Tech

Lithium-ion batteries lose their juice over time, causing scientists and engineer to work hard to understand that process in detail. Now, scientists at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have combined sophisticated machine learning algorithms with X-ray tomography data to produce a detailed picture of how one battery component, the cathode, degrades with use.

The new study, published May 8 in Nature Communications, focused on how to better visualize what's going on in cathodes made of nickel-manganese-cobalt, or NMC. In these cathodes, NMC particles are held together by a conductive carbon matrix, and researchers have speculated that one cause of performance decline could be particles breaking away from that matrix. The team's goal was to combine cutting-edge capabilities at SLAC's Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) to develop a comprehensive picture of how NMC particles break apart and break away from the matrix and how that might contribute to performance losses.

Of course, it's a tall order for humans to figure out what's going on just by looking at pictures of an NMC cathode, so the team turned to computer vision, a subfield of machine learning algorithms originally designed to scan images or videos and identify and track objects like dogs or cars.

Even then, there were challenges. Computer vision algorithms often zero in on boundaries defined by light or dark lines, so they'd have a hard time differentiating between several small NMC particles stuck together and a single large but partially fractured one; to most computer vision systems, those fractures would look like clean breaks.

To address that problem, the team used a type of algorithm set up to deal with hierarchical objects - for example, a jigsaw puzzle, which we would think of as a complete entity even though it's made up of many individual pieces. With input and judgments from the researchers themselves, they trained this algorithm to distinguish different kinds of particles and thus develop a three-dimensional picture of how NMC particles, whether large or small, fractured or not, break away from the cathode.

They discovered that particles detaching from the carbon matrix really do contribute significantly to a battery's decline, at least under conditions one would typically see in consumer electronics, such as smart phones.

Second, while large NMC particles are more likely to become damaged and break away, quite a few smaller particles break away, too, and overall, there's more variation in the way small particles behave, said Yijin Liu, a staff scientist at SLAC and a senior author of the new paper. That's important because researchers had generally assumed that by making battery particles smaller, they could make longer-lasting batteries - something the new study suggests might not be so straightforward, Liu said.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is a United Nations Organization agency commissioned to regulate international telecommunications between different operating administrations and businesses. Pursuant to specific recommendations by this organization, on 1 July, standard Y.3172, an architecture for machine learning in future networks (5G and beyond), was approved for telecommunications networks. This new standard defines a logical network architecture that has been designed to include machine learning mechanisms intrinsically.

The agency StandICT.eu, which promotes the participation and contribution by academics to single digital market standards, such as 5G, cloud computing, cybersecurity, big data and IoT, granted members of the UPF Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC) a "Short Term" grant, thanks to which they have been involved in three meetings of the ITU's Focus Group on Machine Learning for Future Networks including 5G (FG-ML5G).

With this grant, the Wireless Networking and AI&ML research groups, led by Boris Bellalta and Anders Jonsson at the UPF DTIC, respectively, have studied how the application of machine learning can lead to a number of use cases that require transmissions of between 10 and 20 Gbps capacity, support large numbers of devices (1M/km2) or reduce latency to less than 5ms, with an error rate of less than 0.00001.

The research results were published by Francesc Wilhelmi, Sergio Barrachina, Boris Bellalta, Cristina Cano, Anders Jonsson, and Vishnu Ram in the IEEE Communications Magazine on 18 March. Their study also includes a use case that involves the association of users in dense networks using deep learning (i.e., neural networks). Thanks to the application of such techniques, it is possible to learn a series of complex patterns that current mechanisms cannot handle, as could be network load, interference received, or the status of each device.

Oxides of different metals often serve as photocatalysts in various systems such as air purification, reactions of water decomposition and even in the production of self-cleaning surfaces for glass and mirrors. The physical-chemical properties of such materials can be improved by adding nanoparticles, which turn an ordinary oxide into a nanomaterial with new capabilities. To successfully perform this, however, it is necessary to understand the processes going on as a nanocomposite is being formed, and to be able to control them. ITMO University researchers together with their colleagues from France and the USA have demonstrated how a femtosecond laser can be used to tune the structure and nanocomposite properties for titanium dioxide films filled with gold nanoparticles. The paper was published in ACS the Journal of Physical Chemistry C.

Some time ago, scientists and engineers created a number of special materials capable of accelerating chemical processes when exposed to light. This discovery has a great implications for industry - such materials can be used in a wide variety of devices, from air purifiers to fuel cells. One of such promising materials is titanium dioxide, which can be infused with gold nanoparticles to improve its photocatalytic properties. Research in this field is conducted by ITMO University researchers.

