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Social marketing and mass media interventions to increase sexually transmissible infections (STIs) testing among young people : social marketing and visual design component analysis
Get PDFFunding: This study was funded by a Queensland HIV Foundation HIV Research and Program Grant 2017. JR is funded by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office (CSO) at the MRC/CSO Social & Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow (MC_UU_12017/11, SPHSU11, MC_UU_00022/3, SPHSU18). At the time of completing the analysis, LMcD, and PF were funded by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office (CSO) at the MRC/CSO Social & Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow (MC_UU_12017/11, SPHSU11; MC_UU_12017/12, SPHSU12).Introduction Globally, sexually transmissible infections (STIs) continue to disproportionately affect young people. Regular STI testing is an important public health strategy but remains low among this age group. Raising awareness of testing is an essential step and requires effective interventions designed for young people. To inform the development of effective interventions that promote STI testing among young people, we conducted a systematic literature review to describe the social marketing and visual design components commonly found in STI testing interventions and explore associations of these components with intervention effectiveness. Methods We used a systemic review methodology to identify peer-reviewed articles that met pre-defined inclusion criteria. Social marketing and visual component analyses were conducted using structured data extraction tools and coding schemes, based on the eight key social marketing principles and 28 descriptive dimensions for visual analysis. Results 18 studies focusing on 13 separate interventions met the inclusion criteria. Most interventions used photograph-based images, using conventionally attractive actors, positioned centrally and making direct eye contact to engage the viewer. The majority of interventions featured text sparingly and drew on a range of tones (e.g. serious, humorous, positive, reassuring, empowering and informative) and three interventions used sexualised content. Four articles explicitly stated that the interventions was informed by social marketing principles, with two explicitly referencing all eight principles. Around half of the articles reported using a formal theoretical framework, but most were considered to have theoretical constructs implicit in interventions materials. Four articles provided detailed information regarding developmental consumer research or pre-testing. All articles suggested segmentation and development of materials specifically for young people. Explicit consideration of motivation and competition was lacking across all articles. This study found that there were some design elements common to interventions which were considered more effective. High social marketing complexity (where interventions met at least seven of the 11 criteria for complexity) seemed to be associated with more effective interventions. Conclusions Our findings suggest that the incorporation of social marketing principles, could be more important for intervention effectiveness than specific elements of visual design. Effective and systematic use of social marketing principles may help to inform future evidence-informed and theoretically based interventions and should be employed within sexual health improvement efforts.Peer reviewe
LLM agents making agent tools
Get PDFFunding: GW is supported by SCADS.AI, Lothian NHS, and in part by funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (KATY, 101017453). JNK is supported by the German Cancer Aid (DECADE, 70115166), the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (PEARL, 01KD2104C; CAMINO, 01EO2101; TRANSFORM LIVER, 031L0312A; TANGERINE, 01KT2302 through ERA-NET Transcan; Come2Data, 16DKZ2044A; DEEP-HCC, 031L0315A; DECIPHER-M, 01KD2420A; NextBIG, 01ZU2402A), the German Academic Exchange Service (SECAI, 57616814), the German Federal Joint Committee (TransplantKI, 01VSF21048), the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme (ODELIA, 101057091; GENIAL, 101096312), the European Research Council (ERC; NADIR, 101114631), the National Institutes of Health (EPICO, R01 CA263318) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Leeds Biomedical Research Centre (grant number NIHR203331).Tool use has turned large language models (LLMs) into powerful agents that can perform complex multi-step tasks by dynamically utilising external software components. However, these tools must be implemented in advance by human developers, hindering the applicability of LLM agents in domains demanding large numbers of highly specialised tools, like in life sciences and medicine. Motivated by the growing trend of scientific studies accompanied by public code repositories, we propose TOOLMAKER, an agentic framework that autonomously transforms papers with code into LLM-compatible tools. Given a GitHub URL and short task description, TOOLMAKER autonomously installs dependencies and generates code to perform the task, using a closed-loop self-correction mechanism for debugging. To evaluate our approach, we introduce a benchmark comprising 15 complex computational tasks spanning various domains with over 100 unit tests to assess correctness and robustness. Our method correctly implements 80% of the tasks, substantially outperforming current state-of-the-art software engineering agents. TOOLMAKER therefore is a step towards fully autonomous agent-based scientific workflows
Serotonin derivatives as organocatalytic switches of 8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase OGG1
Get PDFDNA serves as the blueprint of life on Earth. Yet, its integrity is constantly threatened by endogenous and exogenous factors. To counteract this, cells rely on a range of DNA repair pathways, which have been the subject of extensive studies. Historically, efforts to modulate DNA repair for therapeutic benefit have focused on classical approaches, such as the inhibition of DNA repair proteins, particularly in repair-deficient cancers. An alternative concept, first introduced in 2003 and further developed in recent years, involves small molecules that enhance DNA repair by acting as organic co-catalysts for the DNA repair enzyme 8-oxoguanine glycosylase 1 (OGG1). These compounds, termed organocatalytic switches (ORCAs), enable OGG1 to act as an AP-lyase in addition to its native glycosylase activity, accelerating DNA repair. To date, only a limited number of ORCA scaffolds have been explored.
