Integrated semi-continuous manufacturing of lentiviral vectors

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Stakeholder involvement in primary health care research: report and recommendations

Australia has not progressed in engaging consumers in research to the same level as other countries such as the UK. The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and Consumers’ Health Forum (CHF) introduced a Statement on Consumer and Community Participation in Health and Medical Research in 2002 (2), but little in terms of follow up and implementation has occurred. Some universities (e.g., University of Western Australia (UWA)) and peak bodies (e.g., Cancer Council) have established processes for involving consumers in research but these efforts have not spread far beyond their own organisations.The research reported in this paper is a project of the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute, which is supported by a grant from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing under the Primary Health Care Research, Evaluation and Development Strategy

Improving coordination through information continuity: a framework for translational research

BACKGROUND There is good evidence that coordination can have beneficial impacts on patient care and outcomes but the mechanisms by which coordination is to be achieved are poorly understood and rarely identified in relevant policies. One approach suggests that continuity of information is a key element but research is yet to provide guidance on how to optimise coordination through improving continuity in healthcare settings. DISCUSSION In this paper we report on the development of a conceptual framework of information continuity in care coordination. We drew on evidence from systematic reviews of coordination and empirical studies on information use in integrated care models to develop the framework. It identifies the architecture, processes and scope of practices that evidence suggests is required to support information continuity in a population based approach to care coordination. The framework offers value to policy makers and practitioners as a map that identifies the multi-level elements of an integrated system capable of driving better coordination. Testing of the framework in different settings could aid our understanding of information continuity as a mechanism for linking coordination strategies that operate at different levels of the health system and enable synthesis of findings for informing policy and practice.This study was supported by a grant from the Ian Potter Foundation to the Menzies Centre for Health Policy. The Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute is supported by a grant from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing

Time's up. Descriptive epidemiology of multi-morbidity and time spent on health related activity by older Australians: a time use survey

Most Western health systems remain single illness orientated despite the growing prevalence of multi-morbidity. Identifying how much time people with multiple chronic conditions spend managing their health will help policy makers and health service providers make decisions about areas of patient need for support. This article presents findings from an Australian study concerning the time spent on health related activity by older adults (aged 50 years and over), most of whom had multiple chronic conditions. A recall questionnaire was developed, piloted, and adjusted. Sampling was undertaken through three bodies; the Lung Foundation Australia (COPD sub-sample), National Diabetes Services Scheme (Diabetes sub-sample) and National Seniors Australia (Seniors sub-sample). Questionnaires were mailed out during 2011 to 10,600 older adults living in Australia. 2540 survey responses were received and analysed. Descriptive analyses were completed to obtain median values for the hours spent on each activity per month. The mean number of chronic conditions was 3.7 in the COPD sub-sample, 3.4 in the Diabetes sub-sample and 2.0 in the NSA sub-sample. The study identified a clear trend of increased time use associated with increased number of chronic conditions. Median monthly time use was 5-16 hours per month overall for our three sub-samples. For respondents in the top decile with five or more chronic conditions the median time use was equivalent to two to three hours per day, and if exercise is included in the calculations, respondents spent from between five and eight hours per day: an amount similar to full-time work. Multi-morbidity imposes considerable time burdens on patients. Ageing is associated with increasing rates of multi-morbidity. Many older adults are facing high demands on their time to manage their health in the face of decreasing energy and mobility. Their time use must be considered in health service delivery and health system reform.This work was funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council ID (402793, 2006)

Unlocking information for coordination of care in Australia: a qualitative study of information continuity in four primary health care models

BACKGROUND Coordination of care is considered a key component of patient-centered health care systems, but is rarely defined or operationalised in health care policy. Continuity, an aspect of coordination, is the patient's experience of care over time, and is often described in terms of three dimensions: information, relational and management continuity. With the current health policy focus on both the use of information technology and care coordination, this study aimed to 1) explore how information continuity supports coordination and 2) investigate conditions required to support information continuity. METHODS Four diverse Australian primary health care initiatives were purposively selected for inclusion in the study. Each has improved coordination as an aim or fundamental principle. Each organization was asked to identify practitioners, managers and decision makers who could provide insight into the use of information for care coordination to participate in the study. Using in-depth semi-structured interviews, we explored four questions covering the scope and use of information, the influence of governance, data ownership and confidentiality and the influence of financial incentives and quality improvement on information continuity and coordination. Data were thematically analyzed using NVivo 8. RESULTS The overall picture that emerged across all four cases was that whilst accessibility and continuity of information underpin effective care, they are not sufficient for coordination of care for complex conditions. Shared information reduced unnecessary repetition and provided health professionals with the opportunity to access records of care from other providers, but participants described their role in coordination in terms of the active involvement of a person in care rather than the passive availability of information. Complex issues regarding data ownership and confidentiality often hampered information sharing. Successful coordination in each case was associated with responsiveness to local rather than system level factors. CONCLUSIONS The availability of information is not sufficient to ensure continuity for the patient or coordination from the systems perspective. Policy directed at information continuity must give consideration to the broader 'fit' with management and relational continuity and provide a broad base that allows for local responsiveness in order for coordination of care to be achieved.This study was supported by a grant from the Ian Potter Foundation to the Menzies Centre for Health Policy. The Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute is supported by a grant from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. The Menzies Centre for Health Policy is supported by a grant from the Sir Robert Menzies Memorial Foundation

