•Chatbots could save time, increase efficiency and reduce the workload of scientists.•ChatGPT could be helpful in preparing scientific immunological manuscripts.•ChatGPT answers to basic scientific ...questions sound polished and convincing.•In-depth scientific questions usually provide wrong answers and wrong citations.•Special training is required if chatbots are to be used as scientific support.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has made great progress in recent years. The latest chatbot to make a splash is ChatGPT. To see if this type of AI could also be helpful in creating an immunological review article, I put a planned review on different classes of small RNAs during murine B cell development to the test. Although the general wording sounded very polished and convincing, ChatGPT encountered great difficulties when asked for details and references and made many incorrect statements, leading me to conclude that this kind of AI is not (yet?) suitable for assisting in the writing of scientific articles.
The subject of this article is the algorithmic employee evaluation system at Amazon’s warehouses in Poland. A weekly performance review, the evaluation is a measure of productivity and quality, ...gathered in real time as warehouse associates scan barcodes throughout the working day. Evaluation results instruct on the employment status of individual workers, without any input from supervisors. The article probes the significance of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for bolstering job security at workplaces like Amazon, where HR decisions are automated and based on the processing of work performance data. Article 22 of the GDPR lays down a prohibition for decision-making based solely on the automated processing of personal data. In turn, it establishes the right to human intervention, which might allow employees to avoid the adverse effects of an employee evaluation, if it did not ensure significant human input. Departing from a shop-floor level view of Amazon’s employee evaluation system that is reinforced by insight gained through litigation in Polish labour courts, this article argues that the process of evaluating workers is not a purely technical operation that can be consigned to algorithmic management. Employee evaluation must abide by certain legal criteria, which ultimately requires human discretion.
Chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes or cancer are the global leading cause of mortality. Lifestyle interventions are most effective in reducing metabolic risk factors, ...disease progression or even side effects of a disease. They are also contributing to decelerate the aging process. Genome instability is very often associated with aging or the above-mentioned diseases, and triggered by inflammation and oxidative stress. An established method to measure chromosomal damage is the cytokinesis block micronucleus (CBMN) cytome assay. The aim of this review and meta-analysis is to collect and analyse the current literature regarding the effects of a lifestyle based (dietary) intervention on changes of micronuclei (MNi), nucleoplasmic bridges (NPBs) and nuclear buds (NBUDs) in elderly subjects or people diagnosed with diabetes, metabolic disorders, cardiovascular disease, cancer or micronutrient deficiency.
Although the main important diseases were considered as well as the large topic of aging, the number and methodological quality in terms of samples size, duration and rationale of the intervention or an inclusion of a control group of available intervention studies with these backgrounds was low. Most of the studies used antioxidant vitamins or folate, few investigated the whole diet. Only one study showed a physical activity intervention approach. The interventions did not lead to decreased genomic marker despite a few cancer related studies, where particularly MN frequency in mucosa lesions and leukoplakia was reduced by green tea and antioxidants. The performed meta-analysis of the available RCTs did not show a significant reduction of MNi, NBUDs or NPBs of most of the interventions performed, except for green tea.
Data show in general a lack of an appropriate number of sound lifestyle based intervention studies linking cytogenetic damage and chronic diseases.
•The topological and dynamic complexity of the PRD was estimated by graph theory.•Topological complexity of subnetworks changed little between 1977 and 2008.•Dynamic complexity decreased in regions ...with relatively severe anthropogenic erosion.•Anthropogenic riverbed erosion increased the number of “high vulnerability channel”.
River networks of deltas are complex systems, responsible for the transport of water, sediment and nutrients between land and sea. Topological complexity, dynamic complexity and flux vulnerability are three characteristics to describe the material transport within a deltaic river network, and they reflect the channel number and connectivity, flux distribution, and sensitivity of flux to external disturbances, respectively. Here, graph theory was applied to estimate the three characteristics of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) in 1977 and 2008, when the human-induced uneven riverbed downcutting occurred on a large scale. By identifying the channels through which water flows from the apex to each outlet, the eight subnetworks corresponding to the eight outlets were distinguished. Although the topological complexity changes little during this period, the dynamic complexity and vulnerability have great adjustments. The dynamic complexity greatly decreases in the subnetworks that have larger riverbed downcutting comparing to their adjacent subnetworks. We further reveal the positive relation between the decrease in dynamic complexity and human-induced riverbed downcutting under the same topological complexity. Moreover, the local vulnerabilities of channels with relatively high riverbed downcutting increase, leading to the emergence of “high vulnerability channels”. These findings suggest that the human-induced uneven riverbed downcutting is the main reason for the adjustments of dynamic complexity and vulnerability. The results obtained from this study may provide scientific guidance for the further development and utilization in the PRD and other deltaic river systems worldwide subject to intensive human intervention.
