Integrated view and comparative analysis of baseline protein expression in mouse and rat tissues

The increasingly large amount of public proteomics data enables, among other applications, the combined analyses of datasets to create comparative protein expression maps covering different organisms and different biological conditions. Here we have reanalysed public proteomics datasets from mouse and rat tissues (14 and 9 datasets, respectively), to assess baseline protein abundance. Overall, the aggregated dataset contains 23 individual datasets, which have a total of 211 samples coming from 34 different tissues across 14 organs, comprising 9 mouse and 3 rat strains, respectively. We compared protein expression between the different organs, including the distribution of proteins across them. We also performed gene ontology and pathway enrichment analyses to identify organ-specific enriched biological processes and pathways. As a key point we carried out a comparative analysis of protein expression between mouse, rat and human tissues. We observed a high level of correlation of protein expression among orthologs between all three species in brain, kidney, heart and liver samples. Finally, it should be noted that protein expression results have been integrated into the resource Expression Atlas for widespread dissemination.

Assessing Students' Achievement through Problem-Based Learning to Reveal the Implicit Bias of Fake News

The widespread dissemination of fake news could have serious negative consequences for individuals and society. First, fake news could upset the balance of authenticity in the news ecosystem. For example, the most popular fake news was more prevalent on Facebook or Instagram media. Second, fake news intentionally persuaded consumers to accept biased or false beliefs. Third, fake news was changing the way people interpret and react to real news. For example, some fake news was created to mistrust and confuse people, so it was impossible, to tell the truth from what was not. To mitigate the negative impact of fake news, it was very important to develop methods to automatically detect fake news in social networks, namely problem-based learning, in order to differentiate between real and fake visual content. Qualitative and quantitative approaches were performed using experimental and control groups to determine whether problem learning could induce students to engage more actively with the topic and develop critical thinking skills to avoid the implicit bias of fake news. This study was conducted at Universitas Katolik Santo Thomas Medan, Indonesia. This research showed that problem-based learning could promote the development of learning communities where learners could freely exchange ideas and ask questions related to the material being studied. Therefore, problem-based learning was an effective way to improve the analytical ability to distinguish between real news and fake news based on the credibility of the news.

Platform Politics: The Emergence of Alternative Social Media in India

Widespread dissemination of hate speech on corporate social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube has necessitated technological companies to moderate content on their platforms. At the receiving end of these content moderation efforts are supporters of right-wing populist parties, who have gained notoriety for harassing journalists, spreading disinformation, and vilifying liberal activists. In recent months, several prominent right-wing figures across the world were removed from social media - a phenomenon also known as ‘deplatforming’- for violating platform policies. Prominent among such right-wing groups are online supporters of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India, who have begun accusing corporate social media of pursuing a ‘liberal agenda’ and ‘curtailing free speech.’ In response to deplatforming, the BJP-led Government of India has aggressively promoted and embraced Koo, an indigenously developed social media platform. This commentary examines the implications of this alternative social platform for the online communicative environment in the Indian public sphere.

Prints as Agents of Global Exchange

The significance of the media and communications revolution occasioned by printmaking was profound. Less a part of the standard narrative of printmaking’s significance is recognition of the frequency with which the widespread dissemination of printed works also occurred beyond the borders of Europe and consideration of the impact of this broader movement of printed objects. Within a decade of the invention of the printing press, European prints began to move globally. Over the course of the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, numerous prints produced in Europe traveled to areas as varied as Turkey, India, Persia, Ethiopia, China, Japan and the Americas, where they were taken by missionaries, artists, travelers, merchants and diplomats. This collection of essays explores the transmission of knowledge, both written and visual, between Europe and the rest of the world by means of prints in the early modern period.

Meta-analysis on risk and quality management in international projects

Projects have become a reality of our times, with such a tool more and more challenges of various kinds are being solved - social, economic, cultural, educational, scientific, etc. Within them, regardless of the field of implementation, certain similarities are outlined regarding the stages of the projects development. Among these common challenges we mention project risk management, as an indispensable part of an efficient and qualitative project management, to ensure the achievement of the planned objectives. It is from this reality that the widespread dissemination of the working method through projects derives the topicality of the research carried out. In this context, the purpose of this article is to investigate the essence and particularities of project risk, the challenges they pose to the project team, and the components of their effective management as an integral part of project quality management. The research methodology focused on studying the existing scientific approaches in the researched field, especially the analysis of bibliographic sources through methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, the comparative research method, etc. At the end of the paper, the author comes with the generalization of some conclusions regarding the approached problem.

Endometrial carcinoma metastatic to the scalp

Endometrial carcinoma is a very rare cause of cutaneous metastasis. The most frequent presentations of cutaneous metastasis are fast developing nodules or tumors, which are evidence of widespread dissemination in such patients. We report a case of scalp metastasis from an endometrial adenocarcinoma with a fatal prognosis.

