Accelerated Growth, Differentiation, and Ploidy with Reduced Proliferation of Right Ventricular Cardiomyocytes in Children with Congenital Heart Defect Tetralogy of Fallot

The myocardium of children with tetralogy of Fallot (TF) undergoes hemodynamic overload and hypoxemia immediately after birth. Comparative analysis of changes in the ploidy and morphology of the right ventricular cardiomyocytes in children with TF in the first years of life demonstrated their significant increase compared with the control group. In children with TF, there was a predominantly diffuse distribution of Connexin43-containing gap junctions over the cardiomyocytes sarcolemma, which redistributed into the intercalated discs as cardiomyocytes differentiation increased. The number of Ki67-positive cardiomyocytes varied greatly and amounted to 7.0–1025.5/106 cardiomyocytes and also were decreased with increased myocytes differentiation. Ultrastructural signs of immaturity and proliferative activity of cardiomyocytes in children with TF were demonstrated. The proportion of interstitial tissue did not differ significantly from the control group. The myocardium of children with TF under six months of age was most sensitive to hypoxemia, it was manifested by a delay in the intercalated discs and myofibril assembly and the appearance of ultrastructural signs of dystrophic changes in the cardiomyocytes. Thus, the acceleration of ontogenetic growth and differentiation of the cardiomyocytes, but not the reactivation of their proliferation, was an adaptation of the immature myocardium of children with TF to hemodynamic overload and hypoxemia.

Agroparks as a network form of business organization in agriculture

In this study, the authors substantiate the relevance of the creation of agro-industrial parks as a network form of organizing the business of agricultural producers. Agro-industrial parks in modern conditions are becoming a kind of growth points for the innovative development of agricultural producers, providing accelerated growth in production and import substitution in order to achieve food security in the Russian Federation and its regions. The results of the study allow us to conclude about the growing interest in this form of business organization.

Smart Aero-Spider: An adaptive and selective smart switching aerator system

The recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic hit shows the emergence of increase in quality of life across various parts of the world. With this lifestyle change, people are looking towards high quality food. Fish being a major source of protein, the industry producing fish from aquaculture is booming. The proposed smart aerator system provides an integrated array of underwater systems for selective aeration of the water body. The smart system ensures targeted aeration to guarantee optimal levels of dissolved oxygen at all times. This is beneficial for perfect survival, growth, and reproduction of fishes. The strategically placed spider aerators are turned on when readings from the dissolved oxygen level at the location is below the optimum range of values. The air blower system consists of an intelligent switching system to activate the right aerator based on the requirement. The sensor data is relayed to the cloud with a wireless communication module. This data can be used for useful insights and all-round monitoring of the water body. The respective aerators have IR sensor to detect movement alongside on-board LEDs to indicate functioning status. Overall, this ensures maximum accelerated growth of healthy fishes. Thus, the solution aims at efficiently boosting the ability of the aquaculture industry to meet the ever-growing demand of consumers.

Ethical Risks in the Cross Section of Extended Reality (XR), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The ethical risks which emerge from the cross section of artificial intelligence, extended reality, and geographic information systems could be examined in two broad categories of environmental and user-centric interactions of human beings with AI-curated mixed realities. These categories resonate with the capacity of AI to significantly impact the efficient application of extended reality technologies, while utilizing geodata and behavioral modelling to alter and transform experiences. While regulatory frameworks are catching up with the rights of users in the digital economy, the recently accelerated growth of immersive technologies provides further scenarios and use cases, which ought to be considered for their capacity to amplify biases, produce alternative realities, and affect human emotions.

Fostering leadership skills of technology professionals in startups

This paper presents an investigation on how the startup environment fosters the development and improvement of the leadership skills of technology professionals. From the beginning of the 90s, new products and new technologies began to appear at a much faster pace and, since then, significant changes have occurred in corporate, academic environ-ments and in everyday interpersonal relationships. In this scenario, new types of business have also emerged, such as startups, considered an innovative enterprise, with the poten-tial to grow and scale. Minds ahead of all this innovation were necessary and, therefore, a new type of leader emerged. A leader who not only guides the followers but encourages leadership by them. Particularly in the startup environment, leadership becomes even more fundamental. As these entrepreneurs must keep these organizations in constant and strong growth, the ability to manage and motivate people to follow the same path becomes an essential part of the process. In this context, we aimed to answer the following research question: “How do the startup environments foster the development and improvement of the leadership skills of technology professionals?”. Aiming to answer the posed research question, we conducted a case study with four subjects. In this paper, we discuss each step of the case study and present the gathered results. As a result, we have identified three main categories of factors that promote the development and improvement of such professionals: open culture, leadership skills, and accelerated growth.

