Establishment of a Serum-Free Hepatocyte Cryopreservation Process for the Development of an “Off-the-Shelf” Bioartificial Liver System

To use hepatocytes immediately when necessary for hepatocyte transplantation and bioartificial liver (BAL) systems, a serum-free cryopreservation protocol ensuring the high survival of hepatocytes and maintenance of their functions should be developed. We established a serum-free protocol for the cryopreservation of primary hepatocytes, hepatocyte spheroids, and hepatocyte spheroid beads in liquid nitrogen. The serum-free cryopreservation solutions showed a significantly higher performance in maintaining enhanced viability and ammonia removal, urea secretion, and the albumin synthesis of hepatocyte spheroids and spheroid beads. The serum-free thawing medium, containing human serum albumin (HSA) and N-acetylcysteine (NAC), was compared with a fetal bovine serum-containing thawing medium for the development of a serum-free thawing medium. Our results show that hepatocyte spheroids and spheroid beads thawed using a serum-free thawing medium containing HSA and NAC exhibited increased hepatocyte viability, ammonia removal, urea secretion, and albumin synthesis compared to those thawed using the serum-containing medium. Finally, we evaluated the liver functions of the cryopreserved BAL system-applied serum-free cryopreservation process compared to the fresh BAL system. The ammonia removal efficiency of the cryopreserved hepatocyte spheroids BAL was lower than or similar to that of the fresh BAL system. Additionally, the urea concentrations in the media of all three BAL systems were not significantly different during BAL system operation. This cryopreserved spheroid-based BAL system using a serum-free process will be a good candidate for the treatment of patients

Comparison of facet joint degeneration in firefighters and hospital office workers

Abstract Background There are few published studies on the relationship between occupational lumbar load and facet joint degeneration (FJD). This cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate the effect of physical lumbar load on FJD by comparing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of firefighters (FFs) and hospital office workers (HOWs). Methods We randomly sampled 341 male FFs and 80 male HOWs by age stratification. A questionnaire and clinical examination, including MRI of the lumbar spine (T12-S1), were conducted. FJD was diagnosed and graded by using the classification of Pathria et al., and reclassified into two groups as follows: no FJD (grade 0) and FJD (grades 1, 2, and 3). The prevalence of FJD was analyzed according to occupational group. Results The prevalence of FJD ranged from 31% (L1–L2) to 75% (L4–L5) in the FFs, and from 18% (L1–L2) to 69% (L4–L5) in the HOWs. After adjustment for age, body mass index, and frequency of physical exercise, the adjusted odds ratios (OR) for FJD in the FFs were significantly higher than those in the HOWs at all lumbar spinal levels, except for L3–L4 (L1–L2: OR, 2.644; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.317–5.310; L2–L3: OR, 2.285; 95% CI, 1.304–4.006; L4–L5: OR, 1.918; 95% CI, 1.037–3.544; L5–S1: OR, 1.811; 95% CI, 1.031–3.181). Conclusion This study shows that FFs exhibit a greater likelihood of having FJD than HOWs after controlling for other risk factors of FJD. This suggests that the physical occupational demands of FFs affect their risk of developing FJD

Associated results of Phase 1 of the Urban-PLUMBER model evaluation project

Archive of: https://urban-plumber.github.io/AU-Preston/plots/ Files in this folder are associated with the manuscript: “Evaluation of 30 urban land surface models in the Urban-PLUMBER project: Phase 1 results” Files are an archive of the website https://urban-plumber.github.io/AU-Preston/plots/ as of 2nd December 2022. Use of any data must give credit through citation of the above manuscript, the data repository, and other site references as appropriate. Corresponding author: Mathew Lipson ([email protected]) Usage Load the "index.html" to navigate through plots and results subpages Description These files include results from Phase 1 of the Urban-PLUMBER model evaluation project for urban areas. Data includes: - individual model results (error metrics) and submission metadata - individual model plots (timeseries, subsets, energy closure, distributions) - collective timeseries for every submitted output in the baseline experiment - collective timeseries for every submitted output in the detailed experiment - supplementary material for the manuscript - variable definitions Authors Mathew Lipson, Sue Grimmond, Martin Best, Gab Abramowitz, Andrew Coutts, Nigel Tapper, Jong-Jin Baik, Meiring Beyers, Lewis Blunn, Souhail Boussetta, Elie Bou-Zeid, Martin G. De Kauwe, Cécile de Munck, Matthias Demuzere, Simone Fatichi, Krzysztof Fortuniak, Beom-Soon Han, Maggie Hendry, Yukihiro Kikegawa, Hiroaki Kondo, Doo-Il Lee, Sang-Hyun Lee, Aude Lemonsu, Tiago Machado, Gabriele Manoli, Alberto Martilli, Valéry Masson, Joe McNorton, Naika Meili, David Meyer, Kerry A. Nice, Keith W. Oleson, Seung-Bu Park32, Michael Roth33, Robert Schoetter34, Andres Simon35, Gert-Jan Steeneveld, Ting Sun, Yuya Takane, Marcus Thatcher, Aristofanis Tsiringakis, Mikhail Varentsov, Chenghao Wang, Zhi-Hua Wan

