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Showing papers by "Dublin City University published in 2018"


Journal ArticleDOI
22 Jun 2018-Science
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that, in the general population, the personality trait neuroticism is significantly correlated with almost every psychiatric disorder and migraine, and it is shown that both psychiatric and neurological disorders have robust correlations with cognitive and personality measures.
Abstract: Disorders of the brain can exhibit considerable epidemiological comorbidity and often share symptoms, provoking debate about their etiologic overlap. We quantified the genetic sharing of 25 brain disorders from genome-wide association studies of 265,218 patients and 784,643 control participants and assessed their relationship to 17 phenotypes from 1,191,588 individuals. Psychiatric disorders share common variant risk, whereas neurological disorders appear more distinct from one another and from the psychiatric disorders. We also identified significant sharing between disorders and a number of brain phenotypes, including cognitive measures. Further, we conducted simulations to explore how statistical power, diagnostic misclassification, and phenotypic heterogeneity affect genetic correlations. These results highlight the importance of common genetic variation as a risk factor for brain disorders and the value of heritability-based methods in understanding their etiology.

1,357 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse the relationship between three popular cryptocurrencies and a variety of other financial assets and find evidence of the relative isolation of these assets from the financial and economic assets.

813 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
31 Oct 2018
TL;DR: This paper presents the results of the premier shared task organized alongside the Conference on Machine Translation (WMT) 2018, asked to build machine translation systems for any of 7 language pairs in both directions, to be evaluated on a test set of news stories.
Abstract: This paper presents the results of the premier shared task organized alongside the Conference on Machine Translation (WMT) 2018. Participants were asked to build machine translation systems for any of 7 language pairs in both directions, to be evaluated on a test set of news stories. The main metric for this task is human judgment of translation quality. This year, we also opened up the task to additional test suites to probe specific aspects of translation.

390 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors review Mode 2 UTT from a quadruple helix perspective to identify key themes to develop a research agenda which reflects progression from a triple into quadruple-helix ecosystem.
Abstract: Within recent years, there has been a rapid expansion of the University's role in economic development. This has resulted in University Technology Transfer (UTT) taking place within an increasingly complex network of regional stakeholders. This complexity has resulted in quadruple helix models where the triple helix model of academia, industry and regional government now includes societal based innovation users as a fourth helix. Despite this development, extant research is fragmented and lacks coherent frameworks and conceptualisations which fully depict the dynamic and evolving nature of UTT. Accordingly, this article reviews Mode 2 UTT from a quadruple helix perspective to identify key themes to develop a research agenda which reflects progression from a triple into a quadruple helix ecosystem.

217 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The increased specific surface areas by microporosity can offer more protein adsorption sites and accelerate the release of degradation products, which facilitate the interactions between scaffolds and cells, and capillary force generated by the micropore can improve the attachment of bone-related cells on the scaffolds surface.
Abstract: Microporosity has a critical role in improving the osteogenesis of scaffolds for bone tissue engineering. Although the exact mechanism, by which it promotes new bone formation, is not well recognized yet, the related hypothesis can be found in many previous studies. This review presents those possible mechanisms about how the microporosity enhances the osteogenic-related functions of cells in vitro and the osteogenic activity of scaffolds in vivo. In summary, the increased specific surface areas by microporosity can offer more protein adsorption sites and accelerate the release of degradation products, which facilitate the interactions between scaffolds and cells. Meanwhile, the unique surface properties of microporous scaffolds have a considerable effect on the protein adsorption. Moreover, capillary force generated by the microporosity can improve the attachment of bone-related cells on the scaffolds surface, and even make the cells achieve penetration into the micropores smaller than them. This review also pays attention to the relationship between the biological and mechanical properties of microporous scaffolds. Although lots of achievements have been obtained, there is still a lot of work to do, some of which has been proposed in the conclusions and perspectives part.

213 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated whether the introduction of futures trading in Bitcoin is able to resolve the issues that stopped Bitcoin from being considered a currency and showed that spot volatility has increased following the appearance of futures contracts, that futures contracts are not an effective hedging instrument, and that price discovery is driven by uninformed investors in the spot market.