In fact, fabrication of such composite materials remains challenging. Thin films of titanium dioxide and gold nanoparticles can be created separately, but the way of combination of these two components is yet to be established. There are certain difficulties with placing nanoparticles inside the oxide films, and it's even more difficult to control their size and distribution. An international group of researchers, including those from ITMO University, has suggested using laser radiation to achieve this goal.
"If we subject these materials to laser radiation, both the gold particles and the titanium dioxide matrices around them change their properties," explains Maksim Sergeev, a research associate at ITMO.

The researchers from ITMO University and the Hubert Curien Laboratory have carried out an experiment, where thin films of poriferous titanium dioxide were impregnated with gold ions rapidly forming particles on the scale of a few nanometers. Then, the material was subjected to laser radiation. It turned out that with the properly chosen femtosecond laser irradiation, it is possible to effectively control the growth of nanoparticles without damaging the material. For instance, if the laser is moving at a very low speed, cavities may form around the newly grown nanoparticles in the titanium dioxide film.

"Together with researchers from the University of Arizona we developed a model to explain this effect that helped us to determine the temperature field in the material when it was subjected to laser radiation.. The model considered resonant absorption on metal particles, local field enhancement, photoinduced generation of unbound electrons, and photoemission. The material turned out to heat more when it contained both smaller and larger particles, though its temperature was still not high enough to melt or destroy the material for the correctly chosen laser parameters," elaborates Tatiana Itina, Research Director at the Hubert Curien Laboratory of the French National Center for Scientific Research.

As a result of both experiments and simulations, the researchers can now better understand the mechanisms behind nanocomposite film formation and have more possibilities to control their properties. Using lasers for these purposes will simplify the production of such "gold-plated" titanium dioxide films, which will make it easier to implement them in the industry. Right now, however, the technology is far from being ready and additional studies are underway.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is an aggressive cancer of the blood-forming system. It affects the hematopoietic stem cells, or blood stem cells, of various white blood cells and of the red blood cells and platelets. The leukemic stem cells propagate quickly, spread in the bone marrow and blood, and can attack other organs. Patients are usually treated with intensive chemotherapy and sometimes radiotherapy. After that they require a transplant of hematopoietic stem cells from a healthy donor. There are serious side effects associated with the treatment and it is therefore unsuitable for many patients.

Selectively eliminating leukemic and hematopoietic stem cells

A team of scientists and physicians from the University of Zurich (UZH), the University Hospital Zurich (USZ) and ETH Zurich have now managed to eliminate the leukemic and hematopoietic stem cells more selectively in an animal model. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy not only destroy the cancerous and hematopoietic stem cells, but affect all dividing cells - i.e. practically all tissues. "Compared to normal strategies, our method works very selectively, meaning that mature blood cells and other tissues are spared," says study leader Markus Manz, professor of medicine at UZH and director of the Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology at USZ.

The researchers used the novel cell therapy called CAR-T. This therapy uses genetic modification to equip human immune cells with a receptor, thanks to which they can systematically dock onto only the leukemic stem cells and the healthy hematopoietic stem cells and destroy them. This creates space for the new donor cells to be transplanted. To avoid that the genetically modified immune cells then also attack the hematopoietic stem cells from the donor, the CAR-T cells are deactivated after they have done their work and before the transplant. This is done by using an antibody against a surface marker of the CAR-T cells. After the donor stem cell transplant, they take their place in the bone marrow and begin to rebuild the hematopoietic and immune system.

Clinical use of selective immune-mediated elimination planned

The results were achieved using cell cultures in the lab and in mice with human blood and cancer cells. But Markus Manz is confident that the treatment could also be effective in humans: "The principle works: It is possible to eliminate, with high precision, the leukemic and hematopoietic stem cells in a living organism." Researchers are currently testing whether the method is only possible with CAR-T cells or also with simpler constructs - such as T-cell-activating antibodies. As soon as the pre-clinical work is completed, Manz wants to test the new immunotherapy in a clinical study with humans. "If our method also works with humans, it could replace chemotherapy with its serious side effects, which would be a great benefit for patients with acute myeloid leukemia or other hematopoietic stem cell diseases," explains Manz.

Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed a green way to create chitin, by using two forms of food waste - prawn shells and discarded fruit - and fermenting them.

Chitin serves a wide variety of uses in the food industry, such as food thickeners and stabilisers, and as anti-microbial food packaging.

The NTU method is more sustainable than current approaches that chemically extract chitin from marine waste, which is costly, consumes large amounts of energy and leads to chemical by-products that may be discharged in industrial wastewater.

Six to eight million tons of crustacean waste are generated annually around the world, with 45 to 60 per cent[1] of shrimp shells discarded as processing by-products.

Professor William Chen, Director of the Food Science and Technology programme at NTU, who led the research, said, "The huge amount of shrimp waste has sparked industrial interest as it is an abundant source of chitin. However, there is a problem in the extraction method, which is both unsustainable and harmful to the environment.

