Culture

A new study on the effects of Airbnb listings on Boston neighborhoods suggests that the prevalence of listings may hamper local social dynamics that prevent crime. However, tourists themselves do not appear to generate or attract higher levels of crime. Babak Heydari, Daniel T. O'Brien, and Laiyang Ke of Northeastern University in Boston, MA, USA present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on July 14, 2021.

Widespread sentiment holds that Airbnb listings cause increased crime in residential neighborhoods. However, there has been limited research to explore and clarify this link.

To better understand the relationship between Airbnb listings and crime, Heydari and colleagues conducted a statistical analysis of listings and data on different types of crime (using categories of 911 calls) in Boston, MA. Covering a period from 2011 to 2017, they focused on two mechanisms by which the presence of short-term rentals might boost crime. First, tourists themselves may generate or attract crime. Second, the presence of Airbnb listings may disrupt local social dynamics that would normally mitigate or prevent crime.

The researchers found that the prevalence of Airbnb listings in a given neighborhood was linked to higher rates of violence, but not to public social disorder or private conflict. In addition, this link did not appear immediately after the listings became available to tourists, but rather arose and grew over several years.

These findings, especially the lag in increased violence, suggest that Airbnb tourists themselves do not cause or attract greater amounts of crime. Instead, an increased proportion of a neighborhood's housing units being converted to short-term rentals may gradually erode local social dynamics, leading to increased violence.

These findings could help urban planners and policy makers make better-informed decisions related to the impact of Airbnb listings on neighborhoods. These findings could also be useful for platform companies to create more effective platform governance and self-regulating mechanisms. Future research could explore whether similar results are seen in other cities, including those of difference sizes or demographics. Additional studies could also investigate other facets of the presence of Airbnb listings in neighborhoods.

Heydari says: "We show that it's not the number of Airbnb tourists who stay in a neighborhood that causes increase in criminal activities, but it's the creation of transient properties spread throughout a neighborhood that undermines social organization and social capital and over time and can cause disorder and criminal activities as a result.

Heydari adds, "This paper is one of the first papers that measures the causal social impact of sharing platforms at neighborhood level for short-term rental platforms [and] quantifies the causal effect of short-term rentals on criminal activities and disorders in neighborhoods. More importantly, [this paper] identifies the mechanism behind such effects. Identifying causal mechanism is for more effective governance of these platforms, either through government regulations or via designing self-regulating mechanism by platforms themselves."

A team of international researchers, led by the University of Bologna, has discovered the fossilised remains of methane-cycling microbes that lived in a hydrothermal system beneath the seafloor 3.42 billion years ago.

The microfossils are the oldest evidence for this type of life and expand the frontiers of potentially habitable environments on the early Earth, as well as other planets such as Mars.

The study, published in the journal Science Advances, analysed microfossil specimens in two thin layers within a rock collected from the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa. This region, near the border with Eswatini and Mozambique, contains some of the oldest and best-preserved sedimentary rocks found on our planet.

The microfossils have a carbon-rich outer sheath and a chemically and structurally distinct core, consistent with a cell wall or membrane around intracellular or cytoplasmic matter.

Prof Barbara Cavalazzi, the lead author of the study, said: "We found exceptionally well-preserved evidence of fossilised microbes that appear to have flourished along the walls of cavities created by warm water from hydrothermal systems a few meters below the seafloor. Sub-surface habitats, heated by volcanic activity, are likely to have hosted some of Earth's earliest microbial ecosystems and this is the oldest example that we have found to date."

The interaction of cooler sea-water with warmer subsurface hydrothermal fluids would have created a rich chemical soup, with variations in conditions leading to multiple potential micro-habitats. The clusters of filaments were found at the tips of pointed hollows in the walls of the cavity, whereas the individual filaments were spread across the cavity floor.

Chemical analysis shows that the filaments include most of the major elements needed for life. The concentrations of nickel in organic compounds provide further evidence of primordial metabolisms and are consistent with nickel-content found in modern microbes, known as Archaea prokaryotes, that live in the absence of oxygen and use methane for their metabolism.

"Although we know that Archaea prokaryotes can be fossilised, we have extremely limited direct examples. Our findings could extend the record of Archaea fossils for the first time into the era when life first emerged on Earth," said Prof Cavalazzi.

She added: "As we also find similar environments on Mars, the study also has implications for astrobiology and the chances of finding life beyond Earth."

Pioneering 'printed metal' procedure to create bespoke treatment for early knee osteoarthritis set to be trialled in the UK following MHRA approval.

