Ultra Thin White Topping

Paper consists of subsistence of highway road and improvement in low cost and increasing the strength and vitality of the pavement. Ultra-Thin White Topping may be defined as a concrete cover with closely spaced joints and bonded to an existing bituminous pavement. It consists of a fine layer of high durability, fibre-reinforced concrete laid over a clean, milled surface of distressed bituminous concrete pavement, to achieve full or partial bonding. From the degradation summary it is identified that even after 10 years, the riding quality of Ultra-Thin White Topping is the most admirable and the most desirable one without any mediation. Structural collapse emerges from the action that contrarily affects the traffic volume carrying capacity of the pavement. This structural collapse can be overcome by using Ultra-Thin White Topping pavement over bituminous pavement. Ultra-Thin White Topping achieves very low End User Cost values thus resulting in the maximization of Gross Economic Benefits than that of ordinary bitumen overlay

Queer In AI: A Case Study in Community-Led Participatory AI

Queerness and queer people face an uncertain future in the face of ever more widely deployed and invasive artificial intelligence (AI). These technologies have caused numerous harms to queer people, including privacy violations, censoring and downranking queer content, exposing queer people and spaces to harassment by making them hypervisible, deadnaming and outing queer people. More broadly, they have violated core tenets of queerness by classifying and controlling queer identities. In response to this, the queer community in AI has organized Queer in AI, a global, decentralized, volunteer-run grassroots organization that employs intersectional and community-led participatory design to build an inclusive and equitable AI future. In this paper, we present Queer in AI as a case study for community-led participatory design in AI. We examine how participatory design and intersectional tenets started and shaped this community’s programs over the years. We discuss different challenges that emerged in the process, look at ways this organization has fallen short of operationalizing participatory and intersectional principles, and then assess the organization’s impact. Queer in AI provides important lessons and insights for practitioners and theorists of participatory methods broadly through its rejection of hierarchy in favor of decentralization, success at building aid and programs by and for the queer community, and effort to change actors and institutions outside of the queer community. Finally, we theorize how communities like Queer in AI contribute to the participatory design in AI more broadly by fostering cultures of participation in AI, welcoming and empowering marginalized participants, critiquing poor or exploitative participatory practices, and bringing participation to institutions outside of individual research projects. Queer in AI’s work serves as a case study of grassroots activism and participatory methods within AI, demonstrating the potential of community-led participatory methods and intersectional praxis, while also providing challenges, case studies, and nuanced insights to researchers developing and using participatory methods

The United States COVID-19 Forecast Hub dataset

Academic researchers, government agencies, industry groups, and individuals have produced forecasts at an unprecedented scale during the COVID-19 pandemic. To leverage these forecasts, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) partnered with an academic research lab at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to create the US COVID-19 Forecast Hub. Launched in April 2020, the Forecast Hub is a dataset with point and probabilistic forecasts of incident cases, incident hospitalizations, incident deaths, and cumulative deaths due to COVID-19 at county, state, and national, levels in the United States. Included forecasts represent a variety of modeling approaches, data sources, and assumptions regarding the spread of COVID-19. The goal of this dataset is to establish a standardized and comparable set of short-term forecasts from modeling teams. These data can be used to develop ensemble models, communicate forecasts to the public, create visualizations, compare models, and inform policies regarding COVID-19 mitigation. These open-source data are available via download from GitHub, through an online API, and through R packages

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

Synthesis and function of bioactive, block copolymer surfactant constructs as relevant to the preparation of anticoagulant and antibacterial medical implant surfaces.

Nisin, an antibacterial peptide proven to be an effective inhibitor of Gram-positive bacteria, was incorporated into novel block copolymer constructs and tested for retained antibacterial activity. Covalent coupling was achieved by chemical modification of the N-terminal isoleucine to introduce a thiol group. Thiolated nisin derivatives were then linked to poly[ethylene oxide]-poly[propylene oxide]-poly[ethylene oxide] (PEO-PPO-PEO) triblocks that had been end-activated such that terminal hydroxyl groups of the PEO chains were replaced with pyridyl disulfide moieties. The nisin-containing block copolymers were separated from unreacted nisin by dialysis, and showed antimicrobial activity against the Gram positive indicator strain Pediococcus pentosaceus. Antimicrobial activity was determined to be due to a combination of disulfide-linked nisin, and nisin that was not covalently associated with the PEO-PPO-PEO triblocks. While the extent to which nisin retained antimicrobial activity in its disulfide-linked, copolymer form is not clear, reduction of the nisin-containing copolymer constructs with dithiothreitol demonstrated that nisin released from the copolymer constructs did show antimicrobial activity. Thiol groups were also introduced to unfractionated heparin, an anticoagulant glycosaminoglycan, by reaction of carboxyl groups in its iduronic residues with 3, 3’dithiobis (propanoic) hydrazide. Thiolated heparin derivatives were then linked to pyridyl disulfide-activated PEO-PPO-PEO triblocks which had previously been coated onto the surfaces of polystyrene microspheres (1 m diameter). In addition to monitoring the heparin linking reaction spectrophotometrically, the zeta potential of uncoated, triblock-coated, and heparin-containing microsphere suspensions was recorded to provide an indication of the successful surface attachment of heparin. While the surface attachment of heparin in this manner significantly increased the anticoagulant activity of the microsphere suspensions as determined by the Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time (APTT) assay, this result was not fully reproducible due to the random nature of the thiol-modification process, which, after heparin surface attachment, may interfere with heparin function

