The mammalian ovary is covered by a single-layered epithelium that undergoes rupture and remodelling following each ovulation. Although resident stem cells are presumed to be crucial for this cyclic ...regeneration, their identity and mode of action have been elusive. Surrogate stemness assays and in vivo fate-mapping studies using recently discovered stem cell markers have identified stem cell pools in the ovary and fimbria that ensure epithelial homeostasis. Recent findings provide insights into intrinsic mechanisms and local extrinsic cues that govern the function of ovarian and fimbrial stem cells. These discoveries have advanced our understanding of stem cell biology in the ovary and fimbria, and lay the foundations for evaluating the contribution of resident stem cells to the initiation and progression of human epithelial ovarian cancer.
PurposeThis study investigated the usefulness of various communication means for providing university study information with prospective students before and during the pandemic for three consecutive ...academic years.Design/methodology/approachStudents who had recently taken undergraduate program admission indicated how useful communication channels were in providing the information about university studying. Seven communication channels were examined: open/information day, admission talk, campus visit, education fair, admission website, social media and summer activities. The students were asked to complete an online survey at the beginning of an academic year. In the survey, they were asked to indicate the usefulness of each of the communication channels using a five-point Likert scale with the descriptors: 1 = not useful, 2 = slightly useful, 3 = somewhat useful, 4 = useful, 5 = very useful. If students did not have any usage experience with a communication channel, they were asked to choose “no experience.” There were 1798, 1735 and 1961 students at a university in Hong Kong participating in the study in academic years 2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22, respectively.FindingsThe pandemic has transformed the landscape of the university's ways of marketing channels to communicate with prospective students. The top useful channel of information for students during the pandemic was admission website, followed by social media and then open/information day. Before the pandemic, open/information day was the most useful channel of information for students and then admission website; the least useful one was social media channel. Significant differences were revealed in the usefulness rating on open/information day and social media channel among the three academic years.Originality/valueThe findings facilitate educational managers to determine the appropriate marketing and recruitment strategies for connecting with prospective students under dynamic context in the era of new normal. They helped identify where to focus the marketing efforts to achieve the most impact in particular under budget constraints.
Lgr5+ intestinal stem cells generate enterocytes and secretory cells. Secretory lineage commitment requires Notch silencing. The Notch ligand Dll1 is expressed by a subset of immediate stem cell ...daughters. Lineage tracing in Dll1(GFP-ires-CreERT2) knock-in mice reveals that single Dll1(high) cells generate small, short-lived clones containing all four secretory cell types. Lineage specification thus occurs in immediate stem cell daughters through Notch lateral inhibition. Cultured Dll1(high) cells form long-lived organoids (mini-guts) on brief Wnt3A exposure. When Dll1(high) cells are genetically marked before tissue damage, stem cell tracing events occur. Thus, secretory progenitors exhibit plasticity by regaining stemness on damage.
This study examined the benefits of pharmaceutical pictograms for improving comprehension of medication information for older people. Fifty Hong Kong Chinese older people completed a medical ...information comprehension task for five drugs. Participants in the control group were presented with text labels while those in the experimental group were given the text labels plus supplementary pharmaceutical pictograms, and then all reported their understanding of the medication information conveyed. Lower educated older people had poorer understanding of medication information. The addition of pharmaceutical pictograms significantly improved the comprehension of medication information for older people. The majority of older people tested with pictograms favored adding pictograms to text and thought the pictograms were useful for conveying medical information rather than using written text alone. The findings suggested that pharmaceutical and health care professionals should include pharmaceutical pictograms on labels to better convey instructions on medication to older people.
•Pictograms can improve understanding of medication information by older people.•The higher the education level, the better the medication information comprehension.•The older people favored adding pictograms to text in conveying medical information.
We examined different encapsulation strategies for perovskite solar cells by testing the device stability under continuous illumination, elevated temperature (85 °C) and ambient humidity of 65 %. The ...effects of the use of different epoxies, protective layers and the presence of desiccant were investigated. The best stability (retention of ∼80 % of initial efficiency on average after 48 h) was obtained for devices protected by a SiO2 film and encapsulated with a UV‐curable epoxy including a desiccant sheet. However, the stability of ZnO‐based cells encapsulated by the same method was found to be inferior to that of TiO2‐based cells. Finally, outdoor performance tests were performed for TiO2‐based cells (30–90 % ambient humidity). All the stability tests were performed following the established international summit on organic photovoltaic stability (ISOS) protocols for organic solar cell testing (ISOS‐L2 and ISOS‐O1).
Seal in the stability: Different encapsulation techniques are examined for perovskite solar cells. The cells encapsulated with a SiO2 thin film and cover glass packaging incorporating desiccant and UV‐curable epoxy exhibit good performance in accelerated lab testing under illumination and at 85 °C, as well as in outdoor testing in Hong Kong.