World's first 3D printed high tibial osteotomy (HTO) device and procedure developed at University of Bath given approval for UK trials

Bespoke titanium alloy HTO implants that fit perfectly are designed to reduce discomfort for knee osteoarthritis patients

Sophisticated 3D scanning aims to make surgery quicker and safer

New TOKA process could make earlier intervention possible - saving patients decades of pain before surgery becomes viable

Intro

A groundbreaking new treatment that uses 3D printed implants and that could bring relief to tens of thousands of knee osteoarthritis sufferers has received approval to be trialled in UK patients, following a virtual "in-silico" trial that demonstrated its safety.

The personalised early knee osteoarthritis treatment, developed by engineers at the University of Bath’s Centre for Therapeutic Innovation (CTI) working with 3D Metal Printing Ltd, uses state of the art 3D metal printing technology to make personalised medical-grade titanium-alloy plates that perfectly fit every patient.

The TOKA (Tailored Osteotomy for Knee Alignment) treatment improves the operative procedure and fit of high-tibial osteotomy (HTO) plates used to realign a patient's knee, making them more stable, comfortable and better able to bear weight than existing generic plates. The technique also simplifies HTO surgery, making operations quicker and therefore safer.

The HTO plates have already been safety tested virtually, in a computer-based trial using CT scan data from 28 patients. The in-silico clinical trial, the first in the world to demonstrate the safety of an orthopaedic device, modelled the stresses that would be exerted on the bespoke plates and showed that they would be comparable in safety to the standard treatment.

Professor Richie Gill, from the Centre for Therapeutic Innovation, says: "Knee osteoarthritis is a major health, social and economic issue and does not receive as much attention as it should. A quarter of women over 45 have it, and about 15 percent of men, so it's a significant burden that many live with.

"Knee replacement is only useful for end-stage osteoarthritis, so you can be in pain and have to live with a disability for a long time, potentially decades, before it's possible. We hope that the new TOKA process we've developed will change that."

Knee osteoarthritis patients undergoing TOKA will undergo a 3D CT scan of their knee, before a personalised 3D printed surgical guide and plate, both shaped to their tibia (shin) bone is created. The surgical guide simplifies the surgery, and is designed to improve surgical accuracy.

The process also sees the first implementation of 3D printed screw threads into the HTO plates, meaning they can be optimally positioned to help secure them against the bone.

Trials to begin once clinical centres reopen for elective surgery

When clinical centres return to carrying out elective surgery, expected later this year, the trials will begin. Hospitals in Bath, Bristol, Exeter and Cardiff will take part in a randomised control trial to compare patient outcomes with an existing generic HTO procedure.

Tests of the TOKA technique have already begun in Italy, where so far 25 patients received new personalised HTO plates as part of a trial at the Rizzoli Institute in Bologna.

High Tibial Osteotomy (HTO) surgery realigns the knee joint by making a cut to the tibia (shin bone) and opening a small gap, which needs to be stabilised by a metal plate. This realignment moves the loading to a less 'worn' part of the knee. Patient outcomes depend on how accurately the cut is made and the gap opened.

Prof Gill adds: "The HTO surgery has a long clinical history and it has very good results if done accurately. The difficulty surgeons have is achieving high accuracy, which is why we have created the TOKA method, which starts with a CT scan and digital plan.

"3D printing the custom knee implant and doing the scanning before operating means surgeons will know exactly what they'll see before operating and where the implant will go."

"In addition to a surgeon being able to precisely plan an operation, a surgical guide (or jig) and a plate implant, each personalised to the patient, can be 3D printed automatically based on the scanning data.

"Importantly this type of treatment relieves the symptoms of knee osteoarthritis while preserving the natural joint."

The pre-planning element greatly simplifies surgery and could cut the time on the operating table from two hours to around 30 minutes.

The work to date and UK trial is supported and funded by Versus Arthritis. The in silico trial has been published in Communications Medicine.

Jacksonville, Fla. - A recent qualitative research study conducted by the University of North Florida, in partnership with Indianan University-Purdue Indianapolis and UF Health Jacksonville, shows that black teenage girls want inclusive body types to be featured in advertising to combat teen obesity rates. Insights provided in the study are ideal for pediatricians and healthcare educators developing advertising and patient care plans to combat obesity among African American teens.

The study investigated social and cultural consequences of food consumption among African American teenage girls between the ages of 14-18 in Jacksonville, Fla., and explored best practices for anti-obesity communication in advertising. The teenagers in the study led active lifestyles and disagreed with traditional advertising that centered on a one-size-fits-all recommendation for weight management among teens like them.

Results from the study indicate preference for an inclusive body type approach that showcases advertising featuring diverse girls of different body types, races, etc., and that messaging should promote healthy lifestyles instead of a specific body-mass index measure. Utilization of social media platforms was recommended as the best communication method for message dissemination.

