Culture

Storage jars form one of the main ceramic types which were produced and abundantly used ever since pottery was invented. The need to collect, store, and distribute agricultural products such as grains, oils and wine in large vessels has littered excavation sites with an abundance of ceramic jar fragments of various designs, sizes and shapes. However, for all of their variety, three Israeli archaeologists Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Ortal Harush, Israel Antiquities Authority's Avshalom Karasik and Weizmann Institute's Uzy Smilansky found an astonishing common denominator among storage jars in Israel over a period of 350 years: the inner-rim diameter of the jar's neck.

The distribution of this diameter is consistent with measurements of the palm of a (male) hand and, according to the authors, this match is not coincidental. It may reflect the use of the original metrics for the biblical measurement of the "tefach," a unit of measurement that was used primarily by ancient Israelites, appears frequently in the Bible, and is the basis for many Jewish laws. Their findings were published in BASOR, the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research.

"It was natural for the ancient potters to adopt the handbreadth--tefach--standard. It was a unit of length that was widely used in ancient times, and is mentioned both in Assyrian and Egyptian sources and in the Old Testament, for instance: Numbers 25-25, Numbers 37-12," the researchers shared.

The team did 3-D scans of 307 Iron-Age jars found in Khirbet Qeiyafa (Judah Kingdom; early 10th century BC), "hippo" jars from northern Israel (Israelite Kingdom, 9th Century BC--nicknamed for their large size and loop handles which resemble hippopotamuses) and royal Judah Kingdom storage jars (8-7th Century BC). The researchers observed large variations between the jars--even those from the same time period and geographic region. Only one measure remained constant: the averaged inner-rim diameter which always measured, with a standard deviation, between 8.85 and 8.97 centimeters.

The distribution of this diameter is statistically identical to the hand's breadth of modern man. To gain data on the standard measure of a modern man's palm, the team tapped measurements taken by the USA Army when ordering gloves for their soldiers, the mean value being 8.67±0.48 cm, which is consistent with the measurements taken from the ancient jars. Though human heights and weights have changed over time due to improved diet and health, previous research has shown that palm dimensions have not changed much over the last 3,000 years.

As to why the inner rim remained consistent while the overall shape of the jar varied so much, our Israeli group of researchers has several theories. It was a natural choice for ancient potters to use their palms as the standard diameter for jar openings--it was easy to implement when working on the wheel: the potter could simply use her/his palm as a tool. Further, storage jars were multiuse items, which meant their openings had to be large enough to allow for cleaning between uses and this involves fitting your hand into the jar.

However, there is another, ancient aspect which may explain the connection between the uniform neck diameters. It is based on the highly-regarded and observed purity laws in The Old Testament. The Book of Numbers deals with the question: What is the status of jars that were left in the vicinity of a corpse--are they impure or pure?

"This is the law, if a man dies in a tent, anyone entering the tent and anything in the tent shall be unclean for seven days. Any open vessel which has no seal fastened around it becomes unclean." (Numbers 19: 14-15)

It is clear from this passage that the contents of a jar become impure--and therefore unusable-- unless there is a special seal on its top. This ruling had serious economic ramifications. Imagine having to throw out valuable stores of grain and oil after Grandpa Ezekiel died in the family tent. Subsequent Jewish traditions quantified these rules of impurity, stating that the minimal opening size through which impurity may enter is the square of a hand's breadth by hand's breadth.

"Impurity does not enter a shelter, nor does it depart from it if there is an opening less than a handbreadth [tefach] by a handbreadth [tefach]." (14.1)

"According to the Oral Tradition, it was taught that the verse is speaking only about a ceramic container, for it is a container that contracts impurity only through its opening." (21.1) - Maimonides's Code of Jewish Religious Law, Mishneh Torah.

Here Maimonides brings down an ancient tradition vis a vis the laws of impurity, stating that a round opening with a maximum diameter of one hand's breadth, or tefach, would ensure that the jar's content would still be pure even if it were stored near a corpse. From here it would make sense that potters would create storage jars with a tefach, or hand's breadth, opening.

For the purposes of storage and transport, a jar opening should be small. On the other hand, pouring, cleaning and easy manufacturing would dictate a large opening, at least a hand's-width. Perhaps, the final convergence to a one handbreadth opening killed several birds with one stone and kept in mind the spiritual, legal traditions regarding the minimal window through which impurity could defile the contents of a ceramic vessel and thus make them unusable.

Over time, different rabbis attempted to provide conversions of the traditional biblical measurements to our modern measurement. The conversions for the tefach vary, with competing theories brought forth by Avraham Chaim Naeh and the Chazon Ish, both 20th century Orthodox rabbis who lived in pre-State Palestine. According to Rabbi Chaim Naeh, one tefach = 8 cm, whereas according to the Chazon Ish one tefach = 9.6 cm. The uniform opening of the ancient storage jars, which falls between 8.85-8.97 cm, falls squarely in between these two opinions and may shed light on the dimensions of the biblical tefach and, because we no longer hold by purity laws when it comes to the contamination of stored items, elucidate just how tall your sukkah can be, down to the last centimeter.

A research team from Cologne has discovered that a change in the DNA structure - more precisely in the chromatin - plays a decisive role in the recovery phase after DNA damage. The key is a double occupation by two methyl groups on the DNA packaging protein histone H3 (H3K4me2). The discovery was made by scientists under the direction of Prof. Björn Schumacher of the Cluster of Excellence for Aging Research CECAD, the Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC), and the Institute for Genome Stability in Aging and Disease at the University of Cologne. The specific change enables genes to be reactivated and proteins to be produced after damage: The cells regain their balance and the organism recovers. The protective role of H3K4me2 was identified in experiments with the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The study has now been published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

The genome in every human cell is damaged on a daily basis, for example in the skin by UV radiation from the sun. Damage to the DNA causes diseases such as cancer, influences development, and accelerates aging. Congenital malfunctions in DNA repair can lead to extremely accelerated aging in rare hereditary diseases. Therefore, preservation and reconstruction processes are particularly important to ensure development and to maintain tissue function. DNA, which is rolled up on packaging proteins - the histones - like on cable drums, is regulated by methyl groups. Various proteins are responsible for placing methyl groups on histones or removing them. The number of groups on the packaging proteins affects the activity of genes and thus the protein production of the cell.

