Hackathons como estratégia para inovação aberta: insights de eventos no Brasil e no Canadá

Purpose: The present study aims to analyze the elements and practices used in hackathons for software development and how they contribute to the success of the events. Design/methodology/approach: Through a qualitative and exploratory approach, a multiple case study was used to analyze two hackathon events in Brazil and Canada organized by a multinational technology company. Data collection was carried out through semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Data analysis was conducted using content analysis.Findings: The results illustrate that the participation of people with different profiles and knowledge is important for hackathon results. The support provided to participants and the choice of the proposed challenge affect participants’ perception of the event and the solutions developed.Research limitations/implications: As this is a multiple case study of a qualitative nature, it is infeasible to establish generalizations based on the results, and it is only possible to present evidence and proposals based on the specific cases.Practical implications: Proposed best practices to be followed in organizing hackathons, specifically in the context of software development.Originality/value: Few studies treat the subject of hackathons, and rarer still consider different countries to analyze the enabling elements based on different structures and their contributions to innovation. The development of hackathons as an alternative for innovation in the software area is also investigated.Objetivo: O presente estudo tem por objetivo analisar os elementos capacitadores utilizados em hackathons de desenvolvimento de software e como eles contribuíram para o sucesso dos eventos.Método: Mediante abordagem qualitativa e exploratória, o método empregado foi o estudo de casos múltiplos, tendo como unidades de análise dois eventos no formato hackathon, organizados por empresa multinacional de tecnologia no Brasil e Canadá. A coleta de dados foi desenvolvida por entrevistas semiestruturadas e análise documental. A análise dos dados foi conduzida com a técnica da análise de conteúdo.Resultados: Os resultados mostram que a participação de pessoas com perfis e conhecimentos diferentes é importante para os resultados de um hackathon. O suporte fornecido aos participantes e a escolha do desafio proposto são aspectos que afetam a percepção dos participantes sobre o evento, assim como exercem influência nas soluções desenvolvidas.Limitações da pesquisa: Por se tratar de um estudo de casos múltiplos e de caráter qualitativo, não é viável estabelecer generalizações com base nos resultados do estudo, sendo apenas viável apresentar evidências e propostas com base nos casos concretos estudados.Implicações práticas: Proposição de melhores práticas a serem seguidas para a organização de hackathons, em específico no contexto das maratonas para desenvolvimento de soluções.Originalidade: Poucos estudos são direcionados para a aplicação de hackathons, e mais raros são aqueles desenvolvidos considerando diferentes países para análise dos elementos capacitadores baseados em estruturas distintas e suas contribuições na inovação. Investiga-se o desenvolvimento de hackathons como alternativa para inovação na área de software

Bacillus pumilus severe wound infection in a healthy ten years old child: a rare case report

Bacillus pumilus is commonly isolated from a wide variety of soils, plants and environmental surfaces, but rarely from human specimens. In this report, we describe a case of infection caused by B. pumilus in a healthy 10-years-old child. The microorganism was recovered from a severe wound of the left knee after three days from trauma. Pathogen identification was carried out by mass spectrometry. The patient's outcome was positive following an ampicillin/sulbactam treatment without complications

Fusarium solani infection after antimicrobial treatment of a severe bacterial peritonitis: a case report and review of the literature

Fungal peritonitis is a rare but serious complication of peritoneal dialysis. This infection has been reported to be mostly caused by Candida species, and less frequently by a variety of other yeasts and moulds, such as Aspergillus, Penicillium, and  Fusarium spp. are commonly isolated from soil, plants and environmental surfaces, and rarely from non-immunosuppressed subjects. In this report, author describe a case of infection caused by Fusarium solani in a 59-year-old man undergoing continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis. The fungus was recovered from cultures of peritoneal dialysate and the pathogen identification was carried out by mass spectrometry. The patient's outcome was favorable without complications after liposomal amphotericin B treatment along with peritoneal dialysis catheter removal

Accurate subtyping of lung cancers by modelling class dependencies

Identifying subtypes and histological patterns is crucial for lung cancer diagnosis and treatment. Nevertheless, datasets with complete subtyping annotations are scarce, and most existing work primarily focuses on categorising lung cancers into fundamental types, omitting the distinction of adenocarcinoma patterns. We present a computational approach for a more comprehensive lung cancer subtyping from histology by modelling the dependencies between cancer subtypes and histological patterns in a multi-label setting. Our approach utilises slide-level labels indicating cancer subtypes as well as the presence of cancerassociated patterns, thereby alleviating the need for labourintensive region-based annotations. A new dataset with cancer-associated pattern labels is constructed and combined with publicly available datasets. We evaluate our model’s ability to simultaneously differentiate cancer subtypes and cancer-associated patterns. The result demonstrates that our modules enable conventional weakly-supervised classification models on multi-label problems, achieving subset accuracy of 84% when differentiating lung cancer subtypes and cancer-associated histological patterns

