We report on stable, long-term immobilization and localization of a single colloidal Er3+/Yb3+ codoped upconverting fluorescent nanoparticle (UCNP) by optical trapping with a single infrared laser ...beam. Contrary to expectations, the single UCNP emission differs from that generated by an assembly of UCNPs. The experimental data reveal that the differences can be explained in terms of modulations caused by radiation-trapping, a phenomenon not considered before but that this work reveals to be of great relevance.
The value of vaccines Sevilla, JP
Current opinion in immunology,
October 2022, 2022-10-00, 20221001, Letnik:
78
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Optimizing vaccine spending depends on recognizing the full value of vaccination (VoV). Existing taxonomies of such value are not comprehensive because they are not guided by general theories. I rely ...on two such theories: subjective-value theory claims that what has value is determined by what people actually or ideally want in life. A welfarist theory of government states that a fundamental objective of government is to promote social value (or social welfare). These jointly imply that any aspect of life that individuals actually or ideally value and that could be negatively affected by vaccine-preventable diseases (and therefore positively affected by preventive vaccines) is an element of VoV. I build a more comprehensive-value taxonomy than currently exists based on this implication.
Protein:protein interactions are among the most difficult to treat molecular mechanisms of disease pathology. Cystine-dense peptides have the potential to disrupt such interactions, and are used in ...drug-like roles by every clade of life, but their study has been hampered by a reputation for being difficult to produce, owing to their complex disulfide connectivity. Here we describe a platform for identifying target-binding cystine-dense peptides using mammalian surface display, capable of interrogating high quality and diverse scaffold libraries with verifiable folding and stability. We demonstrate the platform's capabilities by identifying a cystine-dense peptide capable of inhibiting the YAP:TEAD interaction at the heart of the oncogenic Hippo pathway, and possessing the potency and stability necessary for consideration as a drug development candidate. This platform provides the opportunity to screen cystine-dense peptides with drug-like qualities against targets that are implicated for the treatment of diseases, but are poorly suited for conventional approaches.
Hyperspectral imaging involves large amounts of information. This paper presents a technique for dimensionality reduction to deal with hyperspectral images. The proposed method is based on a ...hierarchical clustering structure to group bands to minimize the intracluster variance and maximize the intercluster variance. This aim is pursued using information measures, such as distances based on mutual information or Kullback-Leibler divergence, in order to reduce data redundancy and non useful information among image bands. Experimental results include a comparison among some relevant and recent methods for hyperspectral band selection using no labeled information, showing their performance with regard to pixel image classification tasks. The technique that is presented has a stable behavior for different image data sets and a noticeable accuracy, mainly when selecting small sets of bands.
The aim of the study was to evaluate the bioavailability of trace metals (Chromium, Copper, Nickel, Lead, Zinc, Cadmium, Arsenic, and Mercury) in the commercially consumed Crassostrea gigas oysters ...collected over a 12-month growth period (2011–12) from an experimental cultivation farm in La Pitahaya, Sinaloa State, Mexico. Sediment and water samples were also collected from four different zones adjacent to the cultivation area to identify the concentration patterns of metals. The results revealed that sewage disposals, fertilizers used for agricultural practices and shrimp culture are the major sources for the enrichment of certain toxic metals. The metal concentrations in oysters presented a decreasing order of abundance (all values in mg Kg−1): Zn (278.91 ± 93.03) > Cu (63.13 ± 31.72) > Cr (22.29 ± 30.23) > Cd (14.54 ± 4.28) > Ni (9.41 ± 11.33) > Pb (2.22 ± 1.33) > As (0.58 ± 0.91) > Hg (0.04 ± 0.06). Bioconcentration Factor (BCF) and Biota Sediment Accumulation Factor (BSAF) exhibited that C. gigas in the region are strong accumulators for Zn and Cd respectively. Thus, the present study proves to fulfill the gap in understanding the rate of bioaccumulation of metals in C. gigas which is regarded as the most sought after oyster species globally.
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•Elevated metal levels in oyster species (C. gigas) from a cultivation site in SW Gulf of California Coast, Mexico.•High affinities of oyster to accumulate Zn and Cd from the ambient water and sediment fractions.•Impact of effluents from agriculture, aquaculture and domestic waste disposals.
