Crowdsourcing the georeferencing of historical pictures

Countless organizations own archive pictures which are not used due to the difficulty of localizing them. Only the participation of volunteers can help to identify the image content. Through an accessible web interface called smapshot, citizens are able to georeference historical images without any prior specific competence. To avoid the volunteers to face the complexity of 3D digitization and navigation, we implemented a state of the art photogrammetry camera orientation algorithm in the platform. Currently several thousand images from all around Switzerland have been georeferenced by the crowd. At this time the tool is mainly used by the population for the visualization experience and the nostalgia behind it. The ambition is to support scientists to analyze landscape evolution

Cost-benefit analysis of extending support to domestic abuse victims with NRPF: a technical report for the Domestic Abuse Commissioner

This report provides the technical underpinning to the report by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s Report1 laid before Parliament in December 2022. That report was in response to the Home Office request that she set out ‘the gaps in evidence available to the Home Office on support for Migrant Victims of Domestic Abuse, by establishing the number of victims and survivors of domestic abuse who have no recourse to public funds, the cost of supporting those who need support, and the cost benefit of such interventions.2’ LSE was asked by the Commissioner to provide a detailed technical analysis to underpin her response. This LSE report provides our views on relevant evidence but no policy recommendations. Such recommendations are made in the Commissioner’s report, having considered our evidence alongside the evidence of other stakeholders and people she has consulted. Our analysis required us to make strong assumptions, and there is significant uncertainty around many of them. There is considerable uncertainty in published validated statistics about the numbers of migrants in the UK with each visa status, and even more uncertainty about numbers of undocumented migrants and of ‘visitors’. There is also uncertainty about how many of these migrants currently experience domestic abuse, and an added and independent uncertainty about the proportion of those people who would present at services. We have also had to make various assumptions which affect the costs and benefits. We address and mitigate these and other uncertainties through our sensitivity analysis and additional modelling in this report. In addition, an accompanying Excel workbook sets out in detail our assumptions and how they underpin our conclusions, which allows for further sensitivity analysis and modelling to be done

The Ethics and Politics of Care in Times of Crises

This essay is based on The Global Ethics of Care round-table discussion which was organized by the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory at the University of Belgrade in June 2021. The idea for organizing a discussion on this topic emerged as all societies were, and still are, facing a myriad of pressing moral and political issues that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 triggered or, perhaps more precisely, intensified in a dramatic and abrupt way. If it had not been obvious before, indeed, the (ongoing) COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the fact that human beings are needy and vulnerable creatures who depend on one another for physical and emotional care; speaking quite generally, moreover, it deepened various pre-existing inequalities both within and between sovereign states. What are the implications of recognizing human neediness, vulnerability, dependence and interdependence for the ways in which individuals act, the manner in which many societies are currently organized as well as existing domestic and international political practice? What do the values of freedom, equality and care require in times of crises on both the individual and the collective level? Can the ethics of care revitalize our moral commitment to equal human worth as well as to a decent life for all? In this essay, we explore and attempt to provide answers to these and other pertinent questions from the standpoint of the ethics and politics of care

Epidemiology of Coxiella burnetii infection in Africa: a OneHealth systematic review

Background: Q fever is a common cause of febrile illness and community-acquired pneumonia in resource-limited settings. Coxiella burnetii, the causative pathogen, is transmitted among varied host species, but the epidemiology of the organism in Africa is poorly understood. We conducted a systematic review of C. burnetii epidemiology in Africa from a “One Health” perspective to synthesize the published data and identify knowledge gaps.<p></p> Methods/Principal Findings: We searched nine databases to identify articles relevant to four key aspects of C. burnetii epidemiology in human and animal populations in Africa: infection prevalence; disease incidence; transmission risk factors; and infection control efforts. We identified 929 unique articles, 100 of which remained after full-text review. Of these, 41 articles describing 51 studies qualified for data extraction. Animal seroprevalence studies revealed infection by C. burnetii (≤13%) among cattle except for studies in Western and Middle Africa (18–55%). Small ruminant seroprevalence ranged from 11–33%. Human seroprevalence was <8% with the exception of studies among children and in Egypt (10–32%). Close contact with camels and rural residence were associated with increased seropositivity among humans. C. burnetii infection has been associated with livestock abortion. In human cohort studies, Q fever accounted for 2–9% of febrile illness hospitalizations and 1–3% of infective endocarditis cases. We found no studies of disease incidence estimates or disease control efforts.<p></p> Conclusions/Significance: C. burnetii infection is detected in humans and in a wide range of animal species across Africa, but seroprevalence varies widely by species and location. Risk factors underlying this variability are poorly understood as is the role of C. burnetii in livestock abortion. Q fever consistently accounts for a notable proportion of undifferentiated human febrile illness and infective endocarditis in cohort studies, but incidence estimates are lacking. C. burnetii presents a real yet underappreciated threat to human and animal health throughout Africa.<p></p&gt

