual aid.

According to the research team, many manufacturers of AR software are failing to factor the needs and preferences of older people into their application designs.

"We can't expect people to benefit from AR technology if they can't follow the prompts shown to them," said Dr Christof Lutteroth from the University's Department of Computer Science.

Thomas Williams, the Doctor of Engineering student who conducted the research from the university's Centre for Digital Entertainment, said: "A lot more thought needs to go into understanding what older adults need from augmented reality, so users in this group understand the prompts they're given straight away."

He added: "AR technology has great potential for improving the lives of older adults but most AR designers give little or no thought to the kind of augmentations they use for this population."

Supervising the project were Dr Lutteroth and Dr Simon Jones, also from Bath's Department of Computer Science, Dr Elies Dekoninck from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Dr Hazel Boyd from Designability.

For the study, participants were asked to lift, move, lower, open and close 3D shapes on a foam board in response to four different types of visual instructions displayed on a laptop that was running the AR application. Overall, participants preferred the ghosthand over other AR prompts, and were both faster at completing tasks and more confident in their actions. Assisted by a ghosthand, they responded up to twice as fast and twice as accurately as they did when using another, more commonly used, prompt. Participants commented that they could relate to the hand and it was clearer to them than the other visual prompts.

Demonstrations delivered by three other 'augmentations' - an arrow, a transparent ghost of the object and a pulsating transparent ghost - often resulted in participants hesitating before taking action and needing to see the visual instructions more often to get the task completed. It also resulted in participants being less sure that they'd done the job right.

"Though AR technology has great potential for improving the lives of older adults, this user group is rarely considered the target for AR development," said Dr Lutteroth. "I think this is the first study to investigate the accessibility of AR technology to older users."

Researchers envision AR technology soon being adopted to help others:

Understand what it might be like living with a cognitive impairment such as dementia

Make better assessments of fall-prevention modifications to older adults' homes

Reduce navigation- and distraction-related errors with in-car navigation systems

Provide training for improving spatial direction.

The research teams sees huge potential for AR technology to be used to help people with dementia and other memory difficulties. Using AR, a task such as preparing food, hand washing or making a cup of tea can be broken down into individual steps, each step represented simply and clearly on a screen or AR glasses, making it far easier for the job to be completed successfully. AR is also being explored as a diagnostic tool to detect early signs of cognitive decline and provide people with an earlier diagnosis of dementia.

"Activities of daily living that we take for granted can be more difficult for people with dementia, and AR prompting could make a big difference for them if designed appropriately," said Dr Boyd.

So why are older adults being left out of AR research? "Designers often find it difficult to know how non-designers and older people think if they're not big users of tech." explained Dr Jones.

"Another common problem is that designers often prioritise in a way that's not inclusive - they worry about the aesthetics of an application more than the ease of use for everyone. This is fine if you're a regular user of an application but it violates an essential principle of usability: you shouldn't have to read a manual to achieve what you're trying to achieve."

AR is gaining popularity in medicine, cultural heritage tourism, industrial assembly, and more recently, in the home. It allows people to use their smartphones or special glasses to immerse themselves in a real-world environment where the objects in their immediate vicinity are enhanced by digital content (such as a ghosthand). Over the next decade, computer scientists expect this technology to become increasingly integrated into all our daily lives.

"We'll be using AR for everything from fixing our own washing machines to deciding whether we're better off catching the bus from bus stop 1 or 2 as we're walking down the street," said Dr Dekoninck.

Many people encountered AR for the first time in 2016 with the release of Pokémon Go. This AR-enhanced game allowed players to use their smartphone screens to spot creatures from the Pokémon universe superimposed on the real world.

Skoltech biologists and their colleagues from Koltzov Institute of Developmental Biology, Russia, and the Chemistry Department of Taras Shevchenko University in Ukraine have discovered fairly unlikely drug candidates for treating liver fibrosis and other pathologies -- among pest control chemicals. In addition, the team looked at modifications of the medication called hymecromone, deeming them promising for anti-fibrotic drugs, too. Published in Glycobiology, the study also sheds light on the possible mechanism of action of the investigated compounds, all of which inhibit the synthesis of hyaluronic acid.

Hyaluronic acid is an important biological compound that is a key component of the connective tissue enveloping the cells of all other tissue types in animals. Among other things, it is involved in wound repair. The human body is 0.02% HA by weight.

HA is used in medicine and cosmetology -- in skin care products, wrinkle fillers, eye drops, and injections for joint problems. In the body, HA is naturally produced by an enzyme called hyaluronic acid synthase, or HAS.

Role of hyaluronic acid in liver fibrosis

"By changing the amount of HA, it is possible to affect numerous processes, including regeneration. Consider damaged liver cells. They die off readily because of their large potential for regeneration. But since it takes time for new cells to grow, spots for them are temporarily 'patched up' by 'placeholder' cells, whose formation requires HA," the study's senior author, Professor Yuri Kotelevtsev of Skoltech, explained.