In experiments with the nematode, the research team showed that after repairing damaged DNA, two methyl groups were increasingly found on the DNA packages. Furthermore, they found that errors in placing these two methyl groups on the histones (H3K4me2) accelerated the damage-induced aging process, while increased position of this histone alteration prolongs the lifespan after DNA damage. By controlling the proteins that either set or remove these methyl groups, the resistance to DNA damage - and thus the aging process of the animals - could be influenced.

Further analysis of the role of these two methyl groups showed that the enrichment of H3K4 after genome damage with two methyl groups supports the cells in restoring the balance after DNA damage.

'Now that we know the exact changes in chromatin, we can use this to precisely limit the consequences of DNA damage,' said Schumacher. 'I hope that these findings will enable us to develop therapies for hereditary diseases characterized by developmental disorders and premature aging. Due to the fundamental importance of DNA damage in the aging process, such approaches could also counteract normal aging and prevent age-related diseases.'

A new IU study examining effects of low-level developmental lead exposure in mice could explain why some people dependent on alcohol return to using.

The study, published in Neuropharmacology, looked at whether developmental lead exposure can increase the propensity to relapse to alcohol consumption in mice. The researchers also looked at the effects on the expression of synaptic and non-synaptic glutamate transporters -- regulators of brain motivation and reinforcing circuits-- in brain regions associated with drug addiction.

"Our data in mice suggests that early life, low-level lead exposure does not lead to the development of an alcohol use disorder in adults per se," said Stephen Boehm, professor in the Department of Psychology at IUPUI. "However, it does alter brain circuits in such a way that once a dependency is developed, it makes it harder to refrain from turning back to alcohol."

Although there have been efforts to reduce environmental exposure to lead and to prevent lead poisoning, Boehm said exposure still exists and can cause serious harm and significant health problems, even at low levels. Studies of adults with a history of childhood lead exposure have consistently demonstrated cognitive impairments associated with sustained glutamate signaling.

Boehm and his team studied whether developmental lead exposure increased motivation to consume alcohol by testing mice in an alcohol self-administration paradigm.

The study suggests that low-level lead exposure for humans during childhood and adolescence - so low that kids growing up in old industrial cities might be exposed by merely kicking up dirt during normal play - may be sufficient to enhance relapse to alcohol use in adults struggling with alcohol use disorder.

Their study also suggests that reduced expression of proteins responsible for taking up the neurotransmitter glutamate in dorsolateral striatum - a brain region believed to be involved in the development of compulsive drug taking - may be associated with this effect. Glutamate is a key player in the executive control of dorsolateral striatal function. So, dysfunction in glutamate signaling may well have implications for the development of compulsive drinking (characteristic of individuals with alcohol use disorder).

Boehm said future work is needed, but the current project demonstrates the need for additional policies around environmental lead exposure.

"This study not only gives us further insight into addiction and the brain, but it might also lead to a call for changes in policies around lead exposure that could help keep our children safe."

A team of scientists led from Uppsala University have described the earliest known example of dentary bone with two rows of cusps on molars and double-rooted teeth. The new findings offer insight into mammal tooth evolution, particularly the development of double-rooted teeth. The results are published in the scientific journal PNAS.

The first mammals originated in the latest Triassic period, around 205 million years ago. An ancestor to mammals were the therapsids, "mammal-like reptiles" referred to as stem mammals or proto-mammals, which originated about 320-300 million years ago. One unique characteristic of the lineage that included mammals and animals related to mammals (synapsids) was that they developed complex occlusion. Close ancestors to mammals, called mammaliaforms, developed rows of cusps on molar-like teeth adapted for more omnivorous feeding. The origin of this multicusped pattern and double-rooted tooth has thus far remained unclear.

A team of scientists led by Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki from Uppsala University have investigated the jaw anatomy and tooth structure of a recently described new mammaliaform species named Kalaallitkigun jenkinsi. It was discovered on the eastern coast of Greenland and was a very small, shrew-like animal, probably covered with fur. It would have been the size of a large mouse and lived during the Late Triassic, around 215 million years ago.

"I knew it was important from the moment I took this 20 mm specimen off the ground," says Niedzwiedzki, researcher at Uppsala University and the corresponding author of the publication.

Kalaallitkigun jenkinsi exhibits the earliest known dentary with two rows of cusps on molars and double-rooted teeth. The anatomical features place Kalaallitkigun jenkinsi as an intermediate between the mammals and the insectivorous morganucodontans, another type of mammaliaform.

The researchers believe that the structural changes in the teeth are related to changed feeding habits. In this case study, the animals were switching to a more omnivorous/herbivorous diet and the tooth crown was expanding laterally. Broader teeth with "basins" on the top surface are better for grinding food. This development also forced changes in the structure of the base of the tooth.

The biomechanical analysis that was carried out within the study found that multi-rooted teeth are better able to withstand mechanical stresses, including those of upper and lower tooth contact during biting, compared to single-rooted teeth. Human teeth, for instance, have this characteristic. The results suggest that the development of molar-like teeth with complex crowns may have developed together with biomechanically optimised dual roots.

"The early evolution of mammals is a particularly interesting topic in evolutionary studies. This tiny jaw from Greenland shows us how complex mammalian teeth arose and why they appeared," says Niedzwiedzki.

"Our discovery of the oldest mammalian ancestor with double-rooted molars shows how important the role of teeth was in the origin of mammals. I had this idea to look at the biomechanics and the collaboration with the engineers turned out great," says Tomasz Sulej, researcher at the Polish Academy of Sciences, first author of the publication.