The influence of the 2030 Agenda on sustainable consumption through an analysis of academic publications

The sustainable development in a society depends on different factors, among which we can highlight the consciousness of the inhabitants about the need to maintain habits and consumption standards aligned with concepts of sustainability to ensure the preservation of natural resources for current and future generations. Focusing on the theme of consumption standards, this study aims to assess the influence of fostering the 2030 Agenda in academic publications related to the sustainable consumption theme. This research is classified as a bibliometric analysis, as it seeks to quantify the scientific production and its dissemination, with a quantitative approach, as it measures what was observed. The SCOPUS and SciELO databases were selected for the bibliometric research, with consultations on 06/23/2021. The results show that the articles available in the SCOPUS database represents 97.3% of publications with the term “sustainable consumption”. After 2015, the year of the introduction of the 2030 Agenda, there was an accelerated growth of the term Sustainable Consumption in academic publications, especially in the English language.

Anesthesia Techniques and Long-Term Oncological Outcomes

Despite advances in cancer treatments, surgery remains one of the most important therapies for solid tumors. Unfortunately, surgery promotes angiogenesis, shedding of cancer cells into the circulation and suppresses anti-tumor immunity. Together this increases the risk of tumor metastasis, accelerated growth of pre-existing micro-metastasis and cancer recurrence. It was theorized that regional anesthesia could influence long-term outcomes after cancer surgery, however new clinical evidence demonstrates that the anesthesia technique has little influence in oncologic outcomes. Several randomized controlled trials are in progress and may provide a better understanding on how volatile and intravenous hypnotics impact cancer progression. The purpose of this review is to summarize the effect of the anesthesia techniques on the immune system and tumor microenvironment (TME) as well as to summarize the clinical evidence of anesthesia techniques on cancer outcomes.

Maternal Supply of Ruminally-Protected Lysine and Methionine During Close-Up Period Enhances Immunity and Growth Rate of Neonatal Calves

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of supplying ruminally-protected lysine (RPL), methionine (RPM), or the two in combination (RPML) to transition dairy cows on the immunity and performance of their offspring. Eighty heifer calves (n = 20 calves per group) were assigned to four treatments based on their dam diet; basal diet (CON), a basal diet with lysine [RPL, 0.33% of dry matter (DM)], a basal diet with methionine (RPM, 0.16% DM), or with the combination (RPML). Calves were fed colostrum from their dams within 2 h of birth. Calves were then fed milk only (d 2–22), a combination of milk and milk replacer (d 23–25), and milk replacer (d 25–60). Starter feed was fed to the calves twice daily after liquid feeding. Calves blood samples were collected after calving on 0, 12, 24, and 48 h and 5 and 7 d after birth. Data were analyzed by SAS software v9.4. Providing ruminally-protected amino acids (RPAA) to transition cows improved colostrum quality compared to the CON (Brix; P < 0.01). Serum total protein concentrations were higher in calves from supplemented cows than in calves from unsupplemented cows (P < 0.01). Calves born to dams in the RPM, RPL, and RPML groups had higher plasma immunoglobulin G (IgG) concentrations 0, 12, 24, and 48 h and 7 d after birth than those born to dams in the CON group (P < 0.05). The percentage of calves with adequate passive immunity transfer was increased with RPM and RPL or the two in combination (P < 0.01). However, there was no difference in the percentage of calves with adequate passive immunity transfer between the RPM and RPL groups (P = 0.21). Calves from cows that receive supplemental RPAA have a greater average daily gain (ADG) than those born to cows in the CON group (P < 0.01). These results indicate that maternal supplementation with RPM or RPL or the two in combination during the periparturient period could be an alternative strategy to improve the performance of calves, especially in accelerated growth programs in calves.

Socioeconomic disparities and infancy growth trajectory: a population-based and longitudinal study

Background The association of low socioeconomic status (SES) with childhood and adolescent obesity has been reported. It is unknown whether low SES affects body mass index (BMI) growth trajectory in the first 12 mo of life. Moreover, accelerated growth as a compensatory mechanism for low birth weight (LBW) during infancy, is an important predictor of later obesity. The aim of the present study was to examine the association of low SES with infancy BMI growth rate and trajectory for LBW and normal birth weight (NBW) infants. Methods From September 2012 to October 2014, a total of 387 infants in this longitudinal study was subjected to repeated measures of weight and length from birth to 12 mo in Hefei. Generalized growth mixture modeling was used to classify the infancy BMI growth trajectories. Differences in infancy BMI z score (zBMI) and BMI growth rate between low SES and high SES were estimated based on linear regression after adjusting for several confounders including maternal age, pregnancy BMI, physical activity during pregnancy, paternal BMI as well as alcohol use, paternal smoking status, breastfeeding duration and delivery mode. Results Infancy BMI trajectories in this study were classified into three categories: rapid growth (class 1), normal growth (class 2) and slow growth (class 3). Low SES infants had the higher zBMI than high SES infants for LBW group at age 6 mo [zBMI difference with 95% CI at 6 mo: 0.28(0.03, 0.53); at 12 mo: 0.21(0.01, 0.43)]. Low SES infants had more rapid zBMI growth rate than those with high SES for low birth weight between 0 and 6 months. Controlling for the confounders, these associations remained robust. We found the lower SES in the rapid growth group. Conclusions These findings highlighted the impact of low SES on increasing BMI and accelerated growth during early infancy. Health care and relatively optimal family environment in the first 12 mo of life, especially for LBW infants, are benefit to shape the better infancy growth trajectory.