The evaluation of the utility of the GENECUBE HQ SARS-CoV-2 for anterior nasal samples and saliva samples with a new rapid examination protocol

Introduction GENECUBE® is a rapid molecular identification system, and previous studies demonstrated that GENECUBE® HQ SARS-CoV-2 showed excellent analytical performance for the detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) with nasopharyngeal samples. However, other respiratory samples have not been evaluated. Methods This prospective comparison between GENECUBE® HQ SARS-CoV-2 and reference real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was performed for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 using anterior nasal samples and saliva samples. Additionally, we evaluated a new rapid examination protocol using GENECUBE® HQ SARS-CoV-2 for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 with saliva samples. For the rapid protocol, in the preparation of saliva samples, purification and extraction processes were adjusted, and the total process time was shortened to approximately 35 minutes. Results For 359 anterior nasal samples, the total-, positive-, and negative concordance of the two assays was 99.7% (358/359), 98.1% (51/52), and 100% (307/307), respectively. For saliva samples, the total-, positive-, and negative concordance of the two assays was 99.6% (239/240), 100% (56/56), and 99.5% (183/184), respectively. With the new protocol, total-, positive-, and negative concordance of the two assays was 98.8% (237/240), 100% (56/56), and 98.4% (181/184), respectively. In all discordance cases, SARS-CoV-2 was detected by additional molecular examinations. Conclusion GENECUBE® HQ SARS-CoV-2 provided high analytical performance for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in anterior nasal samples and saliva samples.

Analysis of Innovation Strategies to Improve the Quality of Infrastructure in Public Organisation using the Technical Evaluation and Decision Square (TEDS) Method

This paper aims to analyze and discuss the implementation of innovative strategies in a public higher education institution in Indonesia. Analysis is undertaken by using Total Evaluation and Decision Square (TEDS) Method, which employs [a] Total Financial Management (TFM), [b] Total Content Management (TCM), [c] Total Process and Project Management (TPPM), and [d] Total Stakeholder Management (TSM) as the focus of analysis. The study is a qualitative study with the descriptive approach. Data and information were collected by using in-depth interview to the dean of the faculty and leaders of the department in the faculty as informants. Results of the interview were further analysed by using thematic analysis to get insights related to the topic of study. It can be inferred that the institution has already undertaken positive and beneficial innovation strategies. However, they are not effectively undertaken. This can be seen in the results of this study which show positive indicators in the parameters of Total Content Management (TCM), Total Process and Project Management (TPPM) and Total Stakeholder Management (TSM). The parameter of Total Financial Management (TFM), however, shows negative result in innovation strategy. The study reflects the actual condition of higher education institutions in Indonesia regarding institutional funding, and it further implies that the institution needs to be more innovative in finding suitable and reliable funding resources (apart from regular/yearly institutional budget as being provided by the Indonesian central government) to undertake its major tasks by law, which are [a] education, [b] research and development activities, as well as [c] the community development-empowerment activities. Keywords— TEDS method; total content management; total financial management; total process and project management; total stakeholder management

Tertiary Treatment for Safely Treated Wastewater Reuse

The tertiary treatment of resulting water from a conventional biological treatment process is envisaged in the aim to obtain a high quality of water that can be reused for different purposes. This treatment is based on the integration of the membrane-based technologies in the total process of wastewater treatment. The experimental studies are carried out on a small pilot, equipped with different mineral membranes of micro and ultrafiltration. These membranes are used for the different tested processes (MF, MF-UF and cogulation-MF). The results obtained make it possible to attend a complete elimination of the total flora and an additional reduction of the other parameters such as turbidity, suspended matter, COD and BOD. Tests on a large scale are then carried out on a semi-industrial pilot, equipped with the same type of membranes. The optimization of the operating conditions made allow the obtaining under the conditions of transmembrane pressure 0.85 bar, a cross flow velocity of 2.25m/s and with ambient temperature a filtrate flux of about 200 L/hm 2. The coupling of a stage of coagulation in the membrane process allows the reduction of the effect of the membrane fouling and an improvement of 36% of the filtrate flux.

