Machine-Learning-Based Proteomic Predictive Modeling with Thermally-Challenged Caribbean Reef Corals

Coral health is currently diagnosed retroactively; colonies are deemed “stressed” upon succumbing to bleaching or disease. Ideally, health inferences would instead be made on a pre-death timescale that would enable, for instance, environmental mitigation that could promote coral resilience. To this end, diverse Caribbean coral (Orbicella faveolata) genotypes of varying resilience to high temperatures along the Florida Reef Tract were exposed herein to elevated temperatures in the laboratory, and a proteomic analysis was taken with a subset of 20 samples via iTRAQ labeling followed by nano-liquid chromatography + mass spectrometry; 46 host coral and 40 Symbiodiniaceae dinoflagellate proteins passed all stringent quality control criteria, and the partial proteomes of biopsies of (1) healthy controls, (2) sub-lethally stressed samples, and (3) actively bleaching corals differed significantly from one another. The proteomic data were then used to train predictive models of coral colony bleaching susceptibility, and both generalized regression and machine-learning-based neural networks were capable of accurately forecasting the bleaching susceptibility of coral samples based on their protein signatures. Successful future testing of the predictive power of these models in situ could establish the capacity to proactively monitor coral health.

Anti-drug Antibody Validation Testing and Reporting Harmonization

Evolving immunogenicity assay performance expectations and a lack of harmonized anti-drug antibody validation testing and reporting tools have resulted in significant time spent by health authorities and sponsors on resolving filing queries. Following debate at the American Association of Pharmaceutical Sciences National Biotechnology Conference, a group was formed to address these gaps. Over the last 3 years, 44 members from 29 organizations (including 5 members from Europe and 10 members from FDA) discussed gaps in understanding immunogenicity assay requirements and have developed harmonization tools for use by industry scientists to facilitate filings to health authorities. Herein, this team provides testing and reporting strategies and tools for the following assessments: (1) pre-study validation cut point; (2) in-study cut points, including procedures for applying cut points to mixed populations; (3) system suitability control criteria for in-study plate acceptance; (4) assay sensitivity, including the selection of an appropriate low positive control; (5) specificity, including drug and target tolerance; (6) sample stability that reflects sample storage and handling conditions; (7) assay selectivity to matrix components, including hemolytic, lipemic, and disease state matrices; (8) domain specificity for multi-domain therapeutics; (9) and minimum required dilution and extraction-based sample processing for titer reporting. Graphical Abstract

Chronic pain in older and senile patients. Clinical guidelines

The present document developed by the Russian Association of Gerontologists and Geriatricians represents the Clinical guidelines on chronic pain in older and senile patients. The Clinical guidelines were endorsed by Scientific Council of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation in December 2020.Clinical guidelines are focused on geriatricians providing medical care in outpatient and hospital settings, general practitioners, and physiotherapists.The document sets out the pain syndrom screening and diagnosis principles in older patients, management and treatment approaches in patients with chronic pain, as well as the prevention, rehabilitation, medical care organization issues and quality control criteria for its provision in this category of persons.

Our Experience in Applying the National Polymer Microshunt in Refractory Glaucoma Surgery

Purpose. To analyze the outcomes of the national polymer microshunt implantation in refractory glaucoma surgery and to show its efficacy and safety. Patients and methods. We analyzed the results of treatment of 90 patients (90 eyes) with refractory glaucoma. All patients were divided into two groups: main group and comparison group. The patients in the main group (44 eyes) were implanted with the national polymer microshunt (Reper-NN). The patients in the comparison group (46 eyes) were implanted with Ex-PRESS. Control criteria in the postoperative period included visometry, tonometry by Maklakov, computed perimetry. The examinations were performed preoperatively, at discharge, in a month, in six months and later postoperatively.Results. When implanting the national polymer microshunt we reached the significant decrease in the intraocular pressure in the postoperative period in comparison with the preoperative level. The implantation outcomes of the national polymer microshunt and Ex-PRESS were comparable in efficacy and safety. The easy implantation and special construction of the national polymer microshunt provided with the sufficient efficacy and safety in refractory glaucoma surgery and allowed recommending its further application in the clinical practice.Conclusion. The use of Reper-NN microshunt is effective and safe method of treating refractory glaucoma. The implantation of this shunt may be the method of choice both in primary and secondary refractory glaucoma surgery. The least price of Reper-NN microshunt in comparison with the foreign analogue allows this surgery to be more available for patients with refractory glaucoma.

