JURNAL AGROTEKNOLOGI
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The anticipatory governance of sustainability transformations: hybrid approaches and dominant perspectives
No full textAnticipation methods and tools are increasingly used to try to imagine and govern transformations towards more sustainable futures across different policy domains and sectors. But there is a lack of research into the steering effects of anticipation on present-day governance choices, especially in the face of urgently needed sustainability transformations. This paper seeks to understand how different perspectives on anticipatory governance connect to attempts to guide policy and action toward transformative change. We analyze perspectives on anticipatory governance in a global network of food system foresight practitioners (Foresight4Food) – using a workshop, interviews, and a survey as our sources of data. We connect frameworks on anticipatory governance and on transformation to analyse different perspectives on the future and their implications for actions in the present to transform food systems and offer new insights for theory and practice. In the global Foresight4Food network, we find that most foresight practitioners use hybrid approaches to anticipatory governance that combine fundamentally different assumptions about the future. We also find that despite these diverse food futures, anticipation processes predominantly produce recommendations that follow more prediction-oriented forms of strategic planning in order to mitigate future risks. We further demonstrate that much anticipation for transformation uses the language on deep uncertainty and deliberative action without fully taking its consequences on board. Thus, opportunities for transforming future food systems are missed due to these implicit assumptions that dominate the anticipatory governance of food systems. Our combined framework helps researchers and practitioners to be more reflexive of how assumptions about key human systems such as food system futures shape what is prioritized/marginalized and included/excluded in actions to transform such systems
Surgical fixation with K-wires versus casting in adults with a fracture of the distal radius: the DRAFFT2 multicentre randomized clinical trial
No full textObjective To assess wrist function, quality of life, and complications in adult patients with a dorsally displaced fracture of the distal radius, treated with either a moulded cast or surgical fixation with K-wires.
Design Multicentre randomised clinical superiority trial,
Setting 36 hospitals in the UK National Health Service (NHS).
Participants 500 adults aged 16 or over with a dorsally displaced fracture of the distal radius, randomised after manipulation of their fracture (255 to moulded cast; 245 to surgical fixation).
Interventions Manipulation and moulded cast was compared with manipulation and surgical fixation with K-wires plus cast. Details of the application of the cast and the insertion of the K-wires were at the discretion of the treating surgeon, according to their normal clinical practice.
Main outcome measures The primary outcome measure was the Patient Rated Wrist Evaluation (PRWE) score at 12 months (five questions about pain and 10 about function and disability; overall score out of 100 (best score=0 and worst score=100)). Secondary outcomes were PRWE score at three and six months, quality of life, and complications, including the need for surgery due to loss of fracture position in the first six weeks.
Results The mean age of participants was 60 years and 417 (83%) were women; 395 (79%) completed follow-up. No statistically significant difference in the PRWE score was seen at 12 months (cast group (n=200), mean 21.2 (SD 23.1); K-wire group (n=195), mean 20.7 (22.3); adjusted mean difference −0.34 (95% confidence interval −4.33 to 3.66), P=0.87). No difference was seen at earlier time points. In the cast group, 33 (13%) of participants needed surgical fixation for loss of fracture position in the first six weeks compared with one revision surgery in the K-wire group (odds ratio 0.02, 95% confidence interval 0.001 to 0.10).
Conclusions Among patients with a dorsally displaced distal radius fracture that needed manipulation, surgical fixation with K-wires did not improve patients’ wrist function at 12 months compared with a cast.
Trial registration ISRCTN registry ISRCTN11980540
Divergent trajectories of antiviral memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection
No full textThe trajectories of acquired immunity to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection are not fully understood. We present a detailed longitudinal cohort study of UK healthcare workers prior to vaccination, presenting April-June 2020 with asymptomatic or symptomatic infection. Here we show a highly variable range of responses, some of which (T cell interferon-gamma ELISpot, N-specific antibody) wane over time, while others (spike-specific antibody, B cell memory ELISpot) are stable. We use integrative analysis and a machine-learning approach (SIMON - Sequential Iterative Modeling OverNight) to explore this heterogeneity. We identify a subgroup of participants with higher antibody responses and interferon-gamma ELISpot T cell responses, and a robust trajectory for longer term immunity associates with higher levels of neutralising antibodies against the infecting (Victoria) strain and also against variants B.1.1.7 (alpha) and B.1.351 (beta). These variable trajectories following early priming may define subsequent protection from severe disease from novel variants
HeadSLAM: Pedestrian SLAM with head-mounted sensors
No full textResearch focused on human position tracking with wearable sensors has been developing rapidly in recent years, and it has shown great potential for application within healthcare, smart homes, sports, and emergency services. Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) with Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) is one of the most promising solutions within this domain, as it does not rely on any additional infrastructure, whilst also being suitable for use in a diverse set of scenarios. However, PDR is only accurate for a limited period of time before unbounded errors, due to drift, affect the position estimate. Error correction can be difficult as there is often a lack of efficient methods for calibration. HeadSLAM, a method specifically designed for head-mounted IMUs, is proposed to improve the accuracy during longer tracking times (10 min). Research participants (n = 7) were asked to walk in both indoor and outdoor environments wearing head-mounted sensors, and the obtained HeadSLAM accuracy was subsequently compared to that of the PDR method. A significant difference (p < 0.001) in the average root-mean-squared error and absolute error was found between the two methods. HeadSLAM had a consist lower error across all scenarios and subjects in a 20 h walking dataset. The findings of this study show how the HeadSLAM algorithm can provide a more accurate long-term location service for head-mounted, low-cost sensors. The improved performance can support inexpensive applications for infrastructureless navigation