Soft tissue development around pontic site: A case series

An ideal emergence profile is vital for maintaining gingival health and developing esthetics. The ovate pontic which mimics a natural tooth gives the most appropriate emergence profile. For a successful ovate pontic restoration, an alveolar ridge of sufficient height and width is necessary to enhance the deficient ridge and to achieve an esthetic emergence profile. Interpositional graft was carried out along with ovate pontic to achieve an ideal esthetic restoration. After three months of the postoperative period, there was an increased horizontal dimension in the deficient ridge and an esthetic emergence profile. Interpositional graft technique is a simpler and predictable technique for pontic site development in moderate cases of bucco-lingual ridge deficiency

Management of stage I and II A/B avascular necrosis of femoral head with core decompression autologous cancellous bone grafting and platelet rich plasma factors

Background: Avascular necrosis (AVN) of the femoral head is a progressive disease that generally affects patients in the third through fifth decades of life; if left untreated, it leads to complete deterioration of the hip joint. Treatments range from simple decompression of the femoral head, to bone grafting of the involved area, or by using a vascularized fibular graft with varying degree of success. In most instances, the disease progresses further causing secondary arthritis. We present a study of management of early stage AVN (stage I and II A/B of Ficat Arlet classification) with core decompression autologous cancellous bone grafting along with platelet rich plasma. Aims: To evaluate the results of the above modality in the management of AVN of the hip. Settings and Design: This prospective study of 30 cases was done during the period of 2011-2013. Materials and Methods: Patients with stage I and II A/B were treated with the above modality and were followed up for 1-year. The results were evaluated on the basis of progression or remission of the disease by radiographic studies, preoperative and postoperative Harris hip score (HHS), age and sex distribution. Statistical Analysis Used: Primer software for calculating the statistical data was used and paired t-test was applied to all the data. Results: Show males were more affected than females and average age group of presentation in stage I and II was 29 years (22-55). The most common cause was idiopathic followed by steroid use. Average preoperative HHS was 56.80 and postoperative HHS was 79.73. 60% (18) showed remission of the disease (radiographically) compared to preoperative stage at 1-year follow-up, in 30% (9) disease did not progress further and 10% (3) progressed and required arthroplasty. Conclusion: Management of stage I and II A/B AVN of femur showed good satisfactory results in terms of disease remission and prevention of the further progress of the disease by the above method at 1-year follow-up and further follow-up is awaited

Phylogenetic characterization of canine distemper virus from stray dogs in Kathmandu Valley

Abstract Canine distemper is a highly contagious, often fatal disease caused by canine distemper virus (CDV) in domestic dogs and wild carnivores. The virus has caused mass epidemics in both wild and captive carnivores of high conservation value such as tigers, lions and leopards. Hence, understanding and managing CDV outbreaks is particularly important in Nepal, which is home to many species of threatened wild carnivores including tigers, leopards, snow leopards, dholes and wolves, and also contains a large population of stray dogs. Previous studies have suggested that CDV may pose a threat to wild carnivores, but there have not been any studies characterizing the genetic strains of the virus circulating in Nepal’s carnivores. We collected invasive and non-invasive biological samples from stray dogs in Kathmandu Valley and genetically characterized the strains of CDV in the dogs to belong to the Asia-5 lineage by using phylogenetic analysis. The same lineage also contained CDV strains sequenced from dogs, civets, red panda and lions in India. Based on our phylogenetic analysis, we think it is likely that CDV is maintained through sylvatic cycle among sympatric carnivores allowing the recurring spillovers and outbreaks. It is crucial to prevent the virus transmission from reservoir hosts to other species, especially threatened populations of large carnivores in Nepal. Hence, we recommend for regular surveillance of CDV targeting wild carnivores in addition to the domestic dogs

3D-Cultured Neural Stem Cell Microarrays on a Micropillar Chip for High-Throughput Developmental Neurotoxicology

© 2018 Numerous chemicals including environmental toxicants and drugs have not been fully evaluated for developmental neurotoxicity. A key gap exists in the ability to predict accurately and robustly in vivo outcomes based on in vitro assays. This is particularly the case for predicting the toxicity of chemicals on the developing human brain. A critical need for such in vitro assays is choice of a suitable model cell type. To that end, we have performed high-throughput in vitro assessment of proliferation and differentiation of human neural stem cells (hNSCs). Conventional in vitro assays typically use immunofluorescence staining to quantify changes in cell morphology and expression of neural cell-specific biomarkers, which is often time-consuming and subject to variable specificities of available antibodies. To alleviate these limitations, we developed a miniaturized, three-dimensional (3D) hNSC culture with ReNcell VM on microarray chip platforms and established a high-throughput promoter-reporter assay system using recombinant lentiviruses on hNSC spheroids to assess cell viability, self-renewal, and differentiation. Optimum cell viability and spheroid formation of 3D ReNcell VM culture were observed on a micropillar chip over a period of 9 days in a mixture of 0.75% (w/v) alginate and 1 mg/mL growth factor reduced (GFR) Matrigel with 25 mM CaCl2 as a crosslinker for alginate. In addition, 3D ReNcell VM culture exhibited self-renewal and differentiation on the microarray chip platform, which was efficiently monitored by enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) expression of four NSC-specific biomarkers including sex determining region Y-box 2 (SOX2), glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), synapsin1, and myelin basic protein (MBP) with the promoter-reporter assay system