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The Emerald Handbook of Research Management and Administration Around the World
No full textFinland aims to increase its research and development (R&D) expenditure to 4% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030. The parliamentary working group proposed to advance Finland's research, development and innovation objectives which are now strongly committed by the Finnish government. This will allow universities to invest in the research and innovation not only more in the future but also in the long-term and sustainable way. This would also provide opportunities and challenge the national research management and administration (RMA) community to develop the RMA profession, not only to increase the number of RMAs, but also to better meet the more diverse and complex tasks of the future RMA profession. Finn-ARMA creates a good platform for co-operation between RMAs in various positions and for the professionalisation of the current community and its future new members.First editio
The magnitude of legal wildlife trade and implications for species survival
No full textThe unsustainable use of wildlife is a primary driver of global biodiversity loss. No comprehensive global dataset exists on what species are in trade, their geographic origins, and trade's ultimate impacts, which limits our ability to sustainably manage trade. The United States is one of the world's largest importers of wildlife, with trade data compiled in the US Law Enforcement Management Information System (LEMIS). The LEMIS provides the most comprehensive publicly accessible wildlife trade database of non- the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) listed species. In total, 21,097 species and over 2.85 billion individuals were traded over the past 22 y (2000- 2022). When LEMIS data are combined with CITES records, the United States imported over 29,445 wild species, including over 50% of all globally described species in some taxonomic groups. For most taxa, around half of the individuals are declared as sourced from the wild. Although the LEMIS provides the only means to assess trade volumes for many taxa, without any associated data on most wild populations, it is impossible to assess the impact on biodiversity, sustainability of trade, or any potential risk of pest or pathogen spread. These insights underscore the considerable underestimation of trade and the urgent need for other countries to adopt similar mechanisms to accurately record trade
Interactional practices in technology-rich L2 environments in and beyond the physical borders of the classroom
No full textThe current special issue is dedicated to studies exploring social interaction in second language educational environments that feature technology. In this introduction article, we contextualize the empirical studies included here with respect to the changing role of technology in education and situate them in the research tradition of multimodal and ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis (CA). We also present the individual contributions and briefly discuss how they promote a conceptualization of classrooms as pedagogically meaningful material-technological ecologies for teaching and learning actions rather than a physically delimited space.</p
The incidence and triggers of adult-onset Guillain-Barré syndrome in southwestern Finland 2004-2013.
No full text
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:
A Swiss study recently reported surgery as a potential risk factor for developing Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). It was sought to establish this in the Finnish adult population.
METHODS:
Persons over 16 years of age who received a diagnosis of GBS in 2004-2013 were identified from the patient register of Turku University Hospital and their patient records were analyzed to identify possible triggers.
RESULTS:
A cohort of 69 adult patients with GBS (63.8% men) was identified giving an annual incidence of 1.82/100 000. Of these, four (5.8%) had experienced a surgical procedure during the preceding 6 weeks with a relative risk of 6.28 (95% confidence interval 4.15-9.47, P
CONCLUSIONS:
The overall incidence of GBS in the adult population of southwestern Finland was similar to previous studies worldwide and the most common triggers were respiratory tract infections and gastroenteritis. Surgery was a rare risk factor and of vaccinations only the one against pandemic influenza raised the risk of GBS.</p
Magnetohydrodynamic With Embedded Particle-In-Cell Simulation of the Geospace Environment Modeling Dayside Kinetic Processes Challenge Event
No full textWe use the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) with embedded particle-in-cell model (MHD-EPIC) to study the Geospace Environment Modeling (GEM) dayside kinetic processes challenge event at 01:50-03:00 UT on 18 November 2015, when the magnetosphere was driven by a steady southward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). In the MHD-EPIC simulation, the dayside magnetopause is covered by a PIC code so that the dayside reconnection is properly handled. We compare the magnetic fields and the plasma profiles of the magnetopause crossing with the MMS3 spacecraft observations. Most variables match the observations well in the magnetosphere, in the magnetosheath, and also during the current sheet crossing. The MHD-EPIC simulation produces flux ropes, and we demonstrate that some magnetic field and plasma features observed by the MMS3 spacecraft can be reproduced by a flux rope crossing event. We use an algorithm to automatically identify the reconnection sites from the simulation results. It turns out that there are usually multiple X-lines at the magnetopause. By tracing the locations of the X-lines, we find that the typical moving speed of the X-line endpoints is about 70 km/s, which is higher than but still comparable with the ground-based observations
Platinum-based drugs induce phenotypic alterations in nucleoli and Cajal bodies in prostate cancer cells
No full textPurpose: Platinum-based drugs are cytotoxic drugs commonly used in cancer treatment. They cause DNA damage, effects of which on chromatin and cellular responses are relatively well described. Yet, the nuclear stress responses related to RNA processing are incompletely known and may be relevant for the heterogeneity with which cancer cells respond to these drugs. Here, we determine the type and extent of nuclear stress responses of prostate cancer cells to clinically relevant platinum drugs.Methods: We study nucleolar and Cajal body (CB) responses to cisplatin, carboplatin, and oxaliplatin with immunofluorescence-based methods in prostate cancer cells. We utilize organelle-specific markers NPM, Fibrillarin, Coilin, and SMN1, and study CB-regulatory proteins FUS and TDP-43 using siRNA-mediated downregulation.Results: Different types of prostate cancer cells have different sensitivities to platinum drugs. With equally cytotoxic doses, cisplatin, and oxaliplatin induce prominent nucleolar and CB stress responses while the nuclear stress phenotypes to carboplatin are milder. We find that Coilin is a stress-specific marker for platinum drug response heterogeneity. We also find that CB-associated, stress-responsive RNA binding proteins FUS and TDP-43 control Coilin and CB biology in prostate cancer cells and, further, that TDP-43 is associated with stress-responsive CBs in prostate cancer cells.Conclusion: Our findings provide insight into the heterologous responses of prostate cancer cells to different platinum drug treatments and indicate Coilin and TDP-43 as stress mediators in the varied outcomes. These results help understand cancer drug responses at a cellular level and have implications in tackling heterogeneity in cancer treatment outcomes.</p