No widespread dissemination of Chlamydia trachomatis diagnostic-escape variants and the impact of Neisseria gonorrhoeae positivity on the Aptima Combo 2 assay

ObjectivesA Finnish Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) new variant was detected in 2019 that escaped detection in the Hologic Aptima Combo 2 (AC2) assay due to a C1515T mutation in the CT 23S rRNA target region. Reflex testing of CT-negative/CT-equivocal specimens as well as those positive for Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG) with the Hologic Aptima CT (ACT) assay was recommended to identify any CT variants.MethodsFrom June to October 2019, specimens with discrepant AC2/ACT CT results were submitted to Public Health England and screened for detectable CT DNA using an inhouse real-time (RT)-PCR. When enough DNA was present, partial CT 23S rRNA gene sequencing was performed. Analysis of available relative light units and interpretative data was performed.ResultsA total of 317 discordant AC2/ACT specimens were collected from 315 patients. Three hundred were tested on the RT-PCR; 53.3% (n=160) were negative and 46.7% (n=140) were positive. Due to low DNA load in most specimens, sequencing was successful for only 36 specimens. The CT 23S rRNA wild-type sequence was present in 32 specimens, and two variants with C1514T or G1523A mutation were detected in four specimens from three patients. Of the discordant specimens with NG interpretation, 36.6% of NG-negative/CT-negative AC2 specimens had detectable CT DNA on the inhouse RT-PCR vs 53.3% of NG-positive/CT-negative specimens.ConclusionsNo widespread dissemination of AC2 diagnostic-escape CT variants has occurred in England. We however identified the impact of NG positivity on the discordant AC2/ACT specimens; a proportion appeared due to NG positivity and the associated NG signal, rather than any diagnostic-escape variants or low DNA load. Several patients with gonorrhoea may therefore receive false-negative AC2 CT results. Single diagnostic targets and multiplex diagnostic assays have their limitations such as providing selection pressure for escape mutants and potentially reduced sensitivity, respectively. These limitations must be considered when establishing diagnostic pathways.

Musical Scents: On the Surprising Absence of Scented Musical/Auditory Events, Entertainments, and Experiences

The matching of scents with music is both one of the most natural (or intuitive) of crossmodal correspondences and, at the same time, one of the least frequently explored combinations of senses in an entertainment and multisensory experiential design context. This narrative review highlights the various occasions over the last century or two when scents and sounds have coincided, and the various motivations behind those who have chosen to bring these senses together: This has included everything from the masking of malodour to the matching of the semantic meaning or arousal potential of the two senses, through to the longstanding and recently-reemerging interest in the crossmodal correspondences (now that they have been distinguished from the superficially similar phenomenon of synaesthesia, with which they were previously often confused). As such, there exist a number of ways in which these two senses can be incorporated into meaningful multisensory experiences that can potentially resonate with the public. Having explored the deliberate combination of scent and music (or sound) in everything from “scent-sory” marketing through to fragrant discos and olfactory storytelling, I end by summarizing some of the opportunities around translating such unusual multisensory experiences from the public to the private sphere. This will likely be via the widespread dissemination of sensory apps that promise to convert (or translate) from one sense (likely scent) to another (e.g., music), as has, for example already started to occur in the world of music selections to match the flavour of specific wines.

Beyond Efficacy and Effectiveness: Clinical Efficiency Is Necessary for Dissemination

Nearly all patients interact with critical gatekeepers—insurance companies or centralized healthcare systems. For mental health dissemination efforts to be successful, these gatekeepers must refer patients to evidence-based care. To make these referral decisions, they require evidence about the amount of resources expended to achieve therapeutic gains. Without this information, a bottleneck to widespread dissemination of evidence-based care will remain. To address this need for information, we introduce a new perspective, clinical efficiency. This approach directly ties resource usage to clinical outcomes. We highlight how cost-effectiveness approaches and other strategies can address clinical efficiency, and we also introduce a related new metric, the incremental time efficiency ratio (ITER). The ITER is particularly useful for quantifying the benefits of low-intensity and concentrated interventions, as well as stepped-care approaches. Given that stakeholders are increasingly requiring information on resource utilization, the ITER is a metric that can be estimated for past and future clinical trials. As a result, the ITER can allow researchers to better communicate desirable aspects of treatment, and an increased focus on clinical efficiency can improve our ability to deliver high-quality treatment to more patients in need.

Religious-Secular Reality of Individual Consciousness In The Context of COVID-19

The question of the secularity of society still remains open, since scientists have proposed only cautious speculative answers, while every scientist understands that in the social sciences it is a sad experience of predictions, that history is random and therefore unpredictable and the future always remains fundamentally open. The process of transformation of postmodern society, the development of which is actively influenced by the current pandemy of COVID-19, entailed the revival of religious values ​​and the formation of a qualitatively new religious consciousness. In connection with the rise in the social status of religious consciousness and the widespread dissemination of religious ideas, primarily at the everyday level, the analysis of individual religious consciousness as one of the ways to comprehend the world is of particular importance. The social nature of religious consciousness is manifested not only in the fact that religious values ​​are perceived as a kind of khanism of social regulation, but also in the fact that they serve as epistemological guidelines and often compete with scientific values. This determines the growing philosophical interest in the analysis of the epistemological functions of religion and secular reality, as well as the cognitive capabilities of religious consciousness, which is impossible without a consistent study of the methodological basis of religious knowledge.