Reflections on the biochemistry ofEchinococcus: past, present and future

Parasitology ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 136 (12) ◽  
pp. 1643-1652 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. P. McMANUS

SUMMARYThis review discusses 5 of my earliest papers on the biochemistry of larvalEchinococcuspublished inParasitologyin the 1970s and 1980s. Two of the publications consider aspects of the basic biochemistry, intermediary metabolism and the regulation of respiratory pathways inE. granulosusandE. multilocularis, and emphasize the existence of inter- and intra-species variation in their general metabolism. The third reports on the detailed biochemical analysis of the tegumental surface of the protoscolex ofE. granulosus, and the final 2 papers describe the genomic cloning ofEchinococcusDNA fragments and their use, along with other DNA markers, in molecular identification ofE. granulosusisolates collected worldwide from areas endemic for hydatid disease. A number of years have elapsed since these publications inParasitologyand, in this Centenary Issue article, I reflect briefly on some of the subsequent studies undertaken in these research areas that have advanced the field. As well, I provide brief insight on new research directions, emphasizing the impact of molecular biology and associated techniques on future studies ofEchinococcusand hydatid disease.

2021 ◽  
pp. 33-62
Author(s):  
Ying Wang ◽  
Chia-Huei Wu

This chapter focuses on occurring changes in individuals’ personality as a result of their work and employment experiences, and of the socialising pressure of norm demands during these experiences. This chapter starts from a brief review of traditions in organisational and social psychology on the study of work and personality change. Then, it presents a holistic framework to identify key drivers in work, organisational and societal environment and discuss how they could act as proximal and distal drivers for personality change. In developing this framework, existing literature is reviewed and new research directions are proposed, to advance the understanding of work and personality change.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob A. Young ◽  
James F. Courtney ◽  
Rebecca J. Bennett ◽  
Timothy Selwyn Ellis ◽  
Clay Posey

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of two-way, computer-mediated communication on investigator perceptions of whistleblower credibility.Design/methodology/approachInvestigators were recruited to participate in an online experiment that tasked subjects with evaluating simulated two-way, computer-mediated communication between an investigator and whistleblower. Several rival explanations were also examined to account for potential confounds.FindingsWhile anonymous whistleblowers were perceived to be less credible than identified whistleblowers when reporting via one-way communication, perceived whistleblower credibility was not statistically different when using two-way communication. Further, investigators allocated statistically similar amounts to investigate anonymous and identified reports.Research limitations/implicationsBased upon the results of this study, several new research directions can be explored with respect to maintaining anonymity, assessing credibility and designing reporting systems.Practical implicationsThe results support the use of anonymous, two-way communication in whistleblowing reporting systems. Anonymous whistleblowers would benefit from the ability to maintain an active dialogue with investigators without jeopardizing their safety or the investigation.Social implicationsThis study provides empirical support for strengthening whistleblowing reporting channels through the adoption of anonymous, two-way, computer-mediated communication. Doing so can better preserve the anonymity of those willing to report wrongdoing and better protect them from potential retaliation.Originality/valueThis study is among the first to empirically test the longstanding theory that anonymous reports are perceived by investigators as less credible than those from identified individuals. This study is also among the first to consider and incorporate anonymous, two-way communication in whistleblowing reporting.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Frankenreiter ◽  
Michael A. Livermore

The digitization of legal texts and advances in artificial intelligence, natural language processing, text mining, network analysis, and machine learning have led to new forms of legal analysis by lawyers and law scholars. This article provides an overview of how computational methods are affecting research across the varied landscape of legal scholarship, from the interpretation of legal texts to the quantitative estimation of causal factors that shape the law. As computational tools continue to penetrate legal scholarship, they allow scholars to gain traction on traditional research questions and may engender entirely new research programs. Already, computational methods have facilitated important contributions in a diverse array of law-related research areas. As these tools continue to advance, and law scholars become more familiar with their potential applications, the impact of computational methods is likely to continue to grow.