When this patching up process gets out of control and there is far too much HA, instead of facilitating repair, connective tissue permanently takes the place of the damaged tissue. This is known as scarring. In the case of liver tissue, it results in fibrosis and ultimately cirrhosis, an untreatable condition requiring liver transplant and a big burden to the society and the health care.

In the previous study by Kotelevtsev's group, it was shown that liver fibrosis can be counteracted by cholespasmodic drug hymecromone -- aka. Odeston -- that inhibits HA synthesis in vivo. Its active compound is a small molecule called 4MU.

Challenges faced by existing drugs

It remains unknown what mechanism enables hymecromone to inhibit HA deposition, and pharmacological companies are reluctant to invest in 4MU research, because that molecule was discovered long ago, for treatment of the cholespasms, and therefore a simple repurposing of the drug will be difficult to protect by a patent. For this reason, more advanced new compounds have to be found to be developed into anti-fibrotic drugs.

It means that further research into the mechanisms of HAS inhibition calls for more attention on the part of academic, as opposed to corporate research. It also means that compounds with a different structure -- and ideally, with better inhibitory properties -- are more promising in terms of commercialization.

Alternative compounds

In their study, the Skoltech researchers and their colleagues report on the HAS-inhibitory properties of 13 compounds, among them 4MU itself, nine structurally similar molecules synthetized by Ukrainian chemists Igor Krasylov and Viktoria Moskvina from Vladimir Khilya laboratory, and three more that belong to an entirely different class, commonly thought of as pesticides.

The team tested each of the 13 agents for toxicity and then measured their efficiency in nontoxic amounts. In a cell culture assay, 4MU was outperformed by one of its derivatives, and the three commercial chitin synthesis inhibitors performed on par with 4MU. One of them, etoxazole, was also shown to alleviate liver fibrosis in mice to the same extent as 4MU.

"The classic approach is to take a molecule that works and tweak its structure in an attempt to improve on it. However, 4MU is a tiny molecule, so while we did try out nine of its derivatives, one has to admit there is not so much wiggle room for modifications. This led us to explore compounds of a different kind," Kotelevtsev said.

Koltzov Institute's researcher Alexandra Tsitrina recognized that the enzyme that assembles HA, first manufactures a certain building block that is common to HA and chitin, the substance making up the exoskeletons of insects, spiders, etc.

"This is where the pesticides come in: Why not test the compounds that inhibit chitin synthesis to see if they work on HAS, too? Turns out some of them do. Maybe there are others, so now there is a whole new class of potential HA synthesis inhibitors to investigate," the researcher added.

Mechanism of action

It is unclear what mechanism enables HAS inhibition either in the case of 4MU and its derivatives, or for chitin synthesis inhibitors. But now that there are these two distinct kinds of compounds doing the same thing, the Skoltech researchers think they have a hunch.

Previously, geneticists working with insecticides found a point mutation in chitin synthase that makes it resistant to the three inhibitors considered by the Skoltech team: etoxazole, buprofezine, and triflumurone.

"Using bioinformatics tools, we have identified the relatively short conservative amino acid sequence, a signature, in HAS similar to an amino acid sequence in chitin synthase containing the point mutation responsible for etoxazole sensitivity. This peptide is a part of the pore which protrudes assembled carbohydrates -- HA or chitin -- through the plasma membrane. It is possible that 4MU interacts with that site, too. But further research is needed to test this hypothesis," Kotelevtsev said.

According to the biologist, that further research would involve introducing a point mutation into HAS that makes it resistant to inhibition by pesticides, as well as using a technique called photoaffinity labeling to identify the target sites of 4MU on the HAS protein.

A competing hypothesis seeks to explain HA synthesis inhibition in terms of substrate exhaustion. "But that fails to account for why we could observe inhibition at low, micromolar concentrations. Substrate exhaustion should kick in at about 1,000 higher concentrations, where it is indeed likely to be the main driving force behind HAS inhibition. Not so at the concentrations we used," the researcher concluded.

For now, the researchers have shown that compounds inhibiting chitin synthesis -- ordinarily used to combat pests -- are promising drug candidates for down-regulating hyaluronic acid production to enable healthy cell regeneration in liver fibrosis. Drugs inhibiting HA synthesis might also be relevant for treating metabolic syndrome and cancer.

Amsterdam, July 8, 2021 - While the literature on the digital divide has widely addressed the digital gender gap, its potential implications for electronic government (e-government) / digital government research and practice have hardly been studied. In this Special Issue of Information Polity experts characterize the current state of understanding of the issues surrounding digital government and gender and present an agenda for future research.

Gender is a neglected topic in the literature on digital government. According to the International Telecommunications Union, women are lagging behind men in making use of the Internet in almost two thirds of countries worldwide. Overall, the proportion of all women using the Internet globally is 48%, compared with 58% of all men. More men than women use the Internet in every region of the world except in the Americas, where the gender gap continues to hover around zero, and in the European Union (EU), where the percentage of men using the Internet in 2020 was around 90% percent, compared with 88% of women.

