Tech

A team of international scientists have collaborated to propose a series of global guidelines for the sustainable use of non-native tree species to help protect biodiversity and ecosystems around the world already threatened by climate change.

The new paper, published today in the journal NeoBiota, uses the Council of Europe - Bern Convention Code of Conduct on Invasive Alien Trees as a starting point, to present eight recommendations all aimed at maximising the benefits of non-native trees, while minimising their negative impacts.

The guidelines include using native trees, or non-invasive non-native trees as opposed to invasive non-native trees, being aware of the risk of invasion and consider global change trends and developing and supporting global networks and collaborative research and information sharing on native and non-native trees.

The scientists suggest that the guidelines are a first step towards building a global agreement on the precautions that should be taken when introducing and planting non-native trees and serve to complement statutory requirements under international and national legislation.

Lead author Dr Giuseppe Brundu, from the University of Sassari, Italy, said, "The application of the global guidelines and the achievement of their goals will help to conserve forest biodiversity, ensure sustainable forestry, and contribute to the achievement of several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations linked with forest biodiversity."

The researchers highlight how non-native species - such as Prosopis juliflora which was introduced in Eastern Africa in the 1970s to provide wood and fodder for livestock and help reduce soil erosion and the effects of dust storms - make up 44% of plantation forests globally.

They point to major tree planting campaigns, including the 60 Million Trees Initiative from the Madagascar Government, which either do not specify or include non-native species planted - often to balance economic and ecological interests as with the case in Madagascar. Other similar schemes have included 60 million trees planted in Italy - one for each Italian citizen to fight climate change - where a mix of native and non-native tree species were recommended.

However, the scientists warn that unless their global guidelines are taken seriously the spread of non-native tree species will make the conservation of forest biodiversity and work towards achieving a number of SDGs - linked with forest sustainability - difficult to achieve.

Professor Dave Richardson, co-author from Stellenbosch University, South Africa, said, "The global guidelines on non-native tree species offer general recommendations and provide a basic framework and suggestions on tools for planning and implementing sustainable use of non-native trees in nationally appropriate and scientifically sound practices that account for national and sub-national needs."

Dr Urs Schaffner, co-author and Head Ecosystems Management at CABI Switzerland, is an expert on Prosopis juliflora and believes such invasive trees can also impact severely on rural people's livelihoods with, for example, 86% losses in grassland experienced in Baringo Country, Kenya.

Dr Schaffner added, "It is important to bear in mind that national circumstances vary considerably in terms of biophysical conditions, institutional and legal frameworks, economic challenges and possibilities, management, and use, among other factors.

"Therefore, no 'one-size-fits-all' approach can be applied in the implementation of the guidelines. Instead, various technical and organisational options must be combined to achieve efficient implementation of the guidelines."

At around 60 million light-years from Earth, the Great Barred Spiral Galaxy, NGC 1365, is captured beautifully in this image by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Located in the constellation of Fornax (the Furnace), the blue and fiery orange swirls show us where stars have just formed and the dusty sites of future stellar nurseries.

At the outer edges of the image, enormous star-forming regions within NGC 1365 can be seen. The bright, light-blue regions indicate the presence of hundreds of baby stars that formed from coalescing gas and dust within the galaxy's outer arms.

This Hubble image was captured as part of a joint survey with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. The survey will help scientists understand how the diversity of galaxy environments observed in the nearby universe, including NGC 1365 and other galaxies such as NGC 2835 and NGC 2775, influence the formation of stars and star clusters. Expected to image over 100,000 gas clouds and star-forming regions beyond our Milky Way, the PHANGS survey is expected to uncover and clarify many of the links between cold gas clouds, star formation, and the overall shape and morphology of galaxies.

Typhoon Chan-hom was still moving parallel to Japan's east coast as NASA's satellite rainfall product, that incorporates data from satellites and observations, showed its heaviest rainfall was pushed northeast of center.

Chan-hom's Status on Oct. 9

At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC), the center of Chan-hom was located near latitude 30.9 degrees north and longitude 133.9 degrees east. That is approximately 413 nautical miles southwest of Yokosuka, Japan. Chan-hom was moving to the north-northeast. Maximum sustained winds are near 70 knots (81 mph/130 kph).

Estimating Chan-hom's Rainfall Rates from Space

NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM or IMERG, which is a NASA satellite rainfall product, estimated Chan-hom's rainfall rates on Oct. 9 at 4:30 a.m. EDT (0830 UTC).

Wind shear, outside winds at different speeds and directions that can adversely affect a tropical cyclone, were pushing Chan-hom's heaviest rainfall northeast of the center. Chan-hom was generating as much as 30 mm (1.18 inches) of rain per hour just northeast of the center of circulation. Rainfall rates in storms surrounding those areas of heaviest rainfall were estimated as falling at a rate between 5 and 15 mm (0.2 to 0.6 inches) per hour. On the southwestern side of the center, rainfall rates were occurring between 0.1 and 1 mm (0.003 and 0.03 inches) per hour.

Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center noted, "Chan-hom is tracking along the western periphery of a subtropical ridge (elongated area of high pressure) positioned to the east and through an overall unfavorable environment with moderate to high (25 knots/29 mph/46 kph) vertical wind shear."

At the U.S. Naval Laboratory in Washington, D.C., the IMERG rainfall data was overlaid on infrared imagery from NOAA's GOES-16 satellite to provide a full extent of the storm.

What Does IMERG Do?

This near-real time rainfall estimate comes from the NASA's IMERG, which combines observations from a fleet of satellites, in near-real time, to provide near-global estimates of precipitation every 30 minutes. By combining NASA precipitation estimates with other data sources, we can gain a greater understanding of major storms that affect our planet.

