The lower airway microbiome in paediatric health and chronic disease

The advent of next generation sequencing has rapidly challenged the paediatric respiratory physician’s understanding of lung microbiology and the role of the lung microbiome in host health and disease. In particular, the role of “microbial key players” in paediatric respiratory disease is yet to be fully explained. Accurate profiling of the lung microbiome in children is challenging since the ability to obtain lower airway samples coupled with processing “low-biomass specimens” are both technically difficult. Many studies provide conflicting results. Early microbiota-host relationships may be predictive of the development of chronic respiratory disease but attempts to correlate lower airway microbiota in premature infants and risk of developing bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) have produced mixed results. There are differences in lung microbiota in asthma and cystic fibrosis (CF). The increased abundance of oral taxa in the lungs may (or may not) promote disease processes in asthma and CF. In CF, correlation between microbiota diversity and respiratory decline is commonly observed. When one considers other pathogens beyond the bacterial kingdom, the contribution and interplay of fungi and viruses within the lung microbiome further increase complexity. Similarly, the interaction between microbial communities in different body sites, such as the gut-lung axis, and the influence of environmental factors, including diet, make the co-existence of host and microbes ever more complicated. Future, multi-omics approaches may help uncover novel microbiome-based biomarkers and therapeutic targets in respiratory disease and explain how we can live in harmony with our microbial companions

Untangling the critical success factors of the latest compulsory waste sorting initiative in Shanghai: the role of accountability governance

Municipal solid waste sorting is an essential element of urban sustainability as cities transition to a circular economy. As a mega-city, Shanghai has achieved remarkable milestones in its latest compulsory waste sorting program. This success has garnered widespread attention, and most studies have primarily focused on policy interventions from either a macro perspective or micro-analysis of individual behaviours. However, these studies have often overlooked the intricacies of multi-stakeholder coordination and the division of responsibilities, which frequently contributed to the failure of waste sorting initiatives. Furthermore, existing research lacks a systematic theoretical framework to elucidate multi-stakeholder accountability mechanisms. Therefore, this research adopts a case study approach to untangle the factors that led to Shanghai's success. Through the lens of accountability theory, this study systematically elaborates stakeholder accountability mechanisms and offers a distinctive multi-stakeholder perspective to explain Shanghai's success across vertical, horizontal, and felt accountability dimensions. This informative exemplar provides crucial empirical insights for other cities, especially those grappling with challenges in promoting and managing waste sorting initiatives

Rethinking Evaluation by Rethinking the Prompts Used to Understand Respondents’ Experiences: the Problem of Customer Orientation and Psychological Biases

Evaluation in education, whether from staff or from students, typically includes explicitly requesting the respondents’ views on their experiences. A well-known example is EvaSys for student experiences of education. My mixed-methods case study took place in the context of foreign language learning at University of Glasgow. The theory and the findings have major implications for how evaluation tools are communicated in almost any context, however. The literature review raised concerns about the use of satisfaction as a proxy for quality, while two major psychological frameworks were reviewed to understand more about perceptions of experiences in education: hedonistic bias and fundamental bias. Hedonistic bias is a tendency to blame external factors for negative experiences and credit personal and internal factors for positive experiences, while fundamental bias is a bias that overemphasises the personal in our experiences e.g. attributing a personal characteristic in others as the cause of a negative experience. There is some depth of research strongly distinguishing between Eastern (e.g. Japanese and Chinese) and Western (e.g. American) in the strength of these biases, with Easterners being far less likely to exhibit hedonistic bias, taking more causes into account, and are less likely to centre themselves in the experience, tending more to holistic perspectives. The study compared 38 Chinese and 56 UK students by employing linguistic relativity methods to examine how students associated the terms satisfied and engaged in education contexts. Results support a clear cultural difference between Chinese and UK students’ in terms of their focus on positive or negative experiences, to what they attribute these experiences, and to some extent on how much they centre themselves in the experience. There are three main implications for anyone collecting feedback through explicit request for respondents’ views. Firstly, to avoid using terms satisfied and engaged in feedback tools. Secondly, there is a major problem with comparing feedback where samples are largely Eastern with those that are largely Western. Thirdly, that to enhance autonomy and self-reflection, feedback prompts should be explicit about areas for respondents to focus on in terms of attribution and in terms of locus of effect

