Interdisciplinary Projects as an Expert-Network

We report an analysis of how an interdisciplinary project bringing together biologists, physicists and engineers worked in practice. The authorship team are the Principle Investigator who led the project, and a social scientist who studied the project as it was conducted by interviewing participants and observing practice. We argue it is accurate and productive to think of the interdisciplinary team as an Expert-Network, which means it was a managed set of relationships between disciplinary groups punctuated by specific junctions at which interdisciplinary exchange of materials, knowledge, and in limited cases, practices, occurred. We stress the role of trust in knowledge exchange, and document how hard sharing knowledge – and especially tacit knowledge - between disciplines can be. Key is the flexible management of the network, as the membership and required skill set change. Our analysis is embedded within, and contributes to, the Sociology of Experience and Expertise (SEE) framework. We close by suggesting advice for others seeking to manage a similar interdisciplinary Expert-Network.

MRI Screening of Lungs in the COVID-19 Pandemic at the Stages of Medical Care as a Tool to Reduce the Total Collective Dose of Radiation to the Population

Objective: to evaluate the role and place of MRI lung screening in the detection of pneumonia and patient routing.Material and methods. 500 MRI tests were performed in the period from November 1, 2020 to December 15, 2020 on the basis of more than 20 diagnostic centers of the federal MRI-Expert network. Two groups were identified. In Group 1 (control, n = 50) MRI studies were compared with CT studies in a single time interval of 0–2 days; 25 patients had a positive PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 and 25 patients were conditionally healthy. In Group 2 (effective, n = 450) mediastinal MRI was performed with lung screening on Philips 1.5 T and Siemens 1.5 T devices. The statistical analysis of the medical data base was performed.Results. During the study, mandatory and additional MRI scanning programs were identified: for Philips 1.5 T tomograph, the mandatory programs are sSSh_fb: tra and cor; THRIVE: tra (inhale/exhale); for Siemens 1.5 T – T2_BLADE: cor, tra, sag. When comparing the visual data of the control group (n = 25) with a positive PCR test in a single time interval of 0–2 days, the fact of detecting MR changes coincided with CT changes in 76% of cases (n = 19). The group of patients were examined by only one method – MRI-screening of the lungs (n = 475), pathological changes in the lungs were detected in 44% (n = 209). Localizations of the pathological changes were as follows: bilateral changes – 70.3% (n = 147), right-side changes – 19.6% (n = 41), left-side changes – 10% (n = 21); lower parts 26.8% (n = 26), average departments – 10% (n = 21), the upper divisions – 14.8% (n = 31), mid-lower 29.6% (n = 62), total – 18.6% (n = 39). The ranges of the area of lesion of the pulmonary parenchyma on MRI were graded according to MRI criteria into 4 groups (< 25%, 25 – 50%, 50 – 75%, > 75%). The collective radiation dose decrease was calculated for a group of patients (n = 450), which averaged 2.025 man-Sv for 1.5 months, of which 0.077 man-Sv were control studies.Conclusion. Based on the results obtained, the analyses of the possibilities of the MRI method in displaying pulmonary changes was performed. The method of MRI screening of the lungs is recognized as a possible alternative to computed tomography for dynamic monitoring in conditions of a shortage of CT records or the inability to perform it, and as a tool to reduce the collective effective dose of radiation to the population.

Multiple Linear Regression of Multi-class Images in Devices of Internet of Things

The correct classification of images is an important application in the monitoring of Internet of things (IoT). In the research of IoT images, a key issue is to recognize multi-class images at a high accuracy. As a result, this paper puts forward a classification method for multi-class images based on multiple linear regression (MLR). Firstly, the convolutional neural network (CNN) was improved to automatically generate a network from the IoT terminals, and used to classify images into disjoint class sets (clusters), which were processed by the subsequently constructed expert network. After that, the MLR was introduced to evaluate the accuracy and robustness of the classification of multi-class images. Finally, the proposed method has been verified on CIFAR-10, CIfar-100 and MNIST, etc. benchmark data sets. Our method was found to outperform other methods in classification, and improve the accuracy of the classic AlexNet by 2%. The research results provide theoretical evidence and lay practical basis for the classification of multi-class IoT images.