What the IMERG does is "morph" high-quality satellite observations along the direction of the steering winds to deliver information about rain at times and places where such satellite overflights did not occur. Information morphing is particularly important over the majority of the world's surface that lacks ground-radar coverage. IMERG fills in the blanks between weather observation stations.

Chan-hom's Fate

Chan-hom will gradually weaken as it tracks generally east northeastward over the next day. In three days, the system is expected to become fully embedded in the westerly wind flow aloft. It is expected to complete extra-tropical transitioning becoming a cold core low-pressure area as it moves northeast and away from Japan.

NASA Researches Tropical Cyclones

Hurricanes/tropical cyclones are the most powerful weather events on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.

For more than five decades, NASA has used the vantage point of space to understand and explore our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA brings together technology, science, and unique global Earth observations to provide societal benefits and strengthen our nation. Advancing knowledge of our home planet contributes directly to America's leadership in space and scientific exploration.

For more information about NASA's IMERG, visit: https://pmm.nasa.gov/gpm/imerg-global-image

By Rob Gutro
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA's satellite rainfall product that incorporates data from satellites and observations found that Hurricane Delta was bringing along heavy rainfall as it headed to the U.S. Gulf Coast on Oct. 9.

Warnings and Watches in Effect on Oct. 9

There are many warnings in effect, as Delta approaches the U.S. Gulf coast. A Storm Surge Warning is in effect from High Island, Texas to Mouth of the Pearl River, Louisiana including Calcasieu Lake, Vermilion Bay, and Lake Borgne.

A Hurricane Warning is in effect from High Island, Texas to Morgan City, Louisiana. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect from west of High Island to Sargent, Texas and east of Morgan City, Louisiana to the mouth of the Pearl River, including New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas.

Delta's Status on Oct. 9

At 11 a.m. (1500 UTC), the center of Hurricane Delta was located near latitude 28.0 degrees north and longitude 93.8 degrees west. That is about 130 miles (205 km) south-southwest of Cameron, Louisiana.

Delta is moving toward the north near 13 mph (20 kph). A turn toward the north- northeast is expected this afternoon, followed by a northeastward motion during the day Saturday. Maximum sustained winds are near 115 mph (185 kph) with higher gusts. Delta is a category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. The latest minimum central pressure estimated from NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft data is 962 millibars.

Estimating Delta's Rainfall Rates from Space

NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM or IMERG, which is a NASA satellite rainfall product, estimated Delta's rainfall rates.

On Oct. 9 at 5:30 a.m. EDT (0930 UTC), NASA's IMERG estimated Delta was generating as much as 50 mm (~2 inches of rain) around the center of circulation. Rainfall rates in storms surrounding those areas of heaviest rainfall were estimated as falling at a rate between 10 and 40 mm (0.4 to 1.6 inches) per hour.

At the U.S. Naval Laboratory in Washington, D.C., the IMERG rainfall data was overlaid on infrared imagery from NOAA's GOES-16 satellite to provide a full extent of the storm.

What Does IMERG Do?

This near-real time rainfall estimate comes from the NASA's IMERG, which combines observations from a fleet of satellites, in near-real time, to provide near-global estimates of precipitation every 30 minutes. By combining NASA precipitation estimates with other data sources, we can gain a greater understanding of major storms that affect our planet.

What the IMERG does is "morph" high-quality satellite observations along the direction of the steering winds to deliver information about rain at times and places where such satellite overflights did not occur. Information morphing is particularly important over the majority of the world's surface that lacks ground-radar coverage. IMERG fills in the blanks between weather observation stations.

Delta's Heavy Rainfall Forecast

NASA's rainfall data is provided to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center and is reflected in one of the key messages.

NHC said, "Today through Saturday, Delta is expected to produce 5 to 10 inches of rain, with isolated maximum totals of 15 inches, from southwest into central Louisiana. These rainfall amounts will lead to significant flash, urban, small stream flooding, along with minor to major river flooding.

For extreme east Texas into northern Louisiana, southern Arkansas, and western Mississippi, Delta is expected to produce 3 to 6 inches of rain, with isolated maximum totals of 10 inches. These rainfall amounts will lead to flash, urban, small stream, and isolated minor river flooding.

As the remnants of Delta move further inland 1 to 3 inches of rain, with locally higher amounts, are expected in the Tennessee Valley and Mid- Atlantic this weekend. There is a potential for 3 to 6 inches in the Southern Appalachians, which could lead to isolated flash, urban, and small stream flooding."

 Additional NHC Key Messages

In addition the heavy and flooding rainfall expected, NHC's other key messages are about storm surge, hurricane-force winds, isolated tornadoes and dangerous surf:

STORM SURGE:  The combination of a dangerous storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline.  The water could reach the following heights above ground somewhere in the indicated areas if the peak surge occurs at the time of high tide:

Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge to Morgan City, LA including Vermilion Bay...7-11 ft

Holly Beach, LA to Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, LA...5-8 ft

Sabine Pass to Holly Beach, LA...3-5 ft

Morgan City, LA to Port Fourchon, LA...4-7 ft

Port Fourchon, LA to the Mouth of the Mississippi River...2-4 ft

Calcasieu Lake...2-4 ft

High Island, TX to Sabine Pass...2-4 ft

Mouth of the Mississippi River to Mouth of the Pearl River...2-4 ft

Lake Borgne...2-4 ft

Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas...1-3 ft

Mouth of the Pearl River, LA to the AL/FL border including Mobile Bay...1-3 ft

Sabine Lake...1-3 ft

Port O'Connor, TX to High Island, TX including Galveston Bay...1-3 ft

It is important to note that small changes in the track, structure, or intensity of Delta could have large impacts on where the highest storm surge occurs.

WIND:  Hurricane conditions are expected within the hurricane warning area by this afternoon, with tropical storm conditions expected within this area later this morning.  Tropical storm conditions are expected within the tropical storm warning areas later today.