"It seems that the fossils of close mammalian ancestors must be looked for in even older rocks," says Sulej.

Scientists from Russia and Switzerland have probed into nanostructures covering the corneas of the eyes of small fruit flies. Investigating them the team learned how to produce the safe biodegradable nanocoating with antimicrobial, anti-reflective, and self-cleaning properties in a cost-effective and eco-friendly way. The protection coating might find applications in diverse areas of economics including medicine, nanoelectronics, automotive industry, and textile industry. The article describing these discoveries appears in Nature.

Scientists from Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU, Russia) teamed up with colleagues from University of Geneva, The University of Lausanne, and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich for an interdisciplinary research project during which they were able to artificially reproduce the nanocoating of the corneas of fruit flies (Drosophila flies) naturally designed to protect the eyes of the insects from the smallest dust particles and shut off the reflection of light.

The craft of nanocoating meets demands in various fields of economics. It can wrap up any flat or three-dimensional structure, and, depending on the task, give it anti-reflective, antibacterial, and hydrophobic properties, including self-cleaning. The latter, for example, is a very important feature for expensive reusable overnight ortho-k lenses that correct the eyesight. Similar anti-reflective coatings are already known though created by more complex and costly methods. They are being used on the panels of computers, glasses, paintings in museums can be covered with them in order to exclude reflection and refraction of light.

"We are able to produce the nanocoating in any required quantity given that its design is more cost-effective compared to the modern methods of manufacturing similar structures. The work with natural components requires no special equipment nor significant energy consumption and constraints of chemical etching, lithography, and laser printing," Vladimir Katanaev explains, the head of the research and Head of the Laboratory of Pharmacology of Natural Compounds in the School of Biomedicine of FEFU. "The development has broad applications. For example, it could be the structural dying of textiles that would change the color depending on the angle of view. It is possible to create a disguise coat based on metamaterials, an antibacterial layer for medical implants, and a self-cleaning coating for contact lenses and windshields. We also believe that if we reinforce the nanocoating, it might be utilized as a basis of flexible miniature transistors prototypes designed for modern electronics."

Scientists managed to rebuild the corneal coating of small fruit flies via direct and reverse bioengineering methods. First, they took the protective layer apart into its constituent components, which turned out to be retinin (protein) and corneal wax (lipids) and then reassemble it under room temperature conditions, covering glass and plastic surfaces.

According to Vladimir Katanaev, any other types of materials can be nanocoated too. Combinations with different types of wax and genetic manipulations of the retinin protein allow the design of highly diverse and complex functional nanocoatings.

The scientist explains that the mechanism underlying the formation of the protective nanostructures on the corneas of Drosophila flies is a self-organizing process, described by Alan Turing back in 1952 as a reaction-diffusion mechanism. That is consistent with the mathematical modelling performed during the research. This mechanism is also responsible for the patterns forming, for example, on the fur of a zebra or a leopard. The nanostructures that protect the corneas of Drosophila eyes are the first established example of Turing patterns at the nanoscale.

In the course of the research project, scientists made a detailed characterization of the properties of retinin, as this protein has been little studied so far. It turned out that this initially unstructured protein forms a globular structure when interacting with corneal waxes. Thus, scientists took a look deep into the biophysical nature of the self-organization abiding to the Turing model, highlighting an important molecular process likely at the core of the self-organization - the initiation of the protein structuring.

At next stages, the research team aims at developing a model of three-dimensional nanostructuring (with nano-funnels, nanocolumns, nanorolls within the layer of the coating), also based on the Turing mechanism. This work would lie at the very frontier of modern scientific knowledge and can have promising fundamental and technological consequences.

Professor Vladimir Katanaev started studying the structure of the eye of Drosophila fly about 10 years ago. According to the scientist, the first data were obtained almost impromptu by means of atomic force microscopy. During collaboration with the laboratory of Prof. Igor Serdyuk from the Institute of Protein Research (Russian Academy of Sciences), it was discovered that the surface of the corneas of the flies was not smooth but was covered with beautiful patterns of pseudo-ordered nanoscale outgrowths. As it turned out, nanocoatings of this kind were described back in the late 1960s on the surface of the eyes of moths, larger insects to whom these structures also provide an anti-reflex function, reducing the reflection of incident light to zero and allowing to optimize light perception in the darkness.

(Boston)--Despite working for more than two decades to address underrepresentation of women in cardiology, disparities among cardiovascular professionals continue to exist. Profound inequities also exist for individuals underrepresented in medicine, such as African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans, who constitute 32 percent of the U.S. population but only eight percent of practicing cardiologists.

"The disparities amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic present disturbing evidence that we are far from cardiovascular healthcare equity in the work place," says Emelia J. Benjamin, MD, ScM, professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and corresponding author of a Comment in the journal Nature Reviews Cardiology. "Individuals, leaders and institutions must prioritize research, policies, and structures to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging that is essential to advancing workforce excellence and cardiovascular health."

Diversity and equity in the health-care workforce have been shown to benefit patients and increase access to health care for underserved populations. Data also support that diverse organizations perform better and show more innovative thinking and problem-solving. In science, diverse teams by race, ethnicity and gender on average publish in higher impact journals than non-diverse teams; ethnically diverse teams on average had 10 percent more impact for papers and almost 50 percent higher impact for authors.

In the U.S. as well as in England and Australia, women constitute only a quarter of cardiology trainees, 15 percent of cardiologists and 4.8 percent of the interventional cardiologist workforce. According to Benjamin, over the past decade the number of female cardiology trainees has hardly increased and socioeconomic disparities between women and men cardiologists persists.

On average, women cardiologist still earn only approximately 92 percent of their male counterparts, translating to $2.5 million less over a 35-year career. In addition, Benjamin points to evidence of structural sexism persists such as a lack of sufficient childcare, adequate family leave policies, designation of endowed chairs and institutional responses to sexual harassment.

