E-democracy: exploring the current stage of e-government

Governments around the world have been pressured to implement e-Government programs in order to improve the government-citizen dialogue. The authors of this article review prior literature on such efforts to find if they lead to increased democratic participation ("e-Democracy") for the affected citizens, with a focus on the key concepts of transparency, openness, and engagement. The authors find that such efforts are a starting point toward e-Democracy, but the journey is far from complete

The AppNL-G-F mouse retina is a site for preclinical Alzheimer's disease diagnosis and research

In this study, we report the results of a comprehensive phenotyping of the retina of the AppNL-G-F mouse. We demonstrate that soluble Aβ accumulation is present in the retina of these mice early in life and progresses to Aβ plaque formation by midlife. This rising Aβ burden coincides with local microglia reactivity, astrogliosis, and abnormalities in retinal vein morphology. Electrophysiological recordings revealed signs of neuronal dysfunction yet no overt neurodegeneration was observed and visual performance outcomes were unafected in the AppNL-G-F mouse. Furthermore, we show that hyperspectral imaging can be used to quantify retinal Aβ, underscoring its potential as a biomarker for AD diagnosis and monitoring. These fndings suggest that the AppNL-G-F retina mimics the early, preclinical stages of AD, and, together with retinal imaging techniques, ofers unique opportunities for drug discovery and fundamental research into preclinical AD

A STEPPING STONE TOWARDS KNOWLEDGE BASED MAINTENANCE

Maintenance decision making becomes more and more a management concern. Some decades ago, maintenance was still often considered as an unavoidable side effect of production. The perception of maintenance has evolved considerably. One of the current issues is the maintenance concept, being the mix of maintenance interventions and the general framework for determining this mix. In this paper we describe a modular framework, called Knowledge Based Maintenance, for developing a customised maintenance concept. After describing the general framework and its decision support use, some case experiences are given. This experience covers some elements of the proposed framework