Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

A new type of Open Commons : the case study of l’Asilo. A transformative experience in the city of Naples

The aim of this paper is a threefold, first to present a country declination of commons the “Beni Comuni” and new type of commons, the emerging urban commons. Secondly, to present the experience of L´Asilo, a multifunctional space for the production of art and culture, managed through assemblies, open to all, following the method of consensus, which was born from an occupation. Finally, we will address the importance of the creative use of law within this process. This case study is partly the result of a field work1 developed under the framework of Ph.D. research of the author

Speaker al Festival “About A City - A Human Place”, 18-20 settembre 2020 (organizzato dalla Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli), all’interno del tavolo di lavoro "Abitare pioniere: disegnare modelli alternativi” coordinato da Silvia Cafora (19/9/2020).

L'intervento esamina alcuni modelli di abitare 'pioniere' messi in atto in Germania, Svizzera e UK, analizzando con spunti critici le difficoltà di un loro trapianto in Itali

CoopCycle, un projet de plateforme socialisée et de régulation de la livraison à vélo

This research has benefited from the financial participation of the DARES (Ministry of Labor, Employment and Integration), as part of a research program on the collaborative economy, jointly organized by the DREES (Ministry of Solidarity and Health) and the DARES as part of the call on the topic "Forms of collaborative economy and social protection".The TAPAS program is led by Corinne Vercher-Chaptal, CEPN - Centre d'économie et de gestion (UMR CNRS 7234) of the University of Sorbonne Paris Nord. It gathered a multidisciplinary research team (management, economics, sociology and law), which includes field actors. The program benefits from a partnership with the Plateformes en Communs (PEC) group of the association La Coop des Communs.The TAPAS program aims to deepen the distinction between "platform companies" and so-called "collaborative" or "alternative" platforms. While the former are characterized by vertical governance and the appropriation of most of the value created by the platform manager, alternative platforms are organized in a more horizontal manner and distribute bundles of rights over the resources created, according to the sharing rational of the commons. They participate to a field do action that is likely to emancipate itself from purely commercial principles in order to better address the imperatives of social and environmental sustainability, by mobilizing a plurality of economic principles and by creating links with the initiatives of the digital commons and the social and solidarity economy.The empirical study is based on nine in-depth case studies: CoopCycle, France Barter, Framasoft, Mobicoop, Oiseaux de Passage, Open Food France, SoTicket, Tënk. The corresponding monographs are integrated in the TAPAS collection available on HAL.The analyses conducted by the team aim to provide information on the characteristics and conditions of development of these alternative platforms (in terms of economic models, governance and work) which, through the solutions and innovations they bring, can foreshadow the evolution of innovative practices and regulations.Cette recherche a bénéficié de la participation financière de la DARES (Ministère du travail, de l’emploi et de l’insertion), dans le cadre d’un programme de recherche sur l’économie collaborative, organisé conjointement par la DREES (Ministère des Solidarités et de la Santé) et la DARES dans le cadre de l’APR Formes d’économie collaborative et protection sociale.Le programme TAPAS est piloté par Corinne Vercher-Chaptal, CEPN – Centre d’économie et de gestion (UMR CNRS 7234) de l’Université Sorbonne Paris Nord. Il a mobilisé une équipe de recherche pluridisciplinaire (gestion, économie, sociologie et droit), qui inclue des acteurs de terrain. Le programme bénéficie du partenariat avec le groupe Plateformes en Communs (PEC) de l’association La Coop des Communs.Le programme TAPAS vise à approfondir la distinction entre les « entreprises plateformes » et les plateformes dites « collaboratives » ou « alternatives ». Alors que les premières se caractérisent par une gouvernance verticale et l’appropriation de l’essentiel de la valeur créée par le gestionnaire de la plateforme, les plateformes alternatives s’organisent de manière plus horizontale et répartissent des faisceaux de droits sur les ressources créées, selon la logique de partage des communs. Elles dessinent un champ susceptible de s’émanciper des principes purement marchands afin de mieux répondre à des impératifs de soutenabilité sociale et environnementale, en mobilisant une pluralité de principes économiques et en créant des articulations avec les initiatives des communs numériques et de l’économie sociale et solidaire.L’étude empirique repose sur neuf études de cas en profondeur : CoopCycle, France Barter, Framasoft, Mobicoop, Oiseaux de Passage, Open Food France, SoTicket, Tënk. Les monographies correspondantes sont intégrées dans la collection TAPAS mise à disposition sur HAL.Les analyses menées par l’équipe vise à renseigner les caractéristiques et les conditions de développement de ces plateformes alternatives (en termes de modèles économiques, de gouvernance et de travail) qui peuvent, par les solutions et les innovations dont elles sont porteuses, préfigurer l’évolution des pratiques et des régulations novatrices

