Large-scale testing of phytoplankton diversity indices for environmental assessment in Mediterranean sub-regions (Adriatic, Ionian and Aegean Seas)

AbstractRT-LAMP detection of SARS-CoV-2 has been shown to be a valuable approach to scale up COVID-19 diagnostics and thus contribute to limiting the spread of the disease. Here we present the optimization of highly cost-effective in-house produced enzymes, and we benchmark their performance against commercial alternatives. We explore the compatibility between multiple DNA polymerases with high strand-displacement activity and thermostable reverse transcriptases required for RT-LAMP. We optimize reaction conditions and demonstrate their applicability using both synthetic RNA and clinical patient samples. Finally, we validate the optimized RT-LAMP assay for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in unextracted heat-inactivated nasopharyngeal samples from 184 patients. We anticipate that optimized and affordable reagents for RT-LAMP will facilitate the expansion of SARS-CoV-2 testing globally, especially in sites and settings where the need for large scale testing cannot be met by commercial alternatives.

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Selection and Substantiation of Methods for Evaluating Cosmetic Products for Deodorant and Antiperspirant Action

Biotekhnologiya ◽

10.21519/0234-2758-2021-37-2-54-64 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 37 (2) ◽

pp. 54-64

Author(s):

D.V. Barabash ◽

I.A. Butorova

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Gravimetric Method ◽

Population Data ◽

Diffusion Method ◽

Disc Diffusion ◽

Disc Diffusion Method ◽

Large Scale Testing ◽

Sweat Secretion ◽

Microbiological Methods ◽

Number Of Microorganisms

The possibility of using simple and available methods for analyzing deodorants/antiperspirants has been studied. The gravimetric method was shown to have acceptable metrological characteristics under repeatability conditions when evaluating antiperspirant activity. A decrease in the number of microorganisms (CFU) on the axilla skin was observed in a rinse test experiment 4 h and 8 h after the application of deodorants/antiperspirants. The microbial population data were inversely proportional to the antiperspirant activity values of the tested compositions. The sweat secretion reducing decreases the amount of nutrients required for microbial development, which makes it possible to use the rinse test to indirectly evaluate deodorant activity in research and development of personal care products. However, due to its laboriousness and the need for volunteers, the method cannot be recommended for large-scale testing. It was shown that the disc diffusion method (DDM) used to detect Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Bacillus subtilis cannot be applied to the assessment of the intrinsic antimicrobial activity of the tested cosmetic compositions. This indicates the necessity of additional studies to select test microorganisms typical for the armpit area. In addition, DDM is useful if the deodorant effect of the composition is created by the addition of low-volatile antibacterial compounds. Therefore, microbiological methods have limited applications and are not suitable for widespread use. deodorant action; antiperspirant action, gravimetry, disc diffusion method, rinse test; deodorant; antiperspirant; cosmetic; efficiency; consumer properties, functional properties This work was supported by MUCTR (project no. K-2020-007).

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Trust, efficacy and ethicacy when testing prisoners for COVID-19

International Journal of Prisoner Health ◽

10.1108/ijph-10-2020-0084 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Steve Lambert ◽

Dean Wilkinson

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Current System ◽

Epidemiological Studies ◽

Careful Consideration ◽

Power Relationships ◽

England And Wales ◽

Content Type ◽

Large Scale Testing ◽

The Uk ◽

The Impact

Purpose The outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 virus and subsequent COVID-19 illness has had a major impact on all levels of society internationally. The extent of the impact of COVID-19 on prison staff and prisoners in England and Wales is unknown. Testing for COVID-19 both asymptomatic and symptomatic, as well as for antibodies, to date, has been minimal. The purpose of this paper is to explore the widespread testing of COVID-19 in prisons poses philosophical and ethical questions around trust, efficacy and ethicacy. Design/methodology/approach This paper is both descriptive, providing an overview of the widespread testing of COVID-19 in prisoners in England and Wales, and conceptual in that it discusses and argues the issues associated with large-scale testing. This paper provides a discussion, using comparative studies, of the issues associated with large-scale testing of prisoners across the prison estate in England and Wales (120 prisons). The issues identified in this paper are contextualised through the lens of COVID-19, but they are equally transferrable to epidemiological studies of any pandemic. Given the prevalence of COVID-19 globally and the lack of information about its spread in prisons, at the time of writing this paper, there is a programme of asymptomatic testing of prisoners. However, there remains a paucity of data on the spread of COVID-19 in prisons because of the progress with the ongoing testing programme. Findings The authors argue that the widespread testing of prisoners requires careful consideration of the details regarding who is included in testing, how consent is gained and how tests are administered. This paper outlines and argues the importance of considering the complex nuance of power relationships within the prison system, among prisoner officers, medical staff and prisoners and the detrimental consequences. Practical implications The widespread testing of COVID-19 presents ethical and practical challenges. Careful planning is required when considering the ethics of who should be included in COVID-19 testing, how consent will be gained, who and how tests will be administered and very practical challenges around the recording and assigning of COVID-19 test kits inside the prison. The current system for the general population requires scanning of barcodes and registration using a mobile number; these facilities are not permitted inside a prison. Originality/value This paper looks at the issues associated with mass testing of prisoners for COVID-19. According to the authors’ knowledge, there has not been any research that looks at the issues of testing either in the UK or internationally. The literature available details countries’ responses to the pandemic rather and scientific papers on the development of vaccines. Therefore, this paper is an original review of some of the practicalities that need to be addressed to ensure that testing can be as successful as possible.