Steppingstones to More Sustainable Public Libraries in Finland

Public libraries in Finland have a strong history of cooperating and networking. Implementing SDGs and steering the action toward sustainability, however, has been so far carried out mainly out by individual libraries. A larger consensus or common guidelines are still missing, be it designing a new building, customer design thinking or rearranging internal workflows. This is to be changed, hopefully serving as an example to readers´ communities. The report presented current cases and current best practices on initiatives and concentrated on finding a broader common ground on sustainability work. Helsinki City Library will act as a nationwide accelerator and common voice promoting the step marks toward greener libraries. A nationwide expert network and community of practice is to be established as well. As one example of the development, the tight cooperation between public libraries and basic education in Finnish society will be discussed. For historical reasons public libraries operate to a large extent as school libraries, so the task of supporting curriculum on sustainability topics is a major task for public libraries as well. What does the future of this collaboration and its possibilities look like?

Foreign Policy of President Kh. Battulga (2017-2020)

Mongolia located between Russia and China has been the object of close attention not only for its geographic neighbors, but also for non-regional states called as “third neighbor”. That’s why Mongolian foreign policy has traditionally been an important part of its development strategy. One of the main roles in the process of determining Mongolia’s foreign policy strategy belongs to the President. Democratic Party candidate Kh. Battulga won at the Presidential elections in 2017. All his steps in the field of foreign policy can be divided into three main areas. Firstly, the President of Mongolia has established himself as a supporter of improving relations with Russia, primarily through intensifying trade and economic cooperation and active personal diplomacy towards the Russian side. Secondly, Kh. Battulga demonstrated diplomacy in the Chinese direction though he had difficult time to build cooperation with the southern neighbor of Mongolia due to his election campaign criticizing China. . . Thirdly, Kh. Battulga made some changes in the strategy of relations with the “third neighbor”. For example, he rejected an active participation in some global international events and stayed indifferent to the idea of “permanent neutrality” of Mongolia. Perhaps the most serious foreign policy initiative of the new President of Mongolia was the idea of joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a permanent member. This idea has caused serious political discussions in the country, dividing the expert network into supporters and opponents of the President’s initiative. However, despite certain changes in Mongolia’s foreign policy under the President Battulga, it is difficult to state a radical turn in the foreign policy strategy. Due to political and legal reasons, as well as the external conditions of social and economic development of Mongolia, the President is not able to change the main foundations and principles of foreign policy of the state formed in the post-socialist period. Meanwhile it could be admitted that in Mongolia’s foreign policy the rationality based on the ideological solidarity (“commonwealth of democracies”) is gradually giving way to the rationality of a geographical contiguity and economic pragmatism.

European expert network on rare communicable diseases and other rare diseases linked to mobility and globalisation focused on health care provision (EURaDMoG): a feasibility study

Introduction In the current mobility and globalization context, there is a growing need to identify potential changes on the pattern of diseases in the European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA) and provide accurate diagnosis and treatment for the population. The pattern of rare communicable diseases that can affect people returning to EU/EEA from travel abroad, visiting EU/EEA or establishing in the EU/EEA is of special relevance. The objective of this manuscript is to give an overview about the EURaDMoG study and discuss the feasibility of establishing a European network on rare communicable diseases and other rare conditions linked to mobility and globalization. Methods We undertook a three-steps process where we first conducted a narrative review to estimate the prevalence and incidence and to list rare communicable and non-communicable diseases linked to mobility and globalization in the EU/EEA; second, we organized an international consultation workshop with experts in the diseases previously selected; and finally, the feasibility study analysed how successful a European expert network on rare diseases linked to mobility and globalization focused on health care provision would be, accounting for different operational and also sustainability criteria. Results First, considering the areas or topics that the network should cover, it was concluded that communicable and non-communicable rare diseases linked to mobility and globalization should be differentiated. Second, since all non-communicable rare diseases linked to mobility and globalization identified are already covered by different European Reference Networks (ERNs), there is no need for them to be included in a new European network. Three scenarios were considered for establishing a potential European network for rare communicable diseases linked to Mobility and Globalisation with a focus on Health Care provision: 1) To maintain the current situation “Status Quo” scenario; 2) to create a specific European expert network (EEN) on rare communicable diseases linked to mobility and globalisation; 3) to develop a new ERN on communicable rare diseases linked to mobility and globalisation. Conclusions Since the focus is the provision of health care, an ERN could have the potential to better boost the quality of care being facilitated by technological tools and online platforms that permit the safe and ethically acceptable exchange of data. However, this potential new network should not eclipse current existing networks and they should be complementary.