TORNADOES:  A few tornadoes are possible today and tonight over southern portions of Louisiana and Mississippi.

SURF:  Swells from Delta are affecting portions of the northern and western Gulf coast.  These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.

Delta's Expected Track

NHC forecasters said slow weakening is expected before landfall, with rapid weakening expected after the center moves inland. On the forecast track, the center of Delta should make landfall along the coast of southwestern Louisiana later this afternoon or this evening, and then move across central and northeastern Louisiana tonight and Saturday morning.

According to a team of ecologists from RUDN University, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) can be used as pollution indicators and help monitor the movement of pollutants in environmental components such as soils, plants, and water. To find this out, the team conducted a large-scale study of a variety of soil, water, and plant samples collected from a vast area from China to the Antarctic. The results of the study were published in the Applied Geochemistry journal.

Geochemical barriers mark the borders between natural environments at which the nature of element transfer changes dramatically. For example, the concentration of oxygen rapidly increases at groundwater outlets, because different chemical elements oxidize and accumulate on the barrier. A team of ecologists from RUDN University was the first in the world to suggest a model that describes the energy of mass transfer, i.e. the movement of matter in an ecosystem. In this model, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are used as the markers of moving substances. PAHs are mainly toxic organic substances that accumulate in the soil. The team used their composition to monitor pollutions and track down their sources. To do so, the ecologists calculated the physical and chemical properties of PAHs and classified them.

"We developed a model that shows the accumulation, transformation, and migration of PAHs. It is based on quantitative measurements that produce more consistent results than descriptive visualizations. This helped us understand how physical and chemical properties of PAHs determine their accumulation in the environment," said Prof. Aleksander Khaustov, a PhD in Geology and Mineralogy, from the Department of Applied Ecology at RUDN University.

PAHs can form due to natural causes (e.g. wildfires) or as a result of human activity, for example as the waste products of the chemical and oil industry. The team studied 142 water, plant, soil, and silt samples from different geographical regions. Namely, some samples were taken in the hydrologic systems of the Kerch Peninsula, some came from leather industry areas in China, from the vicinity of Irkutsk aluminum smelter, and different regions of the Arctic and Antarctic. Several snow samples were taken on RUDN University campus in Moscow. All collected data were unified, and then the amount of PAHs in each sample was calculated. After that, the results were analyzed in line with the thermodynamic theory to calculate entropy, enthalpy, and Gibbs energy variations. The first value describes the deviation of an actual process from the ideal one; the second one shows the amounts of released or consumed energy, and the third points out the possibility of mass transfer.

"Though our samples were not genetically uniform, they allowed us to apply thermodynamic analysis to matter and energy transfer in natural dissipative systems," added Prof. Aleksander Khaustov.

The team identified several factors that have the biggest impact on PAHs accumulation. For example, in the ecosystems surrounding leather facilities in China, the key factor turned to be entropy variations, while on RUDN University campus it was the changes in Gibbs energy. The team described three types of processes that are characterized by the reduction, stability, or increase of all three thermodynamic parameters, respectively. Based on this classification and the composition of PAHs one can monitor pollution and track down its source.

BOSTON - Female surgeons at a large academic medical center perform less complex surgical procedures than their male counterparts, according to a new study by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). This study, published in Annals of Surgery, is one of the first to measure the problem of underemployment among female surgeons in the United States, which can affect compensation, career advancement and job satisfaction.

Only about one in five surgeons practicing in U.S. is female. Unemployment is virtually nonexistent among surgeons, but many female surgeons, as well as professional women in other fields, experience underemployment--the underuse of skills--according to the Federal Reserve Bank. "Women in surgery talk among themselves about how they may be perceived as less confident or competent, and for those reasons they may have less opportunity to do exciting and challenging cases," says Cassandra Kelleher, MD, a pediatric surgeon at MGH and senior author of the Annals of Surgery study. "We wondered if this was true, and if so, why?"

To find out, Kelleher, post-doctoral researcher Ya-Wen Chen, MD, MPH, the lead author of the study, and several colleagues analyzed 551,047 case records from operations performed by 131 surgeons at MGH between 1997 and 2018. To compare the difficulty of surgeries that females and males performed, the researchers used a universally accepted metric known as the work Relative Value Unit (wRVU), which measures the technical complexity of a procedure.

The study found that the mean wRVU for cases performed by male surgeons was 10.8, compared to 8.3 for female surgeons, a difference in complexity of 23 percent. "If you multiply that over the course of a year or a career, that's a huge difference," says Chen.

The study's design ruled out common explanations for why female surgeons perform less complex procedures, such as their choice of subspecialty, or that women are less available due to family commitments. The study also found no sign that the problem has improved over the last two decades and indicated that underemployment was a more significant problem for female surgeons with greater seniority.

For years, female surgeons have been advised to take steps such as attending leadership training conferences to help advance their careers. While these programs have value, the study authors stress that female surgeons themselves are not the problem. "It may be that referring physicians or patients lack confidence in female surgeons to perform complex cases," says Chen. "If that's true, then we are not going to solve the problem solely by having female surgeons attend leadership training. We need a systemic approach."

Finding the right approach will require deeper understanding of the problem, researchers say, so Chen, Kelleher and their colleagues are currently studying new patient referrals received by a group of female and male surgeons.

Spend an afternoon by a creek in the woods, and you're likely to notice water striders -- long-legged insects that dimple the surface of the water as they skate across. Or, dip one side of a toothpick in dish detergent before placing it in a bowl of water, and impress your grade schooler as the toothpick gently starts to move itself across the surface.