Author(s):  
Bruno Pereira Santos ◽  
Luiz Filipe Menezes Vieira ◽  
Antonio Alfredo Ferreira Loureiro

This Ph.D. Thesis proposes new techniques for routing and mobility management for Internet of Things (IoT). In the future IoT, everyday mobile objects will probably be connected to the Internet. Currently, static IoT's devices have already been connected, but handle mobile devices suitably still being an open issue in IoT context. Then, solutions for routing mobility detection, handover, and mobility management are proposed through an algorithm that integrates Machine Learning (ML) and mobility metrics to figure out devices' mobility events, which we named Dribble. Also, an IPv6 hierarchical routing protocol named Mobile Matrix to boost efficient (memory and fault tolerance) end-to-end connectivity over mobility scenarios. The Thesis contributions are supported by numerous peer-reviewed publications in national and international conferences and journals included in ISI-JCR. Also, the applicability of this Thesis is evident by showing that our results overcome state-of-the-art in static and mobile scenarios, as well as, the impact of the proposed solutions is a step forward in at least two new research areas so-called Internet of Mobile Things (IoMT) and Social IoT, where devices move around and do social ties respectively. Moreover, during the Ph.D. degree, the author has contributed to different computer network fields rather than routing by publishing in areas like social networks, smart cities, intelligent transportation systems, software-defined networks, and parallel computing.


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (11) ◽  
pp. 3190
Author(s):  
Ramón Rial ◽  
Michael González-Durruthy ◽  
Zhen Liu ◽  
Juan M. Ruso

The development of new materials based on hydroxyapatite has undergone a great evolution in recent decades due to technological advances and development of computational techniques. The focus of this review is the various attempts to improve new hydroxyapatite-based materials. First, we comment on the most used processing routes, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages. We will now focus on other routes, less common due to their specificity and/or recent development. We also include a block dedicated to the impact of computational techniques in the development of these new systems, including: QSAR, DFT, Finite Elements of Machine Learning. In the following part we focus on the most innovative applications of these materials, ranging from medicine to new disciplines such as catalysis, environment, filtration, or energy. The review concludes with an outlook for possible new research directions.


Author(s):  
Chrysi Kyratsou ◽  
Cathrinea McNulty Burrows ◽  
Hoa Nguyen ◽  
Heather E. Barry ◽  
Lilian Simones

Welcome to this, the first issue of the International Modern Perspectives on Academia and Community Today (IMPACT) Journal. In creating this Journal and producing this first issue we have proven that multidisciplinary working is possible. Moreover, we have shown that as academics, we have the power to challenge the norms and work in innovative ways within the contexts of our institutions. Thinking and working in innovative ways reflects on our practices as we reimagine our work and role in working with the community. Through the creation of a multidisciplinary Journal, we intend to provide a platform that will not only host approaches used in various disciplines but will also act as a merging point by putting forward perspectives from the communities alongside academic work. In doing so, we hope to promote new forms of dialogue, which have the potential to generate new research directions, and help cement the notion that academia and community are intertwined rather than separate entities within the social relations. The purpose of academic practice is to serve the needs of the community as both members of the community and academics who adopt an advocacy standpoint. Therefore, we hope that through the collaborative working practices underpinning this initiative we can achieve our aim to promote community involvement and engagement and meaningful contribution in the short and long term.


Author(s):  
Bassant El Naggar ◽  
Kay Berkling

Playing games on mobile devices has become an integral part of younger generations’ lives. Mobile games foster, among other things, deep concentration. This paper reports on design guidelines derived from observations of six elementary school pupils’ engagement over a six-week period during an after-school reading club program. Each meeting consisted of three activities as well as reading text on the Microsoft immersive reader on an iPad, and playing a competitive reading game app, ‘Henry rennt’, which are both designed to support reading. Pupils were engaged in informal conversation with the researchers about both applications, and the authors informally observed the pupils’ engagement with the apps and each other. Patterns of engagement and comments from pupils informed the design of a new reading app. This work reports these general patterns and concludes with new research areas to pursue as a result, including the impact of: social setting on playing, in-game teaching with avatars on engagement, and speed as a measurement of skill mastery. Finally, the applicability of children’s engagement patterns is validated with adult students of German as a second language who used the app.


