The Barriers of Using the City Government Feedback Platforms

Одним из популярных направлений развития современных мегаполисов является создание умных городов. В России внедряют стандарт «Умный город», одно из важных мероприятий которого – создание и внедрение цифровых платформ вовлечения граждан в решение вопросов городского развития. Горожане получают возможность принимать непосредственное участие в решении проблем, а власти могут направлять ресурсы на наиболее актуальные из них и получать доступ к оперативной информации. Однако важно, чтобы все жители города имели возможность равного доступа к цифровой платформе. В данном исследовании рассматриваются барьеры, стоящие на пути активного использования платформ обратной связи. Проанализированы данные с портала «Мой Новосибирск» – муниципального портала города Новосибирска, где горожане сообщали о городских проблемах. Наиболее популярны категории «Дорожно-транспортные объекты, благоустройство» и «Жилищно-коммунальное хозяйство», которые включают 95 % всех обращений горожан. С использованием ГИС‑моделирования и регрессионного анализа определено влияние фактора цифрового неравенства на количество жалоб, показана необходимость системных мер по его снижению в целях обеспечения равного доступа всех горожан к цифровым платформам ввиду активного внедрения стандарта «Умный город» и «Электронного правительства». Были включены и дополнительные факторы, такие как гражданская активность, индикатором которой стала явка на выборы по избирательным округам. Он оказался статистически значимым как для всей выборки, так и при анализе по категориям. Определены категории сообщений, наиболее чувствительные к выбранным факторамSmart cities creation is one of the most popular courses of modern cities development. Smart City Standard is being implemented in Russia, and one of the most significant parts of it is development and implementation of digital platform which involves citizens in solving urban development issues. This approach gives new opportunities both for citizens and local authorities. Citizens can be involved directly in solving city problems. Authorities can gain access to operational information and direct their resources to the most urgent problems. However, it is important that all city residents have the opportunity of equal access to the digital platform. The aim of this study is to examine the barriers preventing an active use of the feedback portals. We analyzed data from the portal “My Novosibirsk” – the municipal portal of Novosibirsk, third largest city in Russia. Citizens used it to report about urban problems they faced with. The research was based on GIS modeling and regression analysis. It shows the influence of the digital divide on the complaint amount, that the government should systematically reduce this inequality in order to ensure equal access to digital platforms for all citizens. Only this can ensure that active implementation of the Smart City Standard and Electronic Government would be successful. Moreover, the following study reveals the relationship between the number of applications and civic activity in the considered urban districts. Conducted research also determined the categories of messages which are the most sensitive to chosen factor

Characteristics of insulin therapy of diabetes mellitus type 1 in children and adolescents receiving glucocorticoids

BACKGROUND: In coexistence of diabetes mellitus type 1 (DM1) with severe autoimmune and inflammatory diseases some patients need simultaneous administration of insulin and glucocorticoids (GC). GC therapy in patients with DM1 can worsen glycemic control. AIM: To determine characteristics of insulin therapy of DM1 in children and adolescents receiving GC. DESCRIPTION OF CLINICAL CASES: We observed 5 patients with DM1 receiving GC for juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), juvenile systemic sclerosis (JSS), juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM), ulcerative colitis (UC), and reactive arthritis (RA). Intra-articular administration of GC did not significantly influence glycemic control. In case of GC pulse therapy hyperglycemia and increased insulin requirements were recognized in 3–6 hours after GC receipt, persisted from few hours up to 3 days after each administration. While therapy with oral GC in high doses the worst glycemic control was registered in daylight hours. To overcome insulin resistance change of time of injection and 10%-increase of long-acting insulin analogue, additional injections of ultrashort-acting insulin analogues, temporal prescription of short-acting human insulin were used. While GC therapy insulin daily dose was individual and could reach 2.0 U/kg. After transition to maintaining doses of GC or discontinuation of GC therapy patients returned to standard or relatively low insulin requirements. Levels of glycosylated hemoglobin differed significantly among patients at different stages of treatment, were maximal while long-term therapy with high doses of oral GC, but mostly depended on patient’s compliance. CONCLUSION: Bettering of glycemic control while receiving GC can be reached by timely dose correction of insulin therapy, selection of individual schemes, taking into account time of receipt and pharmacokinetic characteristics of GC. Adherence of the patient and his family to treatment of DM1 plays an important role in glycemic control

Universal Oligonucleotide Microarray for Sub-Typing of Influenza A Virus

A universal microchip was developed for genotyping Influenza A viruses. It contains two sets of oligonucleotide probes allowing viruses to be classified by the subtypes of hemagglutinin (H1–H13, H15, H16) and neuraminidase (N1–N9). Additional sets of probes are used to detect H1N1 swine influenza viruses. Selection of probes was done in two steps. Initially, amino acid sequences specific to each subtype were identified, and then the most specific and representative oligonucleotide probes were selected. Overall, between 19 and 24 probes were used to identify each subtype of hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). Genotyping included preparation of fluorescently labeled PCR amplicons of influenza virus cDNA and their hybridization to microarrays of specific oligonucleotide probes. Out of 40 samples tested, 36 unambiguously identified HA and NA subtypes of Influenza A virus

Large-scale assessment of pros and cons of autopsy-derived or tumor-matched tissues as the norms for gene expression analysis in cancers

Normal tissues are essential for studying disease-specific differential gene expression. However, healthy human controls are typically available only in postmortal/autopsy settings. In cancer research, fragments of pathologically normal tissue adjacent to tumor site are frequently used as the controls. However, it is largely underexplored how cancers can systematically influence gene expression of the neighboring tissues. Here we performed a comprehensive pan-cancer comparison of molecular profiles of solid tumor-adjacent and autopsy-derived “healthy” normal tissues. We found a number of systemic molecular differences related to activation of the immune cells, intracellular transport and autophagy, cellular respiration, telomerase activation, p38 signaling, cytoskeleton remodeling, and reorganization of the extracellular matrix. The tumor-adjacent tissues were deficient in apoptotic signaling and negative regulation of cell growth including G2/M cell cycle transition checkpoint. We also detected an extensive rearrangement of the chemical perception network. Molecular targets of 32 and 37 cancer drugs were over- or underexpressed, respectively, in the tumor-adjacent norms. These processes may be driven by molecular events that are correlated between the paired cancer and adjacent normal tissues, that mostly relate to inflammation and regulation of intracellular molecular pathways such as the p38, MAPK, Notch, and IGF1 signaling. However, using a model of macaque postmortal tissues we showed that for the 30 min – 24-hour time frame at 4ºC, an RNA degradation pattern in lung biosamples resulted in an artifact “differential” expression profile for 1140 genes, although no differences could be detected in liver. Thus, such concerns should be addressed in practice