This review deals with the two major aspects to be considered in the context of meat-based functional foods and human health. One involves the different strategies used to improve (increase or ...reduce) the presence of bioactive (healthy and unhealthy) compounds in meat and meat products in order to develop potential meat-based functional foods; these strategies are basically concerned with animal production practices, meat processing and storage, distribution and consumption conditions. Since the link between the consumption of those foods and their potentially beneficial effects (improving health and/or reducing the risk of several chronic diseases) needs to be demonstrated scientifically, the second aspect considered is related to intervention studies to examine the functional capacity of meat-based potentially functional foods in humans, discussing how the functionality of a food can be assessed in terms of its effects on health in relation to both target body functions and risk factors.
Automated operational modal analysis (OMA) is attractive and has been extensively used to replace traditional OMA, which requires much empirical observation and engineers' judgment. Still, the ...uncertainties on modal parameters and spurious modes are challenging to estimate under the field conditions. For addressing this challenge, this research proposed an automated modal identification approach. The proposed approach consists of two steps: (1) modal analysis using covariance-driven stochastic subspace algorithm; (2) automated interpretation of the stabilization diagram. An additional uncertainty criterion is employed to initially remove as many spurious modes as possible. A novel threshold calculation for clustering is proposed with incorporating uncertainty of modal parameters and the weighting factor. An improved self-adaptive clustering with new distance calculation is used to group physical modes, followed by the final step of robust outlier detection to select outlying modes. The proposed automated approach requires minimum human intervention. Two field tests of the footbridge and a post-tensioned concrete bridge are used to verify the proposed approach. A modal tracking was used for continuously measured data for demonstrating the applicability of the approach. Results show the proposed approach has fairly good performance and be suitable for automated OMA and long-term health monitoring.
Roasted coffee contains atractyligenin-2-O-β-d-glucoside and 3′-O-β-d-glucosyl-2′-O-isovaleryl-2-O-β-d-glucosylatractyligenin, which are ingested with the brew. Known metabolites are atractyligenin, ...atractyligenin-19-O-β-d-glucuronide (M1), 2β-hydroxy-15-oxoatractylan-4α-carboxy-19-O-β-d-glucuronide (M2), and 2β-hydroxy-15-oxoatractylan-4α-carboxylic acid-2-O-β-d-glucuronide (M3), but the appearance and pharmacokinetic properties are unknown. Therefore, first time-resolved quantitative data of atractyligenin glycosides and their metabolites in plasma samples from a pilot human intervention study (n = 10) were acquired. None of the compounds were found in the control samples and before coffee consumption (t = 0 h). After coffee, neither of the atractyligenin glycosides appeared in the plasma, but the aglycone atractyligenin and the conjugated metabolite M1 reached an estimated c max of 41.9 ± 12.5 and 25.1 ± 4.9 nM, respectively, after 1 h. M2 and M3 were not quantifiable until their concentration enormously increased ≥4 h after coffee consumption, reaching an estimated c max of 2.5 ± 1.9 and 55.0 ± 57.7 nM at t = 10 h. The data suggest that metabolites of atractyligenin could be exploited to indicate coffee consumption.
•FAV and SAV covers in Taihu Lake decreased rapidly after 2012.•Controlling factors of FAV and SAV were clarified.•Harvesting activity was mainly driving factor of the loss of FAV.•Water ...eutrophication should be responsible for the loss of SAV.
A rapid degradation of aquatic vegetations in Taihu Lake has roused a wide attention in recent years. Giving large-scale harvesting activity on aquatic vegetation since 2012, whether water eutrophication or the human harvest activity induced the degradation remains controversial and unclear. In this study, based on Landsat and HJ-CCD data acquired from 1984 to 2016 and a 12-year field observation (2005–2016) of water quality, a method was proposed to quantitatively assess impacts of harvesting activity and water quality change on degradations of both floating-leaved aquatic vegetation (FAV) and submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in Taihu Lake. First, areas of FAV and SAV covers from 1984 to 2016 in Taihu Lake were mapped using the satellite data, and then the mapped areas were modified to those on a reference date by using phenological curves of FAV and SAV covers. Next, correlations between water quality data and FAV and SAV covers were analyzed by using Pearson correlation analysis based on the data before implementing the human harvesting activity (i.e., before 2012), and multiple general linear models were established based on the selected water quality variables with p-value <0.01 for estimating covers of FAV and SAV from 2012 to 2016. Finally, based on the predicted areas of FAV and SAV covers by the models and the modified areas mapped from satellite data, the influences of water eutrophication and the human harvesting activity on the degradation of FAV and SAV covers were quantitatively assessed. The results indicated that (1) FAV cover exhibited a significant increase from 1984 to 2011 and then a rapid decrease, while SAV cover increased significantly before 2003 and then obviously declined; (2) water level (WL) and total nitrogen (TN) showed significantly negative correlations with FAV and SAV covers, while secchi disk depth (SDD) and SDD/WL had significantly positive correlations with FAV and SAV covers; (3) the human harvesting activity made a major contribution to the loss of FAV cover, and the degradation of SAV cover was mainly due to an increased lake eutrophication and deteriorated underwater light environment. The findings derived from this study could offer a guidance for Taihu Lake ecological restoration and effective management.