Liquid phase blending of metal-organic frameworks.

The liquid and glass states of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have recently become of interest due to the potential for liquid-phase separations and ion transport, alongside the fundamental nature of the latter as a new, fourth category of melt-quenched glass. Here we show that the MOF liquid state can be blended with another MOF component, resulting in a domain structured MOF glass with a single, tailorable glass transition. Intra-domain connectivity and short range order is confirmed by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and pair distribution function measurements. The interfacial binding between MOF domains in the glass state is evidenced by electron tomography, and the relationship between domain size and Tg investigated. Nanoindentation experiments are also performed to place this new class of MOF materials into context with organic blends and inorganic alloys

The Miocene – Pliocene boundary and the Messinian Salinity Crisis in the easternmost Mediterranean: insights from the Hatay Graben (Southern Turkey).

The Hatay Graben is one of three easternmost basins in the Mediterranean that preserve sediments that span the Miocene-Pliocene boundary, including gypsums from the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC). Here we integrate existing data and present new sedimentological and micropalaeontological data to investigate the palaeoenvironments of late Miocene to early Pliocene deposits and place this important area into a regional stratigraphic framework. Six sections are described along a ~ W – E transect illustrating the key features of this time period. Late Miocene (Pre-MSC) sediments are characterised by open marine marls with a benthic foraminiferal fauna suggestive of water depths of 100 – 200 m or less. Primary lower gypsum deposits are determined to be absent from the graben as sedimentological and strontium isotopes are characteristic of the resedimented lower gypsums. The intervening Messinian erosion surface is preserved near the basin margins as an unconformity but appears to be a correlative conformity in the basin depocentre. No Upper Gypsums or ‘Lago–Mare’ facies have been identified but available data do tentatively suggest a return to marine conditions in the basin prior to the Zanclean boundary. Sediments stratigraphically overlying the Messinian gypsums and marls are coarse-grained sandstones from coastal and Gilbert-type delta depositional environments. The Hatay Graben is not only strikingly similar to Messinian basins on nearby Cyprus but also to the overall model for the MSC, demonstrating the remarkable consistency of palaeoenvironments found in marginal basins across the region at this time

Improved survival prediction and comparison of prognostic models for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma treated with sorafenib

Background: The ‘Prediction Of Survival in Advanced Sorafenib-treated HCC’ (PROSASH) model addressed the heterogeneous survival of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treated with sorafenib in clinical trials but requires validation in daily clinical practice. This study aimed to validate, compare and optimize this model for survival prediction. Methods: Patients treated with sorafenib for HCC at five tertiary European centres were retrospectively staged according to the PROSASH model. In addition, the optimized PROSASH-II model was developed using the data of four centres (training set) and tested in an independent dataset. These models for overall survival (OS) were then compared with existing prognostic models. Results: The PROSASH model was validated in 445 patients, showing clear differences between the four risk groups (OS 16.9-4.6 months). A total of 920 patients (n = 615 in training set, n = 305 in validation set) were available to develop PROSASH-II. This optimized model incorporated fewer and less subjective parameters: the serum albumin, bilirubin and alpha-foetoprotein, and macrovascul

Prevention of LPS-Induced Acute Lung Injury in Mice by Mesenchymal Stem Cells Overexpressing Angiopoietin 1

Using a mouse model of acute respiratory distress syndrome, Duncan Stewart and colleagues report that rescue with mesenchymal stem cells expressing human angiopoietin 1 can avert lung injury from lipopolysaccharide