Vibrational Mode Multiplexing of Ultracold Atoms

Sending multiple messages on qubits encoded in different vibrational modes of cold atoms or ions along a transmission waveguide requires us to merge first and then separate the modes at input and output ends. Similarly, different qubits can be stored in the modes of a trap and be separated later. We design the fast splitting of a harmonic trap into an asymmetric double well so that the initial ground vibrational state becomes the ground state of one of two final wells, and the initial first excited state becomes the ground state of the other well. This might be done adiabatically by slowly deforming the trap. We speed up the process by inverse engineering a double-function trap using dynamical invariants. The separation (demultiplexing) followed by an inversion of the asymmetric bias and then by the reverse process (multiplexing) provides a population inversion protocol based solely on trap reshaping.This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61176118), Grants No. 12QH1400800 IT472-10, No. BFI-2010-255, No. 13PJ1403000, No. FIS2012-36673-C03-01, and the program UFI 11/55. S. M.-G. acknowledges support from a fellowship from UPV/EHU

Learning Object-Centric Neural Scattering Functions for Free-viewpoint Relighting and Scene Composition

Photorealistic object appearance modeling from 2D images is a constant topic in vision and graphics. While neural implicit methods (such as Neural Radiance Fields) have shown high-fidelity view synthesis results, they cannot relight the captured objects. More recent neural inverse rendering approaches have enabled object relighting, but they represent surface properties as simple BRDFs, and therefore cannot handle translucent objects. We propose Object-Centric Neural Scattering Functions (OSFs) for learning to reconstruct object appearance from only images. OSFs not only support free-viewpoint object relighting, but also can model both opaque and translucent objects. While accurately modeling subsurface light transport for translucent objects can be highly complex and even intractable for neural methods, OSFs learn to approximate the radiance transfer from a distant light to an outgoing direction at any spatial location. This approximation avoids explicitly modeling complex subsurface scattering, making learning a neural implicit model tractable. Experiments on real and synthetic data show that OSFs accurately reconstruct appearances for both opaque and translucent objects, allowing faithful free-viewpoint relighting as well as scene composition. Project website: https://kovenyu.com/osf/Comment: Project website: https://kovenyu.com/osf/ Journal extension of arXiv:2012.08503. The first two authors contributed equally to this wor

Perceived Nonwork Constraints and Withdrawal Intention among Expatriates during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Moderating Role of Resilience and Marital Status

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a considerable threat to the well-being of expatriates, which can be seriously exacerbated by both work- and nonwork-related factors. Since restrictions were introduced worldwide, expatriates find it more challenging to integrate into their organizations and local societies. This study mainly aimed to examine if resilience and marital status could affect the perceptions of nonwork constraints and withdrawal intentions among expatriates during the pandemic. Data collected from a sample of 205 expatriates living and working in Malaysia was analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modeling. The results showed the positive and direct effect of perceived nonwork constraints on withdrawal intention (β = .29, p = .30). Using the two-stage moderation analysis, the results indicated the significant moderating effect of marital status on the relationship between perceived nonwork constraints and withdrawal intention (β = -.14, p = .04). However, the results did not substantiate the moderating effect of resilience on the relationship between perceived nonwork constraints and withdrawal intention (β = .16, p = .07). This research contributes to behavioral science knowledge about global mobility by applying spillover theory and the conservation of resources theory in the context of a medical emergency like the COVID-19 crisis. Notwithstanding ongoing obstacles caused by the global pandemic, the research findings could provide implications for human resource practitioners to improve work behavior among expatriates by considering their nonwork aspects and marital status

Transposable elements are associated with the variable response to influenza infection

インフルエンザ重症度に関連する転移因子を特定: マルチオミクス解析で見えた「動く遺伝子」の新たな役割. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2023-05-11.A multiomics approach provides insights into flu severity. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2023-05-11.Influenza A virus (IAV) infections are frequent every year and result in a range of disease severity. Here, we wanted to explore the potential contribution of transposable elements (TEs) to the variable human immune response. Transcriptome profiling in monocyte-derived macrophages from 39 individuals following IAV infection revealed significant inter-individual variation in viral load post-infection. Using transposase-accessible chromatin using sequencing (ATAC-seq), we identified a set of TE families with either enhanced or reduced accessibility upon infection. Of the enhanced families, 15 showed high variability between individuals and had distinct epigenetic profiles. Motif analysis showed an association with known immune regulators (e.g., BATFs, FOSs/JUNs, IRFs, STATs, NFkBs, NFYs, and RELs) in stably enriched families and with other factors in variable families, including KRAB-ZNFs. We showed that TEs and host factors regulating TEs were predictive of viral load post-infection. Our findings shed light on the role TEs and KRAB-ZNFs may play in inter-individual variation in immunity