E-QUAL: A Quantitative Model of User Co-Creation Experience Quality

This paper sets forth a quantitative model, indicating how a set of measures to assess co-creation experience quality of service providers and customers (E-QUAL) in a service process. Inspired by ecological mutualistic evolution and evolutionary fitness, both partnership and adaptability for service participants in service exchange resemble the relationship of mutualism for species in symbiotic ecosystem. However, the three criteria (PR, ED, and UR) and interactive fitness (IF) are used to test the partnership and estimate the adaptability for assessing user co-creation experience quality within the collaborative service with value co-production. In this article we demonstrate a service system that uses the E-QUAL to evaluate value co-creation experience quality. From the perspective of practice, the measurable model, on the other hand, facilitates an interaction-based self-service system to meet (semi-)automated value co-production

Comparison of the safety and efficacy of a fixed-dose combination regimen and separate formulations for pulmonary tuberculosis treatment

OBJECTIVES: Fixed-dose combination formulations, which simplify the administration of drugs and prevent the development of drug resistance, have been recommended as a standard anti-tuberculosis treatment regimen. However, the composition and dosage recommendations for fixed-dose combination formulations differ from those for separate formulations. Thus, questions about the effectiveness and side effects of combination formulations remain. The aim of this study was to compare the safety and efficacy of these two types of anti-tuberculosis regimens for pulmonary tuberculosis treatment. METHOD: A prospective, randomized controlled study was conducted using the directly observed treatment short-course strategy. Patients were randomly allocated to one of two short-course regimens. One year after completing the treatment, these patients’ outcomes were analyzed. ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00979290. RESULTS: A total of 161 patients were enrolled, 142 of whom were evaluable for safety assessment. The two regimens had a similar incidence of adverse effects. In the per-protocol population, serum bilirubin concentrations at the peak level, at week 4, and at week 8 were significantly higher for the fixed-dose combination formulation than for the separate formulations. All patients had negative sputum cultures at the end of the treatment, and no relapse occurred after one year of follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: In this randomized study, transient higher serum bilirubin levels were noted for the fixed-dose combination regimen compared with the separate formulations during treatment. However, no significant difference in safety or efficacy was found between the groups when the directly observed treatment short-course strategy was used

Does Repetition Affect Acceptance? A Social Robot Adoption Model for Technologically-Savvy Users in the Caribbean

There is little research on use and adoption factors for social robots in the Caribbean. In one pilot study, the Zenbo companion robot was used to evaluate potential social robot use in a Caribbean setting. An informal observation from that study was the existence of communication failure–participants frequently repeated commands to the robot. Based on this observation, we have undertaken this study to identify the factors that affect robot adoption among technologically-savvy Caribbean users (undergraduate Computer Science and Information Technology (IT) students) and create a technology adoption model for this type of user. Our model shows that communication failure, manifested as repetition, has no effect on technology acceptance. Additionally, social attitudes towards robots, like the perception of competence and warmth, also have no effect on adoption. This social robot adoption model is the first of its kind for the Caribbean and helps contextualize factors that can affect social robots’ adoption in the region

PARENTAGE OF OVERLAPPING OFFSPRING OF AN ARBOREAL-BREEDING FROG WITH NO NEST DEFENSE: IMPLICATIONS FOR NEST SITE SELECTION AND REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGY

Overlapping offspring occurs when eggs are laid in a nest containing offspring from earlier reproduction. To unveil the parentage between overlapping offspring and parents is critical in understanding oviposition site selection and the reproductive strategies of parents. Amplectant pairs of an arboreal-breeding frog, Kurixalus eiffingeri, lay eggs in tadpole-occupied nests where offspring of different life stages (embryos and tadpoles) coexist. We used five microsatellite DNA markers to assess the parentage between parents and overlapping offspring. Results showed varied parentage patterns, which may differ from the phenomenon of overlapping egg clutches reported earlier. Parentage analyses showed that only 58 and 25% of the tadpole-occupied stumps were reused by the same male and female respectively, partially confirming our prediction. Re-nesting by the same individual was more common in males than females, which is most likely related to the cost of tadpole feeding and/or feeding schemes of females. On the other hand, results of parentage analyses showed that about 42 and 75 % of male and female respectively bred in tadpole-occupied stumps where tadpoles were genetically unrelated. Results of a nest-choice experiment revealed that 40% of frogs chose tadpole-occupied bamboo cups when we presented identical stumps, without or with tadpoles, suggesting that the habitat saturation hypothesis does not fully explain why frogs used the tadpole-occupied stumps. Several possible benefits of overlapping offspring with different life stages were proposed. Our study highlights the importance of integrating molecular data with field observations to better understand the reproductive biology and nest site selection of anuran amphibians