"Our new method takes crustacean waste and discarded fruit waste and uses natural fermentation processes to extract chitin. This is not only cost-effective, but also environmentally-friendly and sustainable, and helps to reduce overall waste," said Prof Chen.

The team's findings were published in peer-reviewed journal AMB Express in January 2020.

The NTU team tested ten sources of common fruit waste such as white and red grape pomace, mango and apple peels, and pineapple cores, in various fermentation experiments. They found that fruit waste contained enough sugar content to power the fermentation process that breaks prawn shells down into chitin.

They used 'X-ray diffraction' technique to determine the atomic and molecular structure of the chitin created using the new method and its level of purity was measured using a 'crystallinity index'. The extracted crude chitin samples from prawn shells fermented using fruit waste gave a crystallinity index of 98.16 per cent, which compared to commercial chitin samples with an index of 87.56 per cent. The fermentation process using the sugar content from the fruit waste produced higher quality chitin than the commercial one.

Prof Chen said, "Our research has led to not only higher quality chitin but a more sustainable and environmentally-friendly process too. While the various types of fruit waste produced good results, the sugar from the pomace of red grapes had the best performance. This is also a cost-effective method for industry-scale operations, which could be of potential interest to wineries looking to reduce and upcycle their waste."

"This research also echoes NTU's translational research focus, which aims to develop sustainable innovations that benefit society and industry and create a greener future."

Mr Loo Yuen Meng, Managing Director of Integrated Aqua Singapore Pte. Ltd., who was not involved in the study, said, "The latest innovations developed by Prof William Chen from the Food Science and Technology programme at NTU, is an excellent example of how the expertise from an institute of higher learning can be applied to improve operational efficiency of the food industry while reducing food processing waste. Through a simple fermentation process, the high-value chitin and chitosan recovered from the prawn shells are environment-friendly, and the products can be re-connected back to the food industry."

By leaving chitin to undergo further stages of fermentation the NTU research team also found they could ferment it further into chitosan, which can be used as a growth enhancer in plant fertilisers, or as a controlled drug delivery system in pharmaceutical treatments.

The NTU team is now exploring ways to use chitosan to enhance previous research innovations such as food packaging created using soybean residue or Okara. This could potentially lead to the development of a more durable cellulose film with anti-microbial and anti-bacterial properties.

Prof Chen is also working with multiple companies to spur the adoption of greener industrial methods in producing chitin and chitosan.

More lives could be saved in intensive care units around the world if new antibiotic guidelines designed by The University of Queensland are adopted.

Researchers have launched universal Therapeutic Drug Monitoring (TDM) guidelines to optimise the concentrations of antibiotic and antifungal medications given to severely ill patients in hospital.

UQ Centre for Clinical Research Professor Jason Roberts said the guidelines could speed up recovery times or even save a critically ill patient from dying.

"There's significant variation around the world on how to treat serious infections, and sometimes it's a bit of a guessing game," Professor Roberts said.

"All patients in ICU are currently treated with similar antibiotics and doses, but the lack of personalisation can make a patient sicker and may even cause death.

"Overuse or underuse of antibiotics can enable resistance of bacteria in the patient which limits the drug's effectiveness."

UQ CCR Pharmacist Dr Hafiz Abdul-Aziz worked with a team of experts to analyse data from 400 ICU patients and found one-third experienced adverse outcomes because their antibiotic therapy wasn't optimised to their needs.

"We found a patient's response to the antibiotic improved significantly if the dosage was monitored and altered accordingly," Dr Abdul-Aziz said.

The innovative guidelines were developed by 16 antibiotic experts from 11 different countries and recommended the use of advanced software to predict accurate drug dosages and generate personalised treatment regimens.

Dr Abdul-Aziz said more than 160,000 Australians required specialised care in ICU and 13 per cent of these patients died each year.

ICU patients requiring antibiotics commonly suffer vital organ failure from sepsis, pneumonia or infections from burns.

Dr Abdul-Aziz said monitoring equipment and training needed to be rolled-out before routine TDM can be adopted as the worldwide standard-of-care.

It has been known for many decades that synthetic polymers subjected to mechanical stress generate mechanoradicals by rupture of chemical bonds. But could those harmful and highly reactive radicals also form in our tissues when stretched?

Scientists from the Molecular Biomechanics Group at HITS tackled this question by taking a closer look at collagen, the protein which holds us together - literally - and provides structural and mechanical stability to all our connective tissues like bones, tendons, ligaments, and skin. "In this role it is under perpetual mechanical load and as such the perfect candidate", says Frauke Graeter, who led the research at HITS. Together with colleagues from Homburg, Frankfurt and Seattle, her team showed in a series of especially devised experiments that excessive mechanical stress on collagen produces radicals. Knowing that radicals are known to cause damage and oxidative stress in the body, this finding was critical for the researchers.