"Science, math, and quantitative fields in general have always been perceived as male fields," explained the guest co-editors. "Despite the progress made in the last few years, technology is still seen as a tool for men. A more comprehensive view on gender is needed that includes male authors discussing gender issues and that also focuses on men and the differences between men and women, but in addition to the LGBTQ collective."

"Most published studies to date have focused on adoption and use of technologies by women, but we also need deeper insights into the impact of technology on the quality of life of women," the guest co-editors remarked. "We need to collect more gender-sensitive data on the usage of digital government services in order to better understand women's needs and design services accordingly."

This Special Issue presents five articles, two book reviews, and a comparative country report that characterize the current state of understanding to raise awareness of the issues and open an opportunity to build a research agenda on digital government and gender. The articles in this issue revolve around:

The study of gender and technology in government

The use of electronic government services and implications for the digital gender gap

The gender difference in the continuance intention to e-file income tax returns in Pakistan

The use of social media as a promising communication tool by mayors in Canada, which is more accessible to women than mainstream media

A comparison of the AI policy frameworks of the European Union and Spain

The development of digital governance in Mongolia and Taiwan

A review of two books: African Women, ICT and Neoliberal Politics, by Assata Zerai, and Data Feminism, by Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein

Collectively, the articles included in this Special Issue indicate that researchers worldwide are building a consistent research agenda around the topic of digital government and gender. "The future looks hopeful," commented the guest co-editors. "Young women scholars are more and more interested in addressing these issues. There are academic organizations and groups, such as Academic Women in Public Administration, that want to address gender inequality in different fields including technology. The level of interest in this issue shows this is an important topic."

The guest co-editors provide a research agenda that they hope will form the basis for future research. They stress that there is a long way ahead and further research should be conducted in order to better understand how inequalities interact and impact women's willingness and propensity to adopt and use digital government, as well as how digital government impacts women's quality of life.

"A gender perspective should be integrated in designing public services in order to better assess women's needs and avoid gender biases especially in emerging fields such as AI and big data analysis. Future research could also focus on gender-based use of different technologies and participation in technology-based initiatives, further exploring the variation in drivers, determinants, and outcomes among social media, online participation platforms, digital co-production, and online services, to just name a few examples," the guest co-editors concluded.

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual Veterans from the Vietnam era report PTSD and poorer mental health more often than their heterosexual counterparts, according to an analysis of data from the Vietnam Era Health Retrospective Observational Study (VE-HEROeS).

A greater burden of potentially traumatic events among LGB Veterans, such as childhood physical abuse, adult physical assault, and sexual assault, was associated with the differences.

"This study is the first to document sexual orientation differences in trauma experiences, probable PTSD, and health-related quality of life in LGB Veterans using a nationally representative sample," said Dr. John Blosnich, senior author of the study, published in July 2021 in Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Blosnich is a research health scientist with the Department of Veterans Affairs' Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion in Pittsburgh, and an assistant professor in the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, University of Southern California.

Veterans are at high risk for experiencing potentially traumatic events during military service. Evidence also suggests that sexual minorities are at greater risk of PTEs, compared with heterosexual peers. However, few studies have documented how traumatic experiences may differ by sexual orientation among Veterans.

VE-HEROeS sought survey data from more than 45,000 Vietnam-era Veterans, as well as 11,000 matched controls. Data collection was completed in 2018; nearly 19,000 Veterans responded. Multiple studies are underway based on the data collected.

"When initiating VE-HEROes we sought input from the Vietnam-era Veteran community," said Dr. Victoria Davey, the study's senior author. Davey is the principal investigator of VE-HEROeS and an associate chief research and development officer for VA. "That is being done more often in research but hasn't been done with Veteran research as much as it should be, at least in my opinion. It's important to bring the community into the research fold, so you hear from them what should be studied and what the approach should be. I think that by doing so, we created a better study."

Approximately 1.5% of responding Veterans identified as LGB; of those, 87% were male. Compared with heterosexual Veterans, LGB Veterans were younger at the time they were surveyed. They also were more likely to be female (13% of LGB Veterans, compared with 3% of heterosexual Veterans) and less likely to have served in combat.

Veterans were asked about exposure to 11 types of potentially traumatic events (PTEs), largely through a 10-question standardized instrument called the Brief Trauma Questionnaire (BTQ; see table).

"We used the BTQ because it is well-validated in many populations, including military populations, and because we wanted this study to be comparable with other large studies," said Davey. After consulting with advisors from the Vietnam-era Veteran community, researchers added an eleventh question about witnessing sexual assault during military service. Nearly one-third of heterosexual Veterans and about one-fourth of LGB Veterans reported this type of PTE.