PARENTAGE OF OVERLAPPING OFFSPRING OF AN ARBOREAL-BREEDING FROG WITH NO NEST DEFENSE: IMPLICATIONS FOR NEST SITE SELECTION AND REPRODUCTIVE STRATEGY

Overlapping offspring occurs when eggs are laid in a nest containing offspring from earlier reproduction. To unveil the parentage between overlapping offspring and parents is critical in understanding oviposition site selection and the reproductive strategies of parents. Amplectant pairs of an arboreal-breeding frog, Kurixalus eiffingeri, lay eggs in tadpole-occupied nests where offspring of different life stages (embryos and tadpoles) coexist. We used five microsatellite DNA markers to assess the parentage between parents and overlapping offspring. Results showed varied parentage patterns, which may differ from the phenomenon of overlapping egg clutches reported earlier. Parentage analyses showed that only 58 and 25% of the tadpole-occupied stumps were reused by the same male and female respectively, partially confirming our prediction. Re-nesting by the same individual was more common in males than females, which is most likely related to the cost of tadpole feeding and/or feeding schemes of females. On the other hand, results of parentage analyses showed that about 42 and 75 % of male and female respectively bred in tadpole-occupied stumps where tadpoles were genetically unrelated. Results of a nest-choice experiment revealed that 40% of frogs chose tadpole-occupied bamboo cups when we presented identical stumps, without or with tadpoles, suggesting that the habitat saturation hypothesis does not fully explain why frogs used the tadpole-occupied stumps. Several possible benefits of overlapping offspring with different life stages were proposed. Our study highlights the importance of integrating molecular data with field observations to better understand the reproductive biology and nest site selection of anuran amphibians

Effectiveness of mechanical chest compression for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients in an emergency department

AbstractBackgroundTo increase the chance of restoring spontaneous circulation, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) with high-quality chest compressions is needed. We hypothesized that, in a municipal hospital emergency department, the outcome in nontraumatic out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients treated with standard CPR followed by mechanical chest compression (MeCC) was not inferior to that followed by manual chest compression (MaCC). The purposes of the study were to test our hypothesis and investigate whether the use of MeCC decreased human power demands for CPR.MethodsA total of 455 consecutive out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients of presumed cardiac etiology were divided into two groups according to the chest compressions they received (MaCC or MeCC) in this retrospective review study. Human power demand for CPR was described according to the Basic Life Support/Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support guidelines and the device handbook. The primary endpoint was recovery of spontaneous circulation during resuscitation, and the secondary endpoints were survival to hospital admission and medical human power demands.ResultsIn this study, recovery of spontaneous circulation was achieved in 33.3% of patients in the MeCC group and in 27.1% in the MaCC group (p = 0.154), and the percentages of patients who survived hospitalization were 22.2% and 17.6%, respectively (p = 0.229). A ratio of 2:4 for the human power demand for CPR between the groups was found. Independent predictors of survival to hospitalization were ventricular fibrillation/pulseless ventricular tachycardia as initial rhythm and recovery of spontaneous circulation.ConclusionNo difference was found in early survival between standard CPR performed with MeCC and that performed with MaCC. However, the use of the MeCC device appears to promote staff availability without waiving patient care in the human power-demanding emergency departments of Taiwan hospitals

