Data-centric public services as potential source of policy knowledge. Can “design for policy” help?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is three-fold. Firstly, through selected case studies, to provide an overview of how non-traditional data from digital public services were used as a source of knowledge for policymaking. Secondly, to argue for a design for policy approach to support the successful integration of nontraditional data into policymaking practice, thus supporting data-driven innovation for policymaking. Thirdly, to encourage a vision of the relation between data-driven innovation and public policy that considers policymaking outside the authoritative instrumental logic perspective. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative small-N case study analysis based on desk research data was developed to provide an overview of how data-centric public services could become a source of knowledge for policymaking. The analysis was based on an original theoretical-conceptual framework that merges the policy cycle model and the policy capacity framework. Findings – This paper identifies three potential areas of contribution of a design for policy approach in a scenario of data-driven innovation for policymaking practice: the development of sensemaking and prefiguring activities to shape a shared rationale behind intra-/inter-organisational data sharing and data collaboratives; the realisation of collaborative experimentations for enhancing the systemic policy analytical capacity of a governing body, e.g. by integrating non-traditional data into new and trusted indicators for policy evaluation; and service design as approach for data-centric public services that connects policy decisions to the socio-technical context in which data are collected. Research limitations/implications – The small-N sample (four cases) selected is not representative of a broader population but isolates exemplary initiatives. Moreover, the analysis was based on secondary sources, limiting the assessment quality of the real use of non-traditional data for policymaking. This level of empirical understanding is considered sufficient for an explorative analysis that supports the original perspective proposed here. Future research will need to collect primary data about the potential and dynamics of how data from data-centric public services can inform policymaking and substantiate the proposed areas of a design for policy contribution with practical experimentations and cases

Long-term metformin therapy and vitamin B12 deficiency: an association to bear in mind

To date, metformin remains the first-line oral glucose-lowering drug used for the treatment of type 2 diabetes thanks to its well-established long-term safety and efficacy profile. Indeed, metformin is the most widely used oral insulin-sensitizing agent, being prescribed to more than 100 million people worldwide, including patients with prediabetes, insulin resistance, and polycystic ovary syndrome. However, over the last decades several observational studies and meta-analyses have reported a significant association between long-term metformin therapy and an increased prevalence of vitamin B12 deficiency. Of note, evidence suggests that long-term and high-dose metformin therapy impairs vitamin B12 status. Vitamin B12 (also referred to as cobalamin) is a water-soluble vitamin that is mainly obtained from animal-sourced foods. At the cellular level, vitamin B12 acts as a cofactor for enzymes that play a critical role in DNA synthesis and neuroprotection. Thus, vitamin B12 deficiency can lead to a number of clinical consequences that include hematologic abnormalities (e.g., megaloblastic anemia and formation of hypersegmented neutrophils), progressive axonal demyelination and peripheral neuropathy. Nevertheless, no definite guidelines are currently available for vitamin B12 deficiency screening in patients on metformin therapy, and vitamin B12 deficiency remains frequently unrecognized in such individuals. Therefore, in this "field of vision" article we propose a list of criteria for a cost-effective vitamin B12 deficiency screening in metformin-treated patients, which could serve as a practical guide for identifying individuals at high risk for this condition. Moreover, we discuss additional relevant topics related to this field, including: (1) The lack of consensus about the exact definition of vitamin B12 deficiency; (2) The definition of reliable biomarkers of vitamin B12 status; (3) Causes of vitamin B12 deficiency other than metformin therapy that should be identified promptly in metformin-treated patients for a proper differential diagnosis; and (4) Potential pathophysiological mechanisms underlying metformin-induced vitamin B12 deficiency. Finally, we briefly review basic concepts related to vitamin B12 supplementation for the treatment of vitamin B12 deficiency, particularly when this condition is induced by metformin

A novel alveolar Krebs cycle-triggered CO2 sensing mechanism regulates regional pulmonary ventilation.