"We managed to mount and pull a rat tail fascicle directly in the Electron-paramagnetic resonance cavity to monitor radical formation due to force in real time", explains Christopher Zapp, PhD student in Graeter´s team, the experimental set-up. Additional Molecular Dynamics simulations of the collagen fibril, comprising millions of atoms, helped to explain the observations: Chemical bonds break when collagen is stretched. But the resulting harmful radicals are quickly scavenged by nearby aromatic residues, so-called DOPAs. "Not only did we find stable radicals in collagen tissue, we also discovered DOPA residues in collagen, a modification that protects collagen against further damage." The DOPA radicals then finally convert into hydrogen peroxide, an important oxidative molecule in the body. Collagen is therefore not just a mere bearer of force, it can also control its consequences.

"It was a challenging task to make sense of the peculiar radical signal we observed in the stressed biomaterial", adds Reinhard Kappl from the Department of Biophysics at Saarland University and co-author of the study. "It needed the combination of expertise from different labs for a consistent picture."

The study suggests that collagen has evolved as a radical sponge to combat damage. "We show that collagen protects itself from the radicals. Still, stretching this mechanism beyond its limits can eventually lead to oxidation-mediated pathologies, from pain to inflammation", explains Agnieszka Obarska-Kosinska from HITS.

The findings might not only explain why playing football can at times be really painful, they are also a promising starting point for improving tissue repair and transplantation, for example in sports medicine.

An international team led by researchers from the University of Oviedo and the Centre for Research in Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology (CINN-CSIC), together with scientist from the Basque research centers CIC nanoGUNE, DIPC, Materials Physics Center (CSIC-UPV/EHU), and international collaborators from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Case Western Reserve University (USA), Austrian Institute of Technology, Paris Materials Centre, and University of Tokyo has discovered an effective method for controlling the frequency of confined light at the nanoscale in the form of phonon polaritons (light coupled to vibrations in the crystal). The results have now been published in Nature Materials.

Research with nanolight based on phonon polaritons has developed considerably in recent years thanks to the use of sheet-structured nanomaterials such as graphene, boron nitride or molybdenum trioxide: the so-called van der Waals materials. Nanolight based on phonon polaritons is very promising because it can live longer than other forms of nanolight, but one of the main drawbacks to the technological applications of this nanolight based on phonon polaritons is the limited frequency ranges characteristic of each material, it exists only in narrow frequency region.

But now, an international team has proposed a novel method that allows to widely extend this range of working frequencies of phonon polaritons in van der Waals materials. This consists in the intercalation of alkaline and alkaline earth atoms, such as sodium, calcium or lithium, in the laminar structure of the van der Waals vanadium pentaoxide material, thus allowing to modify its atomic bonds and consequently its optical properties.

Considering that a large variety of ions and ion contents can be intercalated in layered materials, on-demand spectral response of phonon polaritons in van der Waals materials can be expected, eventually covering the whole mid-infrared range, something critical for the emerging field of phonon polariton photonics.

The finding, published in the journal Nature Materials, will allow progress in the development of compact photonic technologies, such as high-sensitivity biological sensors or information and communication technologies at the nanoscale.

Prof. ZHONG Zhicheng's team at the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has investigated the electronic structure of the recently discovered nickelate superconductors NdNiO2.

They successfully explained the experimental difficulties in synthesizing superconducting nickelates, in cooperation with Prof. Karsten Held at Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien) in Austria. The findings were published in Physical Review Letters (Phys. Rev. Lett.).

In August of 2019, high-temperature superconductivity was demonstrated in nickelates (i.e., Sr-doped NdNiO2), which are able to conduct electric current even at high temperatures. This seminal work heralded the nickel age of superconductivity.

However, reproducing these outstanding results appeared to be quite challenging. Other researchers even reported that their nickelates did not have superconducting properties.

To clarify this divergence, the researchers at NIMTE performed calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) and dynamical mean field theory with the help of supercomputers.

The chemical reduction of ABO3 (A: rare earth; B: transition metal) with CaH2 may result in both ABO2 and ABO2H. The topotactic hydrogen (H) in nickelates was found to be energetically favorable for LaNiO2 but not for Sr-doped NdNiO2, leading to dramatic consequences for the electronic structure: That of 3d9 LaNiO2 is similar to (doped) cuprates, while 3d8 LaNiO2H is a two-orbital Mott insulator.

Therefore, H can be incorporated into the material structure of some nickelates and thus completely changes the electronic properties of the material.