"The Veterans advising us said that one of the most traumatic things they experienced was actually having to watch sexual assaults, either on civilians or on other members of the military," said Davey.

Compared with heterosexual Veterans, LGB Veterans were more likely to report exposures to physical abuse in childhood, natural disasters, physical assault in adulthood, and sexual assault. They were less likely to report exposure to combat, witnessing someone being seriously injured or killed, or witnessing sexual assault while in the military.

The study found that 20.1% of LGB Veterans in the study had probable PTSD, compared with 14.7% of heterosexual Veterans-- a significant difference. According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, approximately 3.6% of all Americans have PTSD, with prevalence more common in females (5.2%) than males (1.8%).

LGB Veterans had 50% greater odds of probable PTSD and 70% greater odds of poor mental health, compared with heterosexual Veterans. These differences disappeared when researchers controlled for the number of PTEs.

"The potentially traumatic experiences largely accounted for the differences in mental health outcomes," said Blosnich.

This is a key finding, he noted, because until the early 1970s, being lesbian, gay or bisexual was considered a mental illness. "And there are still people and institutions that believe there is something inherently damaging about being LGB," said Blosnich. "The study analyses indicate that your sexuality is not the driver; if you are subjected to certain experiences, those experiences are the driver. It's how you are treated, not who you are."

Both Davey and Blosnich believe the study can help to inform PTSD treatment of Vietnam-era Veterans, as it indicates that traumas across the lifespan can contribute to PTSD, particularly for LGB Veterans--although how early-life traumas interact with military service experiences isn't fully understood.

"Early life adversity and trauma experienced during the military may combine in complicated ways; we don't know," Blosnich said. "Military trauma is the reason we have a PTSD diagnosis. But it doesn't happen in a vacuum."

Providers should try to create a therapeutic safe space for Vietnam-era Veterans to talk about childhood trauma, he said, but that could be difficult if those earlier experiences are tied to LGB sexual identity.

"Imagine you're an LGB Vietnam-era Veteran. You grew up in a toxic time for LGB people, then served in the military, where your sexuality could end your career," Blosnich said. "Feeling like it's okay to talk about your sexual orientation with a health care provider--that has to be really difficult."

The 2016-2017 Vietnam Era Health Retrospective Observational Study (VE-HEROeS) study is a VA-funded nationwide study designed to assess the current health and well-being of Vietnam Veterans, Blue Water Navy Veterans, and Veterans who served elsewhere during the Vietnam Era (1961-1975). This study is comparing the health of these Veterans to similarly aged U.S. residents who never served in the military. Participants completed a survey of questions about military service, general health, lifestyle, and aging. Data collection was completed in 2018.

The new study, titled “Liposomal Extravasation and Accumulation in Tumors as Studied by Fluorescence Microscopy and Imaging Depend on the Fluorescent Label,” was published on July 1, 2021, in the prestigious journal of the American Chemical Society, ACS Nano.

Liposomes, a type of nanoparticle, are tiny, fat-soluble vesicles (small, fluid-filled sacs) made from lipids, or fats. They are mainly used to deliver cancer-fighting drugs to tumors, since liposomes are not water soluble and can protect some drugs against breaking down in the body.

Comparing fluorescent labels on liposomes for enhanced tumor imaging

In the new study, Simberg and his collaborator Irina Balyasnikova, PhD, from the Department of Neurological Surgery at Northwestern University, wanted to determine whether the accumulation of liposomes in tumors depends on the type of fluorescent label used.

“It's very important for the liposome to get out to the tumor blood vessels in order to reach tumor cells and other cells in the microenvironment. So, we asked whether liposome accumulation in tumors depends on which fluorescent label you use,” Simberg explains.

“It's the first finding of its kind, showing that different lipids have different abilities to accumulate in tumors.” – Dmitri Simberg, PhD

To accomplish this, they made liposomes containing two different classes of fluorescent lipids in the same liposome: indocarbocyanine lipids (ICLs) and fluorescent phospholipids (FPLs). Then they injected them into breast cancer and brain cancer mouse models and used fluorescent microscopy and imaging to compare how much of each label accumulated in the tumors.

Both types of fluorescent labels initially accumulated in the tumor blood vessels. However, over time, the ICLs continued to accumulate, spreading over a significantly larger tumor area and reaching immune and tumor cells, while the FPLs quickly degraded and disappeared from the tumors.

“What we found is that even when injected into the same liposome, ICLs showed remarkable accumulation and extravasation (infiltrating the tumors), while FPLs, though a very similar type of fluorescent group, did not show much extravasation and essentially disappeared,” Simberg says.

“It's the first finding of its kind, showing that different lipids have different abilities to accumulate in tumors,” he adds.

Results could lead to improved liposomal drug delivery

The team’s findings open the door to improved cancer drug-delivery systems.

“There is a lot of interest in using lipids as a kind of shuttle to get the drugs into tumors,” Simberg says. “It’s an exciting opportunity to enhance drug delivery in different tumors, particularly glioma, a type of brain tumor that’s especially difficult to penetrate.”