A Fast and Reliable Process to Fabricate Regenerated Silk Fibroin Solution from Degummed Silk in 4 Hours

Silk fibroin has a high potential for use in several approaches for technological and biomedical applications. However, industrial production has been difficult to date due to the lengthy manufacturing process. Thus, this work investigates a novel procedure for the isolation of non-degraded regenerated silk fibroin that significantly reduces the processing time from 52 h for the standard methods to only 4 h. The replacement of the standard degumming protocol by repeated short-term microwave treatments enabled the generation of non-degraded degummed silk fibroin. Subsequently, a ZnCl2 solution was used to completely solubilize the degummed fibroin at only 45 °C with an incubation time of only 1 h. Desalting was performed by gel filtration. Based on these modifications, it was possible to generate a cytocompatible aqueous silk fibroin solution from degummed silk within only 4 h, thus shortening the total process time by 48 h without degrading the quality of the isolated silk fibroin solution.

A Reference Model of Reverse Logistics Process for Improving Sustainability in the Supply Chain

The reverse logistics process (RLP) has become a key process for the supply chain (SC) given its importance for treating the increasing quantity of returned or recovered products and its impact on sustainability. However, the RLP is complex and involves a high degree of uncertainty and difficult decisions that affect SC efficiency. One of the aspects that can help the most to reduce this complexity and to improve SC efficiency is to formalize this process. The consulted studies agree on the numerous benefits of RLP formalization, but no tools, methodologies or specific solutions were found that help companies to advance in this matter. This work aims to develop a specific tool for RLP formalization so that its efficiency can be increased, leading to an improvement of SC sustainability. The main results comprise a reference model for RLP (RM-RLP) and an associated methodology so that any company can formalize its RLP by modeling its activities. The proposed tool (RM-RLP and methodology) is applied to a closed loop SC of relaxing chairs as an example of RLP formalization, proving its usefulness and, additionally, the improvements that can be reached in three RLP key indicators: total process duration, customer response time and the perceived autonomy and trust of the workers participating in the process.

Use of FDI Data for Comprehensive Evaluation of Horizontal Well Frac Treatments

Effective fracturing of horizontal wells is the key to successfully producing unconventional reservoirs. Correct evaluation of existing created fractures is essential for identification of key treatment variables in the target reservoir and continuous process improvement of the total process. Measurement and analysis of Frac-driven Interactions (FDI) has become a popular technique for rapid and cost-effective evaluation of existing and new fractures created in horizontal wells for production of unconventional reservoirs. Specific parameters used for their evaluation include detection of the start and end time of FDI during each frac stage, its magnitude, and duration. Another important parameter is observing smoothness of FDI variations with time. The paper offers specific recommendations for additional measurement and computational steps that can be used for determination of the volume and rate of fluid migration causing the observed FDI.

Evaluation of GENECUBE® HQ SARS-CoV-2 for anterior nasal samples and saliva samples with a new rapid examination protocol

IntroductionGENECUBE® is a rapid molecular identification system, and previous studies demonstrated that GENECUBE® HQ SARS-CoV-2 showed excellent analytical performance for the detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) with nasopharyngeal samples. However, other respiratory samples have not been evaluated.MethodsThis prospective comparison between GENECUBE® HQ SARS-CoV-2 and reference real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was performed for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 using anterior nasal samples and saliva samples. Additionally, we evaluated a new rapid examination protocol using GENECUBE® HQ SARS-CoV-2 for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 with saliva samples. For the rapid protocol, in the preparation of saliva samples, purification and extraction processes were adjusted, and the total process time was shortened to approximately 35 minutes.ResultsFor 359 anterior nasal samples, the total-, positive-, and negative concordance of the two assays was 99.7% (358/359), 98.1% (51/52), and 100% (307/307), respectively. For saliva samples, the total-, positive-, and negative concordance of the two assays was 99.6% (239/240), 100% (56/56), and 99.5% (183/184), respectively. With the new protocol, total-, positive-, and negative concordance of the two assays was 98.8% (237/240), 100% (56/56), and 98.4% (181/184), respectively. In all discordance cases, SARS-CoV-2 was detected by additional molecular examinations.ConclusionGENECUBE® HQ SARS-CoV-2 provided high analytical performance for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in anterior nasal samples and saliva samples.