Evidence of structural racism includes an over reliance on board scores and rank of institutions.

Benjamin calls upon academic health sciences to engage in transformative personal and structural anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-classist work to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB). "A DEIB commitment will harness the innovation of all voices in the academic field to collectively address profound, persistent global structural healthcare and workforce inequities."

To achieve equity in the cardiovascular workforce and health-care delivery, Benjamin believes DEIB must be explicitly addressed, funded, prioritized and quantified over time at the personal, local and health-care system level. "Only through establishing equity in the health-care workforce we can achieve global health-care equity."

Artificial intelligence has arrived in our everyday lives--from search engines to self-driving cars. This has to do with the enormous computing power that has become available in recent years. But new results from AI research now show that simpler, smaller neural networks can be used to solve certain tasks even better, more efficiently, and more reliably than ever before.

An international research team from TU Wien (Vienna), IST Austria and MIT (USA) has developed a new artificial intelligence system based on the brains of tiny animals, such as threadworms. This novel AI-system can control a vehicle with just a few artificial neurons. The team says that system has decisive advantages over previous deep learning models: It copes much better with noisy input, and, because of its simplicity, its mode of operation can be explained in detail. It does not have to be regarded as a complex "black box", but it can be understood by humans. This new deep learning model has now been published in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence.

Learning from nature

Similar to living brains, artificial neural networks consist of many individual cells. When a cell is active, it sends a signal to other cells. All signals received by the next cell are combined to decide whether this cell will become active as well. The way in which one cell influences the activity of the next determines the behavior of the system--these parameters are adjusted in an automatic learning process until the neural network can solve a specific task.

"For years, we have been investigating what we can learn from nature to improve deep learning," says Prof. Radu Grosu, head of the research group "Cyber-Physical Systems" at TU Wien. "The nematode C. elegans, for example, lives its life with an amazingly small number of neurons, and still shows interesting behavioral patterns. This is due to the efficient and harmonious way the nematode's nervous system processes information."

"Nature shows us that there is still lots of room for improvement," says Prof. Daniela Rus, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). "Therefore, our goal was to massively reduce complexity and enhance interpretability of neural network models."

"Inspired by nature, we developed new mathematical models of neurons and synapses," says Prof. Thomas Henzinger, president of IST Austria.

"The processing of the signals within the individual cells follows different mathematical principles than previous deep learning models," says Dr. Ramin Hasani, postdoctoral associate at the Institute of Computer Engineering, TU Wien and MIT CSAIL. "Also, our networks are highly sparse--this means that not every cell is connected to every other cell. This also makes the network simpler."

Autonomous Lane Keeping

To test the new ideas, the team chose a particularly important test task: self-driving cars staying in their lane. The neural network receives camera images of the road as input and is to decide automatically whether to steer to the right or left.

"Today, deep learning models with many millions of parameters are often used for learning complex tasks such as autonomous driving," says Mathias Lechner, TU Wien alumnus and PhD student at IST Austria. "However, our new approach enables us to reduce the size of the networks by two orders of magnitude. Our systems only use 75,000 trainable parameters."

Alexander Amini, PhD student at MIT CSAIL explains that the new system consists of two parts: The camera input is first processed by a so-called convolutional neural network, which only perceives the visual data to extract structural features from incoming pixels. This network decides which parts of the camera image are interesting and important, and then passes signals to the crucial part of the network - a "control system" that then steers the vehicle.

Both subsystems are stacked together and are trained simultaneously. Many hours of traffic videos of human driving in the greater Boston area were collected, and are fed into the network, together with information on how to steer the car in any given situation--until the system has learned to automatically connect images with the appropriate steering direction and can independently handle new situations.

The control part of the system (called neural circuit policy, or NCP), which translates the data from the perception module into a steering command, only consists of 19 neurons. Mathias Lechner explains that NCPs are up to 3 orders of magnitude smaller than what would have been possible with previous state-of-the-art models.

Causality and Interpretability

The new deep learning model was tested on a real autonomous vehicle. "Our model allows us to investigate what the network focuses its attention on while driving. Our networks focus on very specific parts of the camera picture: The curbside and the horizon. This behavior is highly desirable, and it is unique among artificial intelligence systems," says Ramin Hasani. "Moreover, we saw that the role of every single cell at any driving decision can be identified. We can understand the function of individual cells and their behavior. Achieving this degree of interpretability is impossible for larger deep learning models."

Robustness

"To test how robust NCPs are compared to previous deep models, we perturbed the input images and evaluated how well the agents can deal with the noise," says Mathias Lechner. "While this became an insurmountable problem for other deep neural networks, our NCPs demonstrated strong resistance to input artifacts. This attribute is a direct consequence of the novel neural model and the architecture."

"Interpretability and robustness are the two major advantages of our new model," says Ramin Hasani. "But there is more: Using our new methods, we can also reduce training time and the possibility to implement AI in relatively simple systems. Our NCPs enable imitation learning in a wide range of possible applications, from automated work in warehouses to robot locomotion. The new findings open up important new perspectives for the AI community: The principles of computation in biological nervous systems can become a great resource for creating high-performance interpretable AI--as an alternative to the black-box machine learning systems we have used so far."

Code Repository: https://github.com/mlech26l/keras-ncp

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Smartphone apps that tell commuters when a bus will arrive at a stop don't result in less time waiting than reliance on an official bus route schedule, a new study suggests.

In fact, people who followed the suggestions of transit apps to time their arrival for when the bus pulls up to the stop were likely to miss the bus about three-fourths of the time, results showed.

"Following what transit apps tell you about when to leave your home or office for the bus stop is a risky strategy," said Luyu Liu, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in geography at The Ohio State University.

"The app may tell you the bus will be five minutes late, but drivers can make up time after you start walking, and you end up missing the bus."