Both situations illustrate the concepts of surface tension and propulsion velocity. At Michigan Technological University, mechanical engineer Hassan Masoud and PhD student Saeed Jafari Kang have applied the lessons of the water strider and the soapy toothpick to develop an understanding of chemical manipulation of surface tension.

Their vehicle? Tiny surfing robots.

"During the past few decades, there have been many efforts to fabricate miniature robots, especially swimming robots," said Masoud, an assistant professor in the mechanical engineering-engineering mechanics department. "Much less work has been done on tiny robots capable of surfing at the interface of water and air, what we call liquid interfaces, where very few robots are capable of propelling themselves."

Beyond the obvious implications for future Lucasfilm droids designed for ocean planets (C-H2O?), what are the practical applications of surfing robots?

"Understanding these mechanisms could help us understand colonization of bacteria in a body," Masoud said. "The surfing robots could be used in biomedical applications for surgery. We are unraveling the potential of these systems."

Hunting for Answers and the Marangoni Effect

During his doctoral studies and postdoc appointment, Masoud conducted research to understand the hydrodynamics of synthetic microrobots and the mechanisms by which they move through fluid. While helping a colleague with an experiment, Masoud made an observation he couldn't explain. An aha! moment came shortly thereafter.

"During a conversation with a physicist, it occurred to me that what we had observed then was due to the release of a chemical species that changed the surface tension and resulted in motion of particles that we observed," Masoud said.

That knowledge has led Masoud to continue analyzing the propulsion behavior of diminutive robots -- only several microns in size -- and the Marangoni effect, which is the transfer of mass and momentum due to a gradient of surface tension at the interface between two fluids. In addition to serving as an explanation for tears of wine, the Marangoni effect helps circuit manufacturers dry silicon wafers and can be applied to grow nanotubes in ordered arrays.

For Masoud's purposes, the effect helps him design surfing robots powered by manipulating surface tension chemically. This solves a core problem for our imagined C-H2O: How would a droid propel itself across the surface of water without an engine and propeller?

Detailed in research findings published recently in the journal Physical Review Fluids, Masoud, Jafari Kang and their collaborators used experimental measurements and numerical simulations to demonstrate that the microrobot surfers propel themselves in the direction of lower surface tension -- in reverse of the expected direction.

"We discovered that negative pressure is the primary contributor to the fluid force experienced by the surfer and that this suction force is mainly responsible for the reverse Marangoni propulsion," Masoud said. "Our findings pave the way for designing miniature surfing robots. In particular, knowing that the direction of propulsion is altered by a change in the surrounding boundary can be harnessed for designing smart surfers capable of sensing their environment."

Stability Studies on the Horizon

While Masoud's work focused on understanding how microrobots can chemically manipulate their environment to create propulsion, future studies will zero in on the stability of these tiny surfers. Under what conditions are they stable? How do multiple surfers interact with each other? The interactions could provide insight into the swarm dynamics commonly seen in bacteria.

"We have just scratched the surface of learning the mechanisms through which the surfers -- and other manipulators of surface tension -- move," Masoud said. "Now we are building understanding toward how to control their movement."

CooperVision is reporting the latest findings from its landmark MiSight® 1 day clinical study, providing new insights about myopia management and the proven efficacy of the specially designed contact lens. Among many powerful outcomes are that nearly one in four children's eyes originally fit with MiSight® 1 day remain stable for myopia after six years.[1]

Paul Chamberlain, CooperVision's Director of Research Programs, will share additional details this evening, Friday, October 9 at 8:45 pm EST, during a paper presentation at the American Academy of Optometry's virtual annual meeting.

"Evaluating children who were prescribed MiSight® 1 day at the study's initiation, 23% of eyes after year six displayed a total refractive change of less than -0.25D (spherical equivalent), which could be considered clinically stable," said Chamberlain.[1] "There is now even more reason to recognize the substantial capability of this unique dual-focus contact lens."

The newest findings also suggest that while intervention at an early age is optimal with MiSight® 1 day, commencing treatment at an older age could similarly slow the rate of myopia progression.[1] The original control group was refit into the dual-focus lens in year four. Comparing this population to the children fit with MiSight® 1 day at initiation, there have been similar rates of myopia progression and axial length growth in the subsequent three years of assessment.[1]

Six-year results continue to demonstrate excellent safety profile, wearing time, and visual acuity for children in daily disposable contact lenses over 653 wearing years.[1] No other prospective randomized controlled study has offered conclusive data for such a high degree of continued efficacy in myopia management using a soft contact lens over a similar time span.

Myopia--also known as nearsightedness or short-sightedness--is projected to affect the vision and increase risks to ocular health of approximately five billion people by 2050, more than doubling today's numbers.[2] Myopic progression has been linked to sight-threatening conditions later in life such as cataracts, retinal detachment, glaucoma[3] and myopic maculopathy.[4]

ADDITIONAL COOPERVISION MYOPIA MANAGEMENT RESEARCH AT ACADEMY 2020

Age is further explored in an Academy virtual poster session now underway. Effects of Age on Myopia Progression with Dual-Focus and Single Vision Daily Disposable Contact Lenses (Arumugam et al., 2020) concludes that observed treatment effects in myopia management clinical trials may be dependent on the age of the subjects and study duration. Annual axial elongation rates were slowed by wearing MiSight® 1 day during every year for ages 8-14 and myopia progression significantly slowed for ages 8-13. These results also emphasize the importance of early intervention to slow pathological growth during years of more rapid progression. Early intervention also allows an accumulating management effect over more years, resulting in greater total outcomes.

CooperVision MiSight® 1 day is the first and only soft contact lens the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved* for slowing the progression of myopia in children, who at initiation of treatment are 8-12 years of age.[5] It is the centerpiece of the company's Brilliant Futures™ Myopia Management Program, in which more than 1,000 U.S. ECPs are now certified. Versions of this comprehensive program are presently being introduced in other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Spain and Portugal.