Correlation of age of onset and clinical severity in Niemann–Pick disease type C1 with lysosomal abnormalities and gene expression
No full textNiemann–Pick disease type C1 (NPC1) is a rare, prematurely fatal lysosomal storage disorder which exhibits highly variable severity and disease progression as well as a wide-ranging age of onset, from perinatal stages to adulthood. This heterogeneity has made it difficult to obtain prompt diagnosis and to predict disease course. In addition, small NPC1 patient sample sizes have been a limiting factor in acquiring genome-wide transcriptome data. In this study, primary fibroblasts from an extensive cohort of 41 NPC1 patients were used to validate our previous findings that the lysosomal quantitative probe LysoTracker can be used as a predictor for age of onset and disease severity. We also examined the correlation between these clinical parameters and RNA expression data from primary fibroblasts and identified a set of genes that were significantly associated with lysosomal defects or age of onset, in particular neurological symptom onset. Hierarchical clustering showed that these genes exhibited distinct expression patterns among patient subgroups. This study is the first to collect transcriptomic data on such a large scale in correlation with clinical and cellular phenotypes, providing a rich genomic resource to address NPC1 clinical heterogeneity and discover potential biomarkers, disease modifiers, or therapeutic targets
Basic research approaches to evaluate cardiac arrhythmia in heart failure and beyond
No full textPatients with heart failure often develop cardiac arrhythmias. The mechanisms and interrelations linking heart failure and arrhythmias are not fully understood. Historically, research into arrhythmias has been performed on affected individuals or in vivo (animal) models. The latter however is constrained by interspecies variation, demands to reduce animal experiments and cost. Recent developments in in vitro induced pluripotent stem cell technology and in silico modelling have expanded the number of models available for the evaluation of heart failure and arrhythmia. An agnostic approach, combining the modalities discussed here, has the potential to improve our understanding for appraising the pathology and interactions between heart failure and arrhythmia and can provide robust and validated outcomes in a variety of research settings. This review discusses the state of the art models, methodologies and techniques used in the evaluation of heart failure and arrhythmia and will highlight the benefits of using them in combination. Special consideration is paid to assessing the pivotal role calcium handling has in the development of heart failure and arrhythmia
The C-terminal domains of the PB2 subunit of the influenza A virus RNA polymerase directly interact with cellular GTPase Rab11a
No full textInfluenza A virus (IAV) contains a segmented RNA genome that is transcribed and replicated by the viral RNA polymerase in the cell nucleus. Replicated RNA segments are assembled with viral polymerase and oligomeric nucleoprotein into viral ribonucleoprotein (vRNP) complexes which are exported from the nucleus and transported across the cytoplasm to be packaged into progeny virions. Host GTPase Rab11a associated with recycling endosomes is believed to contribute to this process by mediating the cytoplasmic transport of vRNPs. However, how vRNPs interact with Rab11a remains poorly understood. In this study, we utilized a combination of biochemical, proteomic, and biophysical approaches to characterize the interaction between the viral polymerase and Rab11a. Using pulldown assays, we showed that vRNPs but not complementary RNPs (cRNPs) from infected cell lysates bind to Rab11a. We also showed that the viral polymerase directly interacts with Rab11a and that the C-terminal two-thirds of the PB2 polymerase subunit (PB2-C) comprising the cap-binding, mid-link, 627, and nuclear localization signal (NLS) domains mediate this interaction. Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) experiments confirmed that PB2-C associates with Rab11a in solution forming a compact folded complex with a 1:1 stoichiometry. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the switch I region of Rab11a, which has been shown to be important for binding Rab11 family-interacting proteins (Rab11-FIPs), is also important for PB2-C binding, suggesting that IAV polymerase and Rab11-FIPs compete for the same binding site. Our findings expand our understanding of the interaction between the IAV polymerase and Rab11a in the cytoplasmic transport of vRNPs
Tomographic refractive index profiling of direct laser written waveguides
No full textThe fabrication of complex integrated photonic devices via direct laser writing is a powerful and rapidly developing technology. However, the approach is still facing several challenges. One of them is the reliable quantitative characterization of refractive index (RI) changes induced upon laser exposure. To this end, we develop a tomographic reconstruction algorithm following a modern optimization approach, relying on accelerated proximal gradient descent, based on intensity images only. Very recently, such algorithms have become the state of the art in the community of bioimaging, but have never been applied to direct laser written structures such as waveguides. We adapt the algorithm to our concern of characterizing these translation-invariant structures and extend it in order to jointly estimate the aberrations introduced by the imaging system. We show that a correct estimation of these aberrations is necessary to make use of data recorded at larger angles and that it can increase the fidelity of the reconstructed RI profiles. Moreover, we present a method allowing to cross-validate the RI reconstructions by comparing en-face widefield images of thin waveguide sections with matching simulations based on the retrieved RI profile
Automated video labelling: identifying faces by corroborative evidence
No full textWe present a method for automatically labelling all faces in video archives, such as TV broadcasts, by combining multiple evidence sources and multiple modalities (visual and audio). We target the problem of ever-growing online video archives, where an effective, scalable indexing solution cannot require a user to provide manual annotation or supervision. To this end, we make three key contributions: (1) We provide a novel, simple, method for determining if a person is famous or not using image-search engines. In turn this enables a face-identity model to be built reliably and robustly, and used for high precision automatic labelling; (2) We show that even for less-famous people, image-search engines can then be used for corroborative evidence to accurately label faces that are named in the scene or the speech; (3) Finally, we quantitatively demonstrate the benefits of our approach on different video domains and test settings, such as TV shows and news broadcasts. Our method works across three disparate datasets without any explicit domain adaptation, and sets new state-of-the-art results on all the public benchmarks