Vertical Search Engines

This paper outlines the growth in popularity of vertical search engines, their origins, the differences between them and well-known broad based search engines such as Google and Yahoo. We also discuss their use in business-to-business, their marketing and advertising costs, what the revenue streams are and who uses them

A comparison of the nationally important infection prevention and control documents in NHS England and NHS Scotland

Background: The devolution of health to Scotland in 1999, led for the first time in the NHS to different priorities and success indicators for infection prevention and control (IPC). This project sought to understand, compare and evaluate the national IPC priorities and available indicators of success. Aim: To identify the national infection prevention and control priorities alongside national indicators of success. Methods: Critical analysis of nationally produced documents and publicly available infection related data up to March 2018. Findings: For both NHS Scotland and England the local and national infection prevention and control priorities are evidenced by: a) People being cared for in an IPC safe environment, b) Staff following IPC safe procedures and c) organisations continuously striving not just to attain standards, but to improve on them. If national agencies that produce data were also charged with using a Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) model, then there would be further opportunities to detect and improve on successes

PointNu-Net: Simultaneous Multi-tissue Histology Nuclei Segmentation and Classification in the Clinical Wild

Automatic nuclei segmentation and classification plays a vital role in digital pathology. However, previous works are mostly built on data with limited diversity and small sizes, making the results questionable or misleading in actual downstream tasks. In this paper, we aim to build a reliable and robust method capable of dealing with data from the 'the clinical wild'. Specifically, we study and design a new method to simultaneously detect, segment, and classify nuclei from Haematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) stained histopathology data, and evaluate our approach using the recent largest dataset: PanNuke. We address the detection and classification of each nuclei as a novel semantic keypoint estimation problem to determine the center point of each nuclei. Next, the corresponding class-agnostic masks for nuclei center points are obtained using dynamic instance segmentation. By decoupling two simultaneous challenging tasks, our method can benefit from class-aware detection and class-agnostic segmentation, thus leading to a significant performance boost. We demonstrate the superior performance of our proposed approach for nuclei segmentation and classification across 19 different tissue types, delivering new benchmark results.Comment: 10 pages,7 figures, journa

Registration of ‘Purple Bounty’ and ‘Purple Prosperity’ hairy vetch

The hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) cultivars ‘Purple Bounty’ (Reg. no. CV-12, PI 648342) and ‘Purple Prosperity’ (Reg. no. CV-11, PI 654047) were released in 2007 and 2008, respectively, by the USDA–ARS in collaboration with the Rodale Institute and the agricultural experiment stations of Pennsylvania State University and Cornell University. Hairy vetch is a commonly used annual legume cover crop grown for its cold tolerance, fast growth, large biomass production, and ability to fix N2. However, this species has not been selected for the traits needed to optimize its use as a cover crop. Our breeding program focused on developing a cultivar that was both early flowering and had adequate winter survival and therefore adapted to mechanical termination in organic no-till production in the U.S. Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. Purple Bounty and Purple Prosperity were developed between 1998 and 2005 using recurrent selection at nurseries in Beltsville and Keedysville, MD. In 2005–2006, selections were evaluated against commercial checks for flowering time in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and in the 2006–2007 and 2007–2008 seasons they were evaluated in 10 locations (12 total site-years) across the United States for winter survival. Purple Bounty and Purple Prosperity both flowered earlier than the commercial material against which they were tested (significance depended on the date and site); Purple Bounty was the earlier flowering of the two cultivars. Purple Bounty and Purple Prosperity also had equivalent or improved winter survival compared with ‘AU Early Cover’, an early-maturing cultivar developed in the southern United States, at all test locations. Purple Prosperity is no longer commercially available, but Purple Bounty is currently licensed and distributed by Allied Seed (Nampa, ID)

Chondrocyte De-Differentiation: Biophysical Cues to Nuclear Alterations

Autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) is a cell therapy to repair cartilage defects. In ACI a biopsy is taken from a non-load bearing area of the knee and expanded in-vitro. The expansion process provides the benefit of generating a large number of cells required for implantation; however, during the expansion these cells de-differentiate and lose their chondrocyte phenotype. In this review we focus on examining the de-differentiation phenotype from a mechanobiology and biophysical perspective, highlighting some of the nuclear mechanics and chromatin changes in chondrocytes seen during the expansion process and how this relates to the gene expression profile. We propose that manipulating chondrocyte nuclear architecture and chromatin organization will highlight mechanisms that will help to preserve the chondrocyte phenotype.</jats:p

Medial longitudinal arch development of school children : The College of Podiatry Annual Conference 2015: meeting abstracts