The best choice on average for bus commuters is to refer to the official schedule, or at least build in extra time when using the app's suggestions, according to the researchers.

Liu conducted the study with Harvey Miller, professor of geography and director of Ohio State's Center for Urban and Regional Analysis. The study was published recently online in the journal Transportation Research Part A.

"We're not saying that real-time bus information is bad. It is reassuring to know that a bus is coming," Miller said.

"But if you're going to use these apps, you have to know how to use them and realize it still won't be better on average than following the schedule."

For the study, the researchers analyzed bus traffic for one year (May 2018 to May 2019) on one route of the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA), the public bus system in Columbus.

Liu and Miller used the same real-time data that publicly available apps use to tell riders where buses are and when they are likely to reach individual stops. They compared the real-time data predictions of when buses would arrive at stops to when buses actually arrived for a popular bus route that traverses a large part of the city. The researchers then calculated the average time commuters would wait at a stop if they used different tactics to time their arrival, including just following the bus schedule.

The absolute worst way to catch the bus was using what the researchers called the "greedy tactic" - the one used by many transit apps - in which commuters timed their arrival at the stop to when the app said the bus would pull up.

The average wait using the greedy tactic was about 12½ minutes - about three times longer than simply following the schedule. That's because riders using this tactic are at high risk of missing the bus, researchers found.

The app tells riders when the bus will arrive based on where it is and how fast it is traveling when a commuter checks it, Miller said.

But there are two problems with that method, he said. For one, drivers can make up lost time.

"COTA wants to deliver on-time service, so bus operators understandably will try to get back on schedule," Miller said.

Plus, the apps don't check the bus location often enough to get accurate real-time information.

Slightly better was the "arbitrary tactic" when a person just randomly walked up to a stop and caught the next bus that arrived. Commuters using this tactic would wait on average about 8½ minutes for the next bus.

The second-best tactic was what the researchers called the "prudent tactic," which was using the app to plan for arrival at the stop but adding some time as an "insurance buffer." Here the average wait time was four minutes and 42 seconds, with a 10 percent risk of missing the bus.

The prudent tactic waiting time was similar to the "schedule tactic," which is just using the public schedule to determine when to arrive at the stop. These commuters waited an average of four minutes and 12 seconds, with only a 6 percent risk of missing the bus.

There is some variation on waiting time within these averages, especially with the two tactics that use real-time information from apps. One of the most important factors is the length of a commuter's walk to the bus stop.

Those who have longer walks take more risks when they rely on real-time information. If the app tells commuters their bus is running late, a long walk gives the bus more time to speed up to get back on schedule.

Another important factor is the length of time between buses arriving at a stop. A longer time between buses means more risk if you miss a bus, and results in more time waiting.

While on average the schedule tactic worked best, there were minor exceptions.

Results showed that it was generally better for work commuters to follow the schedule tactic in the morning when going to work and follow the prudent tactic using an app in the afternoon.

But one thing was certain, the researchers said: It was never a good idea to be greedy and try to achieve no waiting at the bus stop.

Waiting time for buses is an important issue, Miller said. For one, long waiting times is one of the top issues cited by people for not using public transportation.

It is also a safety concern for people to not have to wait for long periods at stops, especially at night, or for those rushing around busy streets because they are late for a bus. And for many people, missing buses can jeopardize their jobs or important health care appointments, Miller said.

Miller said the apps themselves could be more helpful by taking advantage of the data used in this study to make better recommendations.

"These apps shouldn't be pushing risky strategies on users for eliminating waiting time. They should be more sophisticated," he said.

A team of New York University scientists has developed a method using holographic imaging to detect both viruses and antibodies. The breakthrough has the potential to aid in medical diagnoses and, specifically, those related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Our approach is based on physical principles that have not previously been used for diagnostic testing," explains David Grier, a professor of physics at NYU and one of the researchers on the project, which is reported in the journal Soft Matter. "We can detect antibodies and viruses by literally watching them stick to specially prepared test beads."

If fully realized, this proposed test could be done in under 30 minutes, is highly accurate, and can be performed by minimally trained personnel. Moreover, the method can test for either the virus (current infection) or antibodies (immunity).

The scientists, who also include NYU doctoral candidates Kaitlynn Snyder and Rushna Quddus as well as NYU Chemistry Professor Kent Kirshenbaum and NYU Physics Professor Andy Hollingsworth, base their test on holographic video microscopy, which uses laser beams to record holograms of their test beads. The surfaces of the beads are activated with biochemical binding sites that attract either antibodies or virus particles, depending on the intended test. Binding antibodies or viruses causes the beads to grow by a few billionths of a meter, which the NYU researchers have shown they can detect through changes in the beads' holograms.

"We can analyze a dozen beads per second," explains Grier, "which means that we can cut the time for a reliable thousand-bead diagnostic test to 20 minutes. And we can measure those changes rapidly, reliably, and inexpensively."

The holographic video microscopy is performed by an instrument, xSight, created by Spheryx, a New York-based company Grier co-founded.

The scientists also note the versatility of their method.

"This instrument can count virus particles dispersed in patients' saliva and also detect and differentiate antibodies dissolved in their blood," adds Grier. "This flexibility is achieved by changing the composition of the test beads to model what we are testing.

"Each type of bead tests for the presence of a particular target, but can also test for
several targets simultaneously. Our holographic analysis distinguishes the different
test beads by their size and by their refractive index--an easily controlled
optical property."

The scientists say that this capability can be used to develop libraries of test beads that may be combined into test kits for mixing with patient samples. This will support doctors in distinguishing among possible diagnoses, speeding patients' treatment, reducing the risk of misdiagnosis, and cutting the cost of healthcare.

