A survey of 3D audio through the browser: practitioner perspectives

This paper examines the current eco-system of tools for implementing dynamic 3D audio through the browser, from the perspective of spatial sound practitioners. It presents a survey of some existing tools to assess usefulness, and ease of use. This takes the forms of case studies, interviews with other practitioners, and initial testing comparisons between the authors. The survey classifies and summarizes their relative advantages, disadvantages and potential use cases. It charts the specialist knowledge needed to employ them or enable others to. The recent and necessary move to online exhibition of works, has seen many creative practitioners grapple with a disparate eco-system of software. Such technologies are diverse in their both their motivations and applications. From formats which overcome the limits of WebGL’s lack of support for Ambisonics, to the creative deployment of Web Audio API (WAA), to third- party tools based on WAA, the field can seem prohibitively daunting for practitioners. The current range of possible acoustic results may be too unclear to justify the learning curve. Through this evaluation of the current available tools, we hope to demystify and make accessible these novel technologies to composers, musicians, artists and other learners, who might otherwise be dissuaded from engaging with this rich territory. This paper is based on a special session at Soundstack 2021

Genomic analysis of circulating tumor DNA using a melanoma-specific UltraSEEK Oncogene Panel

The analysis of circulating tumor DNA provides a minimally invasive molecular interrogation that has the potential to guide treatment selection and disease monitoring. Here, the authors evaluated a custom UltraSEEK melanoma panel for the MassARRAY system, probing for 61 mutations over 13 genes. The analytical sensitivity and clinical accuracy of the UltraSEEK melanoma panel was compared with droplet digital PCR. The blinded analysis of 68 mutations detected in 48 plasma samples from stage IV melanoma patients revealed a concordance of 88% between the two platforms. Further comparison of both methods for the detection of BRAF V600E mutations in 77 plasma samples demonstrated a Cohen\u27s κ of 0.826 (bias-corrected and accelerated 95% CI, 0.669-0.946). These results indicate that the UltraSEEK melanoma panel is as sensitive as droplet digital PCR for the detection of circulating tumor DNA in this cohort of patients but highlight the need for detected variants to be confirmed orthogonally to mitigate any false-positive results. The MassARRAY system enables rapid and sensitive genotyping for the detection of multiple melanoma-associated mutations in plasma

Molecular Pathology of Neuro-AIDS (CNS-HIV)

The cognitive deficits in patients with HIV profoundly affect the quality of life of people living with this disease and have often been linked to the neuro-inflammatory condition known as HIV encephalitis (HIVE). With the advent of more effective anti-retroviral therapies, HIVE has shifted from a sub-acute to a chronic condition. The neurodegenerative process in patients with HIVE is characterized by synaptic and dendritic damage to pyramidal neurons, loss of calbindin-immunoreactive interneurons and myelin loss. The mechanisms leading to neurodegeneration in HIVE might involve a variety of pathways, and several lines of investigation have found that interference with signaling factors mediating neuroprotection might play an important role. These signaling pathways include, among others, the GSK3β, CDK5, ERK, Pyk2, p38 and JNK cascades. Of these, GSK3β has been a primary focus of many previous studies showing that in infected patients, HIV proteins and neurotoxins secreted by immune-activated cells in the brain abnormally activate this pathway, which is otherwise regulated by growth factors such as FGF. Interestingly, modulation of the GSK3β signaling pathway by FGF1 or GSK3β inhibitors (lithium, valproic acid) is protective against HIV neurotoxicity, and several pilot clinical trials have demonstrated cognitive improvements in HIV patients treated with GSK3β inhibitors. In addition to the GSK3β pathway, the CDK5 pathway has recently been implicated as a mediator of neurotoxicity in HIV, and HIV proteins might activate this pathway and subsequently disrupt the diverse processes that CDK5 regulates, including synapse formation and plasticity and neurogenesis. Taken together, the GSK3β and CDK5 signaling pathways are important regulators of neurotoxicity in HIV, and modulation of these factors might have therapeutic potential in the treatment of patients suffering from HIVE. In this context, the subsequent sections will focus on reviewing the involvement of the GSK3β and CDK5 pathways in neurodegeneration in HIV

What can inactivity (in its various forms) reveal about affective states in non-human animals? A review