Pulmonary perfusion disorders provoke atelectasis in order to minimize ventilation/perfusion mismatch. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. Because intraalveolar CO2 concentration ([CO2]iA) declines as a consequence of poor pulmonary perfusion we postulated the existence a novel alveolar CO2-sensing mechanism which adapts the ventilation to perfusion. Real-time fluorescence imaging of rat lungs revealed that low [CO2]iA decreased cytosolic and increased mitochondrial Ca2+ in alveolar epithelial cells (AEC), leading to reduction of surfactant secretion and alveolar ventilation. Mitochondrial inhibition by ruthenium red or rotenone blocked the hypocapnia-induced responses. In cultured Type 2 AEC hypocapnia decreased cytosolic Ca2+ independently from pH and increased the NADH production, the mitochondrial transmembrane potential, and subsequently the mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake. All responses were completely blocked by the gene knockdown of the NADH producing Krebs cycle enzyme isocitrate dehydrogenase. Furthermore, ligature of the pulmonary artery of rabbits decreased alveolar ventilation, surfactant secretion, and lung compliance. Addition of 5% CO2 to the inspiratory gas inhibited all responses. Accordingly, we provide evidence for a novel CO2-sensing mechanism of AEC regulated by the Krebs cycle activity in terms of a negative feedback loop adapting surfactant secretion and thus regional ventilation to pulmonary perfusion

Unlocking the Power of Late-Evening Snacks: Practical Ready-to-Prescribe Chart Menu for Patients with Cirrhosis

: The efficacy of the late-evening snack (LES) has been extensively studied due to the impact of the longest intermeal duration occurring at night in patients with cirrhosis. While actual clinical guidelines on nutrition in chronic liver disease recommend an LES, no specific nutritional compositions have been reported by the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) and the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN). Late-evening snacks vary greatly among studies, including natural foods and/or nutritional supplements, yet oral supplements still need to fully meet the LES's nutritional composition. In addition, many hepatologists need to gain experience in nutritional approaches and have access to registered dieticians who can help them manage patients with liver disease. Therefore, this review study aims to summarise evidence regarding using LESs and the mechanisms behind long starvation in patients with cirrhosis. It also provides a practical nutritional guide with several LES options based on common natural foods tailored to special patients' nutritional requirements and geographical backgrounds. In preventing accelerated starvation and related protein malnutrition and sarcopenia in patients with cirrhosis, the nutritional composition of LESs is essential. The proper and straightforward application of the LES's rational nutrition is an advantage to cirrhotic patients and should be carried out by healthcare professionals to enhance the overall liver function and nutritional status of patients with cirrhosis

Propuesta de anteproyecto de parque urbano convenio pueblos Taiwán - Nicaragua, Residencial El Dorado, Managua, Nicaragua.

Presenta una propuesta de anteproyecto para la revitalización del parque residencial El Dorado, diagnóstico del parque urbano y estudio de los modelos análogos

Cultural Heritage Leading Urban Futures: Actions and Innovations from ROCK Project

The ROCK project sees historic city centres as laboratories to demonstrate how Cultural Heritage can be an engine of regeneration, sustainable development and economic growth. ROCK approach foresees the systemic and flexible application of a series of role-model practices in the testing sites of three Replicator cities, to turn historic city centres afflicted by physical decay, social conflicts and poor life quality into Creative and Sustainable Districts. This book provides an overview of the project, extracting themes, material and final remarks from the Open Knowledge Week “Cultural Heritage Leading Urban Futuresâ€, held on 27-30 October 2020. Over the past three years, ten ROCK cities – Athens, Bologna, Cluj-Napoca, Eindhoven, Lisbon, Liverpool, Lyon, Skopje, Turin, and Vilnius â€“ together with service providers and knowledge brokers have tested and advanced numerous soft and hard tools, collaborative approaches aimed at shaping sustainable, heritage-led urban futures. This book shows their shared results, best practices and lessons learnt from interdisciplinary research, innovative action, dissemination of knowledge and creation of new synergies at European level

Heritage-led ontologies: Digital platform for supporting the regeneration of cultural and historical sites

The increasing application of digital technologies to cultural heritage (CH) is wide and well documented, including a variety of tools such as digital archives, online guides and HBIM repositories. Several vocabularies and ontologies were designed to order heritage data and make CH more accessible and exploitable. However, these tools have often focused on a particular dimension of CH producing high value in separate sectors (e.g. access to conservation of historic buildings and data valorisation for restoration of heritage assets) but lacking ways for adapting or replicating the model to urban complex systems. Moreover, many studies and tools show large effort in cataloguing and archiving, but less in providing tools for designing and managing. The ROCK platform, developed within the Horizon 2020 (H2020) funded project ROCK (GA 730280), addresses the need for a management and interventionoriented interoperable tool, aimed at storing, visualizing, elaborating and linking data on cultural heritage. The use of already existing ontologies was not sufficient for developing a tool to deal with the complexity of urban systems and heterogeneous data sources. Instead, a participative methodology was set in place for the development of a context-based semantic framework to define the needs and requirements of heritage-led regeneration actions