In their quest to destroy cancer cells, researchers are turning to combinational therapies more and more. Scientists from Germany and China have now combined a chemotherapeutic and photodynamic approach. All agents are encapsulated in nanocapsules with a protein shell to be delivered to the tumor. There, light irradiation triggers a cascade of events, which lead to the destruction of the tumor cells, the researchers write in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

Different anticancer agents use different strategies. DNA-damaging agents make the DNA dysfunctional so the tumor cannot grow. Photodynamic agents generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) when irradiated with light. These ROS then interfere with organelles in the cell and push the cells toward programmed cell death known as apoptosis.

However, some cancer types have developed resistances. Either the drug cannot enter the cell or the cells quickly repair the damaged DNA strands. To enhance effectivity, Katharina Landfester and her colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany, and researchers from Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China, combined chemotherapeutic and photodynamic agents. All agents were packed inside a nanocapsule for delivery to the tumor cells.

Photodynamic therapy can be less effective in solid tumors within which the oxygen level is too low to generate enough ROS. Therefore, the scientists used a modified system that partly recycles oxygen. In this system, a photosensitizer produces ROS after light irradiation. Enzymes of the cell convert the ROS to hydrogen peroxide. Another reagent called Fenton reagent--which is basically iron in its highest oxidation state--then back-transforms the hydrogen peroxide to ROS and oxygen.

The authors said that it was challenging to assemble all reagents in one nanocapsule. The chemotherapeutic agent, cisplatin, is poorly soluble in water, while ovalbumin, the nanocapsule protein, does not dissolve in the organic solvent. Using a miniemulsion technique, the scientists eventually combined all three reagents in a solvent mixture and wrapped them up in a shell of ovalbumin. They stabilized and emulsified these nanocapsules by adding a copolymer based on poly(ethylene glycol).

The scientists tested this system on tumor cell lines. The nanocapsules entered the cells, released their loads, and developed ROS when irradiated with red light. The agent set also killed cells that were resistant to cisplatin or had a particularly low oxygen concentration.

The combined encapsulated drugs also stopped tumor growth in live mice. The authors found that the reagents accumulated in the tumor tissue. They also made the tumors shrink over time without affecting healthy tissue or other organs.

The authors highlighted that the anticancer agents were delivered to the tumor in nanocapsules and worked synergistically. Treatments involving only one agent, or a combination of two, were much less effective. The authors proposed that similar synergistic platforms will play a major role in future therapy settings.

One of the most significant questions about the novel coronavirus is whether people who are infected are immune from reinfection and, if so, for how long.

To determine the answer, University of Arizona Health Sciences researchers studied the production of antibodies from a sample of nearly 6,000 people and found immunity persists for at least several months after being infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

"We clearly see high-quality antibodies still being produced five to seven months after SARS-CoV-2 infection," said Deepta Bhattacharya, PhD, associate professor, UArizona College of Medicine - Tucson, Department of Immunobiology. "Many concerns have been expressed about immunity against COVID-19 not lasting. We used this study to investigate that question and found immunity is stable for at least five months."

The resulting paper, "Orthogonal SARS-CoV-2 Serological Assays Enable Surveillance of Low Prevalence Communities and Reveal Durable Humoral Immunity," was published today in the journal Immunity. Dr. Bhattacharya and Janko Nikolich-Zugich, MD, PhD, professor and head of the Department of Immunobiology, led the research team.

When a virus first infects cells, the immune system deploys short-lived plasma cells that produce antibodies to immediately fight the virus. Those antibodies appear in blood tests within 14 days of infection.

The second stage of the immune response is the creation of long-lived plasma cells, which produce high-quality antibodies that provide lasting immunity. Drs. Bhattacharya and Nikolich-Zugich tracked antibody levels over several months in people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. They found SARS-CoV-2 antibodies are present in blood tests at viable levels for at least five to seven months, although they believe immunity lasts much longer.

"Whether antibodies provide lasting protection against SARS-CoV-2 has been one of the most difficult questions to answer," said UArizona Health Sciences Senior Vice President Michael D. Dake, MD, who is a co-author on the paper. "This research not only has given us the ability to accurately test for antibodies against COVID-19, but also has armed us with the knowledge that lasting immunity is a reality."

Earlier studies extrapolated antibody production from initial infections and suggested antibody levels drop quickly after infection, providing only short-term immunity. Dr. Bhattacharya believes those conclusions focused on short-lived plasma cells and failed to take into account long-lived plasma cells and the high-affinity antibodies they produce.

"The latest time-points we tracked in infected individuals were past seven months, so that is the longest period of time we can confirm immunity lasts," Dr. Bhattacharya said. "That said, we know that people who were infected with the first SARS coronavirus, which is the most similar virus to SARS-CoV-2, are still seeing immunity 17 years after infection. If SARS-CoV-2 is anything like the first one, we expect antibodies to last at least two years, and it would be unlikely for anything much shorter."

The study began when Drs. Nikolich-Zugich and Bhattacharya, both members of the UArizona BIO5 Institute, led a UArizona Health Sciences team that developed a blood test to check for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. A partnership with the state led to 5,882 volunteers undergoing antibody testing in Pima County, Ariz., starting April 30. The testing efforts later were expanded statewide.

Since antibodies attach to viruses at more than one location, the UArizona Health Sciences test was developed employing two different parts of the SARS-CoV-2 virus - S1 and S2. Most tests look for antibodies at S1, which includes the receptor-binding domain wherein the spike protein binds to a protein receptor to infect cells. The UArizona Health Sciences test also analyzes the S2 region of the spike protein. Antibodies must be present in both locations for the test to be determined positive.

"When we began, the first test we developed was 99% accurate for measuring antibodies in one part of the virus," Dr. Nikolich-Zugich said. "We decided to confirm, and hopefully improve, that accuracy level by looking at another part of the virus that makes antibodies independent of the first location. We then validated that test, knowing some people will make antibodies more consistently for one part of the virus than the other. We put the two tests together, and only people who show antibody production for both parts of the test are determined to be positive."