"Promoting one-size-fits-all messaging is counterproductive and excludes important cultural factors that influence food choice, options and normative beliefs regarding food culture and body genetics," said Dr. Natalie A. Mitchell, UNF marketing professor and principal investigator of the study. "These teenage girls respond best to messages that portray them as curvy and healthy."

Research participants reported struggling to balance their cultural food preference of soul food, often high in fat and sugar, with healthier food options. Results also revealed that the teenage girls preferred "slim thick," curvier body types, which include slim waistlines with shapely bottoms regardless of their petite, thin frames and is considered cultural capital, according to the research team.

"A driving force behind the desire for the Coca-Cola bottle frame commonly seen within the African American community is due to celebrity culture that celebrates such body types," said Mitchell.

Through in-depth interviews and photo elicitation, the girls identified celebrity body types whom they greatly admired and desired. Tiffany Haddish and Tyra Banks were the celebrities most frequently selected. Decisions were based on celebrity curvy frames and their likability.

A team of scientists has uncovered how heavy, motorized objects climb steep slopes--a newly discovered mechanism that also mimics how rock climbers navigate inclines.

The findings, which appear in the journal Soft Matter, stem from a series of experiments in which motorized objects were placed in liquid and then moved up tilted surfaces.

"These 'micro-swimmers' are about 20 times heavier than the fluid they swim in, but they were able to climb steep slopes that are almost vertical," explains Jun Zhang, one of the paper's authors and a professor of physics and mathematics at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and NYU Shanghai.

The work enhances our understanding of "gravitaxis"--directional movement in response to gravity. The phenomenon is a vital consideration in not only engineering, but also in medicine and pharmaceutical development. It explains, in part, how bacteria move through the body and provides insights into ways to create more effective drug-delivery mechanisms.

In the Soft Matter research, the scientists created swimmers, or nanorods, whose length is roughly 1/40th the width of a strand of human hair. These motorized swimmers were tasked with moving up an inclined surface while immersed in a liquid solution within a walled container. The swimmers were composed of two types of metal--gold and rhodium as well as gold and platinum--a makeup that gave them unbalanced densities given the varying weights of these metals.

The swimmers' composition, liquid environment, and juxtaposition of surfaces enabled them to move upward, despite their significant weight.

"These motors reorient themselves upward against gravity thanks to their density imbalance--much like a seesaw reorients itself in response to the movement and weight of its riders," adds Michael Shelley, a professor at the Courant Institute and director of the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Biology. "A hydrodynamic effect amplifies this movement--swimming next to a wall yields a bigger torque in repositioning the motors' bodies upwards. This is important because the microscopic world is noisy--for the motor it's always two steps up and one step down--and the bigger torque improves their ability to move vertically."

In previous work, published in Physical Review Letters, Zhang, Shelley, and their colleagues created "nano-motors" in uncovering an effective means of movement against currents. The new research expands on these findings by revealing how heavy objects can move up steeply inclined surfaces, offering the promise of even more sophisticated maneuvers.

"Now that these micro-swimmers are able to climb very steep slopes against gravity, we can look toward developing even more difficult assignments," observes Zhang. "Future, advanced motors will be designed to reach targeted locations and to perform designated functions."

The physical interactions between coral and algal cells as they combine to form a symbiotic relationship have been observed for the first time. Within minutes of being introduced, coral cells had started to engulf the algae, where they were either digested or moved to a protective 'bubble' within the cell. This new study, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, will form the basis of further research to understand what drives their symbiosis at a cellular and molecular level, including the eviction of algae, which is the cause of coral bleaching.

"We watched coral cells develop pseudopodia - temporary arm-like structures - that were used to engulf the algae as early as 5 minutes after the two cells were mixed," explains Professor Nori Satoh, co-lead author of the study and head of the Marine Genomics Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Japan. "Once inside the coral cell, some algae were moved to a vacuole, a protective membrane-bound bubble, while others were broken up and digested."

Eviction notice

Coral and algae have had a cooperative relationship for over 200 million years. Coral cells provide algae with shelter and the building blocks for photosynthesis. In return, the algae provide the coral with nutrients. When corals are stressed, the algae can be evicted, which turns the coral white. Linked to climate change and pollution, this coral bleaching can be devastating, with negative impacts on wildlife, tourism, fisheries, and coastal flood protection.

Experiments to understand the detailed mechanisms of algal symbiosis with stony reef-building corals have proved difficult in the past, but Satoh and Kawamura recently succeeded in growing stable cell cultures of Acropora tenuis, a coral species widespread across Asia. The researchers introduced dinoflagellate algae to these laboratory-cultured coral cells to understand what happens in the initial stages of coral and algal symbiosis.

"Our study was designed to understand at the single cell level what occurs in the process of symbiosis and what may cause this symbiosis to cease," says co-lead author Prof Kaz Kawamura from Kochi University, Japan.