Evaluation of 30 urban land surface models in the Urban-PLUMBER project:Phase 1 results

Abstract Accurately predicting weather and climate in cities is critical for safeguarding human health and strengthening urban resilience. Multimodel evaluations can lead to model improvements; however, there have been no major intercomparisons of urban‐focussed land surface models in over a decade. Here, in Phase 1 of the Urban‐PLUMBER project, we evaluate the ability of 30 land surface models to simulate surface energy fluxes critical to atmospheric meteorological and air quality simulations. We establish minimum and upper performance expectations for participating models using simple information‐limited models as benchmarks. Compared with the last major model intercomparison at the same site, we find broad improvement in the current cohort's predictions of short‐wave radiation, sensible and latent heat fluxes, but little or no improvement in long‐wave radiation and momentum fluxes. Models with a simple urban representation (e.g., ‘slab’ schemes) generally perform well, particularly when combined with sophisticated hydrological/vegetation models. Some mid‐complexity models (e.g., ‘canyon’ schemes) also perform well, indicating efforts to integrate vegetation and hydrology processes have paid dividends. The most complex models that resolve three‐dimensional interactions between buildings in general did not perform as well as other categories. However, these models also tended to have the simplest representations of hydrology and vegetation. Models without any urban representation (i.e., vegetation‐only land surface models) performed poorly for latent heat fluxes, and reasonably for other energy fluxes at this suburban site. Our analysis identified widespread human errors in initial submissions that substantially affected model performances. Although significant efforts are applied to correct these errors, we conclude that human factors are likely to influence results in this (or any) model intercomparison, particularly where participating scientists have varying experience and first languages. These initial results are for one suburban site, and future phases of Urban‐PLUMBER will evaluate models across 20 sites in different urban and regional climate zones

Evaluation of 30 urban land surface models in the Urban‐PLUMBER project: phase 1 results

Accurately predicting weather and climate in cities is critical for safeguarding human health and strengthening urban resilience. Multi‐model evaluations can lead to model improvements, however there have been no major intercomparisons of urban‐focused land surface models in over a decade. Here, in Phase 1 of the Urban‐PLUMBER project, we evaluate 30 land surface models' ability to simulate surface energy fluxes critical to atmospheric meteorological and air quality simulations. We establish minimum and upper performance expectations for participating models using simple information‐limited models as benchmarks. Compared with the last major model intercomparison at the same site, we find broad improvement in the current cohort's predictions of shortwave radiation, sensible and latent heat fluxes, but little or no improvement in longwave radiation and momentum fluxes. Models with a simple urban representation (e.g. “slab” schemes) generally perform well, particularly when combined with sophisticated hydrological/vegetation models. Some mid‐complexity models (e.g. “canyon” schemes) also perform well, indicating efforts to integrate vegetation and hydrology processes have paid dividends. The most complex models that resolve three‐dimensional interactions between buildings in general did not perform as well as other categories. However, these models also tended to have the simplest representations of hydrology and vegetation. Models without any urban representation (i.e. vegetation‐only land surface models) performed poorly for latent heat fluxes, and reasonably for other energy fluxes at this suburban site. Our analysis identified widespread human errors in initial submissions that substantially affected model performances. Although significant efforts are applied to correct these errors, we conclude that human factors are likely to influence results in this (or any) model intercomparison, particularly where participating scientists have varying experience and first languages. These initial results are for one suburban site, and future phases of Urban‐PLUMBER will evaluate models across twenty sites in different urban and regional climate zones