This study examined color-concept associations among designers and non-designers with commonly used warning and operation concepts. This study required 199 designers and 175 non-designers to indicate ...their choice among nine colors to associate with each of the 38 concepts in a color-concept table. The results showed that the designers and non-designers had the same color associations and similar strengths of stereotypes for 17 concepts. The strongest color-concept stereotypes for both groups were red-danger, red-fire, and red-hot. However, the designers and non-designers had different color associations for the concepts of escape (green, red), increase (green, red), potential hazard (red, orange), fatal (black, red), and normal (white, green), while the strengths of the 16 remaining associations for both groups were not at equivalent levels. These findings provide ergonomists and design practitioners with a better understanding of population stereotypes for color coding, and consequently to effectively use colors in their user-centered designs.
•Shared and different color associations among designers and non-designers existed.•Each concept was significantly associated with a color for both groups.•The groups expressed the same stereotypical color associations for 17 concepts.•Red-fire, red-hot, and red-danger were the strong color-concept pairs.
AbstractPrevious studies have found that construction workers have considerable difficulties in safety-sign comprehension. This research examines the mental models of construction workers regarding ...safety-sign representations, and how user factors and referent characteristics affects these mental models. Twenty-two Hong Kong Chinese construction workers drew their mental models (pictures of the perceptions that came to mind) for 12 sign referents and described verbally their drawings. The influences of the four referent characteristics to mental model formation were not equivalent. Concreteness was the best predictor, followed by ease of visualization, familiarity, and context availability. The higher the visual imagery vividness of construction workers, the higher the proportion of their mental models for sign referents that were recognized as stereotypes. Other user factors had no significant effect on mental model formation. This knowledge of how user mental models of sign referents and how the representation was built in user minds would be beneficial for practitioners to enable better processing and practicing mental model approaches to safety-signs design for use in sites.
Invasiveness status, histological grade, lymph node stage, and tumour size are important prognostic factors for breast cancer survival. This evaluation aims to compare these features for cancers ...detected by AI and human readers using digital mammography. Women diagnosed with breast cancer between 2009 and 2019 from three UK double-reading sites were included in this retrospective cohort evaluation. Differences in prognostic features of cancers detected by AI and the first human reader (R1) were assessed using chi-square tests, with significance at
< 0.05. From 1718 screen-detected cancers (SDCs) and 293 interval cancers (ICs), AI flagged 85.9% and 31.7%, respectively. R1 detected 90.8% of SDCs and 7.2% of ICs. Of the screen-detected cancers detected by the AI, 82.5% had an invasive component, compared to 81.1% for R1 (
-0.374). For the ICs, this was 91.5% and 93.8% for AI and R1, respectively (
= 0.829). For the invasive tumours, no differences were found for histological grade, tumour size, or lymph node stage. The AI detected more ICs. In summary, no differences in prognostic factors were found comparing SDC and ICs identified by AI or human readers. These findings support a potential role for AI in the double-reading workflow.
The performance of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) has been improved throughout the years. These photovoltaic (PV) cells can be used to power Internet of Things (IoT) devices for indoor applications. A ...perovskite PV energy harvesting system with a stand-by battery that continuously powers an IoT device is developed in this work. The battery is required to complement the PSCs when the latter have difficulties in power delivery during low or no irradiance. The performance of the energy harvesting circuit as well as the battery charge and discharge scenarios are investigated. Voltage matching between the PSC and the battery is achieved by a boost converter. The PSC energy harvesting system uses fractional open-circuit voltage (FOCV) based maximum power point tracking (MPPT), which utilizes a Sample and Hold (S&H) circuit. The FOCV technique is based on a comparison of the perovskite PV open circuit voltages and the maximum power points. For each irradiance level, the maximum power point is unique, and this work uses a light-dependent resistor (LDR) to adjust the scaling constant in MPPT. Case studies include various scenarios under 1000 lux fluorescent light and 1 sun irradiance as well as a consideration of different battery states.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to improve breast cancer screening; however, prospective evidence of the safe implementation of AI into real clinical practice is limited. A ...commercially available AI system was implemented as an additional reader to standard double reading to flag cases for further arbitration review among screened women. Performance was assessed prospectively in three phases: a single-center pilot rollout, a wider multicenter pilot rollout and a full live rollout. The results showed that, compared to double reading, implementing the AI-assisted additional-reader process could achieve 0.7-1.6 additional cancer detection per 1,000 cases, with 0.16-0.30% additional recalls, 0-0.23% unnecessary recalls and a 0.1-1.9% increase in positive predictive value (PPV) after 7-11% additional human reads of AI-flagged cases (equating to 4-6% additional overall reading workload). The majority of cancerous cases detected by the AI-assisted additional-reader process were invasive (83.3%) and small-sized (≤10 mm, 47.0%). This evaluation suggests that using AI as an additional reader can improve the early detection of breast cancer with relevant prognostic features, with minimal to no unnecessary recalls. Although the AI-assisted additional-reader workflow requires additional reads, the higher PPV suggests that it can increase screening effectiveness.
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