Super nucleation and orientation of poly (butylene terephthalate) crystals in nanocomposites containing highly reduced graphene oxide

The ring opening polymerization of cyclic butylene terephthalate into poly (butylene terephthalate) (pCBT) in the presence of reduced graphene oxide (RGO) is an effective method for the preparation of polymer nanocomposites. The inclusion of RGO nanoflakes dramatically affects the crystallization of pCBT, shifting crystallization peak temperature to higher temperatures and, overall, increasing the crystallization rate. This was due to a super nucleating effect caused by RGO, which is maximized by highly reduced graphene oxide. Furthermore, combined analyses by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) experiments and wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXS) showed the formation of a thick {\alpha}-crystalline form pCBT lamellae with a melting point of ~250 {\deg}C, close to the equilibrium melting temperature of pCBT. WAXS also demonstrated the pair orientation of pCBT crystals with RGO nanoflakes, indicating a strong interfacial interaction between the aromatic rings of pCBT and RGO planes, especially with highly reduced graphene oxide. Such surface self-organization of the polymer onto the RGO nanoflakes may be exploited for the enhancement of interfacial properties in their polymer nanocomposites

What Make the Impact of the Financial Crisis on Innovation Different Across European Countries?

This paper finds that the financial crisis has tremendously impacted innovation in most European countries with Greece and Lithuania being the most affected while Finland and Austria have the least negative effect on their innovation activities. Greece and Lithuania’s national innovation systems share many common characteristics which are in sharp contrast to those shared by Finland and Austria, including most notably culture, quality of the higher education system, science and technological capability, and structure of the economy. Those identified distinctions along the main dimensions of the national innovation systems between the most and least affected countries could to a large extent explain why the effect of the financial crisis is heterogeneous across European countries

The reporting of theoretical health risks by the media: Canadian newspaper reporting of potential blood transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

BACKGROUND: The media play an important role at the interface of science and policy by communicating scientific information to the public and policy makers. In issues of theoretical risk, in which there is scientific uncertainty, the media's role as disseminators of information is particularly important due to the potential to influence public perception of the severity of the risk. In this article we describe how the Canadian print media reported the theoretical risk of blood transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). METHODS: We searched 3 newspaper databases for articles published by 6 major Canadian daily newspapers between January 1990 and December 1999. We identified all articles relating to blood transmission of CJD. In duplicate we extracted information from the articles and entered the information into a qualitative software program. We compared the observations obtained from this content analysis with information obtained from a previous policy analysis examining the Canadian blood system's decision-making concerning the potential transfusion transmission of CJD. RESULTS: Our search identified 245 relevant articles. We observed that newspapers in one instance accelerated a policy decision, which had important resource and health implication, by communicating information on risk to the public. We also observed that newspapers primarily relied upon expert opinion (47 articles) as opposed to published medical evidence (28 articles) when communicating risk information. Journalists we interviewed described the challenges of balancing their responsibility to raise awareness of potential health threats with not unnecessarily arousing fear amongst the public. CONCLUSIONS: Based on our findings we recommend that journalists report information from both expert opinion sources and from published studies when communicating information on risk. We also recommend researchers work more closely with journalists to assist them in identifying and appraising relevant scientific information on risk

Difference rather than delay in development of elementary visuomotor processes in children born preterm without cerebral palsy: A quasi-longitudinal study

Follow-up studies of preterm children without serious neonatal medical complications have consistently found poor visuomotor and visuospatial skills. In the first round of current follow-up study, we found a deficit in elementary visuomotor processes in preterm children without Cerebral Palsy (CP). To determine whether the development of these processes was delayed or different, we carried out a quasi-longitudinal study in which kinematic characteristics of pointing movements in 7- to 11-year-old preterm born children without CP and in an age-matched full-term group were analyzed. Multi-level analysis suggested a difference rather than a delay in the preterm born group: we found a regression around 8 years of age in the control but not in the preterm group. To our knowledge, this study is the first to provide longitudinal data confirming this regression in the development of movement control in typically developing children. Our results are also consistent in suggesting that elementary visuomotor processes are less efficient in preterm born children without CP: their movements were either slower or less accurate. While these differences were subtle, they persisted until 11 years of age

Come integrare la medicina personalizzata all’interno della prevenzione? Raccomandazioni dal consorzio “Personalized pREvention of Chronic Diseases” (PRECeDI)”