Recently, this proposal was verified by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS). They dispersed the H that was released in the production process and succeeded in synthesizing superconducting nickelates.

The current study might account for the difficulties in synthesizing nickelate superconductors and explain why some nickelates are superconducting and others are not. In addition, the study offers suggestions for producing nickelate superconductors: with compressive strain and Sr doping, long reaction times to reduce H2 pressure, and low temperatures.

The Monte Conca cave system on the island of Sicily is a vast system of springs and pools, sitting below a nature preserve. It might be presumed to be one of the few places untouched by human-driven pollution.

But new research published by a USF microbiology and geoscience team has found that even below ground, the microbial communities in the pools of water in the Monte Conca cave show signs of being altered by pollution from above.

Publishing in the prestigious journal, PLoS One, the team found that water flowing through the vast cave system produced changes in the microbial communities between the wet and dry seasons, with the microbial communities differing in bacterial composition and ecological functions. The study suggests that as surface water flows through agricultural and urban areas, it collects bacterial contaminants before entering cave systems.

The purpose of the study was to determine the impact surface runoff has on cave microbial communities using the Monte Conca spring pool as a model. The long-term impacts of these surface-derived bacterial contaminants or their impact on groundwater sources is currently not well known, said lead author Dr. Madison Davis of USF's Department of Cell Biology, Microbiology and Molecular Biology.

The project was led by USF Professor James Garey of the Department of Cell Biology, Microbiology and Molecular Biology, and Professor Bogdan P. Onac of USF's School of Geosciences. USF graduate and undergraduate students Madison C. Davis, Melvin D. Baker IV, Christiana K. S. Mayne, Chelsea M. Dinon and Christina J. Moss are co-authors on the paper.

The group collaborated with Italian colleagues Maria A. Messina, Giuseppe Nicolosi and Salvatore Petralia of Centro Speleologico Etneoa.

The scientists found that the dry season microbial community was dominated by sulfur-oxidizing bacteria because of their ability to utilize oxygen from the cave and hydrogen sulfide from the spring pool. After a heavy rainfall, the sulfur-oxidizing community was displaced by surface-derived bacteria that were primarily identified as human contaminants, including Escherichia coli and other fecal bacteria.

Caves like Monte Conca - which is Sicily's longest and deepest gypsum karst system and was formed by sulfuric acid dissolution - have been identified worldwide. To carry out their work, researchers traveled into the cave system to retrieve samples in four missions spanning 2015 and 2016.

Sulfur oxidizers comprised more than 90 percent of the microbial community during the dry season and were replaced by potential human-influenced contaminants such as Escherichia and Lysinibacillus species after heavy rains, the researchers said. One sampling appeared to show a transition between the wet and dry seasons when potential man-made contaminants, sulfur-oxidizing bacteria and nitrogen-fixing bacteria all were present within the spring pool.

The study demonstrates the impact of surface runoff on the microbial community structure and function of endemic cave communities, the researchers said.

In many fish species body size plays an important role in sexual selection. Large individuals are preferred mating partners because they can enhance offspring survival by providing better quality resources than small individuals. While large females and males are often favored by sexual selection, fishing targets and removes these reproductively superior individuals. Academy Research Fellow Silva Uusi-Heikkilä discusses in her recent literature review the implications fisheries selection might have on sexual selection, individual reproductive success and population viability.

Sexual selection depends on the advantage certain individuals have over other conspecifics. It creates important filters for reproductive success and can consequently increase fitness and population viability. A large male can provide more intensive care for the developing offspring than small male and is therefore preferred by a female. A large female salmon, on the other hand, is more fecund than a small one and attracts multiple males. Sexual selection in fish have been studied using model species, such as guppy, zebrafish and three-spine stickleback.

- Zebrafish female prefers a large male as a mating partner and releases more eggs for him compared to a small male. In some species females also produce higher quality eggs towards large males, says Academy Fellow Silva Uusi-Heikkilä from the University of Jyväskylä.

Fisheries often remove the largest individuals from the population, thus operates in the opposite direction than sexual selection. The effects of fisheries selection on sexual selection has received relatively little attention.

- Studying mate choice in natural conditions can be challenging, says Uusi-Heikkilä.

Therefore, the mating systems of many commercially valuable fish species are poorly known, perhaps excluding cod and salmon. Experimental studies have revealed a great deal about cod mating systems. Salmon, on the other hand, spawn in their home rivers, where it is easier to observe mate choice and mate competition compared to the great depths of the oceans where many commercially important fish species spawn.

Uusi-Heikkilä points out that we should focus more on how size-selective fisheries affect fish mating systems, how persistent these effects are and how this might affect population growth, viability and resilience.

