scholarly journals Standards make the world go round

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. e931
Author(s):  
Domenica D'Elia ◽  
Chris Evelo ◽  
Babette Regierer ◽  
Susanne Hollmann

On the 2 March 2020, the COST Action - Harmonising standardisation strategies to increase efficiency and competitiveness of European life-science research (CHARME) - held its final conference in BrusselsAfter four years of successful work, the members of the COST Action CHARME met in Brussels to summarise the achievements and to discuss future perspectives and challenges for standardisation in the life sciences.Following the motto "Standards make the world go round", the outcomes of the COST Action are manifold and introduced some basic concepts and definitions that support a better understanding of the challenges and requirements.The results of this COST Action's network will be subject of a White Paper addressing the needs of standardisation, including a catalogue of requirements and recommendations to be disseminated to decision-makers at all levels to enable the implementation of standards in the daily workflow of research in academia and industry.The Action, ending this month, has given the opportunity to its members to tentatively presenting a set of preliminary requirements to develop further the harmonisation of standards. We hope this will inspire other Actions for the future.

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. e912
Author(s):  
Sabrina K. Schulze ◽  
Živa Ramšak ◽  
Yen Hoang ◽  
Eftim Zdravevski ◽  
Juliane Pfeil ◽  
...  

On 6th and 7th February 2018, a Think Tank took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia. It was a follow-up of the “Big Data Training School for Life Sciences” held in Uppsala, Sweden, in September 2017. The focus was on identifying topics of interest and optimising the programme for a forthcoming “Advanced” Big Data Training School for Life Science, that we hope is again supported by the COST Action CHARME (Harmonising standardisation strategies to increase efficiency and competitiveness of European life-science research - CA15110). The Think Tank aimed to go into details of several topics that were - to a degree - covered by the former training school. Likewise, discussions embraced the recent experience of the attendees in light of the new knowledge obtained by the first edition of the training school and how it comes from the perspective of their current and upcoming work. The 2018 training school should strive for and further facilitate optimised applications of Big Data technologies in life sciences. The attendees of this hackathon entirely organised this workshop.


GigaScience ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Vittoria Modica ◽  
Rafi Ahmad ◽  
Stuart Ainsworth ◽  
Gregor Anderluh ◽  
Agostinho Antunes ◽  
...  

Abstract Venom research is a highly multidisciplinary field that involves multiple subfields of biology, informatics, pharmacology, medicine, and other areas. These different research facets are often technologically challenging and pursued by different teams lacking connection with each other. This lack of coordination hampers the full development of venom investigation and applications. The COST Action CA19144–European Venom Network was recently launched to promote synergistic interactions among different stakeholders and foster venom research at the European level.


2018 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. e905
Author(s):  
Juliane Pfeil ◽  
Sabrina Kathrin Schulze ◽  
Eftim Zdravevski ◽  
Yen Hoang

In September 2017 a "Big Data Training School for Life Sciences" took place in Uppsala, Sweden, jointly organised by EMBnet and the COST Action CHARME (Harmonising standardisation strategies to increase efficiency and competitiveness of European life-science research - CA15100). The week programme was divided into hands-on sessions and lectures. In both cases, insights into dealing with big amounts of data were given. This paper describes our personal experience as students’ by providing also some suggestions that we hope can help the organisers as well as other trainers to further increase the efficiency of such intensive courses for students with diverse backgrounds.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Choukér ◽  
Alexander C. Stahn

Abstract The world is currently experiencing the largest isolation experiment in history. In an attempt to slow down the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic numerous countries across the world have been shutting down economies, education, and public life. Governments have mandated strict regulations of quarantine and social distancing in an unprecedented manner. The effects of these measures on brain, behavior, neuro-humoral and immunological responses in humans are largely unknown. Life science research for space exploration has a long history in using high-fidelity spaceflight analogs to better understand the effect of prolonged isolation and confinement on genes, molecules, cells, neural circuits, and physiological systems to behavior. We here propose to leverage the extensive experience and data from these studies and build a bridge between spaceflight research and clinical settings to foster transdisciplinary approaches to characterize the neurobehavioral effects on the immune system and vice versa. These approaches are expected to develop innovative and efficient health screening tools, diagnostic systems, and treatments to mitigate health risks associated with isolation and confinement on Earth and during future exploratory spaceflight missions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (3) ◽  
pp. 47-53
Author(s):  
Галина Глембоцкая ◽  
Galina Glembockaya ◽  
Станислав Еремин ◽  
Stanislav Eremin

In order to identify promising strategic development possibilities for the pharmaceutical industry in the Russian Federation, a pilot study was conducted, which has analyzed the main trends in the development of innovative medicines. As a result of the content analysis of available sources of scientific literature, the characteristics of options used in the world practice for increasing the innovative activity of individual subjects and the pharmaceutical market as a whole are presented. Possible reserves for the further development of the innovative component of the pharmaceutical market within the framework of the concept of personalized medicine according to the P4 principle (predictive - personalized - preventive - participatory) are identified and structured. The results of use by individual pharmaceutical companies of scientifically and practically justified approaches to optimizing the costs of development and promoting drugs are presented. The advantages and real prospects of a generally accepted method to reduce the cost of development by «expanding the pharmacological effect» (label expansion) of already existing drugs with a known safety profile in the world practice are shown. A scientific generalization and structuring of the goals and results of the post-registration phase of clinical trials to expand the pharmacological action of a number of drugs already existed at the market have been carried out.