Energies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 2417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamza Abunima ◽  
Jiashen Teh ◽  
Ching-Ming Lai ◽  
Hussein Jabir

Power systems has been subjected to significant upgrades in terms of structure and capacity. Reliability evaluation of composite power systems has surfaced as an essential step in operation and planning stages of the modern power system. It is an effective tool to investigate the ability of power systems to supply customers with reliable power service. The purpose of this review is to enhance the knowledge of reliability studies conducted on composite power systems by providing a critical and systematic review. This work investigates peer-reviewed articles published between 2007 and 2017 in three reliable databases. The findings reveal that the reliability of composite power systems has received considerable attention over the last few years. Secondly, investigation studies demonstrated a crucial role in verifying the impact of adopting new technologies. Third, studies on this topic have been intensively conducted in Asia, which highlights the promising sectors in these regions. However, researchers have generally focused on developing several aspects (e.g., evaluation speed and wind power integration) at the expense of others (e.g., realistic studies and other renewable energy resources). The lack of practical applications is evident in the surveyed publications. These findings imply a potential incoordination between the needs of the real applications and researchers’ tendencies. Future reliability evaluation scholars are advised to consider the findings of this systematic review including concentrating on insufficiently covered topics and enhance the coordination among the efforts devoted in this area.


Author(s):  
O.V. Kataeva ◽  

The development of digital technologies, the emergence of digital objects, their increasing influence on society, culture and people determine changes in various spheres of social and human life. The concepts of digitalization and virtualization are used to describe these processes. The article is aimed at consideration of the impact of modern technologies on the culture and lifeworld of a person. For this, an analysis of the concepts of digitalization, virtualization and virtualization of the lifeworld is carried out, as well as approaches and assessments of these processes presented in the philosophical literature are proposed. The article uses the works of Russian (Ivanov D. V., Kasavina N. A., Mironov V. V., Leshkevich T. G., Sokuler Z. A., Frolov A. V.) and Western researchers (A. Kirby, Yuk Hui, O. Ollinaho, E. Schmidt, J. Cohen). The methodological basis is the principle of sociocultural determination, which determines the impact of the modern digital era on the lifeworld of a person, as well as the semantic analysis of the concepts. The main findings are as follows. First, digitalization and virtualization are two interconnected processes, while virtualization is driven by digitalization. Secondly, the concept of digitalization means the modern stage of scientific, technical and technological development, the concept of virtualization is endowing all spheres of human life with the features of virtual reality, the concept of virtualization of the lifeworld is the addition and change of the lifeworld of a person with the world of virtual reality. Thirdly, digital objects and technologies determine the emergence of new research areas — digital ontology and digimodernism. Fourthly, digitalization and virtualization of the lifeworld receive both positive (expanding the possibilities for personal development, saving resources, etc.) and negative assessments (replacing the real world with a virtual one, lack of integrity of consciousness, Internet addiction). Opposite assessments problematize the study of these processes from the standpoint of both ontology and the theory of knowledge, and axiology, ethics, philosophy of science and technology.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 9-24
Author(s):  
Alexander Abroskin ◽  
Natalia Abroskina

The subject area of the research in this article is the existing methodological framework and approaches applied in Russian and international practice to establish boundaries that determine the property status of the population. The topicality of the research is determined by the features of the approach used in Russian practice of poverty measurement, based on the comparison of per capita income with per capita cost of living, which, with a rather simple calculation scheme, has a number of shortcomings that limit its application in constructing integrated assessments of a population’s standard of living. The purpose of the research is to analyze the features of measuring the level of poverty based on consumer characteristics of households. The research tasks are connected with identification of the most problematic aspects of the current practice of measuring the level of poverty in the Russian Federation, determination the factors that may affect the results of measurements, and assessment the impact of these factors on the quality of indicators developed by official statistics. Special attention in the research is paid to the analysis of international organizations’ recommendations and foreign experience in developing a system of indicators that characterize various aspects of the population’s property status, building of appropriate estimates taking into account the standardization of households’ consumer characteristics, as well as indicators that complement the basic monetary characteristics used in measuring the population’s level of poverty. Based on the systematization of the most promising developments in this area, implemented in foreign practice, proposals for improvement the existing approaches to measuring the level of poverty in Russian statistics are formulated, and new research directions in the field of methodology for building comprehensive estimates of the level of poverty as an information basis for developing effective measures of targeted social support for the most problematic groups of the population are identified.


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