Systems engineering of a CHO cell line for enhanced process robustness

Recent advances in genome engineering have opened great opportunities for engineering Chinese hamster ovary cells. An ideal cell line is no longer just one with high productivity, but also with high stability in both the productivity and product quality, and in both extensive passaging and long term continuous culture. Furthermore, an ideal cell line should be provided with process controllability, allowing the use of environmental control variables to steer its metabolism to a reaction pathway that favors the synthesis of product with the desired quality attributes. Importantly, these superior traits must be genetically and epigenetically stable and be passed on to new production lines in cell line development. We have taken a systems approach that integrates genomic information and metabolic model predictions to devise a strategy and to develop tools for attaining those goals. In tool development we reassembled the Chinese hamster genome and combined different versions of the genome to identify consensus segments as high confidence regions and annotated the genome. An expression microarray and a comparative genomic hybridization array for gene coding regions were designed to facilitate cell engineering studies. Using solution phase capture and nested PCR we also established methods of rapidly identifying the integration sites of transgenes on the genome. An induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) line was derived from Chinese hamster embryonic fibroblasts for use as control in genomic and epigenomic tool development. Furthermore, we extended our kinetic model for cell metabolism to link with the glycosylation model and now embark on devising a reduced model suitable for systems optimization. The study involves surveying an established producing line and creating cell lines with a single copy transgene of GFP reporter or of IgG-GFP. The design of the single copy line entails a swappable recombination site for exchange of transgene so that cell lines which are otherwise “identical” but with different transgenes can be systematically compared. Through meta-analysis of archived transcriptome data we identified genes with different dynamics of expression patterns that can be useful for the dynamic control of cell behavior. CRISPR/Cas9 was employed to knock in a GFP between the first exon of the TXNIP gene and its endogenous promoter. Interestingly, the transcript levels of GFP in all investigated clones fell in a small range, but the dynamic profile was variable among them. In single copy clones of GFP reporter and IgG transgene, the transcript levels varied widely reflecting the probabilistic nature of their integration in the genome. The IgG titer and their transcript level of the clones also varied over a wide range. Overall, the result does not reveal a correlation between the transgene transcript level and the expression of the gene at the locus. Importantly, a number of clones showed a very high IgG transcript level, consistent with our previous report of a high transgene level prior to transgene amplification. The genomic context that may contribute to the variability, e.g. genomic consistency among the clones in terms of chromosome number, karyotype, and CGH, is being investigated. The implications of our findings to date and our work on implementing metabolic model prediction in this designing CHO cell line will be discussed. Although this work represents only an early step toward system engineering to cell line development, we believe such approaches will open new avenues to engineer cell lines and influence process development of biologics manufacturing in the coming years

Risk factors for lower extremity deep vein thrombosis in acute stroke patients following endovascular thrombectomy: a retrospective cohort study

BackgroundDeep vein thrombosis (DVT) in lower extremities as a common complication of acute ischemic stroke (AIS) has long been studied. However, as the therapeutic options for AIS continue to advance, the pathogenic mechanisms behind DVT may change. Endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) has replaced intravenous thrombolysis and become the preferred treatment for AIS patients with large vessel occlusions. Therefore, it is important to update our understanding of DVT and its management. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and risk factors of DVT in AIS patients following EVT.MethodsIn this retrospective study, 245 AIS patients who had received EVT were recruited between January 2020 and December 2021. Within 10 days (median 4 days) of thrombectomy, DVT was diagnosed by ultrasonography. Demographic characteristics, clinical findings, and therapeutic procedures were compared between patients with and without DVT using univariate analysis. Cutoff points were defined for EVT time and plasma D-dimer concentration. Multivariable logistic regression was then used to determine the independent risk factors for DVT and evaluate their predictive power.ResultsThe prevalence of DVT in AIS patients after EVT was 27.3%. Multifactorial logistic regression analysis showed that age (OR 1.036, 95% CI 1.001–1.073; P = 0.045), female sex (OR 3.015, 95% CI 1.446–6.289; P = 0.003), lower limb muscle strength less than grade three (OR 7.015, 95% CI 1.887–26.080; P = 0.004), longer EVT time (OR 1.012, 95% CI 1.004–1.020; P = 0.003), and higher D-dimer levels (OR 1.350, 95% CI 1.150–1.585; P < 0.001) were independently associated with higher DVT risk in AIS patients following EVT. The cutoff points for operative time of EVT and plasma D-dimer were 65.5 min and 1.62 mg/L, respectively, above which the risk for DVT was dramatically increased with OR > 4 in AIS patients.ConclusionAIS patients are at increased risk of developing DVT following EVT particularly if they have undergone prolonged thrombectomy procedures and exhibit high plasma levels of D-dimers. However, the results of our study need to be validated by a multicenter prospective study with a larger population of stroke patients

Identification of single nucleotide polymorphism markers associated with resistance to bruchids (Callosobruchus spp.) in wild mungbean (Vigna radiata var. sublobata) and cultivated V. radiata through genotyping by sequencing and quantitative trait locus analysis

Interval mapping of bruchid resistance on physical maps of populations TC1966 x NM94 and V2802. (DOCX 14 kb