Exploring the Characteristics of Destination Image in the New Era of Information Technology: The Case of Online Travel Reviews

The follwing piece is based on the Lectio praecursoria presented at the defense of the doctoral dissertation ‘The Nature of Destination Image Concept in Online Travel Reviews’, which was publicly discussed on March 4, 2022, at the University of Eastern Finland. The full version of the dissertation can be found at: http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-61-4483-

Robust direct acoustic impedance control using two microphones for mixed feedforward-feedback controller

This paper presents an acoustic impedance control architecture for an electroacoustic absorber combining both a feedforward and a feedback microphone-based strategies on a current-driven loudspeaker. Feedforward systems enable good performance for direct impedance control. However, inaccuracies in the required actuator model can lead to a loss of passivity, which can cause unstable behaviors. The feedback contribution allows the absorber to better handle model errors and still achieve an accurate impedance, preserving passivity. Numerical and experimental studies were conducted to compare this new architecture against a state-of-the-art feedforward control method

Enhancing human cord blood hematopoietic stem cell engraftment by targeting nuclear hormone receptors

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) is a life-saving therapy for hematological and nonhematological diseases. Cord blood is a source of transplantable hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), but limited numbers of HSCs in single cord blood units, which may cause delayed neutrophil, platelet, and immune cell reconstitution, is a major problem for efficient transplantation. Ex-vivo expansion and enhanced homing of cord blood HSC may overcome this disadvantage and improve its long-term engraftment. Here, we discuss the role of nuclear hormone receptors signaling in human cord blood HSC engraftment. RECENT FINDINGS: Antagonizing retinoid acid receptor (RAR) signaling promotes human HSC expansion and increases myeloid cell production. Cord blood CD34 cells expanded by SR1 promotes efficient myeloid recovery after transplantation compared with control groups, and leads to successful engraftment. Short-term treatment of glucocorticoids enhances homing and long-term engraftment of human HSCs and HPCs in NSG mice. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ (PPARγ) antagonism expands human HSCs and HPCs by preventing differentiation and enhancing glucose metabolism. These findings demonstrate that nuclear hormone receptor signaling components might be promising targets for improving human cord blood HCT. SUMMARY: Better understanding of molecular mechanisms underlying human HSC expansion and homing mediated by nuclear hormone receptor signaling pathways will facilitate enhanced HCT efficacy

Glucocorticoid hormone-induced chromatin remodeling enhances human hematopoietic stem cell homing and engraftment

Efficient hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) homing is important for hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT), especially when HSC numbers are limited, as in the use of cord blood (CB). In a screen of small-molecule compounds, we identified glucocorticoid (GC) hormone signaling as an activator of CXCR4 expression in human CB HSCs and hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs). Short-term GC pretreatment of human CB HSCs and HPCs promoted SDF-1-CXCR4-axis-mediated chemotaxis, homing, and long-term engraftment when these cells were transplanted into primary- and secondary-recipient NSG mice. Mechanistically, activated glucocorticoid receptor binds directly to a glucocorticoid response element in the CXCR4 promoter and recruits the SRC-1-p300 complex to promote H4K5 and H4K16 histone acetylation, facilitating transcription of CXCR4. These results suggest a new and readily available means to enhance the clinical efficacy of CB HCT

Past, present, and future efforts to enhance the efficacy of cord blood hematopoietic cell transplantation

Cord blood (CB) has been used as a viable source of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs) in over 35,000 clinical hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) efforts to treat the same variety of malignant and non-malignant disorders treated by bone marrow (BM) and mobilized peripheral blood (mPB) using HLA-matched or partially HLA-disparate related or unrelated donor cells for adult and children recipients. This review documents the beginning of this clinical effort that started in the 1980's, the pros and cons of CB HCT compared to BM and mPB HCT, and recent experimental and clinical efforts to enhance the efficacy of CB HCT. These efforts include means for increasing HSC numbers in single CB collections, expanding functional HSCs ex vivo, and improving CB HSC homing and engraftment, all with the goal of clinical translation. Concluding remarks highlight the need for phase I/II clinical trials to test the experimental procedures that are described, either alone or in combination