- Large females and males often have higher reproductive success than small ones. Thus, size-selective fisheries may impair population growth. It is tempting to think that sexual selection could buffer the adverse effects of fishing and rescue exploited populations. This is not going to happen, if there are now large females and males left. Overall, if fishing reduces body size variation in a population, sexual selection cannot operate effectively, concludes Uusi-Heikkilä.

First evidence that early treatment with triple antiviral therapy of interferon beta-1b, lopinavir-ritonavir, and ribavirin - alongside standard care - is safe and shortens duration of viral shedding compared to lopinavir-ritonavir alone (average 7 days vs 12 days), in patients with mild to moderate COVID-19.

The authors say that larger phase 3 studies in critically ill patients are needed to confirm whether this triple regimen can provide clinically meaningful benefit.

A two-week course of antiviral therapy with interferon beta-1b plus lopinavir-ritonavir and ribavirin, started within 7 days of showing COVID-19 symptoms, is safe and more effective at reducing the duration of viral shedding than lopinavir-ritonavir alone in patients with mild to moderate illness, according to the first randomised trial of this triple combination therapy involving 127 adults (aged 18 and older) from six public hospitals in Hong Kong.

These early but important findings, published in The Lancet, do not include severe cases of COVID-19, and the authors stress the need for larger phase 3 trials to examine the effectiveness of this triple combination in critically ill patients.

Secondary outcomes (planned outcome measures that are not as important as the primary outcome measure, but are still of interest in evaluating the effect of an intervention [2]) in the new study suggest that clinical improvement and length of hospital stay may be significantly shorter in people treated with triple combination less than 7 days after showing symptoms, compared to lopinavir-ritonavir alone.

Experience with influenza, which has a high viral load (how much virus is present in an infected person's body) around the time symptoms appear, suggests that treating hospitalised patients with a combination of multiple antiviral drugs may be more effective than single drug treatments, and minimize the risk of antiviral resistance. The authors hypothesised that this could be a possible therapeutic approach for COVID-19, in which the viral load also peaks around the time of symptom onset.

"Our trial demonstrates that early treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19 with a triple combination of antiviral drugs may rapidly suppress the amount of virus in a patient's body, relieve symptoms, and reduce the risk to health-care workers by reducing the duration and quantity of viral shedding (when the virus is detectable and potentially transmissible). Furthermore, the treatment combination appeared safe and well tolerated by patients", says Professor Kwok-Yung Yuen from the University of Hong Kong who led the research. [1]

He continues, "Despite these encouraging findings, we must confirm in larger phase 3 trials that interferon beta-1b alone or in combination with other drugs is effective in patients with more severe illness (in whom the virus has had more time to replicate)." [1]

Previous research found that a combination of oral lopinavir-ritonavir (normally used to treat HIV) and ribavirin (an oral hepatitis C virus drug) significantly reduced respiratory failure and death in patients hospitalised with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) during the 2003 outbreak [3]. Interferon beta-1b, which was developed to treat multiple sclerosis (MS), has been shown to reduce viral load and improve lung problems in animal studies of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus infection.

The open label study enrolled 127 adults (average age 52 years) admitted to one of six public hospitals with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection between February 10 and March 20, 2020 [4]. In Hong Kong, everyone who tests positive for COVID-19 is admitted to hospital.

Participants were randomly assigned to 14 days of either the triple combination of oral lopinavir-ritonavir (400mg/100mg) and ribavirin (400mg) every 12 hours, plus up to three doses of injectable interferon beta-1b (8 million international units) on alternate days for patients admitted to hospital less than 7 days from symptom onset [5] (86 patients; combination group); or lopinavir-ritonavir alone every 12 hours (41 patients; control group).

In the trial, all patients received standard care including ventilation support, dialysis support, antibiotics, and corticosteroids. The average number of days from symptom onset to start of study treatment was 5 days.

During the study, the researchers looked at the clinical course of symptoms, and changes in laboratory findings (eg, blood examinations, chest x-rays) and viral shedding with regular molecular testing for viral load in nasopharyngeal swab, posterior oropharyngeal saliva, throat swab, stool, and urine (see table 2 for full list). All participants had a SARS-CoV-2 positive nasopharyngeal swab at the start of the study.

The primary endpoint was time to a nasopharyngeal swab negative for SARS-CoV-2. Secondary outcomes included time for symptoms of COVID-19 to go defined as achieving a National Early Warning Score (NEWS) score of 0; a Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score of 0, indicating normal function; 30-day mortality; and length of hospital stay.

Treatment with the triple drug combination effectively suppressed viral load (with no detectable virus) in the nasopharyngeal swab within an average 7 days of starting treatment, which was significantly shorter than the average 12 days in the control group, treated with lopinavir-ritonavir alone (table 2).