Swallowed up

Several minutes after they were introduced, the corals cells started to move faster and actively incorporate the dinoflagellate algae within their cells.

"We were able to directly observe the interactions and symbiosis with video and confirmed what we saw by preserving the cells in plastic resin and taking semi-thin sections to show the engulfment of dinoflagellates inside the coral cells," explains Kamamura. "We also noted that the coral cells that had incorporated algae gradually became round and less mobile and that their symbiosis lasted for at least a month."

Future research will build on this study to help us understand how corals recognize, take up and maintain their algal endosymbionts.

"Our laboratory-based system of coral cells and algae may ultimately provide methods that we can use for the preservation and conservation of coral reefs," says Satoh.

Satoh adds, "We have already prepared comprehensive gene information of both the coral Acropora tenuis and dinoflagellate algae. This will be especially useful for future studies of cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in their symbiosis."

Depression is the most frequently diagnosed psychiatric disorder among older adults, with 8% to 16% of older patients presenting with clinically significant depressive symptoms. Researchers in Spain conducted a randomized clinical trial of 347 older adults with mild to moderate depression, comparing the effectiveness of physical exercise and antidepressants as treatment methods. Study participants were assigned to either a group engaged in supervised physical exercise or a group that received antidepressant treatment by their general practitioners. Depressive symptoms were not significantly different after one month between the two groups. However, after three and six months, the number of people who showed improvement was significantly higher in the antidepressant group. The authors note that the number of participants who withdrew from the study was higher in the physical activity group, while more adverse side-effects were reported in the group treated with antidepressants. Authors felt the advanced age of participants and the health problems and/or functional limitations common to older adults may have negatively influenced adherence to a six-month physical activity program.

Amsterdam, July 14, 2021 - The Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation (JVR) announces publication of an openly available special issue that provides free access to key presentations from the 2020 Virtual Conference of the Association of People Supporting Employment First (APSE). These contributions advocate for and help facilitate the full inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace and community.

APSE Conferences are the only national conferences focused solely on the advancement of Employment First, Employment for All. They bring together more than 1,000 key influencers and stakeholders representing individuals with disabilities, communities, agencies, and services to network and discuss state-of-the-art strategies to ensure equitable employment for all citizens with disabilities receiving assistance from publicly funded systems.

"This special issue highlights just a few of the incredible topics covered during the 45 sessions comprising the 2020 event," explains Guest Editor Julie J. Christensen, MSW, PhD, Executive Director, APSE, Rockville, MD, USA. "It represents the resilience of a community that remains dedicated to making a contribution in research, practice, and policy. All three are integral and necessary to create lasting change, perhaps more now than ever as we continue to work for Employment First, Employment for All. I'm just incredibly excited to be focusing more attention on the resource that JVR provides to the APSE Community."

Highlights from the conference include coverage of:

Importance of developing multicultural competency to ensure equity in rehabilitation services

Moving beyond "what gets measured, gets done" to leveraging data to scale up and track outcomes and quality improvement

Empowering coalitions of self-advocates to hold state laws accountable for Statewide Employment First efforts

Importance of family input and taking the socioeconomic and cultural context of the family unit into consideration

Need to update information tools to remain current with the times (such as using social media in talent recruitment)

Rehabilitation professionals are required to be competent in serving multiculturally diverse individuals in a manner that promotes empowerment and full engagement. Tammy Jorgensen Smith, PhD, CRC, University of South Florida, College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, Department of Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling, Tampa, Florida, USA, writes that "Multicultural competency is critical for accurate clinical assessment and diagnosis and for effectively serving a diverse population of clients." In her paper, Dr. Smith discusses diagnostic tools and ethical decision-making models that integrate multicultural considerations and recommendations for building multicultural competency.

Families bring their own set of values and assumptions based on their socioeconomic and cultural background. In the article "Good fences make good neighbors," Bethany Chase, DSW, Rutgers University, The Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities, New Brunswick, NJ, USA, provides context for why parents/guardians may be distrustful of the employment process, as well as why employment specialists may struggle to build strong partnerships with them. She discusses how to implement practices that not only welcome the critical input of families, but also maintain healthy and well-defined boundaries that affirm the autonomy, professionalism, and competence of the worker.

"By setting proactive, positive, welcoming, and compassionate guidelines and boundaries, employment specialists can reap the benefits of an engaged family while continuing to affirm the professionalism, autonomy, and competence of the worker," Dr. Chase concludes.

The issue features a postschool follow-up study of the integrated vocational functioning of 50 workers with significant intellectual disabilities over a 35-year period - the longest follow-up of its kind - contributed by Lou Brown, PhD, Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and co-investigators.

