Characterization of the Compounds Released in the Gaseous Waste Stream during the Slow Pyrolysis of Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.)

This study aims to characterize and valorize hemp residual biomass by a slow pyrolysis process. The volatile by-products of hemp carbonization were characterized by several methods (TGA, UV-VIS, TLC, Flash Prep-LC, UHPLC, QTOF-MS) to understand the pyrolysis reaction mechanisms and to identify the chemical products produced during the process. The obtained carbon yield was 29%, generating a gaseous stream composed of phenols and furans which was collected in four temperature ranges (F1 at 20–150 °C, F2 at 150–250 °C, F3 at 250–400 °C and F4 at 400–1000 °C). The obtained liquid fractions were separated into subfractions by flash chromatography. The total phenolic content (TPC) varied depending on the fraction but did not correlate with an increase in temperature or with a decrease in pH value. Compounds present in fractions F1, F3 and F4, being mainly phenolic molecules such as guaiacyl or syringyl derivatives issued from the lignin degradation, exhibit antioxidant capacity. The temperature of the pyrolysis process was positively correlated with detectable phenolic content, which can be explained by the decomposition order of the hemp chemical constituents. A detailed understanding of the chemical composition of pyrolysis products of hemp residuals allows for an assessment of their potential valorization routes and the future economic potential of underutilized biomass.This research was funded by the European Commission for funding the InnoRenew project (Grant agreement #739574 under the Horizon 2020 WIDESPREAD-2-Teaming program) and the Republic of Slovenia (investment funding from the Republic of Slovenia and the European Regional Development Fund), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (Grant Number 898179). Kristine Meile received funding from the ERDF Project No. 1.1.1.2/VIAA/3/19/388 “A biorefinery approach to the separation and application of the products of lignocellulose pyrolysis”. Rene Herrera received funding from Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU (POSTDOC: IJC2020-043740-I)

Consensus recommendations for a standardized Brain Tumor Imaging Protocol in clinical trials

A recent joint meeting was held on January 30, 2014, with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Cancer Institute (NCI), clinical scientists, imaging experts, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, clinical trials cooperative groups, and patient advocate groups to discuss imaging endpoints for clinical trials in glioblastoma. This workshop developed a set of priorities and action items including the creation of a standardized MRI protocol for multicenter studies. The current document outlines consensus recommendations for a standardized Brain Tumor Imaging Protocol (BTIP), along with the scientific and practical justifications for these recommendations, resulting from a series of discussions between various experts involved in aspects of neuro-oncology neuroimaging for clinical trials. The minimum recommended sequences include: (i) parameter-matched precontrast and postcontrast inversion recovery-prepared, isotropic 3D T1-weighted gradient-recalled echo; (ii) axial 2D T2-weighted turbo spin-echo acquired after contrast injection and before postcontrast 3D T1-weighted images to control timing of images after contrast administration; (iii) precontrast, axial 2D T2-weighted fluid-attenuated inversion recovery; and (iv) precontrast, axial 2D, 3-directional diffusion-weighted images. Recommended ranges of sequence parameters are provided for both 1.5 T and 3 T MR system

Computational elucidation of the effects induced by music making.

Music making, in the form of free improvisations, is a common technique in music therapy, used to express one's feelings or ideas in the non-verbal language of music. In the broader sense, arts therapies, and music therapy in particular, are used to induce therapeutic and psychosocial effects, and to help mitigate symptoms in serious and chronic diseases. They are also used to empower the wellbeing and quality of life for both healthy individuals and patients. However, much research is still required to understand how music-based and arts-based approaches work, and to eventually enhance their effectivity. The clinical setting employing the arts constitutes a rich dynamic environment of occurrences that is difficult to capture, being driven by complex, simultaneous, and interwoven behavioral processes. Our computational paradigm is designed to allow substantial barriers in the arts-based fields to be overcome by enabling the rigorous and quantitative tracking, analyzing and documenting of the underlying dynamic processes. Here we expand the method for the music modality and apply it in a proof of principle experimentation to study expressive behavioral effects of diverse musical improvisation tasks on individuals and collectives. We have obtained statistically significant results that include empirical expressive patterns of feelings, as well as proficiency, gender and age behavioral differences, which point to variation factors of these categorized collectives in music making. Our results also suggest that males are more exploratory than females (e.g., they exhibit a larger range of octaves and intensity) and that the older people express musical characterized negativity more than younger ones (e.g., exhibiting larger note clusters and more chromatic transitions). We discuss implications of these findings to music therapy, such as behavioral diversity causality in treatment, as well as future scientific and clinical applications of the methodology