Secondary outcomes supported the findings, indicating that clinical improvement was significantly better in the triple combination group--with the triple therapy halving the time to complete alleviation of symptoms (average 4 days vs 8 days) and a SOFA score of 0 (average 3 days vs 8 days), and resulting in significantly shorter average hospital stay (9 days vs 14.5 days).

Further secondary analyses also looked at timing of treatment and patient outcomes. They found that the 52 patients who started combination treatment (with interferon beta-1b) less than 7 days after the onset of symptoms had better clinical and virological outcomes than the control group who received their treatment at the same time (24 patients; table 3). However, people who were treated 7 days or more after showing symptoms there was no difference in outcomes between the combination treatment and control groups (34 patients in the combination group, who received lopinavir-ritonavir and ribavirin but did not receive interferon beta-1b, and 17 in the control group) [5].

"These findings suggest that interferon beta 1-b may be a key component of the combination treatment and is worth further investigation for the treatment of COVID-19", says co-author Dr Jenny Lo from Ruttonjee Hospital in Hong Kong. "Interferons are naturally occurring proteins, produced in response to viral infection, and the hope is that interferon beta-1b will boost the body's ability to fight SARS-CoV-2. Future phase 3 trials will soon confirm or refute the usefulness of this candidate drug as a backbone treatment for COVID-19." [1]

There was no difference in adverse events between the treatment groups (48%; 41/86 patient combination group vs 49%; 20/41 controls), and none of the side effects in the combination group were severe. One patient in the control group had a serious adverse event of liver dysfunction, and discontinuation treatment. The most common adverse events were diarrhoea, fever, and nausea (table 4). No patients died during the study.

The authors highlight several limitations of the study, including that it was an open label study in which both the researchers and the patients knew the treatment the participants were receiving, and did not have a placebo group. They also note that the findings may be confounded by the subgroup of 34 patients within the combination group who were admitted 7 days or more after symptom onset, and were not offered interferon beta-1b, but were analysed as part of the combination group.

Writing in a linked Comment, Dr Sarah Shalhoub (who was not involved in the study) from Western University in Canada says: "Most published studies so far have been retrospective or observational. Therefore, this prospective, randomised controlled design adds notable value to the growing evidence on treatments, eliminating a number of limitations inherent to retrospective studies."

She continues, "This study presents a step towards finding a much-needed therapy for SARS-CoV-2. However, as the authors acknowledge, future studies to examine the efficacy of interferon beta-1b alone or in combination with other drugs to treat severe or critically ill patients with confirmed COVID-19 compared with placebo are warranted."

Inspired by the biomechanics of cheetahs, researchers have developed a new type of soft robot that is capable of moving more quickly on solid surfaces or in the water than previous generations of soft robots. The new soft robotics are also capable of grabbing objects delicately - or with sufficient strength to lift heavy objects.

"Cheetahs are the fastest creatures on land, and they derive their speed and power from the flexing of their spines," says Jie Yin, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University and corresponding author of a paper on the new soft robots.

"We were inspired by the cheetah to create a type of soft robot that has a spring-powered, 'bistable' spine, meaning that the robot has two stable states," Yin says. "We can switch between these stable states rapidly by pumping air into channels that line the soft, silicone robot. Switching between the two states releases a significant amount of energy, allowing the robot to quickly exert force against the ground. This enables the robot to gallop across the surface, meaning that its feet leave the ground.

"Previous soft robots were crawlers, remaining in contact with the ground at all times. This limits their speed."

The fastest soft robots until now could move at speeds of up to 0.8 body lengths per second on flat, solid surfaces. The new class of soft robots, which are called "Leveraging Elastic instabilities for Amplified Performance" (LEAP), are able to reach speeds of up to 2.7 body lengths per second - more than three times faster - at a low actuation frequency of about 3Hz. These new robots are also capable of running up steep inclines, which can be challenging or impossible for soft robots that exert less force against the ground.

These "galloping" LEAP robots are approximately 7 centimeters long and weigh about 45 grams.

The researchers also demonstrated that the LEAP design could improve swimming speeds for soft robots. Attaching a fin, rather than feet, a LEAP robot was able to swim at a speed of 0.78 body lengths per second, as compared to 0.7 body lengths per second for the previous fastest swimming soft robot.

"We also demonstrated the use of several soft robots working together, like pincers, to grab objects," Yin says. "By tuning the force exerted by the robots, we were able to lift objects as delicate as an egg, as well as objects weighing 10 kilograms or more."

The researchers note that this work serves as a proof of concept, and are optimistic that they can modify the design to make LEAP robots that are even faster and more powerful.

"Potential applications include search and rescue technologies, where speed is essential, and industrial manufacturing robotics," Yin says. "For example, imagine production line robotics that are faster, but still capable of handling fragile objects.