Rebuilding boarders with inclusion in platform economy : when workers take the control

International audienceFor the last 10 years at least, there has been a growing attention and concern about the overall impact of major digital capitalist platforms on the labour market (Srnicek 2016, Berg et al. 2019). The broken promises of the sharing economy and the boom on the gig economy summed up with the term”uberization” unveiled dystopian new worlds of work, based on the dangerous false promises of an emancipatory “self-entrepreneurship” (Choudary 2018). Blurring legal constraints and social frontiers has been the core strategy of those platforms in order to expand the borders of their business andconquer market shares. They have been defying the cooperative movement as well, by misappropriating the terms of cooperation and collaboration, using them as a branding more than as a practice. As a response, collectives’ actions spouted in many countries, denouncing the negative consequences of the uberization, and self-organizing alternatives. Among them was born the platform cooperativism movement, proposing to mimic the technical abilities of capitalist platforms whilst adopting a cooperative legal form and a self-governed organization and pursuing the goal of emancipatingthe workers (Scholz & Schneider 2016). In that perspective, this paper presents the case study of CoopCycle, the European federation of bike delivery cooperatives. The founders developed a software in order to equip the riders with a dispatch tool, so it would be implemented by local workers-coopsproviding urban ecological logistics. We present then a sociological analysis of the originality and complexity of an alternative organisation regarding work organization. The preliminary results show the re-accommodation of boundaries of the labour-activity of riders through a collective action that takesplace in a cooperative organization. This paper contributes to the understanding of the organizing of alternatives to the uberization of work via the identification and recognition of two main aspects : i) the gain in skills, recognition and social protection for workers, and ii) the originality of the federation as a cooperative organization that produces and protects a digital common. This study is part of the collective research program There Are Plateforms as AlternativeS (U. Paris13-DARES). The data set includes in-depth interviews, participant observation and analysis of documents (primary and secondary sources)

Rebuilding boarders with inclusion in platform economy : when workers take the control

International audienceFor the last 10 years at least, there has been a growing attention and concern about the overall impact of major digital capitalist platforms on the labour market (Srnicek 2016, Berg et al. 2019). The broken promises of the sharing economy and the boom on the gig economy summed up with the term”uberization” unveiled dystopian new worlds of work, based on the dangerous false promises of an emancipatory “self-entrepreneurship” (Choudary 2018). Blurring legal constraints and social frontiers has been the core strategy of those platforms in order to expand the borders of their business andconquer market shares. They have been defying the cooperative movement as well, by misappropriating the terms of cooperation and collaboration, using them as a branding more than as a practice. As a response, collectives’ actions spouted in many countries, denouncing the negative consequences of the uberization, and self-organizing alternatives. Among them was born the platform cooperativism movement, proposing to mimic the technical abilities of capitalist platforms whilst adopting a cooperative legal form and a self-governed organization and pursuing the goal of emancipatingthe workers (Scholz & Schneider 2016). In that perspective, this paper presents the case study of CoopCycle, the European federation of bike delivery cooperatives. The founders developed a software in order to equip the riders with a dispatch tool, so it would be implemented by local workers-coopsproviding urban ecological logistics. We present then a sociological analysis of the originality and complexity of an alternative organisation regarding work organization. The preliminary results show the re-accommodation of boundaries of the labour-activity of riders through a collective action that takesplace in a cooperative organization. This paper contributes to the understanding of the organizing of alternatives to the uberization of work via the identification and recognition of two main aspects : i) the gain in skills, recognition and social protection for workers, and ii) the originality of the federation as a cooperative organization that produces and protects a digital common. This study is part of the collective research program There Are Plateforms as AlternativeS (U. Paris13-DARES). The data set includes in-depth interviews, participant observation and analysis of documents (primary and secondary sources)