Dr. Brown, widely regarded one of the most influential scholars and advocates for students with disabilities, passed away in May 2021. In a tribute honoring Dr. Brown JVR's Editor-in-Chief Paul Wehman writes, "Lou was a great man, an incredible pioneer, and an irreplaceable voice for persons with all disabilities, but especially those with the greatest challenges. When he wrote, he talked to the reader, he made the reader believe in what true inclusionary values were, and why all people with disabilities should be a normal part of our local communities."

The conference took place during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic and takes into account the dramatic shift in the workplace. "We struggled to adapt to a virtual-only environment at the start of the pandemic," notes Dr. Christensen. "In many states, the flow of funding was temporarily interrupted and resulted in layoffs of the Disability Students Program (DSP) workforce. Some industries have disappeared. Others have grown exponentially. We're going to need to adjust accordingly.

"On the positive side, 'Work from Home' is now normalized. While we don't want this 'new normal' to be interpreted as letting the business community off the hook for complying with the ADA and ensuring that workplaces are fully accessible, 'Work from Home' has opened up new opportunities for employment for people with disabilities," she concludes.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Researchers at St. Edward's University have found that frugal individuals are more likely than their spendthrift counterparts to give in to the allure of deep discounts, whether it is Tax-free weekend, Amazon Prime Day, a Groupon Deal or some other offer.

In order to reconcile making unplanned purchases that may be at odds with their highly disciplined approach to spending, frugal shoppers will categorize the purchase as a necessity versus a luxury, according to the research published recently in the Journal of Business Research.

"Essentially, frugal consumers convince themselves they "really" need the product to justify getting the deep discount and call it a "win" in the smart shopper category. It seems that deep discounts truly are the folly of frugal shoppers," said Sarah Mittal, an assistant professor of Marketing at St. Edward's University.

Mittal and her co-authors Sommer Kapitan, Jill M. Sundie and Daniel J. Beal (of the Auckland University of Technology, Washington and Lee University and Virginia Tech, respectively) conducted a set of three studies to better understand the process by which frugal consumers justify these impulsive responses to deep discounts.

"Frugality is a trait that balances spending restraint and exuberant exploitation of bargain opportunities," Mittal said. "With our studies, we set out to offer insight into the manner in which this balance is kept and the conditions under which it can be tilted toward increased expenditures."

According to the researchers, the buying tendencies of frugal shoppers is one of the less studied aspects of consumer behavior. And yet in times of recession or economic downturns, such as the downturn brought on by the ongoing pandemic, consumers tend to turn into more price-conscious and conservation minded consumers.

In the first qualitative study, focused on interviews with self-identified frugal consumers, the researchers found that these shoppers make a "clear distinction between necessities and luxuries" and that it is a guiding principle that helps frugal consumers determine when to spend money.

In a second experimental study, the researchers offered frugal shoppers a deeply discounted and minimally discounted offering, and found that frugal consumers (but not less frugal consumers) reported a higher need for a desirable product when it was deeply discounted (60% off), compared to when it was only minimally discounted (10% off).

Lastly, in a third longitudinal study designed to look more closely at the process of updating a perceived need, the researchers looked at how shoppers viewed their need for a more practical service -- a car wash -- and a less practical good -- a selfie stick -- before and after a discount offer.

They found that frugal individuals -- but not those low in frugality -- increased their perceptions of need for the car wash in response to a good deal and correspondingly increased their purchase intentions as well. But frugal consumers did not change their perceived need for any product just because it was a good deal.

"If a moderate need for a good/service already exists, deep discounts and good deals, then, tend to push product need from a "maybe I need that" to an "I really need that" perception for frugal consumers. This positive change in need then enhances purchase intentions," Mittal said.

What could these insights mean for marketers?

"Marketers who partake in deep discounting should stick to moderate- to high-need items," Mittal said. "What we found is that frugal individuals justify the splurge by adjusting up their perceived "need" for a product. The effect did not hold for low need items (e.g. a selfie stick or a banana holder --- too frivolous to justify even for the frugal). Marketers can also emphasize the practical utility of a product to help nudge frugals to buy the deal."

In the future, research could delve further into the consequences for frugal consumers of making such impulse purchases, such as having feelings of guilt, shame or pride after getting the "good deal," which could provide additional insights into psychological mechanisms that may help facilitate their overall spending restraint.

Key Findings

When confronted with an unexpected deep discount on an (at least moderately needed) offering, the necessity vs. luxury distinction that keeps frugal people in check is flexibly adjusted to justify a purchase.

Frugal individuals -- like their less frugal counterparts -- can be triggered to make unplanned or impulse purchases.

Spendthrifts are not motivated by deals in the same way. It's like a switch that goes off in frugal individuals ---it allows them to let go of restraint and convince themselves they are meeting frugal goals by getting a "good" deal for an item they would have "needed" anyway.

