Use of a maturity model for facilitating the introduction of CAR T-cell therapy—Results of the START CAR-T project

Introduction: Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies are novel immunotherapies for the treatment of hematologic malignancies. They are administered in specialized centers by a multidisciplinary team and require the careful coordination of all steps involved in manufacturing and using cellular therapies. The Maturity Model (MM) is a tool developed and used for assessing the effectiveness of a variety of activities. In healthcare, it may assist clinicians in the gradual improvement of patient management with CAR T-cell therapy and other complex treatments. Methods: The START CAR-T project was initiated to investigate the potential of a MM in the setting of CAR T-cell therapy. Four Italian clinics participated in the creation of a dedicated MM. Following the development and test of this MM, its validity and generalizability were further tested with a questionnaire submitted to 18 Italian centers. Results: The START CAR-T MM assessed the maturity level of clinical sites, with a focus on organization, process, and digital support. For each area, the model defined four maturity steps, and indicated the actions required to evolve from a basic to an advanced status. The application of the MM to 18 clinical sites provided a description of the maturity level of Italian centers with regard to the introduction of CAR T-cell therapy. Conclusion: The START CAR-T MM appears to be a useful and widely applicable tool. It may help centers optimize many aspects of CAR T-cell therapy and improve patient access to this novel treatment option.

Segregation of oil palm fruit ripeness using color sensor

Oil palm is an important industry that has contributed to income and support to the economic sector especially for Malaysia and Indonesia. However, most of the equipment in the oil palm industry is still operated manually. This work developed a system to separate bunches of oil palm fruit using color sensors according to maturity level. Fruit color plays a decisive point in determining fruit maturity. Here, a specific threshold point of red green blue (RGB) was obtained for the determination of the maturity level of oil palm fruit. Point values of < 120, 120 < x < 150 and > 150 represent the maturity levels of unripe, under ripe and ripe, respectively. This paper is the first to report the RGB points for use in the development of automated oil palm segregation system in the oil palm plantation industry. Thus, this paper will pave the way in producing an accurate and reliable oil palm separation system, which in turn has a positive effect in reducing human error. In the future, a set of sensors is proposed to detect a bunch of the oil palm fruits. This further can speed up the segregation process and more suitable for adaptation to the industry.

Deep Learning based Tomato’s Ripe and Unripe Classification System

Effective productivity estimates of fresh produced crops are very essential for efficient farming, commercial planning, and logistical support. In the past ten years, machine learning (ML) algorithms have been widely used for grading and classification of agricultural products in agriculture sector. However, the precise and accurate assessment of the maturity level of tomatoes using ML algorithms is still a quite challenging to achieve due to these algorithms being reliant on hand crafted features. Hence, in this paper we propose a deep learning based tomato maturity grading system that helps to increase the accuracy and adaptability of maturity grading tasks with less amount of training data. The performance of proposed system is assessed on the real tomato datasets collected from the open fields using Nikon D3500 CCD camera. The proposed approach achieved an average maturity classification accuracy of 99.8 % which seems to be quite promising in comparison to the other state of art methods.

Kandungan karotenoid, antioksidan, dan kadar air dua varietas cabai rawit pada tingkat kematangan berbeda dan deteksi non-destruktif