Understanding copy number variations through their genes: a molecular view on 16p11.2 deletion and duplication syndromes

Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) include a broad spectrum of pathological conditions that affect >4% of children worldwide, share common features and present a variegated genetic origin. They include clinically defined diseases, such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), motor disorders such as Tics and Tourette’s syndromes, but also much more heterogeneous conditions like intellectual disability (ID) and epilepsy. Schizophrenia (SCZ) has also recently been proposed to belong to NDDs. Relatively common causes of NDDs are copy number variations (CNVs), characterised by the gain or the loss of a portion of a chromosome. In this review, we focus on deletions and duplications at the 16p11.2 chromosomal region, associated with NDDs, ID, ASD but also epilepsy and SCZ. Some of the core phenotypes presented by human carriers could be recapitulated in animal and cellular models, which also highlighted prominent neurophysiological and signalling alterations underpinning 16p11.2 CNVs-associated phenotypes. In this review, we also provide an overview of the genes within the 16p11.2 locus, including those with partially known or unknown function as well as non-coding RNAs. A particularly interesting interplay was observed between MVP and MAPK3 in modulating some of the pathological phenotypes associated with the 16p11.2 deletion. Elucidating their role in intracellular signalling and their functional links will be a key step to devise novel therapeutic strategies for 16p11.2 CNVs-related syndromes

Human platelet lysate stimulates neurotrophic properties of human adipose-derived stem cells better than Schwann cell-like cells

Background: Trauma-associated peripheral nerve injury is a widespread clinical problem causing sensory and motor disabilities. Schwann cells (SCs) contribute to nerve regeneration, mainly by secreting nerve growth factor (NGF) and brain-derived neurotrophic factor. In the last years, adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) differentiated into SCs (SC-ASCs) were considered as promising cell therapy. However, the cell trans-differentiation process has not been effectively showed and presents several drawbacks, thus an alternative approach for increasing ASCs neurotrophic properties is highly demanded. In the context of human cell-based therapies, Good Manufacturing Practice directions indicate that FBS should be substituted with a xenogeneic-free supplement, such as Human Platelet Lysate (HPL). Previously, we demonstrated that neurotrophic properties of HPL-cultured ASCs were superior compared to undifferentiated FBS-cultured ASCs. Therefore, as following step, here we compared the neurotrophic properties of differentiated SC-like ASCs and HPL-cultured ASCs.Methods: Both cell groups were investigated for gene expression level of neurotrophic factors, their receptors and neuronal markers. Moreover, the expression of nestin was quantitatively evaluated by flow cytometry. The commitment toward the SC phenotype was assessed with immunofluorescence pictures. Proteomics analysis was performed on both cells and their conditioned media to compare the differential protein profile. Finally, neurotrophic abilities of both groups were evaluated with a functional co-culture assay, assessing dorsal root ganglia survival and neurite outgrowth.Results: HPL-cultured ASCs demonstrated higher gene expression of NGF and lower expression of S100B. Moreover, nestin was present in almost all HPL-cultured ASCs and only in one quarter of SC-ASCs. Immunofluorescence confirmed that S100B was not present in HPL-cultured ASCs. Proteomics analysis validated the higher expression of nestin and the increase in cytoskeletal and ECM proteins involved in neural regeneration processes. The co-culture assay highlighted that neurite outgrowth was higher in the presence of HPL-ASCs or their conditioned medium compared to SC-ASCs.Conclusions: All together, our results show that HPL-ASCs were more neurotrophic than SC-ASCs. We highlighted that the HPL triggers an immature neuro-induction state of ASCs, while keeping their stem properties, paving the way for innovative therapies for nerve regeneration. Graphical Abstrac

Trehalose polyphleates, external cell wall lipids in mycobacterium abscessus, are associated with the formation of clumps with cording morphology, which have been associated with virulence