The research reported herein describes the lead optimisation of a novel series of ORCAs derived from a serotonin-based hit compound identified via high-throughput screening and early-stage optimisation. A synthetic route centred on the Pd-catalysed Larock indole synthesis enabled the construction of a library of 2- and 3-arylated serotonin derivatives. Biochemical data, supported by crystallographic and computational docking studies, guided the rational design of more potent analogues. Ultimately, over a tenfold increase in potency over the original hit was achieved.
Finally, a set of mechanistic probe compounds were prepared to investigate the mode of action of serotonin-based ORCAs. While a definitive mechanism could not be established, the evidence supports active-site binding and is consistent with a water-mediated AP-site cleavage pathway."This work was supported by the University of St Andrews-funded EaSI-CAT Centre for Doctoral Training and Princeton University."--Fundin
Saying the same thing
Get PDFFunding: Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant RPG-2023-236, What If? Knowing by Imagining [WIKI]: The Logic and Rationality of Imagination.Against hyperintensional accounts of propositional contents, such as truthmaker semantics, impossible worlds semantics, structured propositions, and Fregean senses, Williamson has defended the Claim that such contents are to be taken as sets of possible worlds, resorting to guises while explaining away putative counterexamples as by-products of fallible cognitive heuristics. The workings of same-saying raise issues for the general applicability of the strategy: one can multiply ad libitum examples of co-intensional sentences saying different things, where guises won’t help the Claim, because they make no relevant cognitive difference. Besides, this is not even a catastrophe for possible worlds semantics.Peer reviewe
Digital museum objects and digital ecologies
Get PDFThree main claims form the basis of this article. First, that digital museum objects are relational objects and therefore active participants in networks of interaction through which their evolving meaning is formed and reformed. Second, that there exists a digital ecology, comprised of both physical and digital elements, in which digital museum objects are situated. Third, and finally, I contend that this digital ecology both facilitates and limits interactions with digital museum objects. The purpose of this article is to examine digital museum objects in digital ecologies and to understand who such ecologies are working for, and more importantly, who they are working against.Peer reviewe
Boosting electrochemical performance via extra-role of La-doped CeO2-δ interlayer for “Oxygen Provider” at high-current SOFC operation
Get PDFFunding: This research was supported by the National R&D Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT, grant numbers NRF- 2022M3H4A1A04076616. This work was also supported by KOREA HYDRO & NUCLEAR POWER CO., LTD (No. 23-Tech-13). The authors also thank the Ceramic Strategic Technology R&D program through the Korea Institute of Ceramic Engineering & Technology (KICET) (grant NTIS no. 1415187241).Utilizing rare earth doped ceria in solid oxide cells (SOCs) engineering is indeed a strategy aimed at enhancing the electrochemical devices' durability and activity. Particularly, Gd-doped ceria (GDC) is actively used for barrier layer and catalytic additives in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). In this study, experiments are conducted with La-doped CeO2 (LDC), in which the Ce sites are predominantly occupied by La, to prevent the formation of the Ce-Zr solid solution. This LDC is comparably used as a functional interlayer between the electrolyte and cathode if sintered at lower temperatures to avoid La2Zr2O7 impurity. In addition, the high substitution of La3+ into the ceria lattice improves the oxygen non-stoichiometry of LDC, leading to accelerated electrochemical high performance by the additional role of LDC for oxygen supplier capacitance at high current operation. Thus, it is confirmed that the improved SOFC high performance is achieved at the maximum power density (MPD) of ≈2.15 W cm−2 at 800 °C when the optimized LDC buffer layer is hired at the anode-supported typed-Samsung's SOFC by lowering the sintering temperature to prevent LDC's impurity reaction.Peer reviewe
Timing of peat initiation across the central Congo Basin