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Application of Wide-Band Ultrasound for the Detection of Angled Crack Features in Oil and Gas Pipelines

Volume 1: Pipeline and Facilities Integrity ◽

10.1115/ipc2018-78521 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Willem Vos ◽

Petter Norli ◽

Emilie Vallee

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Crack Detection ◽

Oil And Gas ◽

Wide Band ◽

Theoretical Background ◽

Proof Of Concept ◽

Offshore Pipelines ◽

Large Scale Testing ◽

Theoretical Predictions ◽

Set Up

This paper describes a novel technique for the detection of cracks in pipelines. The proposed in-line inspection technique has the ability to detect crack features at random angles in the pipeline, such as axial, circumferential, and any angle in between. This ability is novel to the current ILI technology offering and will also add value by detecting cracks in deformed pipes (i.e. in dents), and cracks associated with the girth weld (mid weld cracks, rapid cooling cracks and cracks parallel to the weld). Furthermore, the technology is suitable for detection of cracks in spiral welded pipes, both parallel to the spiral weld as well as perpendicular to the weld. Integrity issues around most features described above are not addressed with ILI tools, often forcing operators to perform hydrostatic tests to ensure pipeline safety. The technology described here is based on the use of wideband ultrasound inline inspection tools that are already in operation. They are designed for the inspection of structures operating in challenging environments such as offshore pipelines. Adjustments to the front-end analog system and data collection from a grid of transducers allow the tools to detect cracks in any orientation in the line. Description of changes to the test set-up are presented as well as the theoretical background behind crack detection. Historical development of the technology will be presented, such as early laboratory testing and proof of concept. The proof of concept data will be compared to the theoretical predictions. A detailed set of results are presented. These are from tests that were performed on samples sourced from North America and Europe which contain SCC features. Results from ongoing testing will be presented, which involved large-scale testing on SCC features in gas-filled pipe spools.

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Ultimate fracture capacity of pressurised pipes with defects – Comparisons of large scale testing and numerical simulations

Engineering Fracture Mechanics ◽

10.1016/j.engfracmech.2007.09.004 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 75 (8) ◽

pp. 2352-2366 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

E. Berg ◽

E. Østby ◽

C. Thaulow ◽

B. Skallerud

Keyword(s):

Numerical Simulations ◽

Large Scale ◽

Large Scale Testing

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Improving COVID-19 Testing Efficiency using Guided Agglomerative Sampling

10.1101/2020.04.13.039792 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Fayyaz Minhas ◽

Dimitris Grammatopoulos ◽

Lawrence Young ◽

Imran Amin ◽

David Snead ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Resource Constraints ◽

Large Population ◽

Sampling Strategy ◽

Population Surveillance ◽

Large Scale Testing ◽

Scale Population ◽

Simulation Results ◽

The Given ◽

Test Outcomes

AbstractOne of the challenges in the current COVID-19 crisis is the time and cost of performing tests especially for large-scale population surveillance. Since, the probability of testing positive in large population studies is expected to be small (<15%), therefore, most of the test outcomes will be negative. Here, we propose the use of agglomerative sampling which can prune out multiple negative cases in a single test by intelligently combining samples from different individuals. The proposed scheme builds on the assumption that samples from the population may not be independent of each other. Our simulation results show that the proposed sampling strategy can significantly increase testing capacity under resource constraints: on average, a saving of ~40% tests can be expected assuming a positive test probability of 10% across the given samples. The proposed scheme can also be used in conjunction with heuristic or Machine Learning guided clustering for improving the efficiency of large-scale testing further. The code for generating the simulation results for this work is available here: https://github.com/foxtrotmike/AS.

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Towards empathetic autism research: Developing an autism-specific Research Passport

10.31219/osf.io/dh3y5 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Maria Ashworth ◽

Laura Crane ◽

Robyn Steward ◽

Melissa Bovis ◽

Liz Pellicano

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Preliminary Evaluation ◽

Research Projects ◽

Community Members ◽

Ongoing Research ◽

Negative Experiences ◽

Autism Research ◽

Iterative Design ◽

Large Scale Testing ◽

Autistic Adults

Despite a dramatic increase in the amount of autism research taking place, autistic adults often report negative experiences of participating in such research. In other areas where community members report dissatisfaction (e.g., healthcare, criminal justice), ‘passports’ or ‘toolkits’ have been developed. In the current project, we created a Research Passport that could be used by autistic adults and autism researchers when engaging in research. Using a participatory framework, we designed and developed a Research Passport via an iterative design process. First, focus groups with autistic adults (n=9) and autism researchers (n=6) were used to elicit initial ideas for a Research Passport. Findings showed that the Research Passport (1) was perceived to be a useful idea, but not a panacea for all issues in autism research, (2) needed to be universal and flexible, and (3) could have a broad remit (e.g., to record scores on commonly-used standardized tasks that could, with permission, be shared with different researchers). Next, a preliminary evaluation of a prototype Research Passport was conducted via usability testing in three ongoing research projects. Nine autistic participants provided feedback (via a survey), as did three researchers (via interviews). We identified three themes from these data, highlighting how the Research Passport: (1) promoted positive participant-researcher relationships, (2) provided a structure and framework to support existing practices, and (3) needed to be adapted slightly to facilitate usability and manage expectations. Overall, the Research Passport was perceived to be useful in promoting empathetic autism research. Further design and large-scale testing are warranted.

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