Humans are no stranger to coronavirus (CoV) pandemics. Just like SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19), another member of the coronavirus family--SARS-CoV--caused the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic across parts of Asia in 2003. But, its spread was contained way faster than COVID-19. So, what makes SARS-CoV-2 so contagious?

Both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 viruses bear "spike proteins" which get inside our cells by binding to a protein called angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) that is found in our cells. However, the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein has been found to have a higher binding affinity (10 to 20 times that of SARS-CoV) to ACE2, thus establishing a link between the pathogen and the protein.

Interestingly, recent studies have shown that patients with COVID-19 who have rhinosinusitis (i.e., inflammation of the nose) have a low risk of hospitalization. Moreover, the expression of ACE2 was reduced in patients with rhinosinusitis. Coincidentally, another study has shown that short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), produced by bacteria in the gut have beneficial effects in allergy and viral infections. These separate findings prompted an investigation of the effect that SCFAs in the nasal cavity against SARS-CoV-2 infection by scientists from the University of Fukui, Japan, led by Dr. Tetsuji Takabayashi.

In a new study published in the American Journal of Rhinology & Allergy, the scientists attempted to understand the effect of SCFAs on ACE2 expression in the nasal passage, and the potential impact on COVID-19 infection. "This is the first report that short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) effectively reduce the ACE2 levels in human airway epithelial cells," remarks Dr. Takabayashi.

To understand the status of ACE2 expression in patients with allergies, the researchers studied the levels of ACE2 in the inner lining of the nose in patients with seasonal allergic rhinitis induced by Japanese cedar pollen (SAR-JCP) and chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS). Using techniques like real time-PCR to quantify the expression of ACE2, the researchers found that there was no increase in ACE2 expression in in patients with SAR-JCP, whereas it was decreased in patients with CRS.

To better understand the effect of SCFAs on ACE2 expression, the researchers cultured nasal epithelial cells and exposed them to either SFCA and double-stranded RNA (similar to the nuclear material found in some viruses and known to enhance ACE2 expression). Upon examining the expression of ACE2, the researchers saw that the SFCAs had suppressed ACE2 expression in the presence of the RNA as well.

These results suggest that SFCAs has potential therapeutic applications against COVID-19. Dr. Takabayashi explains, "The nasal mucosa exhibits the highest ACE2 expression among human organs and hence is a prominent target of original infection. Therefore, the development of strategies to downregulate ACE2 expression in nasal epithelial cells could reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission and be useful as a novel therapeutic approach."

The team's timely findings will certainly aid in our fight against COVID-19.

An international research team, including physics from Russia, has created new glasses for protection against X-ray and gamma radiation. Scientists could select new components that improved the characteristics of the samples and allowed to reduce the amount of lead in the glass composition. Physicists engineered several samples of glasses. One of the latest results - glasses based on barium fluoride - was described by the team in the Optic magazine. But the best results have bismuth borate glasses. Its radiation protection characteristics (mean-free-path, half-value layer) are better than commercial analogs. The features of these samples are described in the Scientific Reports.

"Gamma-ray is using in many fields like industrial (to detect defects in metal casting), medical (to treat malignant and cancerous tumors), agriculture (to control the degree of ripeness and extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables) and space applications, etc," says Karem Abdelazim Gaber Mahmud, co-author of the research articles, research engineer at the Ural Federal University (Russia), an employee of the Nuclear Material Authority (Egypt). "Gamma radiation has significant penetrating depths, so we are faced with the task of creating a material that could provide maximum protection and the necessary safety for workers."

Commercial radiation shielded glasses contain predominantly lead and phosphate. Due to its high density, lead is one of the most effective protection against gamma-ra?. But this is a heavy toxic metal. Lead glass can weigh up to several hundred kilograms. Therefore, scientists worldwide try to find the optimal composition, components that would help lighten the weight of the glass, reduce the thickness, and lower cost price. Another problem is that after exceeding a certain percentage of additive materials, the glasses lose their clarity, just as after absorbing a certain dose of radiation. Therefore, on the one hand, it is necessary to minimize the amount of lead in the glass composition, while maintaining the protective properties, and on the other hand, it is necessary to extend the shelf life of the end-product, its clarity. Scientists from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Malaysia, China, Egypt are working most actively in this direction.

"Scientists began to create protective glasses in the late 1940s, in the early 1950s, during the formation of nuclear power," says Oleg Tashlykov, research co-author, associate professor at Ural Federal University. "That time in England, America, Russia they were solving the problem of monitoring radiation-hazardous work. They came up with several options for glasses with different additives, but everywhere the basic components are lead and phosphate. The current trend is to choose such a composition to minimize the volume of lead, or better to replace it with another metal."