"We're open to collaborating with the private sector to fine-tune ways they can incorporate this technology into their operations."

Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon where two particles remain inter-connected, sharing physical traits regardless of how far apart they are from one another. Now, scientists from the research group of Professor Johannes Fink at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) along with collaborators Stefano Pirandola from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of York, UK, and David Vitali from the University of Camerino, Italy -- have demonstrated a new type of detection technology called 'microwave quantum illumination' that utilizes entangled microwave photons as a method of detection. The prototype, which is also known as a 'quantum radar', is able to detect objects in noisy thermal environments where classical radar systems often fail. The technology has potential applications for ultra-low power biomedical imaging and security scanners.

Using quantum entanglement as a new form of detection

The working principles behind the device are simple: Instead of using conventional microwaves, the researchers entangle two groups of photons, which are called the 'signal' and 'idler' photons. The 'signal' photons are sent out towards the object of interest, whilst the 'idler' photons are measured in relative isolation, free from interference and noise. When the signal photons are reflected back, true entanglement between the signal and idler photons is lost, but a small amount of correlation survives, creating a signature or pattern that describes the existence or the absence of the target object--irrespective of the noise within the environment.

"What we have demonstrated is a proof of concept for Microwave Quantum Radar," says lead author and at the time of the research project postdoc in the Fink group Shabir Barzanjeh, whose previous research helped advance the theoretical notion behind quantum enhanced radar technology. "Using entanglement generated at a few thousandths of a degree above absolute zero (-273.14 °C), we have been able to detect low reflectivity objects at room-temperature."

Quantum technology can outperform classical low-power radar

While quantum entanglement in itself is fragile in nature, the device has a few advantages over conventional classical radars. For instance, at low power levels, conventional radar systems typically suffer from poor sensitivity as they have trouble distinguishing the radiation reflected by the object from naturally occurring background radiation noise. Quantum illumination offers a solution to this problem as the similarities between the 'signal' and 'idler' photons -- generated by quantum entanglement -- makes it more effective to distinguish the signal photons (received from the object of interest) from the noise generated within the environment. Barzanjeh who is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary on the prototype's performance: "The main message behind our research is that 'quantum radar' or 'quantum microwave illumination' is not only possible in theory but also in practice. When benchmarked against classical low-power detectors in the same conditions we already see, at very low-signal photon numbers, that quantum-enhanced detection can be superior."

Prominent milestone towards advancing 80 year-old radar technology

Throughout history, basic science has been one of the key drivers of innovation, paradigm shift and technological breakthrough. Whilst still a proof of concept, the group's research has effectively demonstrated a new method of detection that, in some cases, may already be superior to classical radar.

"Throughout history, proof of concepts such as the one we have demonstrated here have often served as prominent milestones towards future technological advancements. It will be interesting to see the future implications of this research, particularly for short-range microwave sensors." says Barzanjeh.

Last author and group leader Professor Johannes Fink adds "This scientific result was only possible by bringing together theoretical and experimental physicists that are driven by the curiosity of how quantum mechanics can help to push the fundamental limits of sensing. But to show an advantage in practical situations we will also need the help of experienced electrical engineers and there still remains a lot of work to be done in order to make our result applicable to real-world detection tasks."

May 8, 2020 -- A study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health found that black subjects who were exposed to highly segregated neighborhoods in young adulthood exhibited worse performance in cognitive skills in mid-life. The findings are published online in JAMA Neurology.

Until this research, there had been little information on the association of racial residential segregation and cognitive function.

"Our findings support the notion that long-term exposure to residential segregation during 25 years of young adulthood is associated with worse processing speed as early as midlife," said Adina Zeki Al Hazzouri, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School. "This outcome may explain black-white disparities in dementia risk at older age."

The researchers analyzed data from 1,548 black participants in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study, which focuses on the development and determinants of cardiovascular disease. Participants were ages 18 to 30 at baseline in 1985 and prospectively followed over 25 years.

Measurements of racial residential segregation across six follow-up visits from the 25-year study, were categorized as high, medium, and low segregation. Cognitive function was assessed at year 25 of the ongoing, multicenter, study.

Cognitive performance was measured using three different tests representing distinct domains of cognition, including the Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST), a subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale.

Earlier studies by Zekie Al Hazzouri and colleagues had supported growing evidence that maintaining cognitive function is a lifelong process and that several of the most important risk factors may begin earlier in the life course.

"Studies examining racial residential segregation in the context of cognitive function are limited, and thus our findings contribute to an important yet sparse literature," observed Zeki Al Hazzouri. "More importantly, our research indicates that policies that address segregation and the uneven distribution of resources, may be beneficial for reducing inequities in cognitive performance."