Captive/domestic animals are often described as inactive, with the implicit or explicit implication that this high level of inactivity is a welfare problem. Conversely, not being inactive enough may also indicate or cause poor welfare. In humans, too much inactivity can certainly be associated with either negative or positive affective states. In non-human animals, however, the affective states associated with elevated or suppressed levels of inactivity are still not well understood. Part of the complexity is due to the fact that there are many different forms of inactivity, each likely associated with very different affective states. This paper has two aims. One is to identify specific forms of inactivity that can be used as indicators of specific affective states in animals. The other is to identify issues that need to be resolved before we could validly use the remaining, not yet validated forms of inactivity as indicators of affective state. We briefly discuss how inactivity is defined and assessed in the literature, and then how inactivity in its various forms relates to affective (either negative or positive) states in animals, basing our reasoning on linguistic reports of affective states collected from humans displaying inactivity phenotypically similar to that displayed by animals in similar situations, and, when possible, on pharmacological validation. Specific forms of inactivity expressed in response to perceived threats (freezing, tonic immobility, and hiding) appear to be, to date, the best-validated indicators of specific affective states in animals. We also identify a number of specific forms of inactivity likely to reflect either negative (associated with ill-heath, boredom-like, and depression-like conditions), or positive states (e.g. ‘sun-basking’, post-consummatory inactivity), although further research is warranted before we could use those forms as indicators of the affective states. We further discuss the relationship between increased inactivity and affective states by presenting misleading situations likely to yield wrong conclusions. We conclude that more attention should be paid to inactivity in animal welfare studies: specific forms of inactivity identified in this paper are, or have the potential to be, useful indicators of affective (welfare) states in animals

Global patient outcomes after elective surgery: prospective cohort study in 27 low-, middle- and high-income countries.

BACKGROUND: As global initiatives increase patient access to surgical treatments, there remains a need to understand the adverse effects of surgery and define appropriate levels of perioperative care. METHODS: We designed a prospective international 7-day cohort study of outcomes following elective adult inpatient surgery in 27 countries. The primary outcome was in-hospital complications. Secondary outcomes were death following a complication (failure to rescue) and death in hospital. Process measures were admission to critical care immediately after surgery or to treat a complication and duration of hospital stay. A single definition of critical care was used for all countries. RESULTS: A total of 474 hospitals in 19 high-, 7 middle- and 1 low-income country were included in the primary analysis. Data included 44 814 patients with a median hospital stay of 4 (range 2-7) days. A total of 7508 patients (16.8%) developed one or more postoperative complication and 207 died (0.5%). The overall mortality among patients who developed complications was 2.8%. Mortality following complications ranged from 2.4% for pulmonary embolism to 43.9% for cardiac arrest. A total of 4360 (9.7%) patients were admitted to a critical care unit as routine immediately after surgery, of whom 2198 (50.4%) developed a complication, with 105 (2.4%) deaths. A total of 1233 patients (16.4%) were admitted to a critical care unit to treat complications, with 119 (9.7%) deaths. Despite lower baseline risk, outcomes were similar in low- and middle-income compared with high-income countries. CONCLUSIONS: Poor patient outcomes are common after inpatient surgery. Global initiatives to increase access to surgical treatments should also address the need for safe perioperative care. STUDY REGISTRATION: ISRCTN5181700

The complexity of interacting nutritional drivers behind food selection, a review of northern cervids

The research literature on food selection by large herbivores is extensive. Still, we are generally lacking in our knowledge of the influence of potentially interacting chemical contents of the food. We made a qualitative review of a systematic literature search of studies that empirically link chemical contents of food to the food selection by northern cervids (genera Alces, Capreolus, Cervus, Dama, Odocoileus, Rangifer). We found that although the majority of the 98 relevant studies measuring any given food constituent (energy, protein, fiber, minerals, plant secondary metabolites) provided support for it acting as a driver of food selection (in either a negative or positive way), there was little support for the traditional hypotheses of maximization or limitation of any single constituent. Rather, because of the animals’ need to acquire an appropriate intake of several constituents at the same time, our review highlights how new empirical stud- ies need to focus on several food constituents in synchrony: (1) Study designs should capture sufficient variation in the content of food constituents in order to tease apart their many co-variations; and (2) insights about nutritional drivers may be lost if one uses only composite currencies such as crude energy, crude fiber, ash, or tannins, which may mask contrasting selection patterns of the lumped constituents. Season had an apparent influence on the selection of some food constituents, particularly various fiber frac- tions. In contrast, our review revealed a lack of evidence that cervids more strongly select for protein in summer than they do in winter. Our overall conclusion of the review is that interacting chemical contents of food make the nutritional value of a given food type into a varying entity. To better elucidate this varia- tion, we need new technologies that non-invasively capture nutrient intake of free-ranging animals, across seasons.The complexity of interacting nutritional drivers behind food selection, a review of northern cervidspublishedVersio