► Trace metal toxicity in Tourist beaches of Acapulco in Mexico. ► Presence of metals above permissible limit. ► Anthropogenic input of metals in tourist beaches.
A survey on the metal concentrations ...(As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, Sr, V, Zn) in beach water and sediments is reported from the tourist destination of Acapulco city on the Pacific coast of Mexico. The concentration of dissolved trace metals (DTMs) in beach water and acid leachable trace metals (ALTMs) in sediments indicated that they are anthropogenic in nature due to the increased tourist activities in the crowded beach locations. The statistical analysis indicates Fe and Mn play a major role as metal scavengers in both the medium (water and sediment) and the higher value of other metals is site specific in the study area, indicating that they are transported from the local area. Comparison results suggest that the beach water quality has deteriorated more than the sediments and special care needs to be taken to restore the beach quality.
ICON Far UltraViolet (FUV) imager contributes to the ICON science objectives by providing remote sensing measurements of the daytime and nighttime atmosphere/ionosphere. During sunlit atmospheric ...conditions, ICON FUV images the limb altitude profile in the shortwave (SW) band at 135.6 nm and the longwave (LW) band at 157 nm perpendicular to the satellite motion to retrieve the atmospheric O/N
2
ratio. In conditions of atmospheric darkness, ICON FUV measures the 135.6 nm recombination emission of
O
+
ions used to compute the nighttime ionospheric altitude distribution. ICON Far UltraViolet (FUV) imager is a Czerny–Turner design Spectrographic Imager with two exit slits and corresponding back imager cameras that produce two independent images in separate wavelength bands on two detectors. All observations will be processed as limb altitude profiles. In addition, the ionospheric 135.6 nm data will be processed as longitude and latitude spatial maps to obtain images of ion distributions around regions of equatorial spread F. The ICON FUV optic axis is pointed 20 degrees below local horizontal and has a steering mirror that allows the field of view to be steered up to 30 degrees forward and aft, to keep the local magnetic meridian in the field of view. The detectors are micro channel plate (MCP) intensified FUV tubes with the phosphor fiber-optically coupled to Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs). The dual stack MCP-s amplify the photoelectron signals to overcome the CCD noise and the rapidly scanned frames are co-added to digitally create 12-second integrated images. Digital on-board signal processing is used to compensate for geometric distortion and satellite motion and to achieve data compression. The instrument was originally aligned in visible light by using a special grating and visible cameras. Final alignment, functional and environmental testing and calibration were performed in a large vacuum chamber with a UV source. The test and calibration program showed that ICON FUV meets its design requirements and is ready to be launched on the ICON spacecraft.
Preference-based social welfare functions (pbSWF) perform better at reconciling competing personal and social goals than typical forms of MCDA. Its virtues are (a) its respect for people's own ...judgments about the relative values of health, wealth, and other broad benefits within their lives (non-paternalism) and (b) its conformity with reasonable ethical axioms. Any discrepancy between an MCDA objective function and that implied by pbSWF suggests the former's failure to respect non-paternalism and reasonable ethical principles. The pbSWF approach is implementable using micro-econometric evidence on personal preferences over health, wealth, and other broad benefits; and surveys of the general population or their representatives to ascertain the social acceptability of certain ethical axioms and the degree of inequality aversion.
We measure the economic contribution of older adults (i.e., adults age 60+) in Europe and the US by examining participation in and calculating value generated by market activities and productive ...non-market activities (PNMA). We find that the estimated value of market and non-market contributions of older adults in the sample countries in Europe and the US sum to the equivalent of 7.3% of gross domestic product, while older adults make up 24% and 21% of the European and US population, respectively. In addition, notable variation exists in the composition of older adults’ economic contributions by age group, national setting, and gender—with a significant proportion of overall value generated from PNMA when monetized in relation to market activities. Regarding retirement policy, we find at the country level that the value generated from increased employment may be offset by the loss of value from decreased PNMA and that the impact of retirement policy on overall productivity depends on the ratio of market to non-market productivity in a country. Finally, we find that severe but common health shocks such as heart attacks, strokes, and the onset of cancer affect both market activities and PNMA appreciably across countries and genders, with an overall greater reduction in market activities by males and in PNMA by females. Taken together, we show that PNMA comprises a substantial share of older adults’ productive contributions and argue that it should be considered in policy discussions regarding retirement age, pension taxes, and healthy aging.
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