scholarly journals Regenerated silica-based RNA purification columns to address the short supply of RNA purification kits for COVID-19 diagnosis

Author(s):  
Jitendra K. Biswal ◽  
Rajeev Ranjan ◽  
Shyam Singh Dahiya ◽  
Smrutirekha Mallick ◽  
Jajati K. Mohapatra
Shore & Beach ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 14-36
Author(s):  
Gary Griggs ◽  
Kiki Patsch ◽  
Charles Lester ◽  
Ryan Anderson

Beaches form a significant component of the economy, history, and culture of southern California. Yet both the construction of dams and debris basins in coastal watersheds and the armoring of eroding coastal cliffs and bluffs have reduced sand supply. Ultimately, most of this beach sand is permanently lost to the submarine canyons that intercept littoral drift moving along this intensively used shoreline. Each decade the volume of lost sand is enough to build a beach 100 feet wide, 10 feet deep and 20 miles long, or a continuous beach extending from Newport Bay to San Clemente. Sea-level rise will negatively impact the beaches of southern California further, specifically those with back beach barriers such as seawalls, revetments, homes, businesses, highways, or railroads. Over 75% of the beaches in southern California are retained by structures, whether natural or artificial, and groin fields built decades ago have been important for local beach growth and stabilization efforts. While groins have been generally discouraged in recent decades in California, and there are important engineering and environmental considerations involved prior to any groin construction, the potential benefits are quite large for the intensively used beaches and growing population of southern California, particularly in light of predicted sea-level rise and public beach loss. All things considered, in many areas groins or groin fields may well meet the objectives of the California Coastal Act, which governs coastal land-use decisions. There are a number of shoreline areas in southern California where sand is in short supply, beaches are narrow, beach usage is high, and where sand retention structures could be used to widen or stabilize local beaches before sand is funneled offshore by submarine canyons intercepting littoral drift. Stabilizing and widening the beaches would add valuable recreational area, support beach ecology, provide a buffer for back beach infrastructure or development, and slow the impacts of a rising sea level.


2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (8) ◽  
pp. 823-829
Author(s):  
E. V. Malysh

A city’s potential for food self-sufficiency is expected to increase through the distribution of innovative, high-tech, green agricultural practices of producing food in an urban environment, which can improve the city’s food security due to increased food accessibility in terms of quantity and quality. Aim. Based on the systematization of theoretical approaches and analysis of institutional aspects, the study aims to propose ways to strengthen the city’s food security by improving food supply in urban areas, increasing the socio-economic and environmental sustainability of urban food systems, and changing the diet of urban residents.Tasks. The authors propose methods for the development of urban agricultural production in a large industrial city based on the principles of green economy and outline the range of strategic urban activities aimed at implementing green agricultural production technologies associated with the formation and development of the culture of modern urban agricultural production.Methods. This study uses general scientific methods of cognition to examine the specificity of objectives of strengthening a city’s food security by improving the quality of food supply to the population. Methods of comparison, systems analysis, systematization of information, and the monographic method are also applied.Results. A strategic project for the development of urban agricultural systems through the implementation and green development of advanced urban agricultural technologies is described. Green development mechanisms will create conditions for the city’s self-sufficiency in terms of organic and safe products, functioning of short supply chains, and green urban agriculture.Conclusions. Managing the growth of urban agriculture will promote the use of highly effective, easily controlled, resource-efficient, eco-friendly, weather- and season-independent, multi-format urban agricultural technologies. The study describes actions aimed at creating conditions for stabilizing a city’s high-quality food self-sufficiency with allowance for the growing differentiation of citizen needs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (15) ◽  
pp. 1483-1487
Author(s):  
Nikhil S Sahajpal ◽  
Ashis K Mondal ◽  
Allan Njau ◽  
Sudha Ananth ◽  
Kimya Jones ◽  
...  

RT-PCR-based assays for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 have played an essential role in the current COVID-19 pandemic. However, the sample collection and test reagents are in short supply, primarily due to supply chain issues. Thus, to eliminate testing constraints, we have optimized three key process variables: RNA extraction and RT-PCR reactions, different sample types and media to facilitate SARS-CoV-2 testing. By performing various validation and bridging studies, we have shown that various sample types such as nasopharyngeal swab, bronchioalveolar lavage and saliva, collected using conventional nasopharyngeal swabs, ESwab or 3D-printed swabs and, preserved in viral transport media, universal transport media, 0.9% sodium chloride or Amies media are compatible with RT-PCR assay for COVID-19. Besides, the reduction of PCR reagents by up to fourfold also produces reliable results.


