COVID-19 through Adverse Outcome Pathways: Building networks to better understand the disease - 3rd CIAO AOP Design Workshop

ALTEX - Alternatives to Animal ExperimentationCopyright © 2022 the author(s). On April 28-29, 2021, 50 scientists from different fields of expertise met for the 3rd online CIAO workshop. The CIAO project “Modelling the Pathogenesis of COVID-19 using the Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) framework” aims at building a holistic assembly of the available scientific knowledge on COVID-19 using the AOP framework. An individual AOP depicts the disease progression from the initial contact with the SARS-CoV-2 virus through biological key events (KE) toward an adverse outcome such as respiratory distress, anosmia or multiorgan failure. Assembling the individual AOPs into a network highlights shared KEs as central biological nodes involved in multiple outcomes observed in COVID-19 patients. During the workshop, the KEs and AOPs established so far by the CIAO members were presented and posi­tioned on a timeline of the disease course. Modulating factors influencing the progression and severity of the disease were also addressed as well as factors beyond purely biological phenomena. CIAO relies on an interdisciplinary crowd­sourcing effort, therefore, approaches to expand the CIAO network by widening the crowd and reaching stakeholders were also discussed. To conclude the workshop, it was decided that the AOPs/KEs will be further consolidated, inte­grating virus variants and long COVID when relevant, while an outreach campaign will be launched to broaden the CIAO scientific crowd.The CIAO project is steered by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EC-JRC), the Humane Society International (HSI), and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). For Jorid Birkelund Sørli, the research is supported by FIKA, Focused Research Effort on Chemicals in the Working Environment from the Danish Government. For Daniel Jacobson, this work was supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC for the US Department of Energy (LOIS:10074) and the National Institutes of Health 3RF1AG053303-01S2

Key information systems management Issues: A comparative study in South Africa

The identification of key Information Systems (IS) management Issues is important for all players in the industry. Most academic research has followed the form of the Society for Information Management (SIM) studies, originating in the early 1980's in the United States of America (USA), and since replicated in many countries, yet no comprehensive recent study had been carried out in South Africa. This study was performed within weeks of September 11, 2001 on a sample of 121 members of the Cape IT Initiative (CITI), and of the Computer Society of South Africa (CSSA), from a range of industries and geographical regions. Highest rated Issues were business intelligence, a responsive IT infrastructure and disaster recovery, while Business Relationship and Technical Infrastructure Issues were prominent overall. Demographic factors did not significantly influence overall results. Rankings were correlated with an earlier South African study and with 1997 Australian research, but not with a 1995 USA study. The economic developmental status of a country was found to be linked to the key Issues that country faces

Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium and Listeria monocytogenes Acid Tolerance Response Induced by Organic Acids at 20°C: Optimization and Modeling

An acid tolerance response (ATR) has been demonstrated in Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium in response to low pH poised (i.e., adapted) with acetic or lactic acids at 20°C and modeled by using dynamic differential equations. The ATR was not immediate or prolonged, and optimization occurred after exposure of L. monocytogenes for 3 h at pH 5.5 poised with acetic acid and for 2 h at pH 5.5 poised with lactic acid and after exposure of S. enterica serovar Typhimurium for 2 h at pH 5.5 poised with acetic acid and for 3 h at pH 5.5 poised with lactic acid. An objective mechanistic analysis of the acid inactivation data yielded estimates of the duration of the shoulder (t(s)), the log-linear decline (k(max)), and the magnitude of a critical component (C). The magnitude of k(max) gave the best agreement with estimates of conditions for optimum ATR induction made from the raw data

Establishing a clinical service for the treatment of osteoid osteoma using magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound: overview and guidelines.

Recent studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) in the treatment of osteoid osteoma (OO), a painful, benign bone tumor. As MRgFUS is a noninvasive and radiation-free treatment, it stands to replace the current standard of care, percutaneous radiofrequency, or laser thermal ablation. Within an institution, creation of a clinical OO MRgFUS treatment program would not only provide cutting edge medical treatment at the current time but would also establish the foundation for an MRgFUS clinical service to introduce treatments currently under development into clinical practice in the future. The purpose of this document is to provide information to facilitate creation of a clinical service for MRgFUS treatment of OO by providing (1) recommendations for the multi-disciplinary management of patients and (2) guidelines regarding current best practices for MRgFUS treatment. This paper will discuss establishment of a multi-disciplinary clinic, patient accrual, inclusion/exclusion criteria, diagnosis, preoperative imaging, patient preparation, anesthesia, treatment planning, targeting and treatment execution, complication avoidance, and patient follow-up to assure safety and effectiveness