2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (5) ◽  
pp. 664-671
Author(s):  
Ilya Pyatnitskiy ◽  
O. Puchkova ◽  
Viktor Gombolevskiy ◽  
Lyudmila Nizovtsova ◽  
Natalya Vetsheva ◽  
...  

The article presents a literature review of the PubMed database and the Cochrane library, aimed at analyzing the current situation and problems in the field of breast cancer screening in the world and Russia to form an idea of the key elements in organizing an effective screening program in the Russian healthcare system, as well as the possibilities of using new technologies when organizing such programs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 303-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhifang Zhao ◽  
Tianqi Qi ◽  
Wei Zhou ◽  
David Hui ◽  
Cong Xiao ◽  
...  

AbstractThe behavior of cement-based materials is manipulated by chemical and physical processes at the nanolevel. Therefore, the application of nanomaterials in civil engineering to develop nano-modified cement-based materials is a promising research. In recent decades, a large number of researchers have tried to improve the properties of cement-based materials by employing various nanomaterials and to characterize the mechanism of nano-strengthening. In this study, the state of the art progress of nano-modified cement-based materials is systematically reviewed and summarized. First, this study reviews the basic properties and dispersion methods of nanomaterials commonly used in cement-based materials, including carbon nanotubes, carbon nanofibers, graphene, graphene oxide, nano-silica, nano-calcium carbonate, nano-calcium silicate hydrate, etc. Then the research progress on nano-engineered cementitious composites is reviewed from the view of accelerating cement hydration, reinforcing mechanical properties, and improving durability. In addition, the market and applications of nanomaterials for cement-based materials are briefly discussed, and the cost is creatively summarized through market survey. Finally, this study also summarizes the existing problems in current research and provides future perspectives accordingly.


Healthcare ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 988
Author(s):  
Ahmed Alghamdi ◽  
Eman Algarni ◽  
Bander Balkhi ◽  
Abdulaziz Altowaijri ◽  
Abdulaziz Alhossan

Heart failure (HF) is considered to be a global health problem that generates a significant economic burden. Despite the growing prevalence in Saudi Arabia, the economic burden of HF is not well studied. The aim of this study was to estimate the health care expenditures associated with HF in Saudi Arabia from a social perspective. We conducted a multicenter cost of illness (COI) study in two large governmental centers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia using 369 HF patients. A COI model was developed in order to estimate the direct medical costs associated with HF. The indirect costs of HF were estimated based on a human capital approach. Descriptive and inferential statistics were analyzed. The direct medical cost per HF patient was $9563. Hospitalization costs were the major driver in total spending, followed by medication and diagnostics costs. The cost significantly increased in line with the disease progression, ranging from $3671 in class I to $16,447 in class IV. The indirect costs per working HF patient were $4628 due to absenteeism, and $6388 due to presenteeism. The economic burden of HF is significantly high in Saudi Arabia. Decision makers need to focus on allocating resources towards strategies that prevent frequent hospitalizations and improve HF management and patient outcomes in order to lower the growing economic burden.


Games ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Ramzi Suleiman ◽  
Yuval Samid

Experiments using the public goods game have repeatedly shown that in cooperative social environments, punishment makes cooperation flourish, and withholding punishment makes cooperation collapse. In less cooperative social environments, where antisocial punishment has been detected, punishment was detrimental to cooperation. The success of punishment in enhancing cooperation was explained as deterrence of free riders by cooperative strong reciprocators, who were willing to pay the cost of punishing them, whereas in environments in which punishment diminished cooperation, antisocial punishment was explained as revenge by low cooperators against high cooperators suspected of punishing them in previous rounds. The present paper reconsiders the generality of both explanations. Using data from a public goods experiment with punishment, conducted by the authors on Israeli subjects (Study 1), and from a study published in Science using sixteen participant pools from cities around the world (Study 2), we found that: 1. The effect of punishment on the emergence of cooperation was mainly due to contributors increasing their cooperation, rather than from free riders being deterred. 2. Participants adhered to different contribution and punishment strategies. Some cooperated and did not punish (‘cooperators’); others cooperated and punished free riders (‘strong reciprocators’); a third subgroup punished upward and downward relative to their own contribution (‘norm-keepers’); and a small sub-group punished only cooperators (‘antisocial punishers’). 3. Clear societal differences emerged in the mix of the four participant types, with high-contributing pools characterized by higher ratios of ‘strong reciprocators’, and ‘cooperators’, and low-contributing pools characterized by a higher ratio of ‘norm keepers’. 4. The fraction of ‘strong reciprocators’ out of the total punishers emerged as a strong predictor of the groups’ level of cooperation and success in providing the public goods.


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