Reporting six-year data at Academy 2020 and ongoing research are part of a series of far-reaching initiatives by CooperVision to help educate eye care and healthcare professionals about advances in myopia management, including widespread conference participation, study support, clinical training events and more.

"As far as we have come with myopia management in recent years, there remains much to be done, including deeper partnerships with the optometry, ophthalmology and public health communities," said James Gardner, Vice President for Global Myopia Management at CooperVision. "We're a steadfast advocate for evidence-based advancements. I believe the six-year results will further our scientific understanding of myopia progression and increase clinical enthusiasm for proven management options such as MiSight® 1 day."

In many places in the United States, low-level criminal offenses—having an open container, for example, or disorderly conduct—can result in a ticket and a subsequent court date, and failing to show up to that appointed court time can lead to an arrest warrant. In New York City alone in 2015, 40% of defendants or about 100,000 people missed court dates for this type of offense.

Penn criminologist Aurélie Ouss wanted to understand whether some of these missed appearances may have been inadvertent and whether small process tweaks could decrease them. In conjunction with the New York Police Department and the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, she and colleagues from the University of Chicago and the nonprofit ideas42 conducted two field studies in New York City and several lab experiments.

The researchers found that providing text message reminders and redesigning the summons form improved rates of court appearances by 21% and 13%, respectively, and jointly led to 30,000 fewer arrest warrants over three years. They also learned that criminal justice professionals view these missed dates as human error, but laypeople view them as deliberate. The team published these findings in the journal Science.

"This project shows that lack of awareness is likely a barrier that explains some criminal justice failures, and these can have really big consequences for people," says Ouss, the Jerry Lee Assistant Professor of Criminology. "Yet our criminal justice policies are not targeting these kinds of problems."

Redesigning a form

The researchers initially approached this work from both a research and policy perspective. "We noticed that several areas of public policy were integrating insights from behavioral science to improve outcomes. We wondered whether small changes to the design of criminal justice policies could improve outcomes," Ouss says. "In parallel, we were talking with the NYPD and other partners. We learned that about 40% of people issued summonses for low-level offenses were not showing up."

Beyond leading to an arrest warrant, this missed court time could potentially count as a violation on its own, costing the defendant $250 and as long as 15 days in jail. Plus, it could intensify future encounters with law enforcement. But the researchers weren't convinced people skipped appearances on purpose. Perhaps, instead, they didn't know they were supposed to show up.

At that time, the only notification a person received about a court date existed on the summons ticket from the initial encounter, buried at the bottom, beneath details about the original offense and issuing officer. Warnings about an arrest warrant appeared only on the back. Ouss and the others wanted to test a redesign.

"The goal was to make the information much clearer," she says. "We put the fact that you had to show up and your date and time at the top." They also added a note, in bold, on the form's front that missing the assigned court date would lead to an arrest warrant. Between March and August 2016, the new forms rolled out. Subsequent analysis showed that following the switch, the failure-to-appear rate dropped by 13%.

Sending out text reminders

Next, they wanted to try text messages, a nudge often used in behavioral science. Defendants who received the new summons forms had the opportunity to provide their cell phone number to the citing officer if they wanted to, and 23,243 did.

The researchers then randomly assigned participants to one of four conditions. A control group received no texts. In the other three, people received a text seven days, three days, and 24 hours prior to their scheduled court date. The content of the messages differed.

A "plan-making" group got date and location information, plus a prompt suggesting the need to make a plan. The "consequences" group received a date and time reminder, plus explicit information about the issuance of an arrest warrant should they miss it. In a "combination" group, participants received a mix of the two, ending with one reminding them of the penalty for a skipped court appearance.

"The combination and consequences messages were most effective," Ouss says. "But even simple message reminders helped people show up to court." On average, text messages reduced failure-to-appear rates by about 21%.

Ouss and her colleagues estimate that combined with the redesigned form, text message interventions helped avoid at least 30,000 arrest warrants between August 2016 and September 2019. In addition, because about two-thirds of people who receive summonses get their case dismissed simply by appearing in court, the researchers estimate these interventions resulted in about 20,000 fully dismissed cases rather than open warrants.

Surveying professionals, laypeople

Finally, the researchers wanted to understand why simple interventions like these aren't more frequently adopted in criminal justice policy and whether support for these approaches differed from criminal justice professionals to laypeople.

So, they asked participants in a study to rate whether five failed actions—missing a court date or skipping a doctor's visit, for example—occurred because of inattention or forgetfulness and whether such actions were deliberate or unintentional. They also wanted to understand whether participants felt nudges or stiffer penalties might better improve outcomes.

"We operate under the assumption that when people are in the criminal justice context, they're failing on purpose. Our survey showed that laypeople have this view, but professionals don't," Ouss says. "A lack of awareness can explain this behavior, and it's important to design interventions that address this lack of awareness instead of increase penalties."

She adds that this particular research answers questions about the lowest-level offenses and in a single city, but lack of awareness could explain failures to comply in other criminal justice contexts, too. Future work could look at more serious behaviors broadened in scope to many places, as well as behaviors on the decision-making side of the criminal justice system.

As we learned in chemistry class, chemical reaction occurs with the formation or cleavage of bonds between atoms. These chemical bonds form when atoms share or exchange electrons. The chemical reactivity can be controlled in several ways. Among them, the control of electronic property at the reaction site is generally employed. For example, electron-rich molecule prefers to react with a molecule that can readily accept electrons. Many atoms can form 'functional groups' that either donate or withdraw electrons and control the electron density distribution of a molecule. These functional groups can vary the electronic property of the molecule to speed up the intended chemical reaction. Commonly referred to as "inductive effect", the electron-donating group pushes electrons to increase the electron density at the site where the reaction takes place. Conversely, electron-withdrawing group removes electrons and reduces the electron density of the reaction site.