Mycobacterium abscessus is a reemerging pathogen that causes pulmonary diseases similar to tuberculosis, which is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. When grown in agar medium, M. abscessus strains generate rough (R) or smooth colonies (S). R morphotypes are more virulent than S morphotypes. In searching for the virulence factors responsible for this difference, R morphotypes have been found to form large aggregates (clumps) that, after being phagocytozed, result in macrophage death. Furthermore, the aggregates released to the extracellular space by damaged macrophages grow, forming unphagocytosable structures that resemble cords. In contrast, bacilli of the S morphotype, which do not form aggregates, do not damage macrophages after phagocytosis and do not form cords. Cording has also been related to the virulence of M. tuberculosis. In this species, the presence of mycolic acids and surface-exposed cell wall lipids has been correlated with the formation of cords. The objective of this work was to study the roles of the surface-exposed cell wall lipids and mycolic acids in the formation of cords in M. abscessus. A comparative study of the pattern and structure of mycolic acids was performed on R (cording) and S (non-cording) morphotypes derived from the same parent strains, and no differences were observed between morphotypes. Furthermore, cords formed by R morphotypes were disrupted with petroleum ether (PE), and the extracted lipids were analyzed by thin layer chromatography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. Substantial amounts of trehalose polyphleates (TPP) were recovered as major lipids from PE extracts, and images obtained by transmission electron microscopy suggested that these lipids are localized to the external surfaces of cords and R bacilli. The structure of M. abscessus TPP was revealed to be similar to those previously described in Mycobacterium smegmatis. Although the exact role of TPP is unknown, our results demonstrated that TPP are not toxic by themselves and have a function in the formation of clumps and cords in M. abscessus, thus playing an important role in the pathogenesis of this species

Mycobacteria clumping increase their capacity to damage macrophages

The rough morphotypes of non-tuberculous mycobacteria have been associated with the most severe illnesses in humans. This idea is consistent with the fact that Mycobacterium tuberculosis presents a stable rough morphotype. Unlike smooth morphotypes, the bacilli of rough morphotypes grow close together, leaving no spaces among them and forming large aggregates (clumps). Currently, the initial interaction of macrophages with clumps remains unclear. Thus, we infected J774 macrophages with bacterial suspensions of rough morphotypes of M. abscessus containing clumps and suspensions of smooth morphotypes, primarily containing isolated bacilli. Using confocal laser scanning microscopy and electron microscopy, we observed clumps of at least five rough-morphotype bacilli inside the phagocytic vesicles of macrophages at 3 h post-infection. These clumps grew within the phagocytic vesicles, killing 100% of the macrophages at 72 h post-infection, whereas the proliferation of macrophages infected with smooth morphotypes remained unaltered at 96 h post-infection. Thus, macrophages phagocytose large clumps, exceeding the bactericidal capacities of these cells. Furthermore, proinflammatory cytokines and granuloma-like structures were only produced by macrophages infected with rough morphotypes. Thus, the present study provides a foundation for further studies that consider mycobacterial clumps as virulence factors

Trehalose polyphleates, external cell wall lipids in Mycobacterium abscessus, are associated with the formation of clumps with cording morphology, which have been associated with virulence

Mycobacterium abscessus is a reemerging pathogen that causes pulmonary diseases similar to tuberculosis, which is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. When grown in agar medium, M. abscessus strains generate rough (R) or smooth colonies (S). R morphotypes are more virulent than S morphotypes. In searching for the virulence factors responsible for this difference, R morphotypes have been found to form large aggregates (clumps) that, after being phagocytozed, result in macrophage death. Furthermore, the aggregates released to the extracellular space by damaged macrophages grow, forming unphagocytosable structures that resemble cords. In contrast, bacilli of the S morphotype, which do not form aggregates, do not damage macrophages after phagocytosis and do not form cords. Cording has also been related to the virulence of M. tuberculosis. In this species, the presence of mycolic acids and surface-exposed cell wall lipids has been correlated with the formation of cords. The objective of this work was to study the roles of the surface-exposed cell wall lipids and mycolic acids in the formation of cords in M. abscessus. A comparative study of the pattern and structure of mycolic acids was performed on R (cording) and S (non-cording) morphotypes derived from the same parent strains, and no differences were observed between morphotypes. Furthermore, cords formed by R morphotypes were disrupted with petroleum ether (PE), and the extracted lipids were analyzed by thin layer chromatography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. Substantial amounts of trehalose polyphleates (TPP) were recovered as major lipids from PE extracts, and images obtained by transmission electron microscopy suggested that these lipids are localized to the external surfaces of cords and R bacilli. The structure of M. abscessus TPP was revealed to be similar to those previously described in Mycobacterium smegmatis. Although the exact role of TPP is unknown, our results demonstrated that TPP are not toxic by themselves and have a function in the formation of clumps and cords in M. abscessus, thus playing an important role in the pathogenesis of this species