Author(s):  
Talbot C. Imlay

In examining the practice of socialist internationalism, this book has sought to combine three fields of historical scholarship (socialism, internationalism, and international politics) in the aim of contributing to each one. The contribution to the first area, socialism, is perhaps the most obvious. Contrary to numerous claims, socialist internationalism did not die in August 1914 but survived the outbreak of war and afterwards even flourished at times. Indeed, during the two post-war periods, European socialists worked closely together on a variety of pressing issues, endowing the policymaking of the British, French, and German parties with an important international dimension. This international dimension was never all-important: it rarely, if ever, trumped the domestic political and intra-party dimensions of policymaking. But its existence means that the international policies of any one socialist party cannot be fully understood in isolation from the policies of other parties. The practice of socialist internationalism was rarely easy: contention was present and sometimes rife. Equally pertinent, idealism could be in short supply. Often enough, European socialists instrumentalized internationalism for their own ends, whether it was Ramsay MacDonald with the Geneva Protocol during the 1920s or Guy Mollet, who hoped to discredit internal party critics of his Algerian policy during the 1950s. Nevertheless, the attempts to instrumentalize socialist internationalism underscore the latter’s significance. After all, such attempts would be inconceivable unless socialist internationalism meant something to European socialists....


Author(s):  
Sean G. Sullivan

Impulse control disorders (ICDs) and conditions with impulse control features provide a challenge in terms of identification, treatment, and follow-up when mental health specialists are in short supply. Medical settings, in particular the largest, primary health care, provide an opportunity to address many impulse-affected conditions currently poorly assessed and treated in health care settings. Barriers to intervention for ICDs in primary health care are time constraints; understanding of the etiology, symptoms, and appropriate interventions; the health and social costs; and prioritizing of training in and treatment of conditions perceived as more serious or appropriate to a primary health care service. These barriers may possibly be overcome in primary care settings, and in this chapter, a model to address problem gambling is described.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fridah Katushemererwe ◽  
Andrew Caines ◽  
Paula Buttery

AbstractThis paper describes an endeavour to build natural language processing (NLP) tools for Runyakitara, a group of four closely related Bantu languages spoken in western Uganda. In contrast with major world languages such as English, for which corpora are comparatively abundant and NLP tools are well developed, computational linguistic resources for Runyakitara are in short supply. First therefore, we need to collect corpora for these languages, before we can proceed to the design of a spell-checker, grammar-checker and applications for computer-assisted language learning (CALL). We explain how we are collecting primary data for a new Runya Corpus of speech and writing, we outline the design of a morphological analyser, and discuss how we can use these new resources to build NLP tools. We are initially working with Runyankore–Rukiga, a closely-related pair of Runyakitara languages, and we frame our project in the context of NLP for low-resource languages, as well as CALL for the preservation of endangered languages. We put our project forward as a test case for the revitalization of endangered languages through education and technology.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 100320
Author(s):  
Belén Moro ◽  
Malgorzata Kisielow ◽  
Veronica Barragan Borrero ◽  
Antoine Bouet ◽  
Christopher A. Brosnan ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping Liu ◽  
Shimeng Liu ◽  
Tiantian Gong ◽  
Quan Li ◽  
Gang Chen ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Pharmacists are a crucial part of the health workforce and play an important role in achieving universal health coverage. In China, pharmaceutical human resources are in short supply, and the distribution is unequal. This study aimed to identify the key job characteristics that influence the job preferences of undergraduate pharmacy students and to elicit the relative importance of different job characteristics to shed light on future policy interventions. Methods A discrete choice experiment was conducted to assess the job preferences of undergraduate pharmacy students from 6 provinces in mainland China. A face-to-face interview was used to collect data. Conditional logit and mixed logit models were used to analyse data, and the final model was chosen according to the model fit statistics. A series of policy simulations was also conducted. Results In total, 581 respondents completed the questionnaire, and 500 respondents who passed the internal consistency test were analysed. All attributes were statistically significant except for open management. Monthly income and work location were most important to respondents, followed by work unit (which refers to the nature of the workplace) and years to promotion. There was preference heterogeneity among respondents, e.g., male students preferred open management, and female students preferred jobs in public institutions. Furthermore, students with an urban background or from a single-child family placed higher value on a job in the city compared to their counterparts. Conclusion The heterogeneity of attributes showed the complexity of job preferences. Both monetary and nonmonetary job characteristics significantly influenced the job preferences of pharmacy students in China. A more effective policy intervention to attract graduates to work in rural areas should consider both incentives on the job itself and the background of pharmacy school graduates.


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