Although a lot of labs make liposomes and nanoparticles, there has not been much mechanistic understanding of exactly how they interact with tumors and how they cross the endothelial barrier. “We’re really advocating for studies that offer a deeper mechanistic understanding of how these drug-delivery systems work,” Simberg says.

Simberg says the most impactful part of this paper and his lab’s ongoing research is its focus on understanding the mechanics and structure of lipids that determine the efficiency of tumor accumulation.

The next step in the team’s research will be studies to try additional fluorescent lipids. “In this paper, we compared two lipid types, but we want to expand on that to build a large library of fluorescent lipids and use the most efficient ones to deliver anticancer drugs, eventually testing them for therapeutic efficacy in glioma and other tumor models,” Simberg says.

Journal

ACS Nano

DOI

10.1021/acsnano.1c02982

The recent extreme heat in the Western United States and Canada may seem remarkable now, but events like these are made more likely, and more severe, under climate change. The consequences are likely to be far-reaching, with overwhelmingly negative impacts on land and ocean ecosystems, biodiversity, food production and the built environment.

"The main lever we have to slow global warming is the rate at which CO2 is added to the atmosphere," said Marcus Thomson, a postdoctoral scholar at the National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis at UC Santa Barbara. Thomson is a co-author of a research article just published in Nature that presents a scheme to slow global warming by tying CO2 emissions to carbon removal obligations.

In spite of several high-profile attempts to limit emissions caused by human activities over the past several decades, atmospheric carbon dioxide has continued to rise steadily. If this trend continues, sufficient CO2 will be added to the atmosphere -- the "remaining carbon budget" will be depleted -- in about a decade to raise the long-term average global temperature by 1.5°C. That in turn raises the likelihood of dangerous and irreversible socioeconomic and ecological damage.

The most recent attempt to cooperatively limit global greenhouse gas emissions was COP21 in 2015, which resulted in the "Paris Agreement", an international treaty that has been in force since. Under the Paris Agreement, individual countries pledge to reduce their emissions in order to keep global warming to no more than +1.5°C and "well below" 2°C. For the Paris Agreement to have any hope of succeeding, and for dangerous global warming to be avoided, it will be necessary to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere, in addition to limiting emissions. Technically, once the remaining carbon budget is depleted, for every ton of CO2 added to the atmosphere, it will be necessary to remove a ton of CO2 later this century.

In other words, the researchers assert, should emissions continue after the carbon budget is depleted -- which seems likely -- the budget will go negative, and we will begin accruing a carbon debt. The greater this carbon debt grows, the faster and more dramatically the climate will change -- it will become a more difficult problem to fix. This assumption is already baked into the net-zero pledges that countries have made. However, these pledges are still insufficient. There remains no uniform global strategy for national and sub-national governments, public organizations and private companies to get behind to pay down this carbon debt. This raises the risk that future generations will be unfairly burdened with massive debt, and challenges any long-term strategy to limit warming to +1.5°C. In short, in spite of near universal agreement on the need to achieve net-zero emissions, there remains a significant challenge to operationalize concerted action.

Before It's Too Late

In their article, the researchers argue that to assure the viability of a future net-negative carbon economy, funds for future carbon debt repayment ought to be collected through a carbon pricing scheme before and while carbon debt is accrued. As lead author Johannes Bednar, a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria and a Ph.D. student at Oxford University explained, "Economic logic dictates that the latest possible time to start doing that is [the moment] when the carbon budget becomes depleted."

In the case of an idealized global emissions trading scheme, emission caps become more stringent as the carbon budget is depleted. For existing schemes, like that used by the European Union, this would mean reducing the quantity of currently scheduled emissions allowances. This risks making the whole scheme economically and politically untenable. The reduced number of allowances would, however, be compensated by Carbon Removal Obligations (CROs), obligating emitters to remove an equivalent quantity of CO2 in the future instead of paying a carbon price now, which may be insufficient to compensate for the eventual cost of warming. In the plan, carbon debt would be managed through CROs which establish legal responsibility for carbon debt repayment.

"We needed a scheme that would be resilient to future interference in its primary goal, which is to decarbonize the environment, yet still be as simple as possible," Thomson said. "CROs work within the existing and foreseeable regulatory environment, and should also be appealing for capital markets. We started with the germ of an idea and worked it through collaboratively. Johannes developed a rigorous proof of concept model, and then pulled everything together beautifully."

Emission trading schemes backed by CROs carry the risk of default by debtors. The authors propose that the latter be addressed by treating carbon debt like financial debt, and by imposing interest on carbon debt. Interest payments would be treated as a rental fee for temporarily storing CO2 in the atmosphere. Additionally, making CROs tradable assets facilitates the de-risking of intertemporal carbon markets.