In 1937, the American chemist Louis P. Hammett quantified the electronic effect of functional groups in various types of organic reactions. More than 80 years later, Hammett's research is still widely used to design an efficient reaction or catalysis by modulating the electronic property of target molecules. However, this approach involves a frustrating and inefficient amount of tasks. Since each functional group can render only a specific inductive effect and sometimes, it may not be possible to synthesize target molecules which have desired functional groups due to a synthetic difficulty. These constraints have forced researchers to prepare numerous derivatives for a series of complicated reaction scenarios.

Led by professor BAIK Mu-Hyun [the Center for Catalytic Hydrocarbon Functionalizations within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) & the Department of Chemistry within the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, KAIST in Daejeon, South Korea] and HAN Sang Woo (the Department of Chemistry within the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, KAIST) a research team at the IBS and KAIST discovered what they call the "electro-inductive effect" offering an alternative to the classical approach of chemical synthesis. Employing a gold electrode, the researchers attached the target molecules onto the electrode. "Just like functional groups generate diverse electronic effects, we wished to change the properties of the immobilized molecules using different voltages. The beauty of our discovery is that one electrode fits all reactions as the single electrode can behave like multiple functional groups just with the switch of applied voltage", notes professor Mu-Hyun Baik.

The research team showed that the gold electrode can serve as a "universal functional group" to control the reactivity of a molecule, thus propelling or inhibiting the reaction just by switching the voltage applied to the electrode. In the "base-catalyzed ester hydrolysis reaction", a representative organic reaction that Hammett had used to establish the conventional inductive effect 80 years ago, the application of (+) voltage on the electrode decreased the electron density of the carbonyl carbon in the ester molecule. Thus, the reactivity of the ester molecule was significantly enhanced. Conversely, when (-) voltage was applied, the reaction barely proceeded owing to the high electron density of the reaction site. (Figure 2-1) They have also successfully controlled the reaction rate of the "Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reaction", a major catalytic method for forming carbon-carbon bonds. (Figure 2-2) It is of great significance that the electrode can control the reactivity not only in the organic reaction, but also in the complicated organometallic catalytic reaction.

The researchers also confirmed that this "universal function group" allows for fine-tuning of the electronic property and reactivity of the molecule in the middle of a chemical reaction. (in-situ tuning). EDC [1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide]-mediated amidation reaction can be divided into two steps: The first step is accelerated by the electron-donating group, whereas the second step is enhanced by the electron-withdrawing group. EDC-mediated amidation reaction hardly proceeded when one type of voltage was applied. (Figure 2-3) The "universal functional group" successfully changed the reactivity of the molecule while the reaction was in progress.

The idea of covalently attaching molecules to an electrode is not new. However, most of such cases involve redox reactions. "The chemical reactions controlled by the electro-inductive effect do not involve redox processes. The electrode only serves as a functional group with tunable inductive effect. In addition, this study explored how the electro-inductive effect works in actual chemical reactions," explains professor Mu-Hyun Baik.

As researchers confirmed the potential of replacing functional groups with a gold electrode at different voltages, they are going to employ other types of electrodes, such as carbon-based electrodes to ensure a practical and scalable application of this study.

Researchers from St. Petersburg provided a unique experiment. They implanted a polymer scaffold as a vascular prosthesis into the rat abdominal aorta and monitored the process of its bioresobtion for 16 months. An artificial vessel was formed where the scaffold was located. It posess similar characteristics as a natural vessel. The scaffold itself showed high patency, biocompatibility and non-toxicity. The results were published in the Cell and Tissue Biology journal. This study brings scientists closer to the creation of an artificial tissue-engineered vascular graft.

The study was conducted by multidisciplinary team from Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU), Pavlov First Saint Petersburg State Medical University and Institute of Macromolecular Compounds.

Coronary and peripheral artery bypass grafting is commonly used to relieve the symptoms of angina and other vascular deficiencies. Synthetic vascular prostheses perform reasonably satisfactorily in high-flow, low-resistance conditions such as the large peripheral arteries, but they are not as suitable for small calibre arterial reconstructions (e.g., coronary or lower leg circulation). They are prone to thrombus induction, embolism and occlusion.

Therefore it is desirable to develop a low-cost artificial blood vessel with no biocompatibility problems in order to overcome these problems.

"Synthetic prosthesis does not undergo remodeling in the child's body, that's why reoperations will be required. These is one of the reasons for creation of artificial vessels", - said Vladimir Yudin, head of the Department "Polymeric materials for tissue engineering and transplantation" SPbPU.

The researchers developed the synthetic tubular scaffold from a biodegradable polymer - polylactic acid, which is normally found in the human body. It is also approved by the FDA (Food & Drug Association) for medical use. The scaffold gradually dissolves in the body, and a vessel appears in its place.

"The scaffold consists of nano- and microfibers, which are very similar to the fibrous structure of the natural vessel. Host cells successfully proliferate on such graft. We studied its mechanical strength, porosity, hydrophobicity. The scaffold is safe", - added Pavel Popryadukhin, researcher of that department.

Surgical experiments were carried out at the Pavlov University. The scaffold was sewn into the rat aorta using microsurgical techniques. After 16 months the scaffold was completely dissolved. The artificial vessel looked very similar to the natural one. However, aneurysm formation in the reconstruction zone was noted.

"We also obtained positive results: scaffold safety was proved during the long-term experiments. The possibility of new tissues formation on the scaffold was also shown. The scaffold has been proven to be non-toxic with high patency rates - 93%. This is very high value, which suggests that while a new vessel is being formed, the scaffold will be patent, " - mentioned Guriy Popov, cardiovascular surgeon of the Pavlov University.