Note that the protective properties of glass researchers have experimentally tested at the Institute of Reactor Materials of the Russian state corporation "Rosatom" (Sverdlovsk region, Russia). The next step is further research of parameters, improvement, and optimization of the composition, commercialization of technology.

HERSHEY, Pa. -- Electroconvulsive therapy, which may be effective at lowering long-term risks of suicide and death among patients with certain mood disorders, may result in longer hospital stays and increased health care costs, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. They said delivering the therapy in outpatient settings may make the treatment more cost-effective.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) -- which involves passing small electric currents through the brain to trigger brief seizures while a patient is under anesthesia -- is seldom utilized in the U.S. due to high costs, low insurance coverage, lack of medical training and long-term side effects. The researchers conducted a study, which published June 5 in Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, examining privately insured adults hospitalized for major depression or bipolar disorder. They found that those who received ECT were hospitalized twice as long and had more than double the total health care costs compared to patients receiving standard care.

"Although ECT is an effective therapy for treatment-resistant depression, its high cost is a deterrent," said author Edeanya Agbese, research project manager in the Department of Public Health Sciences and the Center for Applied Studies in Health Economics. "If this therapy were delivered in an outpatient setting, it's possible that the potential of reduced cost burdens to patients and insurers could increase utilization of ECT in the U.S."

The investigators used a private insurance database to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of ECT compared to standard care. They examined several factors including patient characteristics, length of hospitalization and treatments received. Analyzing the associated costs before, during and after hospitalization, the researchers were able to derive patients' total health care costs during the three periods.

The findings revealed that depending on the number of treatments, those receiving ECT were hospitalized four to 29 days longer and incurred an additional $5,700 to $52,700 more than patients who did not receive this treatment. Furthermore, patients who received ECT continued to have higher health care costs even after hospitalization.

According to the researchers, it may be beneficial and more cost-effective for patients if ECT treatments could be offered in outpatient settings when possible depending on illness severity. Because this study focused on privately insured individuals, it did not explore the financial implications and out-of-pocket expenses for ECT patients without health care insurance or those on Medicare and Medicaid.

Douglas Leslie and Djibril Ba both from the Center for Applied Studies in Health Economics and Penn State College of Medicine; Robert Rosenheck from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine also contributed to this research. The researchers declare no conflicts of interest or specific funding for this research.

While several biology techniques have undergone significant technical advances that have allowed their high-throughput implementation, assessing the resistance levels of plant varieties to microbial pathogens remains an arduous and time-consuming task. In response to this, Pujara and collaborators took advantage of the naturally occurring luminescence of a deep-sea shrimp to engineer a light-producing bacterial reporter that allows the quantification of plant resistance levels through imaging.

The Nanoluc luciferase (NL) from Oplophorus gracilirostris is a small protein characterized by its high stability and strong brightness. The researchers exploited these features to produce a light emitting bacterial strain from the Pseudomonas syringae species, a plant pathogen. Because plant pathogens reproduce at a higher pace in susceptible than resistant hosts, susceptible plants were expected to produce more light when infected with a controlled amount of the luminescent pathogen. By integrating this setup with an automated table with a camera that moves within and images plants, the researchers were able to simultaneously phenotype over 30 Arabidopsis thaliana mutants. This novel quantification method was compared with conventional culture-based techniques, showing a high correlation between the outcomes of both approaches, indicating the robustness of the newly developed tool and the potential of this technology for other uses and applications.

"Our high throughput imaging-based resistance assay will provide plant pathologists and breeders a long-sought tool to screen an unprecedented number of plants to identify resistance traits that could fight a potential future pandemic," explained Hong-Gu Kang, the researcher leading this project. "In addition, we are currently working on developing an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm that will further expedite resistance analysis processes. Ultimately, we would like to conduct a project to assess all the genes in Arabidopsis and other species for resistance," he added.

Read more about this technical advance in the fully open access MPMI journal. This article has been through peer-review but has not yet been edited and formatted.

When a hurricane threatens to make landfall, forecasters offer a barrage of informational tools to communicate the risk of it coming through coastal and inland communities, so residents can prepare for its impact. Chief among these tools is the "cone of uncertainty" - a visual depiction of the storm's potential path.

But is the cone doing its job? Studies show that people often misinterpret this popular weather graphic. They don't understand the information it's conveying: the likely path of a storm, and its likelihood to deviate from that path based on historical data. The graphic is cone-shaped because the farther we try to look into the future, the more uncertain the forecast. But because the cone draws a line around a specific area, many people assume that locations outside the cone will not be affected by the storm.