The proposal resolves some of the inconsistencies in the current academic understanding of scenarios as well as foreseeable failures in climate policy over the long term. Instead of burdening future generations with excessive debt, CROs imply a more equitable distribution of financial flows and costs over time. Moreover, in climate mitigation scenarios, a larger portfolio of CO2 removal technologies usually goes hand in hand with increased carbon debt and therefore a greater reliance on CO2 removal in the future.

"CROs completely change how we see [carbon dioxide removals], from magical tools to enable a 30 year long period of the 'grand atmospheric restoration project' to a technology option that is developed and tested today and flexibly and more incrementally scaled throughout the 21st century and possibly beyond," noted study co-author Michael Obersteiner, director of the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) at Oxford University and a senior research scholar at IIASA.

With CROs in place, carbon debt is penalized through interest payments. Should CROs be rolled out rapidly, the interest on carbon debt would incentivize large-scale near-term CO2 removal on top of conventional emission reductions. This would help to minimize carbon debt and its associated risks, and consequently facilitate a more rapid path to net-zero than scheduled by most countries.

A team of the University of Barcelona has analysed for the first time what the dry and hot periods could be like in the area of the Pyrenees depending on different greenhouse emission scenarios. The results, published in the journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, show that under an intermediate scenario, where these emissions that accelerate the climate change could be limited, there would not be a rise in long-lasting dry episodes, but temperatures would rise during these periods. On the other hand, if those emissions were not reduced during the 21st century, the summer no-rain periods would last an average of five more and, in addition, they would go with a rise of temperatures 6ºC over the current ones in the Pyrenees. According to the authors, these results would involve "a potential increase in environmental risks such as wildfires, crop yield losses, negative effects on biodiversity and water resources, etc.".

The study counts on the participation of the researcher Marc Lemus-Canovas, from the Climatology Groupof the UB, and the lecturer Joan Albert López-Bustins, from the Department of Geography. Both are members of the Water Research Institute of the UB.

Two variables that increase environmental risks

The study analysed, on the one hand, whether the length of consecutive days without rain has increased or will increase in the future, and on the other, whether the highest temperatures during the long-lasting dry periods will be higher than the current ones. This is the first time these variables are studied together in the area of the Pyrenees, in an approximation that enables avoiding an underestimation of the risk these climate conditions bring to the area. "Plants are under a hydric stress due to a combination of a long-lasting dry periods and a high temperature, and the stress is higher than if we analyse one of the compounds. The concurrence of long-lasting dry periods and extremely hot temperatures can bring environmental risks such as wildfires, crop yield losses, and in general, serious problems regarding the biodiversity of this area, which would not be detected by considering only one of the variables", says Marc Lemus.

The study used climate data from several parts of the Pyrenees (Catalan Pyrenees, Aragon Pyrenees, etc.) from 1981 to 2015, in the information obtained from the work carried out at the Pyrenees Climate Change Observatory, thanks to the CLIMPY project, which enabled recovering a great part of climate series. "These data show that to date, the risk of the simultaneous concurrence of long-lasting droughts and extreme temperatures has been increased by the raise of one of these cmpounds: temperature. This has taken place similarly in spring and summer and over the general area of the Pyrenees", notes the researcher.

More and more extreme temperatures

In order to estimate the evolution of these two variables during the rest of the 21st century, the researchers considered two out of the future scenarios of greenhouse emissions established by the UN Representative Concentration Pathways group. "Under an intermediate scenario of emissions (RCP4.5), assuming that by the middle of the century the emissions will start a process of stabilization and that by 2100 there will not be a growing trend of gas emissions, the pattern will continue to be the same: temperatures will be more extreme when these dry spells occur, but the length of these dry periods will not increase", describes the researcher.

On the other hand, this situation would substantially change under a scenario of high emissions (RCP8.5), where the volume of emissions would continue to rise during the whole century. Under these conditions, the authors detected that there would be, in spring, an increase in the length of dry periods, mainly in the eastern side of the Pyrenees, and a strong increase in thermal extremes during these dry spells. "Regarding summer, the length of days without rain will increase notably in the northern side of the Pyrenees (the wettest area of this territory) and there will also be a rise of extreme temperatures. The less exposed area to this factor in both elements would be the western area, with a higher Atlantic influence", notes Marc Lemus. According to the researchers, these results highlight the importance of stopping the increasing trend of greenhouse emissions. "We saw it is not ideal in an intermediate scenario because the thermal increase is notable. However, a dramatic increase in the length of dry periods and in extreme temperatures at the same time could lead to a catastrophic scenario, due to the involvements it could have in a fragile area where the 59% of the surface is covered by forests", they warn.

In this sense, the research states that this study should provide "more arguments to the provision of public resources for the actors that work on forest and ecological management of the Pyrenees, in order to adapt it for the future. And mainly, to promote a mitigation policy on climate change which is our pending subject", he concludes.