The next step is to seed and cultivate cells, which is responsible for strength, on the scaffold prior operation. This will help to solve the problem of aneurysms at the implantation site.

Human spaceflight has been fascinating man for centuries, representing the intangible need to explore the unknown, challenge new frontiers, advance technology and push scientific boundaries further. A key aspect of long-term human spaceflight is the physiological response and the consequent microgravity (0G) adaptation, which has all the features of accelerated aging involving almost every body system: muscle atrophy and bone loss, onset of balance and coordination problems, loss of functional capacity of the cardiovascular system.

A research published in recent days in npj Microgravity - a prestigious journal of the Nature group "Cardiovascular deconditioning during long-term spaceflight through multiscale modeling") - and conducted by Caterina Gallo, Luca Ridolfi and Stefania Scarsoglio shows that human spaceflight reduces exercise tolerance and ages astronauts' heart.

The study is based on a mathematical model which allowed to investigate some spaceflight mechanisms inducing cardiovascular deconditioning, that is the adaptation of the cardiovascular system to a less demanding environment.

Understanding 0G configuration is crucial to ensure the full health and well-being of astronauts in view of the now imminent missions to the Moon and Mars. Moreover, since spaceflight deconditioning has features similar to accelerated aging, gravitational physiology may lead to useful insights to delay or prevent the modern lifestyle medical disorders related with living longer.

The proposed study compared the cardiovascular response in microgravity (0G) conditions with what happens on Earth: several hemodynamic parameters - such as cardiac work, oxygen consumption and contractility indexes, as well as arterial pressure - were reduced. Exercise tolerance of a spaceflight traveler was found to be comparable to an untrained person with a sedentary lifestyle. At the capillary-venous level significant waveform alterations were observed which can modify the regular perfusion and average nutrient supply at the cellular level.

"Present findings" professor Scarsoglio observes "are useful to design future long-term spaceflights, individuate optimal countermeasures and understand the state of health of astronauts when prompt physical capacity at the time of restoration of partial gravity (e.g., Moon/Mars landing) is required".

Field Effect Transistors (FET) are the core building blocks of modern electronics such as integrated circuits, computer CPUs and display backplanes. Organic Field Effect Transistors (OFETs), which use organic semiconductor as a channel for current flows, have the advantage of being flexible when compared with their inorganic counterparts like silicon.

OFETs, given their high sensitivity, mechanical flexibility, biocompatibility, property tunability and low-cost fabrication, are considered to have great potential in new applications in wearable electronics, conformal health monitoring sensors, and bendable displays etc. Imagine TV screens that can be rolled up; or smart wearable electronic devices and clothing worn close to the body to collect vital body signals for instant biofeedback; or mini-robots made of harmless organic materials working inside the body for diseases diagnosis, target drug transportations, mini-surgeries and other medications and treatments.

Until now, the main limitation on enhanced performance and mass production of OFETs lies in the difficulty in miniaturising them. Products currently using OFETs in the market are still in their primitive forms, in terms of product flexibility and durability.

An engineering team led by Dr Paddy Chan Kwok Leung at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has made an important breakthrough in developing the staggered structure monolayer Organic Field Effect Transistors, which sets a major cornerstone to reduce the size of OFETs. The result has been published in the academic journal Advanced Materials. A US patent has been filed for the innovation.

The major problem now confronting scientists in reducing the size of OFETs is that the performance of the transistor will drop significantly with a reduction in size, partly due to the problem of contact resistance, i.e. resistance at interfaces which resists current flows. When the device gets smaller, its contact resistance will become a dominating factor in significantly downgrading the device's performance.

The staggered structure monolayer OFETs created by Dr Chan's team demonstrate a record low normalized contact resistance of 40 Ω -cm. Compared with conventional devices with a contact resistance of 1000 Ω -cm, the new device can save 96% of power dissipation at contact when running the device at the same current level. More importantly, apart from energy saving, the excessive heat generated in the system, a common problem which causes semiconductors to fail, can be greatly reduced.

"On the basis of our achievement, we can further reduce the dimensions of OFETs and push them to a sub-micrometer scale, a level compatible with their inorganic counterparts, while can still function effectively to exhibit their unique organic properties. This is critical for meeting the requirement for commercialisation of related research." Dr Chan said.

"If flexible OFET works, many traditional rigid based electronics such as display panels, computers and cell phones would transform to become flexible and foldable. These future devices would be much lighter in weight, and with low production cost."

"Moreover, given their organic nature, they are more likely to be biocompatible for advanced medical applications such as sensors in tracking brain activities or neural spike sensing, and in precision diagnosis of brain related illness such as epilepsy." Dr Chan added.

Dr Chan's team is currently working with researchers at the HKU Faculty of Medicine and biomedical engineering experts at CityU to integrate the miniaturised OFETs into a flexible circuit onto a polymer microprobe for neural spike detections in-vivo on a mouse brain under different external stimulations. They also plan to integrate the OFETs onto surgical tools such as catheter tube, and then put it inside animals' brains for direct brain activities sensing to locate abnormal activation in brain.

"Our OFETs provide a much better signal to noise ratio. Therefore, we expect we can pick up some weak signals which cannot be detected before using the conventional bare electrode for sensing."

"It has been our goal to connect applied research with fundamental science. Our research achievement would hopefully open a blue ocean for OFETs research and applications. We believe that the setting and achievement on OFETs are now ready for applications in large area display backplane and surgical tools." Dr Chan concluded.

Please click here for more details about Dr Chan's journal article entitled "Crystallized Monolayer Semiconductor for Ohmic Contact Resistance, High Intrinsic Gain, and High Current Density" .

Efforts to find ways to break down cellulose, the tough stuff that makes up plant cell walls, faster and more productively has long been a goal of industrial researchers.