All’interno della pratica clinica l’approccio di “medicina personalizzata”, che consiste nell’adozione di un’assistenza sanitaria di tipo individualizzato, viene sempre maggiormente adottato. Il progetto PREvention of Chronic Diseases (Prevenzione delle Malattie Croniche, PRECeDI), finanziato dalla Commissione Europea tramite Marie Skłodowska Curie Action, Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE), ha promosso una collaborazione nella ricerca e formazione nell’ambito della medicina personalizzata ponendo particolare enfasi sulla prevenzione delle malattie croniche. Dal 2014 al 2018, il consorzio PRECeDI ha formato 50 ricercatori sulla prevenzione personalizzata delle malattie croniche attraverso la formazione e la ricerca. L’acquisizione di nuove competenze da parte dei ricercatori stessi è merito di distaccamenti, da e verso enti accademici e non accademici, che hanno lo scopo di formarli su diversi ambiti di ricerca correlati alla prevenzione personalizzata di malattie quali cancro, patologie cardiovascolari e neurodegenerative. In particolare, 5 domini di ricerca sono stati esplorati: 1) identificazione e validazione di biomarker per la prevenzione primaria di patologie cardiovascolari, per prevenzione secondaria della malattia di Alzheimer e prevenzione terziaria del cancro del distretto testa collo; 2) valutazione economica delle applicazioni genomiche; 3) questioni eticolegali e policy legate alla medicina personalizzata; 4) analisi sociotecniche su aspetti pro e contro l’informare individui sani sul loro genoma; 5) identificazione di modelli organizzativi per l’erogazione di test genetici predittivi. Basandosi sui risultati della ricerca condotta dal consorzio PRECeDI, a Novembre 2018, è stato sviluppato un set di raccomandazioni, per i policymakers, per gli scienziati e per il settore dell’industria, con il principale scopo di promuovere l’integrazione degli approcci di medicina personalizzata nel campo della prevenzione delle malattie croniche

How to integrate personalized medicine into prevention? Recommendations from the personalized prevention of chronic diseases (PRECeDI) Consortium

Medical practitioners are increasingly adopting a personalized medicine (PM) approach involving individually tailored patient care. The Personalized Prevention of Chronic Diseases (PRECeDI) consortium project, funded within the Marie Skłodowska Curie Action (MSCA) Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) scheme, had fostered collaboration on PM research and training with special emphasis on the prevention of chronic diseases. From 2014 to 2018, the PRECeDI consortium trained 50 staff members on personalized prevention of chronic diseases through training and research. The acquisition of skills from researchers came from dedicated secondments from academic and nonacademic institutions aimed at training on several research topics related to personalized prevention of cancer and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. In detail, 5 research domains were addressed: (1) identification and validation of biomarkers for the primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases, secondary prevention of Alzheimer disease, and tertiary prevention of head and neck cancer; (2) economic evaluation of genomic applications; (3) ethical-legal and policy issues surrounding PM; (4) sociotechnical analysis of the pros and cons of informing healthy individuals on their genome; and (5) identification of organizational models for the provision of predictive genetic testing. Based on the results of the research carried out by the PRECeDI consortium, in November 2018, a set of recommendations for policy makers, scientists, and industry has been issued, with the main goal to foster the integration of PM approaches in the field of chronic disease prevention

How to integrate personalized medicine into prevention? recommendations from the personalized prevention of chronic diseases (precedi) consortium

Medical practitioners are increasingly adopting a personalized medicine (PM) approach involving individually tailored patient care. The Personalized Prevention of Chronic Diseases (PRECeDI) consortium project, funded within the Marie Sk\u142odowska Curie Action (MSCA) Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) scheme, had fostered collaboration on PM research and training with special emphasis on the prevention of chronic diseases. From 2014 to 2018, the PRECeDI consortium trained 50 staff members on personalized prevention of chronic diseases through training and research. The acquisition of skills from researchers came from dedicated secondments from academic and nonacademic institutions aimed at training on several research topics related to personalized prevention of cancer and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. In detail, 5 research domains were addressed: (1) identification and validation of biomarkers for the primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases, secondary prevention of Alzheimer disease, and tertiary prevention of head and neck cancer; (2) economic evaluation of genomic applications; (3) ethical-legal and policy issues surrounding PM; (4) sociotechnical analysis of the pros and cons of informing healthy individuals on their genome; and (5) identification of organizational models for the provision of predictive genetic testing. Based on the results of the research carried out by the PRECeDI consortium, in November 2018, a set of recommendations for policy makers, scientists, and industry has been issued, with the main goal to foster the integration of PM approaches in the field of chronic disease prevention

A rare missense variant of CASP7 is associated with familial late-onset Alzheimer's disease

Introduction: The genetic architecture of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is only partially understood. Methods: We conducted an association study for AD using whole sequence data from 507 genetically enriched AD cases (i.e., cases having close relatives affected by AD) and 4917 cognitively healthy controls of European ancestry (EA) and 172 enriched cases and 179 controls of Caribbean Hispanic ancestry. Confirmation of top findings from stage 1 was sought in two family-based genome-wide association study data sets and in a whole genome–sequencing data set comprising members from 42 EA and 115 Caribbean Hispanic families. Results: We identified associations in EAs with variants in 12 novel loci. The most robust finding is a rare CASP7 missense variant (rs116437863; P = 2.44 × 10 −10 ) which improved when combined with results from stage 2 data sets (P = 1.92 × 10 −10 ). Discussion: Our study demonstrated that an enriched case design can strengthen genetic signals, thus allowing detection of associations that would otherwise be missed in a traditional case-control study