192 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
19 Jan 2018-PLOS ONE
TL;DR: Findings suggest that for adults, convincing evidence supports a relationship between PA and socioeconomic status (SES), especially in relation to leisure time (positive relationship) and occupational PA (negative relationship).
Abstract: Background To date, the scientific literature on socioeconomic correlates and determinants of physical activity behaviours has been dispersed throughout a number of systematic reviews, often focusing on one factor (eg education or parental income) in one specific age group (eg pre-school children or adults) The aim of this umbrella review is to provide a comprehensive and systematic overview of the scientific literature from previously conducted research by summarising and synthesising the importance and strength of the evidence related to socioeconomic correlates and determinants of PA behaviours across the life course Methods Medline, Embase, ISI Web of Science, Scopus and SPORTDiscus were searched for systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses of observational studies investigating the association between socioeconomic determinants of PA and PA itself (from January 2004 to September 2017) Data extraction evaluated the importance of determinants, strength of evidence, and methodological quality of the selected papers The full protocol is available from PROSPERO (PROSPERO2014:CRD42015010616) Results Nineteen reviews were included Moderate methodological quality emerged For adults, convincing evidence supports a relationship between PA and socioeconomic status (SES), especially in relation to leisure time (positive relationship) and occupational PA (negative relationship) Conversely, no association between PA and SES or parental SES was found for pre-school, school-aged children and adolescents Conclusions Available evidence on the socioeconomic determinants of PA behaviour across the life course is probable (shows fairly consistent associations) at best While some evidence is available for adults, less was available for youth This is mainly due to a limited quantity of primary studies, weak research designs and lack of accuracy in the PA and SES assessment methods employed Further PA domain specific studies using longitudinal design and clear measures of SES and PA assessment are required

188 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A meta-analysis involving 175,755 patients admitted to the intensive care unit and/or cardiac/cardiothoracic units showed that a higher nurse staffing level decreased the risk of inhospital mortality by 14% and more studies need to be conducted to offset the paucity and weaknesses of research in this area.
Abstract: Background:Nurses are pivotal in the provision of high quality care in acute hospitals. However, the optimal dosing of the number of nurses caring for patients remains elusive. In light of this, an...

173 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
01 Jul 2018
TL;DR: A neural knowledge diffusion model to introduce knowledge into dialogue generation that can not only match the relevant facts for the input utterance but diffuse them to similar entities with the help of facts matching and entity diffusion.
Abstract: End-to-end neural dialogue generation has shown promising results recently, but it does not employ knowledge to guide the generation and hence tends to generate short, general, and meaningless responses. In this paper, we propose a neural knowledge diffusion (NKD) model to introduce knowledge into dialogue generation. This method can not only match the relevant facts for the input utterance but diffuse them to similar entities. With the help of facts matching and entity diffusion, the neural dialogue generation is augmented with the ability of convergent and divergent thinking over the knowledge base. Our empirical study on a real-world dataset prove that our model is capable of generating meaningful, diverse and natural responses for both factoid-questions and knowledge grounded chi-chats. The experiment results also show that our model outperforms competitive baseline models significantly.

171 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a conceptual framework that seeks to support management in understanding the actions required to implement digital transformation, and present 10 case studies from the literature and analysis the approaches these organizations have taken to successfully implement digital technologies.
Abstract: Digitally enabled organizations are supported by new information and communication technologies, referred to as digital technologies, which increasingly promise enormous opportunities for growth. The study reviews 10 case studies from the literature and analysis the approaches these organizations have taken to successfully implement digital technologies. The findings reveal a conceptual framework that seeks to support management in understanding the actions required to implement digital transformation.

164 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Recommendations are provided for narrowing the m‐health digital divide through inclusive design and educational efforts to improve self‐efficacy, develop privacy literacy, and build trust, thereby ensuring that older citizens are both capable and willing to adopt.
Abstract: Mobile health (m-health) technologies offer many benefits to individuals, organizations, and health professionals alike. Indeed, the utilization of m-health by older adults can foster the development of proactive patients, while also reducing financial burden and resource pressures on health systems. However, the potentially transformative influence of m-health is limited as many older adults resist adoption leading to the emergence of an age-based digital divide. This study leverages protection motivation theory and social cognitive theory to explore the factors driving resistance among older adults. This mixed methods study integrates survey findings with insights from qualitative interviews to highlight that the m-health digital divide is deepening due to older adults’ perceived inability to adopt, and their unwillingness to adopt stemming from mistrust, high risk perceptions, and strong desire for privacy. The paper contributes to the privacy and social inclusion literature by demonstrating that while many older adults have access to m-health, they are currently excluded, and require careful consideration by technology organizations and researchers. The study provides recommendations for narrowing the m-health digital divide through inclusive design and educational efforts to improve self-efficacy, develop privacy literacy, and build trust, thereby ensuring older citizens are both capable, and willing to adopt