Recently, the Climatology Group of the UB has received a favourable resolution from the Spanish Ministry on Science and Innovation for the grant of a research project titled "Eventos compuestos secos y cálidos en la España peninsular", which will enable the team to receive resources to continue working on this research line for the next three years.

Philadelphia, July 8, 2021 - Fifty-five percent of Midwest university students had tried a plant-based meat alternative and attributed this choice to the enjoyment of new food, curiosity about the products, and environmental concern, according to a new study in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, published by Elsevier.

For several decades, there has been a steady growth in consumer concerns about the environmental sustainability of the global food supply, animal welfare ethics, and human health consequences of red meat intakes. To assess the prevalence of plant-based alternatives to meat consumption in students; describe associations between demographics, environmental concern attitudes, and consumption; and determine variables statistically associated with trying the plant-based alternatives, researchers studied enrolled students aged 18-30 at Iowa State University.

"Among the 1,400 students surveyed, we found about 55 percent had tried a plant-based alternative to meat. Individuals who ate plant-based products were more environmentally conscious, more likely to be vegetarian, and more likely to be out-of-state students--so not from Iowa," said lead author Elizabeth Davitt, MS, Food Science and Human Nutrition, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, College of Human Sciences, Iowa State University, Ames, IA.

When evaluating why there is a correlation between out-of-state students and willingness to try plant-based alternatives to meat, Davitt suggests considering where the study is conducted. "This university in-state is well known for its agriculture degree programs. Iowa is also a top producer of hogs and chickens as well as a top grower for livestock feed. So, that could add some nuance to that result."

Respondents' motivation for trying plant-based alternatives to meat also included enjoying and trying new foods, being curious about these products, thinking they would taste good, and receiving encouragement from family and friends. Individuals who did not consume plant-based alternatives to meat had a less favorable view of meatless meals.

"There are many reasons people chose the foods they eat, but we did find that having a more positive attitude about the environment was associated with having tried a plant-based meat alternative in college students," Davitt said.

Thyroid hormones are amino acid-based molecules produced by the thyroid gland. Involved in direct or indirect regulation of key metabolic pathways, these molecules play critical roles in the development and normal functioning of the body. The mechanism of how thyroid hormones exert their effect on each other as well as on other metabolic pathways is complex, but a two-way feedback loop is central to their biological activity. Dysregulation of the feedback loop that controls their production affects other biochemical pathways, causing various ailments including those related to the cardiovascular system, liver function, or bone development.

Several clinical studies have shown the effect of thyroid hormones on lipid levels: that treating the patients with thyroid hormone analogs helps to improve their lipid level, for example, or that thyroid hormones are associated with glycolipid metabolism and increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVD). These results highlight the possibilities of predicting the risk of lipid-related diseases or designing a CVD treatment strategy based on thyroid hormones. But such efforts would require the base of a biological cause-and-effect relationship between thyroid hormones and lipid profile, an association that has remained unproven thus far.

It is notable that the results of the previously conducted clinical studies, however intriguing, have remained unable to assign thyroid hormones as the probable cause of change in the lipid profile. This is because many confounding factors might have impacted both, blurring the cause-and-effect relationship between thyroid function and lipid profiles. Additionally, the observed relationship between the two could reflect reverse causation, where the change in lipid profile affected the thyroid function. Thus, to leverage the observed association between thyroid function and serum lipid profile for designing treatment strategies for lipid-related diseases, a better understanding of their causal dynamics becomes imperative.

Now, a team of researchers led by Dr. Yi-Da Tang, Department of Cardiology, Peking University, in their recently published article in Chinese Medical Journal, have presented a scientific basis for identifying thyroid function as a causal factor capable of affecting the serum lipid levels. The team genetically analysed epidemiology data using a method called Mendelian randomization (MR). MR is based on the assumption that genetic alleles are randomly assorted in the population and act as proxies for environmental exposures that alter the biological disease risk in a manner that is less likely to be impacted by behavioral, social, or physiological confounding factors. Dr. Tang, who is also the corresponding author of the study, explains "As we tried to decipher the association between thyroid function and lipid profile, MR offered a solution to mimic a perfectly-designed randomized control trial. The approach allowed us to ward off the confounding factors and the chance of reverse causation, and let us observe whether there exists a hidden causal effect of thyroid function on lipid-related disease.''

In their study, the researchers analyzed the genotype data of thousands of people from two genome-wide-association-studies (GWAS) datasets. For clinical measures of thyroid function, they considered levels of thyrotropin (TSH), free thyroxine (FT4), ratio of free triiodothyronine (FT3) and FT4 (FT3:FT4), and thyroid peroxidase antibodies (TPOAb), as essential thyroid traits known to be related with various disease conditions. Then from the GWASs, they identified 115 single-nucleotide polymorphisms that represented the genetic variants for the thyroid function traits. Using MR analysis, the researchers assessed the effect of each of the selected genetic variants for thyroid function on the selected lipid metabolism traits at the population level. They found that as potential causal factors for altered lipid levels, the genetically altered levels of two of the selected thyroid traits, TSH level and FT3:FT4 ratio, were related to the elevated levels of TC and LDL of the individuals. However, the genetically predicted FT4 level and TPOAb concentration were not associated with any of the serum lipid traits.