The scientific verification of the high level of accuracy of the UArizona Health Sciences antibody test is the other finding highlighted in the Immunity paper. Of 5,882 tests completed, only one returned a false positive, a rate of less than .02%. The test received U.S. Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorization in August.

Dr. Nikolich-Zugich said the team now has tested almost 30,000 people. Antibody tests still are available for anyone in Arizona age 18 and older at multiple locations throughout the state. Visit covid19antibodytesting.arizona.edu for more information and to sign up for testing.

How can consumers be encouraged to take better care of public goods and resources? That's the question posed in a new research paper co-authored by Colleen P. Kirk, D.P.S., associate professor of marketing at New York Institute of Technology, in the Journal of Marketing.

Caring for the Commons: Using Psychological Ownership to Enhance Stewardship Behavior for Public Goods aims to help solve the "tragedy of the commons," the idea that when goods or resources are shared by many owners they are subject to abuse or neglect.

Sadly, the tragedy of the commons can be seen in many public spaces, such as cemeteries, public housing, fishing areas, and beaches, and has contributed to a number of environmental challenges. One commonly cited environmental issue includes ocean pollution. Because ocean waters are shared by many different nations no single authority has the power to pass laws that protect the entire ocean. Instead, nations manage and protect ocean resources along their coastlines, leaving the much larger shared waters vulnerable to contamination.

Citing available studies on the tragedy of the commons, Kirk joins Joann Peck, Ph.D., of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business; Andrea Luangrath, Ph.D., of the University of Iowa; and Suzanne Shu, Ph.D., of Cornell University in hypothesizing that increased feelings of ownership towards a public good can help ensure that individuals do their part.

PUTTING THEIR THEORY TO THE TEST

The researchers manipulated scenarios in public settings to encourage visitors to view the spaces as their own, rather than as a shared commodity. In each scenario, the investigators found that increasing psychological ownership enhanced stewardship, causing participants to become more likely to take direct action to care for that setting, such as picking up trash, or financial stewardship, such as donating money.

For example, the researchers manipulated psychological ownership of a lake by asking a randomized group of kayak renters to think of and write down a nickname for the lake before renting their boats. Unbeknownst to the kayakers, the researchers had planted anchored floating trash in the lake to test whether naming the lake would create an increased feeling of ownership. Compared to the control group, kayakers who were not asked to name the lake, the "namers" were more likely to do their part in trying to pick up the trash, with 41 percent attempting to remove the planted litter.

In another scenario, study participants were asked to imagine that they were taking a walk in a hypothetical park called Stoneview Park. Researchers showed the control group a park entrance sign that read the generic message, "Welcome to the park." In contrast, the experimental group was shown a sign reading, "Welcome to YOUR park." Each group of "walkers" then completed a survey on how likely they were to remove litter or donate to park maintenance efforts. Once again, when compared to the control group, those exposed to the psychological ownership tactics (YOUR park group) felt a greater need to care for and contribute to maintaining the public space.

A third scenario tested yet another psychological ownership tactic aimed at cultivating stewardship. Cross country skiers and snowshoers at a public park ski rental were asked to plan a route prior to their outing. Following the completion of the park's standard liability waiver, an employee offered them a map, obtained their shoe size, and, in the control group (the "non-planners"), went on to retrieve the ski equipment. However, in the experimental group, before retrieving the skis or snowshoes, the employee asked the renters to plan a route they might take on the map. All renters were then charged for their ski equipment and asked whether they would like to add a dollar to the rental fee to help the park. Donations indicated that individuals who planned their route in advance were more likely to chip in. In addition, a participant survey also revealed that those asked to plan their route were more likely to feel ownership, volunteer, donate in the future, and promote the park to others using social media. The researchers believe that because these skiers played an active role in shaping their experience, they may have felt a greater sense of connection to the park.

Kirk, who has published significant research on psychological ownership and an op-ed in Harvard Business Review, believes the findings can assist marketers in conservation efforts.

"Maintaining the natural environment is a pressing issue facing our planet, and has become more challenging during the pandemic as park services are reduced while the number of people spending time outside has increased," she notes. "Researchers have previously shown that eliciting feelings of ownership in consumers, even in the absence of legal ownership, induces them to value a product more highly. In this research, we document, through a variety of experimental studies in the field and in the laboratory, that individual psychological ownership also motivates caring behaviors for a public good, such as picking up trash from a lake or donating time or money to a park. We encourage marketers and environmentalists alike to reflect on these findings when considering ways to maintain public spaces."

Normally they are among the many harmless organisms found in and on the human body: one in four people have millions of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria on their skin and on the mucous membranes of the upper respiratory tract, without being aware of it. In some cases, however, the harmless bacteria can turn into pathogens, which can lead to skin inflammation and lung infections, or - in the worst cases - sepsis. "This happens especially when the bacteria multiply too fast, for example when a person's immune system is weakened by an infection or injury," says Prof. Oliver Werz of Friedrich Schiller University Jena in Germany.

The Professor for Pharmaceutical Chemistry and his team have studied the molecular defence mechanisms of the human immune system in the fight against such Staphylococcus aureus infections and made a surprising discovery. As the research team reports in the current issue of the specialist journal "Cell Reports", the toxic cocktail with which Staphylococcus aureus damages cells and tissues also has positive effects: specific immune cells are stimulated by the bacterial toxin to produce specialised messenger substances that help to reduce inflammation and to promote tissue healing. Prof. Werz expects this hitherto unknown mechanism to be significant for future treatments of skin inflammation and chronic wounds.

Immune cells produce anti-inflammatory messenger substances

In their latest study, the researchers from the University of Jena, Jena University Hospital and the Leibniz Institute on Aging - Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI), together with colleagues from Harvard Medical School and the University of Naples, have studied in particular the bacterial toxin "α-Hemolysin" and examined its effect on M2 macrophages. M2 macrophages are immune cells which, in the later stages of an inflammatory reaction, ensure that bacteria that have been killed, and damaged cell components, are removed, and that the tissue regenerates. "They are therefore a kind of cellular waste disposal," says Paul Jordan, doctoral candidate in Werz's team and lead author of the publication, describing the function of these cells.