External Quality of Mandarins: Influence of Fruit Appearance Characteristics on Consumer Choice

In a pre-purchase situation, consumer perception of mandarin quality is almost exclusively based on fruit appearance. Determination of consumer requirements in this regard is needed to preserve the current success of this crop in markets worldwide. In this study, the effect on consumer choice of different appearance characteristics that can occur mainly in early-season mandarins was quantified. Two independent Choice-Based Conjoint Analyses were performed to evaluate the effect of different external mandarin factors: (1) two factors linked mainly with harvesting practices: ‘Leaf’ (no leaves but sound calyx/fresh leaf/dehydrated leaf) and ‘Rind Colour’ (orange colour/rind with slightly greenish areas); (2) three factors related to postharvest handling: ‘Calyx Condition’ (sound/blackening/detached),’Waxing’ (absence/presence of wax), and ‘Rind Condition’ (dehydrated/turgid). A total of 280 consumers participated in each study. The evaluation of the factors linked with harvesting revealed four different choice patterns. Leaf presence was appreciated only by a small group of consumers (20%), and the presence of greenish areas on the rind was perceived mostly as a negative characteristic. Among the evaluated postharvest-related factors, ‘Waxing’ and ‘Calyx condition’ had the strongest effect on consumer choice. Consumers showed marked preferences for mandarins that had been waxed and presented shine and gloss. Calyx blackening and detachment had a negative effect mainly on waxed fruit, while rind dehydration more negatively affected the fruit that had not been waxed. Consumer perception of mandarin quality is importantly affected by external mandarin characteristics. The information herein reported can be very useful for the citrus industry for adapting quality control criteria that respond to consumer demands.

Problems of Quality Assurance and Selection of Control Criteria in Laser Cutting Operations of Wood and Wood-Like Materials

The paper presents the problem of quality assurance of the laser cutting process of wood and wood-like materials and the selection of optimal processing conditions with respect to the required evaluation criteria. An experiment conducted to identify processing difficulties and potential causes of defects is described. Samples of three materials: pine wood, hardwood plywood and mixed wood HDF with a thickness of 4 mm were cut with a CO2 laser and visually inspected and the width of the slit was measured. It was found that there was a relationship between the laser operating parameters and the obtained slit width. The higher the cutting speed, the narrower the slit. The obtained numerical results allowed to formulate technological guidelines on the selection of laser parameters depending on the material. In turn, based on the visual inspection, defects depending on the material properties were identified. An example of a non-conformity identification manual was developed, which includes illustrations to enable comparative analysis in production. It was found that in the studied process, different criteria can be adopted to qualify a product as compliant or non-compliant. A dilemma may then arise as to which criterion is more important. Therefore, a quality evaluation criteria verification sheet was proposed. Furthermore, due to the fact that the success of the laser cutting process is also dependent on other factors, a list of risks to the process was made.

Reconciling the "Bittersweet Chemistry" between Technology and Corporate Takeovers through Reinforcing National Security Interests in Merger Control

This article argues that company takeover regulation regimes must carefully balance two opposing notions. On the one hand, the regime must be designed to enable or facilitate the initiation and successful implementation of takeovers and mergers in the interests of economic growth and technological advancement. On the other hand, such a regulatory framework ought to be sensitive to the ever-increasing need to protect national security interests, especially from veiled threats. These threats include cybercrimes, private data hacking and espionage, which are endemic to takeovers contemplated by foreign persons that possess technological sophistication and are leaders in the rapidly unfolding Fourth Industrial Revolution. Recently some jurisdictions, such as the United States of America and the United Kingdom, have been active in reforming their investment laws to particularly strengthen the protection of national security interests. Similarly, in South Africa the debut introduction of section 18A of the Competition Amendment Act 18 of 2018 has enabled the addition of a concurrent but parallel standard to the pre-existing merger control criteria prescribed under section 12A of the Competition Act 89 of 1998. This article evaluates the efficacy of South Africa's framework for national security interests' protection in the context of merger control using its US and UK counterparts as comparators. Ultimately, the article proposes reforming the existing statutory and institutional framework to effectively accommodate national security interests in South African merger control.

Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing: quality criteria and low frequency variants

Although many laboratories worldwide have developed their sequencing capacities in response to the need for SARS-CoV-2 genome-based surveillance of variants, only few reported some quality criteria to ensure sequence quality before lineage assignment and submission to public databases. Hence, we aimed here to provide simple quality control criteria for SARS-CoV-2 sequencing to prevent erroneous interpretation of low quality or contaminated data. We retrospectively investigated 647 SARS-CoV-2 genomes obtained over ten tiled amplicons sequencing runs. We extracted 26 potentially relevant metrics covering the entire workflow from sample selection to bioinformatics analysis. Based on data distribution, critical values were established for eleven selected metrics to prompt further quality investigations for problematic samples, in particular those with a low viral RNA quantity. Low frequency variants (<70% of supporting reads) can result from PCR amplification errors, sample cross contaminations or presence of distinct SARS-CoV2 genomes in the sample sequenced. The number and the prevalence of low frequency variants can be used as a robust quality criterion to identify possible sequencing errors or contaminations. Overall, we propose eleven metrics with fixed cutoff values as a simple tool to evaluate the quality of SARS-CoV-2 genomes, among which cycle thresholds, mean depth, proportion of genome covered at least 10x and the number of low frequency variants combined with mutation prevalence data.