The team's findings establish a distinct association between thyroid function and serum lipid metabolism. Interpreting the clinical significance of their result, Prof. Tang concludes: "Our study highlights the importance of pituitary-thyroid-cardiac axis in diseases related to dyslipidemia. As we have proved the causal association, patients with thyroid diseases or those on thyroid replacement therapy should pay attention to the thyroid trait and serum lipid profiles to prevent the development of cardiometabolic diseases."

As luck would have it, the air quality sensors that University of Utah researcher Daniel Mendoza and his colleagues installed in Park City, Utah in September 2019, hoping to observe how pollution rose and fell through the ski season and the Sundance Film Festival, captured a far more impactful natural experiment: the COVID-19 pandemic.

Throughout the pandemic, the air sensors watched during lockdowns as air pollution fell in residential and commercial areas, and then as pollution rose again with reopenings. The changing levels, the researchers found, which behaved differently in residential and commercial parts of the city, show where pollution is coming from and how it might change in the future under different policies.

"The lockdown period demonstrated how low pollution levels can be and showed what the background pollution is in the area," says Mendoza, a research assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and visiting assistant professor in the Department of City & Metropolitan Planning. "The very low levels of PM2.5 [fine particulate matter] can be considered an aspirational target and could spur increases in renewable and low-polluting energy sources."

The study, supported by the Sustainability Office of Park City, is published in Environmental Research.

Good timing

Before this study, neither Park City nor Summit County, Utah had a long-term record from regulatory air quality sensors. Although the population of Park City is much smaller than the Salt Lake Valley, its geography still creates temperature inversions that can trap and concentrate emissions from cars, businesses and other sources. Mendoza, who also holds appointments as an adjunct assistant professor in the Pulmonary Division at the School of Medicine and as a senior scientist at the NEXUS Institute, and his colleagues set up sensors at two different locations, one atop the building of the KPCW radio station, in Park City's "Old Town" district, representing a bustling commercial area. The other was located at the Park City Municipal Athletic & Recreation Center, in an affluent residential area.

"We are looking to study other areas, including the Salt Lake Valley, but we wanted to focus on Park City because of the novelty of having sensors installed there," Mendoza says. In contrast to the Salt Lake Valley's diverse set of industrial and residential emissions, Park City's emissions are primarily related to heating and on-road traffic. It was already set to be a fascinating study.

"However, as we all know, COVID-19 happened and we had a natural experiment," he says. As restrictions and precautions went into effect, the research team tracked how emissions changed.

Lockdown

Emissions declined during the lockdown period across the city but decreased more in commercial areas. Many residents stayed at home and many offices shifted to remote work. But the emissions, Mendoza says, shifted to the residential areas.

"Due to exposure concerns, many people ordered food, groceries, etc. to be delivered to their homes," he says. "Furthermore, many companies have been allowing people to work from home, at least for part of the week, so car trips moved to residential areas instead of commercial areas."

Studying two clearly different locations in the same city is an important feature of the research, Mendoza says. "The intra-city variability is something that has not been studied in detail and can help us understand potential future emission and pollution patterns, particularly as teleworking is becoming a more viable and accepted option."

The findings can't be directly extrapolated to larger cities, but it stands to reason, Mendoza says, that air pollution emissions may have similarly shifted in many cities from a central city signal to a more dispersed residential pattern. "While traditionally residential areas have had cleaner air, this was not necessarily the case during and following the lockdown periods," he says.

Rebound

The sensors kept watch as activity largely returned to a form of normal in May and June 2020. By the end of the study period in late July 2020, commercial emissions hadn't yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, while residential emissions had made a full rebound. The researchers noted that the emissions rose over a course of two months.

"I think it's comparatively easy to lock down a place - businesses and activities shut down," Mendoza says. "However, reopening takes much more time and thought."

The researchers carefully checked their data and ruled out the possibility that the changes in emissions were due to changing seasons or meteorology. They concluded that changes in human activity produced a measurable change in air quality--a finding with broad implications. Pandemic-level emissions could serve as a baseline, for example, for air pollution reduction goals. The study also showed that residential heating and cooling are significant components of the air quality equation--something for policymakers to consider in the transition to a low-carbon energy economy.

Air pollution has improved following other events in the past, such as the Great Recession of 2008, says Tabitha Benney, associate professor of political science and a co-author on the paper. But those prior events weren't monitored with an inter-city perspective. So the observed trends in Park City, with residential emissions rebounding faster than commercial emissions, came as a surprise.

"However, at the county level, it appears that pollution remains low over the entire study period," she says. "It is only when we use the inter-city perspective that such patterns become apparent. This has important implications for other urban areas as well."