Journal ArticleDOI
30 Nov 2018-Science
TL;DR: An isostructural, purely electronically driven metal-insulator transition is demonstrated in epitaxial heterostructures of an archetypal correlated material, vanadium dioxide, to provide insights into phase transitions of correlated materials and may aid the design of device functionalities.
Abstract: The metal-insulator transition in correlated materials is usually coupled to a symmetry-lowering structural phase transition. This coupling not only complicates the understanding of the basic mechanism of this phenomenon but also limits the speed and endurance of prospective electronic devices. We demonstrate an isostructural, purely electronically driven metal-insulator transition in epitaxial heterostructures of an archetypal correlated material, vanadium dioxide. A combination of thin-film synthesis, structural and electrical characterizations, and theoretical modeling reveals that an interface interaction suppresses the electronic correlations without changing the crystal structure in this otherwise correlated insulator. This interaction stabilizes a nonequilibrium metallic phase and leads to an isostructural metal-insulator transition. This discovery will provide insights into phase transitions of correlated materials and may aid the design of device functionalities.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the lattice constants, cohesive energies, and bulk moduli of 64 solids using six functionals, representing the local, semi-local, and hybrid DFAs on the first four rungs of Jacob's ladder.
Abstract: Accurate and careful benchmarking of different density-functional approximations (DFAs) represents an important source of information for understanding DFAs and how to improve them. In this work we have studied the lattice constants, cohesive energies, and bulk moduli of 64 solids using six functionals, representing the local, semi-local, and hybrid DFAs on the first four rungs of Jacob’s ladder. The set of solids considered consists of ionic crystals, semiconductors, metals, and transition-metal carbides and nitrides. To minimize numerical errors and to avoid making further approximations, the full-potential, all-electron FHI-aims code has been employed, and all the reported cohesive properties include contributions from zeropoint vibrations. Our assessment demonstrates that current DFAs can predict cohesive properties with mean absolute relative errors of 0.6% for the lattice constant and 6% for both the cohesive energy and the bulk modulus over the whole database of 64 solids. For semiconducting and insulating solids, the recently proposed SCAN meta-GGA functional represents a substantial improvement over the other functionals. However, when considering the different types of solids in the set, all of the employed functionals exhibit some variance in their performance. There are clear trends and relationships in the deviations of the cohesive properties, pointing to the need to consider, for example, long-range van der Waals (vdW) interactions. This point is also demonstrated by consistent improvements in predictions for cohesive properties of semiconductors when augmenting GGA and hybrid functionals with a screened Tkatchenko-Scheffler vdW energy term. Submitted to: New J. Phys.