Get PDFFunding: The work was funded by a NERC Large Grant to S L L (‘CongoPeat’, NE/R016860/1), NERC Radiocarbon Facility NRCF010001 allocations (Alloc. No. 1688.0313, 1797.0414, 2222.1119, 14.108 and 2329.0920) to I T L, S L L, G E B, B C and G C D, a NERC Doctoral Training Partnership award to B C (‘SPHERES DTP’, NE/L002574/1), a Greenpeace Fund award to S L L, an Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) Grant (ANR-19-CE01-0022) to Y G, a Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) grant (SCHE903/19-1) to E S, NERC CASE award to S L L and G C D, support from the DFG-Cluster of Excellence ‘The Ocean in the Earth System’ at MARUM to E S and a Global Challenges Research Fund award to S L L.The central Congo Basin contains the world’s most extensive tropical peatland complex, spanning 16.7 million hectares. Until now, radiocarbon dating of basal peats has been limited to 14 samples with poor spatial coverage, and suggested that peat typically initiated during the Holocene. We present 38 new basal dates, improving spatial coverage across the region. Some of the new basal dates are much older than any previous dates, indicating that peat initiated in the central Congo Basin at multiple locations in the Late Pleistocene. Our oldest basal date is 42 300 (41 200–43 800) calibrated years before present, making this one of the world’s oldest extant tropical peatlands, and twice as old as previously believed. The temporal distribution of basal dates suggests that changing climatic wetness has played a role in peat initiation in the region; numerous basal dates correspond with climatically wet phases, whilst few basal dates correspond with dry phases such as the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Today we find the central Congo Basin peatlands on wide interfluves between rivers, and on floodplains (mostly of the dendritic left-bank tributaries of the Congo River). We find the oldest basal dates on the floodplains of these left-bank tributaries, indicating a surprisingly high degree of channel stability over many millennia. This contrasts with, for example, peatlands on Amazonian floodplains, which are typically just a few thousand years old. The persistence of peat in the central Congo Basin since before the LGM, likely the most climatically dry period during the last 42 000 yr in this region, suggests that these areas may have played an important biogeographical role as forest refugia during glacial-interglacial cycles.Peer reviewe
Sources of military change : emulation, politics, and concept development in UK defence
Get PDFJudging by its doctrinal publications, the UK Defence establishment stands poised to begin a process of unprecedented change. The language of ‘multi-domain’ thinking is prominent within this discourse and is identified as being a key vehicle via which UK Defence will deliver upon its programme of reform. This article seeks to offer an initial evaluation of these claims and to assess them in light of the burgeoning literatures on Western defence ‘transformation’ and military innovation that have emerged since the early 2000s. We argue that ‘multi-domain’ thinking reflects a form of ‘cosmetic’ emulation by the British Defence establishment and that its appearance within UK doctrine has been driven more by internal politics than by a clearly thought-through adoption of a new form of military practice.Peer reviewe
Unraveling the potential of heteroanionic titanium oxycarbide photocatalysts for detoxifying SARS-Cov-2 antigen rapid test kit reagent solution in water sources
Get PDFIn the last few years, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the usage of antigen rapid test (ART) kits and improper disposal of these kits has led to the mixing of toxic chemical compounds present in the ART reagent solution container into drinking water sources. When consumed with drinking water, these compounds can be harmful and toxic to both humans and aquatic life. Therefore, this research presents a study on the photocatalytic degradation of the Antigen Rapid Test-Reagent solution (ART-RS) using a single-phase titanium oxycarbide - TiO0.25 C0.75 (TiOC) photocatalyst synthesized through a solid-state reaction. The synthesized samples were studied using various characterization tools to analyze their structural, morphological, and optical characteristics. In the photocatalytic experiment, it was found that the synthesized titanium oxycarbide photocatalyst exhibited superior ART-RS degradation efficiency of 77% compared to commercial titanium dioxide (22%). The improved photocatalytic degradation efficiency of ART-RS is attributed to a combination of several factors. These factors include a narrower band gap, more efficient charge transfer kinetics, enhanced absorption of visible light, and an upward shift of the valence band (VB) edge in titanium oxycarbide. These collective effects contribute to the enhanced ART-RS photocatalytic degradation activity.Peer reviewe
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