Cabe rawit umumnya berwarna hijau, jingga dan merah. Tiap tingkat kematangan memiliki kualitas yang berbeda. Teknologi non-destruktif visible/near infrared spectroscopy (Vis/NIRS) telah banyak digunakan untuk memprediksi kualitas secara cepat dan akurat serta tidak merusak. Penelitian bertujuan untuk mengetahui kandungan kadar air, total karotenoid dan antioksidan dua varietas buah cabai rawit dengan tingkat kematangan berbeda dan memprediksi kualitas secara non-destruktif menggunakan Vis/NIRS. Penelitian dilakukan di Laboratorium Hortikultura, Fakultas Pertanian, Universitas Padjadjaran. Penelitian disusun dalam rancangan acak lengkap (RAL) dengan 6 perlakuan yaitu varietas ‘Manik’ dan ‘Domba’, yang dipanen pada 20 hari setelah bunga mekar (HSBM), 40 HSBM dan 60 HSBM, serta diulang 5 kali. Data dianalisis dengan analisis varians (ANOVA). Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa varietas ‘Manik’ and ‘Domba’ yang dipanen pada 20 HSBM memiliki kandungan kadar air dan antioksidan tertinggi sedangkan total karotenoid meningkat pada buah matang. Model kalibrasi dan uji validasi silang kadar air, total karotenoid, dan antioksidan mendapatkan nilai Rkal ≥ 0,87 dan Rval ≥ 0,84. Berdasarkan hasil tersebut, maka kandungan air dan antioksidan terbesar yaitu buah cabai rawit hijau sedangkan total karotenoid tertinggi pada buah cabai rawit merah. Vis/NIRS dapat digunakan untuk mendeteksi kandungan air, total karotenoid dan antioksidan pada buah cabai rawit. Generally, cayenne pepper is coloring in green, orange, and red. Each maturity level has a different quality. A non-destructive technology, visible/near infrared spectroscopy (Vis/NIRS), has been widely used to predict the quality quickly and accurately without causing damage. The study aimed to determine water content, total carotenoids, and antioxidant of two varieties cayenne pepper with different maturity levels and to predict quality non-destructively using Vis/NIRS. The research was conducted at the Horticulture Laboratory, Agriculture Faculty, Universitas Padjadjaran. The research was arranged in a completely randomized design (CRD) with 6 treatments, namely ‘Manik’ and ‘Domba’ varieties harvested at 20 days after flowering (DAF), 40 DAF and 60 DAF, and 5 replications with analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results showed that ‘Manik’ and ‘Domba’ harvested at 20 DAF had the highest water content and antioxidant while the total carotenoids increased in ripe fruit. The calibration model and cross-validation of water content, total carotenoids, and antioxidants obtained values of Rcal 0.87 and Rval 0.84. Based on these results, the highest water and antioxidant content was green cayenne pepper, while the highest total carotenoids were in red cayenne pepper. Vis/NIRS can be used to detect water content, total carotenoids, and antioxidants in cayenne pepper.

Conceptualizing the Domain and an Empirical Analysis of Operations Security Management

Operations security management integrates the activities of all the information systems security controls. It ensures that the entire computing environment is adequately secured. This chapter conducts an in-depth review of scholarly and practitioner works to conceptualize the domain of operations security management. Drawing upon the existing information systems security literature, the chapter classifies operations security management into 10 domains. Following, the chapter performs an empirical analysis to investigate the state-of-practice of operations security management in organizations. The findings show that the maturity level of operations security management is at the Level 3 (well-defined). The maturity levels range from Level 0 (not performed) to Level 5 (continuously improving). The results indicate that operations security processes are documented, approved, and implemented organization-wide. Backup and malware management are the most applied operations security controls, while logging, auditing, monitoring, and reviewing are the least implemented controls.

Practical Align Overview of the Main Frameworks Used by the Companies to Prevent Cyber Incidents

Among the biggest cybercrime or information security challenges, the information security professionals must be up to date with the new risks, cases, and different ways of attacks. Being up to date in this complex and aggressive scenario is a huge challenge and is a necessity to the security professional to fight against the cybercriminals. Additionally, based on this standard of requisites to start an information security program, an immature professional may be confused on the different frameworks used by the industries, mainly ISO/IEC 27000 family, NIST 800-53, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, COBIT, etc. This chapter will help the information security professional to decide where is important to focus efforts, to decide what is feasible and which control does not demand any additional investment. Additionally, this grade helps the InfoSec professionals to compare the information security maturity level within the companies and between the companies, comparing with benchmarks.

A comparative study on surveillance and privacy regulations (the UAE vs. the USA and the EU)

Surveillance is becoming the norm in today’s life, especially with the pandemic of COVID-19. Surveillance of public crowds and activity is a controversial issue that can contradict the privacy of individuals (Federal Decree-Law No. (5) of 2012). This paper presents a comparative study of surveillance and privacy regulations and law in the UAE compared to the USA and the EU. The objective of this comparison is to highlight the amendments that have been adopted to improve laws and regulations, the need for further improvement, and the strengths and weaknesses in each of these countries. A discussion of different acts adopted in these countries and comparing them can help security experts to cooperate with legislators in order to rectify shortcomings and improve the acts adopted in their respective countries. Furthermore, we think that such a comparison can help system developers to find an easier way to accommodate the differences in security measures that they have to tackle and incorporate when they are serving customers in these countries and especially in the UAE. A legal framework has been proposed in order to define the maturity level of regulations adopted by a government in regard to surveillance and privacy laws and acts.