Researchers in Colorado State University's Department of Psychology are working on an easily understood, science-backed way to visually represent hurricane danger to the general public. They contend that the cone of uncertainty creates a false sense of security for people who live outside the boundary of the cone and that there are better ways to signal likely impacts.

The research team includes psychology professors Jessica Witt, who studies the human visual system, and Benjamin Clegg, who studies human factors in the design of new technologies. Together, they created experiments to test whether hurricane projections could be better understood by average viewers through dynamic graphics the researchers have christened "zoomies." Their results are detailed in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

Summarizing information

According to Witt, the human visual system excels at something called ensemble perception. When your eyes see a group of objects, your brain quickly extracts a summary of those objects. Looking at a patch of grass, your brain makes a snap judgement about its average greenness. When you look at a tree, your brain automatically estimates the average size of the leaves.

The cone of uncertainty is what researchers call a summary statistic. The average, projected track of the hurricane goes up the middle, and that track is surrounded by varying degrees of uncertainty.

When the cone gets bigger, people think that means the storm will be getting worse or increasing in severity. But the cone's size is only communicating increasing uncertainty around the forecast. The cone also lends itself to what researchers call a containment heuristic.

"People like categories, and to be able to put things in these binary buckets - [at] risk, not at risk," Witt said. "The cone basically encourages that. It has this well-defined boundary, and people treat things within a boundary as qualitatively different than what's outside the boundary."

Clegg points to Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans and surrounding areas in 2005. "It's a good example of a storm that shifted its path just before landfall, heading outside the previously forecast cone of uncertainty," Clegg said. People who lived outside earlier forecast cone boundaries might have assumed they weren't at great risk, he said.

The researchers wondered if instead of the summary statistic of the cone, a better graphic would take advantage of what the visual system is already good at - synthesizing and summarizing. "Rather than visualize the summary, let's give them raw data, and let the visual system do the summary instead," Witt said.

'Zoomies'

Their new and improved graphic is more like a track ensemble, or a spaghetti plot. But track ensembles also have their issues. If a town is located on a track, then people perceive it to be at higher risk than one located off a track, even if the latter one is located closer to the storm's center.

So Witt and Clegg came up with the idea of "zoomies," which are sets of dots that each represent a different projected hurricane path and move accordingly. "The idea is that by getting rid of the defined boundary, we do not have this yes-or-no binary risk distinction, but rather a more gradual, more probabilistic understanding of risk," Witt said.

View an example gif of zoomies: https://col.st/TbdQ1

Lots of zoomies following paths close to the most likely path convey the higher risk there. But even a few zoomies showing more extreme deviations illustrate that there is still some risk for those areas, the researchers said.

Their hypothesis was borne out in a series of experiments with CSU students who, the researchers noted in their paper, are typically not very experienced with hurricanes. In the experiment, they tasked participants with deciding whether to evacuate a town on a map, based on seeing either a traditional cone of uncertainty or the experimental zoomies.

The cone of uncertainty had a distinct containment effect: Study participants chose to evacuate the town located within the cone at high rates, and the town beyond the cone at low rates. The cutoff was sharp and happened over a very short geographical distance - defined by the boundary of the forecast cone.

When the participants assessed hurricane risk using the zoomies, however, researchers saw a gradual decrease in evacuation rates. As the town got further from the center of the projected path, evacuation rates decreased gradually - more in line with what should be done in real life.

"This showed that the participants understood there is risk beyond where the cone ends," Witt said. "There is risk in these peripheral areas."

The researchers repeated the experiments with university students in Florida - who are notably more experienced with actual hurricanes - with collaborators Amelia Warden, a CSU graduate student, and Lisa Blalock, a psychology faculty member at University of West Florida. The results were strikingly similar to the study conducted in Fort Collins. This parity indicates that the visual impression from the cone of uncertainty is so strong that it overcomes even prior knowledge of how hurricane forecasts work.

"It's hard to resist that visual impression," Witt said.

The experimental results with the Florida students are accepted as a conference paper at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society meeting in October, where Witt and Clegg will present their findings.

The researchers think their findings could not only help decisionmakers and the public better prepare for hurricane landfalls, but also help improve trust in forecasting.

Lessons from Primary Care and Behavioral Health Integration Should Inform Health Care Practices to Identify and Address Patients' Social, Economic Needs

Although interest is accelerating around addressing patients' social and economic needs, effective and sustainable strategies for integrating social care practices into health care delivery have not yet been identified. This paper synthesizes learnings from primary care and behavioral health care integration and translates them into organizing principles with the goal of advancing social care integration practices to improve the health of patients and communities.

Applying Lessons From Behavioral Health Integration to Social Care Integration in Primary Care
Theresa J. Hoeft, PhD, et al
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle
https://www.annfammed.org/content/19/4/356