Evaluation of a quality improvement intervention to reduce anastomotic leak following right colectomy (EAGLE): pragmatic, batched stepped-wedge, cluster-randomized trial in 64 countries

Background Anastomotic leak affects 8 per cent of patients after right colectomy with a 10-fold increased risk of postoperative death. The EAGLE study aimed to develop and test whether an international, standardized quality improvement intervention could reduce anastomotic leaks. Methods The internationally intended protocol, iteratively co-developed by a multistage Delphi process, comprised an online educational module introducing risk stratification, an intraoperative checklist, and harmonized surgical techniques. Clusters (hospital teams) were randomized to one of three arms with varied sequences of intervention/data collection by a derived stepped-wedge batch design (at least 18 hospital teams per batch). Patients were blinded to the study allocation. Low- and middle-income country enrolment was encouraged. The primary outcome (assessed by intention to treat) was anastomotic leak rate, and subgroup analyses by module completion (at least 80 per cent of surgeons, high engagement; less than 50 per cent, low engagement) were preplanned. Results A total 355 hospital teams registered, with 332 from 64 countries (39.2 per cent low and middle income) included in the final analysis. The online modules were completed by half of the surgeons (2143 of 4411). The primary analysis included 3039 of the 3268 patients recruited (206 patients had no anastomosis and 23 were lost to follow-up), with anastomotic leaks arising before and after the intervention in 10.1 and 9.6 per cent respectively (adjusted OR 0.87, 95 per cent c.i. 0.59 to 1.30; P = 0.498). The proportion of surgeons completing the educational modules was an influence: the leak rate decreased from 12.2 per cent (61 of 500) before intervention to 5.1 per cent (24 of 473) after intervention in high-engagement centres (adjusted OR 0.36, 0.20 to 0.64; P < 0.001), but this was not observed in low-engagement hospitals (8.3 per cent (59 of 714) and 13.8 per cent (61 of 443) respectively; adjusted OR 2.09, 1.31 to 3.31). Conclusion Completion of globally available digital training by engaged teams can alter anastomotic leak rates. Registration number: NCT04270721 (http://www.clinicaltrials.gov)

SARS-CoV-2 vaccination modelling for safe surgery to save lives: data from an international prospective cohort study

Background: Preoperative SARS-CoV-2 vaccination could support safer elective surgery. Vaccine numbers are limited so this study aimed to inform their prioritization by modelling. Methods: The primary outcome was the number needed to vaccinate (NNV) to prevent one COVID-19-related death in 1 year. NNVs were based on postoperative SARS-CoV-2 rates and mortality in an international cohort study (surgical patients), and community SARS-CoV-2 incidence and case fatality data (general population). NNV estimates were stratified by age (18-49, 50-69, 70 or more years) and type of surgery. Best- and worst-case scenarios were used to describe uncertainty. Results: NNVs were more favourable in surgical patients than the general population. The most favourable NNVs were in patients aged 70 years or more needing cancer surgery (351; best case 196, worst case 816) or non-cancer surgery (733; best case 407, worst case 1664). Both exceeded the NNV in the general population (1840; best case 1196, worst case 3066). NNVs for surgical patients remained favourable at a range of SARS-CoV-2 incidence rates in sensitivity analysis modelling. Globally, prioritizing preoperative vaccination of patients needing elective surgery ahead of the general population could prevent an additional 58 687 (best case 115 007, worst case 20 177) COVID-19-related deaths in 1 year. Conclusion: As global roll out of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination proceeds, patients needing elective surgery should be prioritized ahead of the general population