Setting research priorities for global pandemic preparedness: An international consensus and comparison with ChatGPT’s output

Background In this priority-setting exercise, we sought to identify leading research priorities needed for strengthening future pandemic preparedness and response across countries. Methods The International Society of Global Health (ISoGH) used the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) method to identify research priorities for future pandemic preparedness. Eighty experts in global health, translational and clinical research identified 163 research ideas, of which 42 experts then scored based on five pre-defined criteria. We calculated intermediate criterion-specific scores and overall research priority scores from the mean of individual scores for each research idea. We used a bootstrap (n = 1000) to compute the 95% confidence intervals. Results Key priorities included strengthening health systems, rapid vaccine and treatment production, improving international cooperation, and enhancing surveillance efficiency. Other priorities included learning from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, managing supply chains, identifying planning gaps, and promoting equitable interventions. We compared this CHNRI-based outcome with the 14 research priorities generated and ranked by ChatGPT, encountering both striking similarities and clear differences. Conclusions Priority setting processes based on human crowdsourcing – such as the CHNRI method – and the output provided by ChatGPT are both valuable, as they complement and strengthen each other. The priorities identified by ChatGPT were more grounded in theory, while those identified by CHNRI were guided by recent practical experiences. Addressing these priorities, along with improvements in health planning, equitable community-based interventions, and the capacity of primary health care, is vital for better pandemic preparedness and response in many settings

What does the ‘chat’ tell us about participation and engagement in online video conferencing?

Although much is known about the experiential nature of online conferencing, we know less about actual participation and engagement. This paper investigates delegate interactions in the “parallel chat” function of a video platform during an online medical education conference. We collected 813 unique messages, posted while speakers presented on a digital stage. We used descriptive statistics to summarize message/chat content in terms of participant categories and topic. 23% of delegates posted in the chat. However, to go beyond these dimensions, we used conversation analytic methods to identify the actions accomplished in messages and their interconnectedness. We developed a coding scheme to report this analysis across the complete dataset. We found that messages mostly comprised positive assessments (“Wonderful talk!”) and appreciations (“Thank you!”). ‘Second’ messages were more common than initiations or ‘first’ messages, indicating extensive engagement between participants. Few messages received no response. Delegates also formulated what speakers said to develop ‘learning moments’ in the chat. Overall, we argue that a richer and more precise understanding of participation and engagement in video conferencing can be achieved by analysing actual participation and its content, rather than relying only on post-hoc reports and surveys. Data are in British English

Assessing the Efficacy of Nano- and Micro-Sized Magnetic Particles as Contrast Agents for MRI Cell Tracking

Iron-oxide based contrast agents play an important role in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of labelled cells in vivo. Currently, a wide range of such contrast agents is available with sizes varying from several nanometers up to a few micrometers and consisting of single or multiple magnetic cores. Here, we evaluate the effectiveness of these different particles for labelling and imaging stem cells, using a mouse mesenchymal stem cell line to investigate intracellular uptake, retention and processing of nano- and microsized contrast agents. The effect of intracellular confinement on transverse relaxivity was measured by MRI at 7 T and in compliance with the principles of the ‘3Rs’, the suitability of the contrast agents for MR-based cell tracking in vivo was tested using a chick embryo model. We show that for all particles tested, relaxivity was markedly reduced following cellular internalisation, indicating that contrast agent relaxivity in colloidal suspension does not accurately predict performance in MR-based cell tracking studies. Using a bimodal imaging approach comprising fluorescence and MRI, we demonstrate that labelled MSC remain viable following in vivo transplantation and can be tracked effectively using MRI. Importantly, our data suggest that larger particles might confer advantages for longer-term imaging

Protection and Identification of Stateless Persons Through EU Law

A number of recent studies confirm that statelessness is a widespread phenomenon in the EU, which is not receiving adequate attention. The lack of well-functioning statelessness determination procedures is at the root of many problems associated with statelessness in the EU. These are, in particular, the inadequate protection of stateless persons and deficiencies in the prevention and reduction of statelessness. This paper argues in favour of common EU action on the identification and protection of stateless persons by analyzing the EU competence to pass relevant legislation, and explaining the desirability for such legislation

Citizenship:Contrasting Dynamics at the Interface of Integration and Constitutionalism

EUDO Citizenship ObservatoryThis paper explores the different ways in which citizenship has played a role in polity formation in the context of the European Union. It focuses on both the ‘integration’ and the ‘constitution’ dimensions. The paper thus has two substantive sections. The first addresses the role of citizenship of the Union, examining the dynamic relationship between this concept, the role of the Court of Justice, and the free movement dynamic of EU law. The second turns to citizenship in the Union, looking at some recent political developments under which concepts of citizenship, and democratic membership as a key dimension of citizenship, have been given greater prominence. One key finding of the paper is that there is a tension between citizenship of the Union, as part of the EU's ‘old’ incremental constitutionalism based on the constitutionalisation of the existing Treaties, and citizenship in the Union, where the possibilities of a ‘new’ constitutionalism based on renewed constitutional documents have yet to be fully realise