Microglial morphology in Alzheimer’s disease and after Aβ immunotherapy

Microglia are the brain immune cells and their function is highly dependent on cell motility. It was hypothesised that morphological variability leads to differences in motility, ultimately impacting on the microglial function. Here, we assessed microglial morphology in 32 controls, 44 Alzheimer’s disease (AD) cases and 16 AD cases from patients immunised against Aβ42 (iAD) using 2D and 3D approaches. Our 2D assessment showed an increased number of microglia in iAD vs. AD (P = 0.032) and controls (P = 0.018). Ramified microglia were fewer in AD vs. controls (P = 0.041) but increased in iAD compared to AD (P < 0.001) and controls (P = 0.006). 3D reconstructions highlighted larger cell bodies in AD vs. controls (P = 0.049) and increased total process length in iAD vs. AD (P = 0.032), with negative correlations detected for pan-Aβ load with total process length (P < 0.001) in AD and number of primary processes (P = 0.043) in iAD. In summary, reactive/amoeboid microglia are the most represented population in the aged human brain. AD does not affect the number of microglia, but the ramified population is decreased adopting a more reactive morphology. Aβ removal by immunotherapy leads to increased ramified microglia, implying that the cells retain plasticity in an aged disease brain meriting further investigation.

A Comprehensive Review on Edge Caching from the Perspective of Total Process: Placement, Policy and Delivery

With the explosive growth of smart devices and mobile applications, mobile core networks face the challenge of exponential growth in traffic and computing demand. Edge caching is one of the most promising solutions to the problem. The main purpose of edge caching is to place popular content that users need at the edge of the network, borrow free space to reduce user waiting time, and lighten the network load by reducing the amount of duplicate data. Due to the promising advantages of edge caching, there have been many efforts motivated by this topic. In this paper, we have done an extensive survey on the existing work from our own perspectives. Distinguished from the existing review articles, our work not only investigates the latest articles in this area, but more importantly, covers all the researches of the total process of edge caching from caching placement optimization, policy design, to the content delivery process. In particular, we discuss the benefits of caching placement optimization from the perspective of different stakeholders, detail the delivery process, and conduct in-depth discussions from the five phases, i.e., requested content analysis, user model analysis, content retrieval, delivery, and update. Finally, we put forward several challenges and potential future directions, and hope to bring some ideas for the follow-up researches in this area.

A Review of Circular Economy Prospects for Stainless Steelmaking Slags

The world of stainless steel production was 52 Mt in 2019, and the annual amount of slags including electric furnace, AOD converter, ladle, and casting tundish, was estimated at 15–17 Mt. Nowadays, only a minor fraction of slags from stainless steel production is utilized and a major part goes to landfilling. These slags contain high-value elements (Cr, Ni, Mo, Ti, V…) as oxides or in metallic form, some of them being environmentally problematic if dumped. Thus, any approach toward circular economy solutions for stainless steel slags would have great economic and environmental impacts. This contribution examines the slags from different process stages, and the available and new potential means to increase internal recycling and to modify slags composition and structure by optimizing their properties for reclaiming in high-value applications. Eventual methods are, e.g., fast controlled cooling and modifying additives. Means to recover valuable metals are discussed as well as potential product applications to utilize various slags with different chemical, physical, and mechanical properties. By integrating the treatments and steering of slags′ properties to the total process optimization system, the principles of circular economy could be achieved. Graphical Abstract