Generating Synthetic Mechanocardiograms for Machine Learning Based Peak Detection
No full textAcquiring labeled data for machine learning algorithms in healthcare is expensive due to the laborious expert annotation and privacy concerns. This challenge is further complicated in the case of Mechanocardiogram (MCG) data, which are characterized by high inter- and intrapersonal complexity, compounded further by sensor variability. In this paper, we introduce an innovative method for generating synthetic mechanocardiogram (MCG) signals to address the scarcity of labeled data necessary for training machine learning models in healthcare. Our approach involves generating RR-intervals, adding wavelets, and incorporating noise to create realistic synthetic MCG signals. These synthetic signals were used to train a convolutional neural network (CNN) for peak detection in real MCG data. Our key contributions include developing a detailed methodology for realistic synthetic MCG signal generation, reducing the mean absolute error (MAE) in peak detection by 4.88 beats per minute (BPM) using synthetic data, enhancing the training of machine learning models, creating a new peak detection method, and addressing data scarcity in biomedical signal processing. These contributions emphasize the methodological innovations and the significance of our results, underscoring the potential impact of synthetic data in improving healthcare diagnostics
The ‘fourth wall’ and other usability issues in AI-generated personas : comparing chat-based and profile personas
Get PDFLarge Language Models (LLMs) are emerging as a powerful tool for AI-generated personas. This study evaluates the usability of AI-generated personas, comparing chat and profile formats. The findings indicate chat personas tend to be perceived more favourably, and profile personas exhibit greater variability in user perception. The increased difficulty and longer dwell time experienced by users with the profile persona, despite negative usability metrics, paradoxically resulted in better task performance. Usability issues indicate that many current limitations of AI, including verbosity, hallucinations, and empty rhetoric which was described as the persona having 'no soul', are inherited in AI-generated chat personas. However, there are also new issues. For one, the risk of information overload in an AI-generated profile persona implies that the AI does not consider human users' cognitive limitations when designing the persona (but usability scores for profile personas increase with dwell time, implying that users get used to the longer format the more time they spend). Another is the 'fourth wall' effect of AI-generated chat personas in which the user feels they are talking to someone describing the persona rather than the persona itself. Future work could address the usability paradox and the fourth wall effect of using personas.CCS CONCEPTSHuman-centered computing Human computer interaction (HCI)</p
Accumulating evidence from meta-analyses of prognostic studies on oral cancer: towards biomarker-driven patient selection
Get PDFBackgroundMany histopathologic prognostic markers, identified by routine hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining, have been proposed for predicting the survival of patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Subsequently, several meta-analyses have been conducted on these prognostic markers. We sought to analyze the accumulated evidence from these meta-analyses.MethodsAn electronic database search of PubMed, Scopus, Ovid Medline, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library was conducted to retrieve all meta-analysis articles published on histopathologic prognostic markers of OSCC. The risk of bias of the included studies was analyzed using the Risk of Bias in Systematic Reviews (ROBIS) tool. The synthesis of the results was conducted following the guidelines of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA).ResultsThere were 16 meta-analysis articles published on the histological prognostic markers of OSSC. The accumulated evidence from these meta-analyses highlighted the powerful prognostic value of depth of invasion, tumor thickness, perineural invasion, lymphovascular invasion, worst pattern of invasion, tumor budding, and tumor-stroma ratio. The highest odds ratio (OR) of a relationship between a histopathologic prognostic marker and outcome was for the depth of invasion (OR 10.16, 95% CI 5.05-20.46) and tumor thickness (OR 7.32, 95% CI 5.3-10.1) in predicting lymph node metastasis.ConclusionThe published meta-analyses present robust evidence on the significance of emerging histopathologic markers, namely, worst pattern of invasion, tumor budding, and tumor-stroma ratio. It is time to consider such markers in daily pathology reporting and risk stratification of OSCC.</p
Short- and long-term effects of imatinib in hospitalised COVID-19 patients : A randomised trial
Get PDFObjectives We studied the short- and long-term effects of imatinib in hospitalised COVID-19 patients. Methods Participants were randomised to receive standard of care (SoC) or SoC with imatinib. Imatinib dosage was 400mg daily until discharge (max 14 days). Primary outcomes were mortality at 30 days and 1 year. Secondary outcomes included recovery, quality of life and long COVID symptoms at 1 year. We also performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised trials studying imatinib for 30-day mortality in hospitalised COVID-19 patients. Results We randomised 156 patients (73 in SoC and 83 in imatinib). Among patients on imatinib, 7.2% had died at 30 days and 13.3% at 1 year and in SoC 4.1% and 8.2% (adjusted HR 1.35, 95% CI 0.47–3.90). At 1-year, self-reported recovery occurred in 79.0% in imatinib and in 88.5% in SoC (RR 0.91, 0.78-1.06). We found no convincing difference in quality of life or symptoms. Fatigue (24%) and sleep issues (20%) frequently bothered patients at one year. In the meta-analysis, imatinib was associated with a mortality risk ratio of 0.73 (0.32–1.63; low certainty evidence). Conclusions The evidence raises doubts regarding benefit of imatinib in reducing mortality, improving recovery and preventing long COVID symptoms in hospitalised COVID-19 patients.</p