Reading beyond gender in Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames, L’Argent, and La Joie de vivre

Much has been said about how Émile Zola uses fragmented corporeality and subjectivity in Au Bonheur des Dames (1883) to critique the implications of modern commerce for women. Comparatively little attention has been paid to the fact that Zola attributes the same features to male experiences of modernity in L'Argent (1891). Through an ecocritical analysis that moves beyond the gendered dimensions of individual novels, this article compares the crowds of Au Bonheur des Dames and L'Argent to the coastal narrative of La Joie de vivre (1884) – re-evaluating Zola's use of aquatic imagery while examining the equally intriguing recurrence of dust

Beneath the market tavern

No abstract available

Music and interfaith friendship: lessons from qawwali

No abstract available

A Workshop on AI, Automation of Work, and the Role of Trust and Authentic Leadership During Times of Digital Transformation

No abstract available

Real-time multislice-to-volume motion correction with single and parallel transmission for task-based functional MRI at 7T

7T MRI has SNR benefits, but is also more sensitive to motion-induced ghosting and blurring. The restricted environment in 7T scanners makes markerless, non-hardware techniques an attractive choice. We implemented the image-based, real-time Multislice Prospective Acquisition Correction (MS-PACE) technique for 7T fMRI. This allows sub-TR motion detection and imaging volume update to be performed. The greater B1+ inhomogeneity is counteracted by integrating parallel transmit (pTx) slice-by-slice B1+ shimming

Aggregation-induced emission phosphorescence featured Au–Ag coordination polymer with a diphosphine N-heterocyclic carbene ligand for highly sensitive detection of Cr(VI)

Luminescent materials with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) characteristics have been recognized as highly selective and sensitive probes for the detection of toxic metal ions in recent years. In this paper, a Au–Ag cluster-based coordination polymer [Au3Ag3(L)2(CN)6(H2O)2]n [1, L = 1,3-bis((diphenylphosphanyl)methyl)-4,5-dihydro-imidazolylidene] was prepared by in situ generation of the diphosphine N-heterocyclic carbene (PCNHCP)-type ligand L in the presence of the corresponding metal salts. Compound 1 exhibited 530 nm phosphorescence under 380 nm excitation with a QY of 6.30% and a lifetime (τ) of 7.14 μs in the solid state. 1 showed good AIE behavior in the mixture of MeOH/H2O while the best aggregation state (fwater = 90%, QY = 6.79%, τ = 6.70 μs) exhibited selective and sensitive emission quenching toward Cr(VI) ions. Ultralow detection limits of 9.7 ppb (w/w) for Cr2O72– and 17.9 ppb (w/w) for CrO42– were achieved

Luminescence and thermometry studies of plant opal phytoliths

We have investigated the luminescence properties of plant opal phytoliths to assess their suitability for determination of age and/or thermometric information from soil and sediment sequences. This study examined a <2.37 gcm−3 density fraction in parallel with quartz grains from samples collected from alluvial terraces. We observed comparable optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) from the phytolith fraction to the quartz, and thermoluminescence (TL) with broader peaks and continuum to higher temperatures. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) data suggested the presence of opal clasts and contaminant minerals. To better understand the luminescence from opal phytoliths we analyzed a suite of biogenic materials including very pure diatoms, phytoliths, and quartz reference materials. We observe low sensitivity but measurable OSL signals in all the materials analyzed, and infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL) signals with fast decay rates exceeding those of more typical feldspars in some of the purer materials. TL signals are similar to those observed for glasses and suggests dose response might extend beyond quartz saturation levels. Preliminary investigations of OSL dose response show very promising growth characteristics for opal phytolith samples and all other biogenic silica materials analyzed