Background Foot structure is often classified into flat foot, neutral and high arch type based on the variability of the Medial Longitudinal Arch (MLA). To date, the literature provided contrasting evidence on the age when MLA development stabilises in children. The influence of footwear on MLA development is also unknown. Aim This study aims to (i) clarify whether the MLA is still changing in children from age 7 to 9 years old and (ii) explore the relationship between footwear usage and MLA development, using a longitudinal approach. Methods We evaluated the MLA of 111 healthy school children [age = 6.9 (0.3) years] using three parameters [arch index (AI), midfoot peak pressure (PP) and maximum force (MF: % of body weight)] extracted from dynamic foot loading measurements at baseline, 10-month and 22-month follow-up. Information on the type of footwear worn was collected using survey question. Linear mixed modelling was used to test for differences in the MLA over time. Results Insignificant changes in all MLA parameters were observed over time [AI: P = .15; PP: P = .84; MF: P = .91]. When gender was considered, the AI of boys decreased with age [P = .02]. Boys also displayed a flatter MLA than girls at age 6.9 years [AI: mean difference = 0.02 (0.01, 0.04); P = .02]. At baseline, subjects who wore close-toe shoes displayed the lowest MLA overall [AI/PP/MF: P < .05]. Subjects who used slippers when commencing footwear use experienced higher PP than those who wore sandals [mean difference = 31.60 (1.44, 61.75) kPa; post-hoc P = .04]. Discussion and conclusion Our findings suggested that the MLA of children remained stable from 7 to 9 years old, while gender and the type of footwear worn during childhood may influence MLA development. Clinicians may choose to commence therapy when a child presents with painful flexible flat foot at age 7 years, and may discourage younger children from wearing slippers when they commence using footwear

In vitro response of human Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMC) to collagen films treated with cold plasma

The implantation of biomedical devices, including collagen-based implants, evokes an inflammatory response. Despite inflammation playing an important role in the early stages of wound healing, excessive and non-resolving inflammation may lead to the poor performance of biomaterial implants in some patients. Therefore, steps should be taken to control the level and duration of an inflammatory response. In this study, oxygen and nitrogen gas plasmas were employed to modify the surface of collagen film, with a view to modifying the surface properties of a substrate in order to induce changes to the inflammatory response, whilst maintaining the mechanical integrity of the underlying collagen film. The effects of cold plasma treatment and resultant changes to surface properties on the non-specific inflammatory response of the immune system was investigated in vitro in direct contact cell culture by the measurement of protein expression and cytokine production after one and four days of human peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) culture. The results indicated that compared to oxygen plasma, nitrogen plasma treatment produced an anti-inflammatory effect on the collagen film by reducing the initial activation of monocytes and macrophages, which led to a lower production of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1β and TNFα, and higher production of anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10. This was attributed to the combination of the amino chemical group and the significant reduction in roughness associated with the introduction of the nitrogen plasma treatment, which had an effect on the levels of activation of the adherent cell population

A 4D printed self-assembling PEGDA microscaffold fabricated by digital light processing for arthroscopic articular cartilage tissue engineering

AbstractArticular cartilage in synovial joints such as the knee has limited capability to regenerate independently, and most clinical options for focal cartilage repair merely delay total joint replacement. Tissue engineering presents a repair strategy in which an injectable cell-laden scaffold material is used to reconstruct the joint in situ through mechanical stabilisation and cell-mediated regeneration. In this study, we designed and 3D-printed millimetre-scale micro-patterned PEGDA biomaterial microscaffolds which self-assemble through tessellation at a scale relevant for applications in osteochondral cartilage reconstruction. Using simulated chondral lesions in an in vitro model, a series of scaffold designs and viscous delivery solutions were assessed. Hexagonal microscaffolds (750 μm x 300 μm) demonstrated the best coverage of a model cartilage lesion (at 73.3%) when injected with a 1% methyl cellulose solution. When chondrocytes were introduced to the biomaterial via a collagen hydrogel, they successfully engrafted with the printed microscaffolds and survived for at least 14 days in vitro, showing the feasibility of reconstructing stratified cartilaginous tissue using this strategy. Our study demonstrates a promising application of this 4D-printed injectable technique for future clinical applications in osteochondral tissue engineering.</jats:p

Registration of ‘Purple Bounty’ and ‘Purple Prosperity’ hairy vetch

The hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) cultivars ‘Purple Bounty’ (Reg. no. CV-12, PI 648342) and ‘Purple Prosperity’ (Reg. no. CV-11, PI 654047) were released in 2007 and 2008, respectively, by the USDA–ARS in collaboration with the Rodale Institute and the agricultural experiment stations of Pennsylvania State University and Cornell University. Hairy vetch is a commonly used annual legume cover crop grown for its cold tolerance, fast growth, large biomass production, and ability to fix N2. However, this species has not been selected for the traits needed to optimize its use as a cover crop. Our breeding program focused on developing a cultivar that was both early flowering and had adequate winter survival and therefore adapted to mechanical termination in organic no-till production in the U.S. Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. Purple Bounty and Purple Prosperity were developed between 1998 and 2005 using recurrent selection at nurseries in Beltsville and Keedysville, MD. In 2005–2006, selections were evaluated against commercial checks for flowering time in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and in the 2006–2007 and 2007–2008 seasons they were evaluated in 10 locations (12 total site-years) across the United States for winter survival. Purple Bounty and Purple Prosperity both flowered earlier than the commercial material against which they were tested (significance depended on the date and site); Purple Bounty was the earlier flowering of the two cultivars. Purple Bounty and Purple Prosperity also had equivalent or improved winter survival compared with ‘AU Early Cover’, an early-maturing cultivar developed in the southern United States, at all test locations. Purple Prosperity is no longer commercially available, but Purple Bounty is currently licensed and distributed by Allied Seed (Nampa, ID)