Improving Software Citation and Credit

The past year has seen movement on several fronts for improving software citation, including the Center for Open Science's Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines, the Software Publishing Special Interest Group that was started at January's AAS meeting in Seattle at the request of that organization's Working Group on Astronomical Software, a Sloan-sponsored meeting at GitHub in San Francisco to begin work on a cohesive research software citation-enabling platform, the work of Force11 to "transform and improve" research communication, and WSSSPE's ongoing efforts that include software publication, citation, credit, and sustainability. Brief reports on these efforts were shared at the BoF, after which participants discussed ideas for improving software citation, generating a list of recommendations to the community of software authors, journal publishers, ADS, and research authors. The discussion, recommendations, and feedback will help form recommendations for software citation to those publishers represented in the Software Publishing Special Interest Group and the broader community.Comment: Birds of a Feather session organized by the Astrophysics Source Code Library (ASCL, http://ascl.net/ ); to be published in Proceedings of ADASS XXV (Sydney, Australia; October, 2015). 4 page

Crystal structure of aqua-(2-{[2-({2-[bis-(carboxyl-ato-κ O -meth-yl)amino-κ N ]eth-yl}(carboxyl-ato-κ O -meth-yl)amino-κ N)eth-yl](carb-oxy-meth-yl)aza-niumyl}acetato)-gallium(III) trihydrate

In the title GaIII complex compound with pentetic acid, [Ga(C14H20N3O10)(H2O)]·3H2O, the GaIII centre is bound in a slightly distorted octa­hedral coordination sphere by two amine N atoms, three carboxyl­ate O atoms and one water O atom. The complex mol­ecule exists as a zwitterion. In the crystal, the complexes are linked to each other via O—H⋯O and C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, forming layers parallel to (001). Three uncoordinating water mol­ecules link the complex layers via O—H⋯O, N—H⋯O and C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, forming a three-dimensional network

Multiple sclerosis in Kenya: Demographic and clinical characteristics of a registry cohort

Background: Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is the leading cause of non-traumatic neurological disability in young adults. There is limited literature regarding the burden of MS in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Objective: To describe the demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with MS (PwMS) presenting to a tertiary referral hospital in Nairobi. Methods: We conducted a retrospective descriptive study for PwMS presenting to Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi from 2008–2018. Results: 99 cases met the diagnostic criteria for MS with a male to female ratio of 1:4. Majority (68.7%) of PwMS were indigenous Africans with a mean age of onset of 30.7 years. Mean duration from symptom onset to first neuro-imaging was 5.04 years. Only 33% of patients had sensory symptoms at onset whereas 54.5% had vitamin D deficiency/insufficiency. Majority (79.5%) had relapsing remitting MS (RRMS) and 56.6% were initiated on disease modifying therapy (DMT). Only 21.2% of patients on DMT were non-compliant. Patients with RRMS were more likely to be initiated on DMT at our hospital (p \u3c 0.001). Conclusion: Clinical characteristics of these patients largely resemble those of other SSA cohorts and African American patients. There was a delay between symptom onset and neuroimaging. There were also issues with DMT compliance

What is Performance in Complex Product Development?

The process of developing new products is one of the key business processes in a company, especially technology intensive ones. In order to continuously improve the capability of developing new products it is important to be able to measure the performance in the product development process. The dilemma though is that there are no good performance measurements available within complex product development. One reason, as argued in this research, is the lack of a holistic perception of performance within the development process. Data from an explorative five case study including 49 semi-structured open interviews regarding performance indicate that performance is perceived in terms of time, cost, and quality i.e., what is measured. Thus, in order to develop better measurements of performance, the perception of performance needs to be changed first. To meet this need, a Product Development Organizational Performance Model (PDOPM) is proposed, consisting of three generic levels of activities: product strategy, project management, and product activities. These generic activities are modelled in accordance with the IDEF0 framework making it possible to conceptually reason about uncertainty, effectiveness, and efficiency at each activity level. Product development effectiveness and efficiency are also defined for the complete process. Further, product development efficacy is introduced to describe the capability of identifying or creating a market opportunity and being able to develop and deliver a product fulfilling exactly what was identified as the market opportunity

Kupffer cells are central in the removal of nanoparticles from the organism

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The study aims at revealing the fate of nanoparticles administered intravenously and intraperitoneally to adult female mice, some of which were pregnant. Gold nanoparticles were chosen as a model because these particles have been found to be chemically inert and at the same time are easily traced by autometallography (AMG) at both ultrastructural and light microscopic levels.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Gold nanoparticles were injected intravenously (IV) or intraperitoneally (IP) and traced after 1, 4 or 24 hours. For IV injections 2 and 40 nm particles were used; for IP injections 40 nm particles only. The injected nanoparticles were found in macrophages only, and at moderate exposure primarily in the Kupffer cells in the liver. IV injections resulted in a rapid accumulation/clustering of nanoparticles in these liver macrophages, while the uptake in spleen macrophages was moderate. IP injections were followed by a delayed uptake in the liver and included a moderate uptake in macrophages located in mesenteric lymph nodes, spleen and small intestine. Ultrastructurally, the AMG silver enhanced nanocrystals were found in lysosome-like organelles of the Kupffer cells and other macrophages wherever located.</p> <p>Accumulations of gold nanoparticles were not found in any other organs analysed, i.e. kidneys, brain, lungs, adrenals, ovaries, placenta, and fetal liver, and the control animals were all void of AMG staining.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results suggest that: (1) inert gold nanoparticles do not penetrate cell membranes by non-endocytotic mechanisms, but are rather taken up by endocytosis; (2) gold nanoparticles, independent of size, are taken up primarily by Kupffer cells in the liver and secondarily by macrophages in other places; (3) gold nanoparticles do not seem to penetrate the placenta barrier; (4) the blood-brain barrier seems to protect the central nervous system from gold nanoparticles; (5) 2 nanometer gold particles seem to be removed not only by endocytosis by macrophages, and we hypothesize that part of these tiny nanoparticles are released into the urine as a result of simple filtration in the renal glomeruli.</p