Pocket-sized genomics and transcriptomics analyses: a look at the newborn BioVRPi project

BioVRPi is a newborn project, started in January 2021, that focuses on Raspberry Pi (RPi) employment in bioinformatics, with particular regards on genomics. In the previous years, some research groups have already reported several examples of applications for RPi, including bioinformatic basic training and proteomics. Our project aims to develop and offer a low-cost, stable, and tested bioinformatic environment for students and researchers involved in genomics and transcriptomics fields. Raspberry Pi is a small single-board low-cost computer that was developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation since 2012. Its original purpose aimed to facilitate computer science basic teaching in developing countries, but the growing worldwide interest has permitted its constant progress and development. Thanks to its features, RPi can suit several disciplines in need for computational supports and reach almost every, if not all, research group in the world. We tested RPi capabilities on real case studies, relatively to Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) for complex traits in Homo sapiens data and in transcriptomic analyses (RNA-seq) on the Strongyloides stercoralis human parasite samples, using two RPi-4 devices equipped with different amount of RAM (8GB for genomics and 2 GB for transcriptome analyses, respectively), and running a 64-bit Operating System. The analyses leveraged on state-of-art bioinformatic toolset, such as Plink and Plink1.9, SAMtools, Bowtie 2, R, and different R packages, all compiled from source code. Moreover, the GWAS was run according to the golden standard protocols and results from the different platforms were compared. The results showed that RPi are effective devices that can efficiently handle whole GWAS and RNA-seq analyses. Benchmarking showed that the computational time taken by RPi was of the same order of magnitude when compared to the ones from a commonly used bioinformatic computer. At last, BioVRPi project shows how to implement new strategies for bioinformatic analyses, in order to provide a having-fun environment to learn and explore new alternatives in bioinformatic data analysis

Accounting, management and accountability in times of crisis: lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the themes emerging from the first studies exploring accounting, accountability and management practices during the COVID-19 pandemic and coming from a diversity of experiences, across countries, organizations and individuals. In so doing, the paper gives an overview of the most recent findings about the role of accounting and accountability in times of crisis that are hosted in this special issue of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ). Design/methodology/approach The paper draws together and identifies emerging themes related to the current COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on accounting, accountability and management practices and considershowthestudiesinthisissueextendone’sknowledgeofaccountingandcontributetoaccounting research. Findings –Three emerging themes are drawn and their contribution to accounting scholarship is discussed. The first theme deals with the role of accounting and numbers in supporting governmental responses to COVID-19. The second theme considers accounting practices used to make exceptional decisions at the organizational level in times of crisis. The third theme addresses a relevant frontier of research into accounting and inequalities. Practical implications In considering the diverse contributions of this special issue, the paper points out how uncertainty and change can impact the design, use and understanding of accounting, management and accountability practices and can be accepted by scholars and practitioners as part of such practices. Originality/value This paper provides a timely and comprehensive picture of the first reflections and research findings on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on one’s interpretation of accounting, accountability and management practices

Glutamine Starvation Affects Cell Cycle, Oxidative Homeostasis and Metabolism in Colorectal Cancer Cells

Cancer cells adjust their metabolism to meet energy demands. In particular, glutamine addiction represents a distinctive feature of several types of tumors, including colorectal cancer. In this study, four colorectal cancer cell lines (Caco-2, HCT116, HT29 and SW480) were cultured with or without glutamine. The growth and proliferation rate, colony-forming capacity, apoptosis, cell cycle, redox homeostasis and metabolomic analysis were evaluated by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide test (MTT), flow cytometry, high-performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry techniques. The results show that glutamine represents an important metabolite for cell growth and that its deprivation reduces the proliferation of colorectal cancer cells. Glutamine depletion induces cell death and cell cycle arrest in the GO/G1 phase by modulating energy metabolism, the amino acid content and antioxidant defenses. Moreover, the combined glutamine starvation with the glycolysis inhibitor 2-deoxy-D-glucose exerted a stronger cytotoxic effect. This study offers a strong rationale for targeting glutamine metabolism alone or in combination with glucose metabolism to achieve a therapeutic benefit in the treatment of colon cancer