The researchers showed that α-hemolysin binds to specific receptor proteins on the surface of M2 macrophages and thus triggers the production of anti-inflammatory messenger substances in the cells, which then cause the inflammation to resolve. In the study, the scientists were also able to show that these transmitters promote tissue regeneration in an animal model. The anti-inflammatory messenger substances include resolvins, maresins and protectins that are formed from omega-3 fatty acids.

Autopsy, airway suctioning and cardiopulmonary resuscitation are among the list of medical procedures that pose a risk of spreading COVID-19 from a patient to their health-care provider by creating aerosols, according to new research published in the journal BMJ Open Respiratory Research by an international team of experts including occupational health, preventive medicine and infectious disease specialists.

The team, led by University of Alberta medicine professor Sebastian Straube, carried out a systematic review of public health guidelines, research papers and policy documents from around the globe to determine which procedures are classified as aerosol-generating.

"What we sought to do was to understand which procedures generate aerosols and therefore require a higher grade of personal protective equipment," said Straube, who also heads the preventive medicine division of the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry.

"Where there is 80 per cent agreement from a number of different source documents, we are reasonably confident that, yes, the classification of these procedures as aerosol-generating is accurate."

Straube recommended that further research be done on the short list of procedures for which they found no consensus, such as taking throat swabs.

The team of 19 Canadian, British, American and other researchers includes renowned Oxford University primary care expert Trisha Greenhalgh and first author Tanya Jackson, Straube's research associate. They came together to share their expertise at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and have published rapid reviews on the efficacy of respirator masks versus standard surgical masks, eye protection and shoe covers.

"We are providing a summary of the evidence to inform policy-making decisions and guideline development," Straube said.

An aerosol is a suspension of fine solid or liquid particles in air, Straube said. "Larger particles settle in a reasonably short distance, and are referred to as 'droplets' in the infection control context," the paper states. "Smaller particles can travel as aerosols on air currents, remaining in the air for longer and distributing over a wide area."

Straube said the goal is to prevent health-care workers from becoming infected with COVID-19, both to protect them from severe disease as individuals and to maintain staffing levels in health-care systems during the pandemic.

Health-care workers who perform aerosol-generating procedures should wear filtering facepiece respirators, known as N-95 masks in North America, Straube said, along with other personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gloves, gowns and eye protection.

"PPE is typically displayed at the bottom rung of the hierarchy of hazard controls," Straube said.

"Elimination of the hazard or substitution as well as engineering and administrative approaches to hazard control should also be considered."

KINGSTON, R.I. - October 13, 2020 - A survey of maritime infrastructure engineers by University of Rhode Island researchers found that the rising sea level is often not factored into designs of ports, breakwaters, fishing piers and other coastal infrastructure.

"If we're making decisions about infrastructure today and expect it to be serviceable for the next 50 to 75 years, we should be thinking about what the environmental conditions will be like towards the end of the infrastructure's life," said Austin Becker, URI associate professor of marine affairs, who studies how ports are preparing for climate change. "And we know that things are going to be very different along our coasts in the coming years."

In 2019, Becker and graduate student Benjamin Sweeney surveyed 85 engineers at consulting firms, port authorities and government agencies with experience working on port infrastructure projects in the United States. They found that 64% do not have a policy or planning document to guide how to incorporate sea level change into their designs.

"The challenge they face is that they aren't receiving concrete, consistent guidance for what they should be doing to integrate sea level rise projections into their work," Becker said. "They need guidance, they want guidance, they don't want to have to go on the whims of their clients, who may not have expertise in this area. They also don't want to have to weigh potentially conflicting guidance from local, state or federal agencies."

Becker said that without guidance, port engineers are more likely to disregard sea level change projections entirely.

"Formal policies or documents can lend credibility and provide the basis for recommendations," wrote Becker and Sweeney in a research paper in the Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal and Ocean Engineering. "Conversely, engineers without the documented support from their organization may be less willing to take the personal and professional risk that comes with making subjective decisions."

Of the 29% of survey respondents that do have formal guidance from a sea level rise planning document, only 9% said they use it for all of their projects.

"That isn't surprising, but it's worrisome," said Becker, a visiting fellow at the U.S. Naval War College. "It's not surprising because of the times we live in; there's so much conflicting information out there about climate change. But scientists understand that sea levels are actually rising and that there will be ramifications, and it's going to make things much more expensive to not factor those changes into designs now."

The survey also examined the factors that influenced whether engineers incorporate sea level rise into their designs. It found that 54% of respondents said they often or always factor in rising sea levels because it is required by their client, and 46% indicated they do so because it is a regulatory requirement.

More than half of the respondents also said that "a lack of design standards" was the chief barrier to incorporating sea level rise into their infrastructure projects. Other answers included a lack of funding, the client doesn't want sea level rise incorporated, and concerns over the uncertainty of sea level rise projections.

"Regulatory standards and codes remove the burden on engineers to make subjective sea level rise decisions," Becker and Sweeney wrote. "This barrier also renders many of the other barriers less relevant."

Based on the results of the survey, Becker and Sweeney recommend that engineers undertake a life cycle cost analysis that includes sea level rise projections for each project. This methodology can be used to support decision making for climate change adaptation alternatives.

They also suggest that the engineering community collaborate with port authorities and regulatory bodies to create design standards to improve the resilience of port infrastructure.

"Engineers need something they can rely on so they can go to their clients and say, 'this is what we need to follow, and it's not optional,'" Becker said. "The guidance also has to be flexible enough so it can be adapted over time as conditions change, but it gives them something they can hang their hat on today."