Hydrological changes, which are affected by climate variability and human activities, pose challenges to the sustainable management and conservation of water resources. As such, it is important to ...improve our understanding of how climate and anthropogenic activities impact land water storage. Previous studies using Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite data have struggled to effectively separate the impacts of climate variability and human activities on water storage. Here, we propose a statistical model that simulates natural dynamically driven changes in water storage to reconstruct climate-driven water storage anomalies at basin scales and discuss the possibility of differentiating climate- and human-driven water storage anomalies. The prediction and reconstruction performance of this method shows optimal robustness. Compared with water storage anomalies calculated using land surface models, our reconstruction results are closer to GRACE observations, especially in humid basins with few human interventions. Mismatches are found in basins with intensive human interventions. Isolated human-driven water storage anomalies in four representative basins correlate well with anthropogenic water usage in each basin. The results of this study provide a method to effectively separate and monitor climate- and human-driven water storage anomalies, thereby providing information for better protection and utilization of water resources.
•A statistical model reconstructing climate-driven water storage anomalies (CWSAs) is proposed.•Seasonal signal of CWSA is reconstructed using statistical model for the first time.•Reconstructed CWSAs agree well with GRACE observations in most river basins.•Human-driven water storage anomalies (HWSAs) are isolated and verified.•The developed approach provides a new means for identifying CWSA and HWSA from GRACE.
The saturated fatty acid stearic acid (C18:0) lowers HDL cholesterol compared with palmitic acid (C16:0). However, the ability of HDL particles to promote cholesterol efflux from macrophages ...(cholesterol efflux capacity; CEC) may better predict coronary heart disease (CHD) risk than HDL cholesterol concentrations.
We examined effects of exchanging dietary palmitic acid for stearic acid on ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1)-mediated CEC, and other conventional and emerging cardiometabolic risk makers.
In a double-blind, randomized, crossover study with two 4-week isocaloric intervention periods, 34 healthy men and postmenopausal women (61.5 ± 5.7 years, BMI: 25.4 ± 2.5 kg/m2) followed diets rich in palmitic acids or stearic acids. Difference in intakes was 6% of daily energy. ABCA1-mediated CEC was measured from J774 macrophages to apolipoprotein (apo)B-depleted serum.
Compared with the palmitic-acid diet, the stearic-acid diet lowered serum LDL cholesterol (−0.14 mmol/L; p = 0.010), HDL cholesterol (−0.09 mmol/L; p=<0.001), and apoA1 (−0.05 g/L; p < 0.001). ABCA1-mediated CEC did not differ between diets (p = 0.280). Cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) mass was higher on stearic acid (0.11 mg/L; p = 0.003), but CETP activity was comparable. ApoB100 did not differ, but triacylglycerol concentrations tended to be higher on stearic acid (p = 0.100). Glucose concentrations were comparable. Effects on insulin and C-peptide were sex-dependent. In women, the stearic-acid diet increased insulin concentrations (1.57 μU/mL; p = 0.002), while in men, C-peptide concentrations were lower (−0.15 ng/mL; p = 0.037). Interleukin 6 (0.15 pg/mL; p = 0.039) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (0.18 pg/mL; p = 0.005), but not high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, were higher on stearic acid. Soluble intracellular adhesion molecule (9 ng/mL; p = 0.033), but not soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule and endothelial-selectin concentrations decreased after stearic-acid consumption.
As expected, stearic-acid intake lowered LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and apoA1. Insulin sensitivity in women and low-grade inflammation might be unfavorably affected by stearic-acid intake. However, palmitic-acid and stearic-acid intakes did not differently affect ABCA1-mediated CEC.
This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT02835651.
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