When plants are processed into biofuels or other biomass applications, cellulose has to be degraded into simpler sugar molecules first, and this step can represent up to a quarter of the operating and capital costs of biofuel production. If this process can be made faster and more productive, it won't just save industry money, but such efficiencies could also reduce the environmental impact of production.

Cellulose molecules bind very strongly to each other, making cellulose very hard to break down. Some fungi are able to break it down, however, and their cellulose degradation systems are well known.

Fungi produce many types of cellulases—enzymes that speed up the chemical reaction that degrades cellulose. And such fungi have been widely used in industry for this reason. For example, the fungus Trichoderma reesei—discovered during World War Two in the Pacific as a result of its eating away at tents and clothing—is used in the production of stone-washed jeans. Cellobiohydrolase, a type of cellulase that the fungus produces, breaks down cellulose into cellobiose, a simple sugar more easily useable by organisms. This slightly degrades the denim material in places, which in turn softens it—making it appear as if washed with stones—and makes it more comfortable to wear.

But there is another type of cellulose degradation system used by some bacteria, and which is similar in many ways to that used by this fungus. But this system has not been very well understood until now. In a paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry on August 18th, researchers from Japan's Institute for Molecular Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences (IMS, NINS) have finally described this system in detail at the single-molecule level.

The type of cellobiohydrolase produced by the bacterium Cellulomonas fimi has a similar catalytic domain to the cellobiohydrolase produced by T. reesei. The catalytic domain of an enzyme is its region that interacts with a molecule that it wants to change or break down (in order to cause the enzymatic reaction). Both the fungus and the bacteria's cellulose degradation system also exhibit similar hydrolytic activity (the way that they use water to break down the cellulose's chemical bonds).

But the two systems have different carbohydrate-binding modules (the series of proteins in the enzyme that bind to the carbohydrates in the cellulose) and what are termed "linkers", in essence the part of the enzyme that links the catalytic domain to the carbohydrate-binding modules.

In earlier research, the NINS scientists had already established that the structure of the linker region of the fungal cellobiohydrolase played a crucial role in how fast the enzyme binds to cellulose (and thus how fast the system degrades cellulose).

"So the obvious next questions were: Even though these other parts of the bacterium's cellobiohydrolase are different to those of the fungus, do they nevertheless do something similar?" said Akihiko Nakamura and Ryota Iino, the researchers on the team. "Do they also speed up cellulose degradation?"

They found that they do. The scientists used single-molecule fluorescence imaging—an advanced method of microscopy that delivers images of living cells with a resolution of just tens of nanometers—to observe the bacterium's cellobiohydrolase binding to and dissociating from cellulose molecules.

This allowed them to clarify the functions of the different parts of the cellulose degradation system. They found that the carbohydrate-binding modules were indeed important for the initial binding, but the role played by the linker region was fairly minor.

However, they found that the catalytic domain was not so similar after all. Its structure showed longer loops at the entrance and exit of a "tunnel" in the heart of the system compared to that of the fungus. And this difference in the tunnel structure results in higher processivity—the ability of an enzyme to set off multiple consecutive reactions.

The next steps will be to engineer these bacterial cellulose degrading enzymes to break down cellulose faster.

Heating the space where we live or work is a common necessity in most of the inhabited areas. The energy requested for this process is responsible for a third of all the energy consumed in Europe; moreover, 75% of this energy is produced with fossil fuels.

The idea of a new material for the thermochemical energy storage comes from a group of researchers of the Applied Science and Technology (DISAT) and Energy (DENERG) departments of the Polytechnic of Turin, and from the Advanced Energy Technology Institute of the Italian National Research Center (CNR-ITAE). The paper was published on the journal Scientific Reports*.

In this study, the researchers demonstrated how it is possible to produce heat by the hydration of salt present inside the pores of cement.

In order to reach to sustainability goals in Europe it is necessary to reduce the use of fossil fuels and to use instead renewable energy-based systems. However, the integration of renewable energy in heating systems entails a time gap between the energy surplus and the daily and annual peaks of demand.

Solar energy, for instance, is widely available in summer months, however the most part of the heating requirement is during the winter, when at our latitudes the day is much shorter. It is evident that the widespread exploitation of renewable energy sources must integrate the development of low cost storage systems, with the goal to balance the time shift between the demand and the offer of energy. One of the possible ways to store energy is the thermochemical approach, that allow to store heat for a virtually infinite time, contrary to the standard approaches.

"Try to dissolve a good amount of salt in a glass of water, what you will notice is that the glass heats up with some salts and cools down with others. A similar phenomenon is at the basis of our materials, with the difference that instead of liquid water we use aqueous vapor, without dissolving the salt. The aqueous vapor interacts with the salt and produces heat. Once completely hydrated, it will be possible to revert the salt to the starting state by a simple drying process, that allows to eliminate the surplus water.

This kind of reaction is well known, and many thermal storage materials have already been developed, however their cost is most often the limiting factor. For instance, a zeolite is one of the best materials from the thermal point of view, but it can cost up to several tens of euros per kilogram. This brings to an unbearable cost when storing the energy needed to heat a room or a whole building. The cement, used as a matrix to host the salt hydrates, is a very interesting materials since it is well known, easily available and cheap." explains Luca Lavagna, post-doc researcher of the Applied Science and Technology Department of Polytechnic of Turin, first author of the paper.

The innovative feature presented by the researchers is indeed the use of cement as a host matrix for the salt. The total cost of the used materials is very low and the energetic behavior is good: the energy cost, measured in stored €/kWh, is lower than most of the current used materials. This new material, moreover, shows an extraordinary stability even after hundreds of heating/cooling cycles. This work can represent the first step toward the creation of a new class, up to now never mentioned in the literature, of composite materials for thermochemical energy storage,