Computational Paradigm to Elucidate the Effects of Arts-Based Approaches and Interventions: Individual and Collective Emerging Behaviors in Artwork Construction

<div><p>Art therapy, as well as other arts-based therapies and interventions, is used to reduce pain, stress, depression, breathlessness and other symptoms in a wide variety of serious and chronic diseases, such as cancer, Alzheimer and schizophrenia. Arts-based approaches are also known to contribute to one’s well-being and quality of life. However, much research is required, since the mechanisms by which these non-pharmacological treatments exert their therapeutic and psychosocial effects are not adequately understood. A typical clinical setting utilizing the arts consists of the creation work itself, such as the artwork, as well as the therapist and the patient, all of which constitute a rich and dynamic environment of occurrences. The underlying complex, simultaneous and interwoven processes of this setting are often considered intractable to human observers, and as a consequence are usually interpreted subjectively and described verbally, which affect their subsequent analyses and understanding. We introduce a computational research method for elucidating and analyzing emergent expressive and social behaviors, aiming to understand how arts-based approaches operate. Our methodology, which centers on the visual language of Statecharts and tools for its execution, enables rigorous qualitative and quantitative tracking, analysis and documentation of the underlying creation and interaction processes. Also, it enables one to carry out exploratory, hypotheses-generating and knowledge discovery investigations, which are empirical-based. Furthermore, we illustrate our method’s use in a proof-of-principle study, applying it to a real-world artwork investigation with human participants. We explore individual and collective emergent behaviors impacted by diverse drawing tasks, yielding significant gender and age hypotheses, which may account for variation factors in response to art use. We also discuss how to gear our research method to systematic and mechanistic investigations, as we wish to provide a broad empirical evidence for the uptake of arts-based approaches, also aiming to ameliorate their use in clinical settings.</p></div

Visualization of the artwork construction dynamics.

<p>(<b>A</b>) The visual report of the dynamics of an artwork progression, displaying rigorous tracking of events and states of the artwork over time. For example, stroke start and stroke end, the color and tool used for the stroke, its location in the page (in which quarter and whether in the boundary or center), the drawing pressure and direction. Idle periods are clearly seen, as well as erasing epochs of drawn objects. Snapshots of the artwork creation appear along the parameters temporal plotting. (<b>B</b>) Illustration of the interpretation of the visual report, which enables the reconstruction and formation sequences of objects in the artwork.</p

The top-level model of the system.

<p>The Statecharts visual formalism [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0126467#pone.0126467.ref046" target="_blank">46</a>] exemplified in modeling the high-level state of the art room and three concurrent/orthogonal states (dashed lines) specifying the entities therein: the <b>Artwork</b>, <b>Client</b> (patient) and <b>ArtTherapist</b>. The figure also shows the events that trigger the beginning of the therapy session and its termination, specified as mutually exclusive states, <b>ArtRoomSessionOn</b> and <b>ArtRoomSessionOff</b>, respectively (with solid lines).</p

The paradigm applied to artwork.

<p>An illustration of the technology used in artwork: Tracking, analyzing and documenting dynamic processes in a human subjects study. Marked in yellow are the methodology’s capabilities utilized in this work.</p

The participants’ artworks in the study.

<p>These are categorized according to the demographic attributes of gender and age. The ordinate is partitioned into males and females and the abscissa into age groups of participants in their 20s, in their 30-40s and in their 50s. The rows corresponding to (<i>C</i>) are the artworks of the warm-up calibration drawing task, (<i>P</i>) are the artworks of the positive feeling drawing task, (<i>N</i>) are those of the negative feeling drawing task, and (<i>HTP</i>) are those of the house-tree-person task. Each of the participant’s artwork are in his/her respective column.</p