Physical interpretation of stochastic Schroedinger equations in cavity QED

We propose physical interpretations for stochastic methods which have been developed recently to describe the evolution of a quantum system interacting with a reservoir. As opposed to the usual reduced density operator approach, which refers to ensemble averages, these methods deal with the dynamics of single realizations, and involve the solution of stochastic Schr\"odinger equations. These procedures have been shown to be completely equivalent to the master equation approach when ensemble averages are taken over many realizations. We show that these techniques are not only convenient mathematical tools for dissipative systems, but may actually correspond to concrete physical processes, for any temperature of the reservoir. We consider a mode of the electromagnetic field in a cavity interacting with a beam of two- or three-level atoms, the field mode playing the role of a small system and the atomic beam standing for a reservoir at finite temperature, the interaction between them being given by the Jaynes-Cummings model. We show that the evolution of the field states, under continuous monitoring of the state of the atoms which leave the cavity, can be described in terms of either the Monte Carlo Wave-Function (quantum jump) method or a stochastic Schr\"odinger equation, depending on the system configuration. We also show that the Monte Carlo Wave-Function approach leads, for finite temperatures, to localization into jumping Fock states, while the diffusion equation method leads to localization into states with a diffusing average photon number, which for sufficiently small temperatures are close approximations to mildly squeezed states.Comment: 12 pages RevTeX 3.0 + 6 figures (GIF format; for higher-resolution postscript images or hardcopies contact the authors.) Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Effect of withdrawing feed from hogs prior to slaughter on the prevalence of gastrointestinal lacerations at slaughter

To help producers decide whether they should withdraw feed prior to slaughter, we designed a study that examined the effect of feed withdrawal on the proportion of gastrointestinal tract lacerations, prevalence of Salmonella spp. in cecal contents at slaughter, prevalence and severity of gastric ulcers, and meat quality as measured by ultimate pH, color, and water holding capacity. Finally, we analyzed the economic impact of the treatments. This report focuses on the prevalence of lacerations of the gastrointestinal tract found at slaughter. We followed to slaughter, in 3 marketing groups, 900 National Pig Development barrows that we had assigned to treatment. Each marketing group (feed withdrawn once, first group; twice, second group; or three times, third group) had an equal number of pigs that had feed withdrawn for 0 (control) 12, or 24 hours. Overall, 15.7% of gastrointestinal tracts were lacerated in one or more sections including the stomach (8.4%), colon (5.7%), small intestine (2.1 %), and ceca (0.9%). The withdrawal of feed before slaughter decreased the weight of the gastrointestinal tract. The proportion of lacerations in this study (15.5%) is higher than previously reported (4.5%). The difference may be due to the higher rate of evisceration (18 pigs per minute), or our more detailed examination of the gastrointestinal tracts

Stellar Stalling:the view from asteroseismology

Asteroseismology, the study of intrinsic oscillations in stars, can reveal fundamental properties of cool stars critical in our understanding of stellar rotational evolution. Through space missions such as Kepler and TESS, asteroseismology has seen a surge of new data and research in the past decade. These data have contributed to important results in the field of stellar braking particularly for F, G and K stars, thanks to estimates of stellar age for rotating field stars, and the measurement of stellar rotation through oscillation spectra as important comparisons for estimates from star-spots. In this talk, I will provide an introduction to asteroseismology how it can provide important results for your research. This will be followed by a breakdown of how asteroseismologists have used these techniques to establish the presence of weakened magnetic braking on the main sequence using asteroseismic data, and what we should be looking forward to from these techniques with the TESS mission

Poster CS20.5 - Weakened magnetic braking supported by asteroseismic rotation

Studies using asteroseismic ages and rotation rates from star-spot rotation have indicated that standard age-rotation relations may break down roughly half-way through the main sequence lifetime, a phenomenon referred to as weakened magnetic braking. While rotation rates from spots can be difficult to determine for older, less active stars, rotational splitting of asteroseismic oscillation frequencies can provide rotation rates for both active and quiescent stars, and so can confirm whether this effect really takes place on the main sequence. In this talk, I’ll show how we obtained asteroseismic rotation rates of 91 main sequence stars showing high signal-to-noise modes of oscillation. Using these new rotation rates, along with effective temperatures, metallicities and seismic masses and ages, we built a hierarchical Bayesian mixture model that showed that our new ensemble more closely agreed with weakened magnetic braking, over a standard rotational evolution scenario