Journal ArticleDOI
07 May 2018-Nature
TL;DR: The optical transmission spectrum for the ‘hot Saturn’ exoplanet WASP-96b reveals a clear atmosphere, an atmospheric sodium abundance and hence its metallicity, which is consistent with the metalicity trend observed in Solar System planets and exoplanets.
Abstract: Broad absorption signatures from alkali metals, such as the sodium (Na i) and potassium (K i) resonance doublets, have long been predicted in the optical atmospheric spectra of cloud-free irradiated gas giant exoplanets1–3. However, observations have revealed only the narrow cores of these features rather than the full pressure-broadened profiles4–6. Cloud and haze opacity at the day–night planetary terminator are considered to be responsible for obscuring the absorption-line wings, which hinders constraints on absolute atmospheric abundances7–9. Here we report an optical transmission spectrum for the ‘hot Saturn’ exoplanet WASP-96b obtained with the Very Large Telescope, which exhibits the complete pressure-broadened profile of the sodium absorption feature. The spectrum is in excellent agreement with cloud-free, solar-abundance models assuming chemical equilibrium. We are able to measure a precise, absolute sodium abundance of logeNa = $${{\bf{6.9}}}_{-{\bf{0.4}}}^{+{\bf{0.6}}}$$ , and use it as a proxy for the planet’s atmospheric metallicity relative to the solar value (Zp/Zʘ = $${{\bf{2.3}}}_{-{\bf{1.7}}}^{+{\bf{8.9}}}$$ ). This result is consistent with the mass–metallicity trend observed for Solar System planets and exoplanets10–12. The optical transmission spectrum for the ‘hot Saturn’ exoplanet WASP-96b reveals a clear atmosphere, an atmospheric sodium abundance and hence its metallicity, which is consistent with the metallicity trend observed in Solar System planets and exoplanets.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A “state of the science” view of AT users is provided, conceptualized as “People” within the set of GATE strategic “P”s, and the role of advocacy, empowerment and co-design in developing and driving AT processes is considered.
Abstract: This paper is based on work from the Global Research, Innovation, and Education on Assistive Technology (GREAT) Summit that was coordinated by WHO's Global Cooperation on Assistive Technology (GATE). The purpose of this paper is to describe the needs and opportunities embedded in the assistive product lifecycle as well as issues relating to the various stages of assistive product mobilization worldwide. The paper discusses assistive technology product terminology and the dangers of focusing on products outside the context and rolling out products without a plan. Additionally, the paper reviews concepts and issues around technology transfer, particularly in relation to meeting global needs and among countries with limited resources. Several opportunities are highlighted including technology advancement and the world nearing a state of readiness through a developing capacity of nations across the world to successfully adopt and support the assistive technology products and applications. The paper is optimistic about the future of assistive technology products reaching the people that can use it the most and the excitement across large and small nations in increasing their own capacities for implementing assistive technology. This is expressed as hope in future students as they innovate and in modern engineering that will enable assistive technology to pervade all corners of current and potential marketplaces. Importantly, the paper poses numerous topics where discussions are just superficially opened. The hope is that a set of sequels will follow to continue this critical dialog. Implications for Rehabilitation Successful assistive technology product interventions are complex and include much more than the simple selection of the right product. Assistive technology product use is highly context sensitive in terms of an individual user's environment. The development of assistive technology products is tricky as it must be contextually sensitive to the development environment and market as well. As a field we have much to study and develop around assistive technology product interventions from a global perspective.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This review focuses on recent advances in electrochemical sensors and biosensors based on conducting polymers doped with various nanomaterials, including carbon nanommaterials, metal or metal oxide nanoparticles and quantum dots.
Abstract: Nanomaterial-doped conducting polymers represent a unique class of composite materials that synergizes the advantageous features of nanomaterials and organic conductors, and they have been used in many applications such as electrochemical sensors and energy storage devices. Conducting polymers can be controllably synthesized from various monomers, and during the polymerization process, different nanomaterials offering unique physical and chemical properties can be doped into the formed conducting polymer composites. In this review, we focus on recent advances in electrochemical sensors and biosensors based on conducting polymers doped with various nanomaterials, including carbon nanomaterials, metal or metal oxide nanoparticles and quantum dots. Approaches to fabrication of films of these materials are described and sensing applications for different targets are summarized.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Sep 2018-Pain
TL;DR: The findings demonstrate the existence of sexually dimorphic pain signalling in rats, suggesting that this sex difference is evolutionarily conserved, at least across rodent species.
Abstract: Microglia-neuron signalling in the spinal cord is a key mediator of mechanical allodynia caused by peripheral nerve injury. We recently reported sex differences in microglia in pain signalling in mice: spinal mechanisms underlying nerve injury-induced allodynia are microglial dependent in male but not female mice. Whether this sex difference in pain hypersensitivity mechanisms is conserved in other species is unknown. Here, we show that in rats, the spinal mechanisms of nerve injury-induced hypersensitivity in males differ from those in females, with microglial P2X4 receptors (P2X4Rs) being a key point of divergence. In rats, nerve injury produced comparable allodynia and reactive microgliosis in both sexes. However, inhibiting microglia in the spinal cord reversed allodynia in male rats but not female rats. In addition, pharmacological blockade of P2X4Rs, by an intrathecally administered antagonist, attenuated pain hypersensitivity in male rats only. Consistent with the behavioural findings, nerve injury increased cell surface expression and function of P2X4Rs in acutely isolated spinal microglia from male rats but not from female rats. Moreover, in microglia cultured from male rats, but not in those from female rats, stimulating P2X4Rs drove intracellular signalling through p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase. Furthermore, chromatin immunoprecipitation-qPCR revealed that the transcription factor IRF5 differentially binds to the P2rx4 promoter region in female rats vs male rats. Finally, mechanical allodynia was produced in otherwise naive rats by intrathecally administering P2X4R-stimulated microglia from male rats but not those from female rats. Together, our findings demonstrate the existence of sexually dimorphic pain signalling in rats, suggesting that this sex difference is evolutionarily conserved, at least across rodent species.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Further investigations are needed to elaborate how the concept of a key contact person could be integrated with existing case management approaches and how the independence and autonomy of people with dementia can be strengthened when formal care needs to be accessed and used.
Abstract: People with dementia and informal carers often access formal care late in the process of dementia. The barriers and facilitators to service use from the perspectives of different stakeholders involved are not well understood. Thus, we aimed to explore the barriers and facilitators of access to and utilisation of formal care from the perspectives of people with dementia, their informal carers and health and social care professionals. Focus groups with people with dementia, informal carers and professionals were conducted in eight European countries. Recruitment targeted people with dementia, informal carers with experience of formal care and professionals involved in providing (access to) formal care. Qualitative content analysis using open coding was used on a national level. Cross-national synthesis was based on the translated national reports. Overall, 55 focus groups with 261 participants were conducted, involving 51 people with dementia, 96 informal carers and 114 professionals. Sixteen categories describing barriers and facilitators were identified, referring to three global themes: Aspects related to 1) individuals involved, 2) the system or 3) overarching aspects. The attitudes and beliefs of people with dementia and their carers may have a major impact, and they often serve as barriers. Formal care was perceived as a threat to the individual independence of people with dementia and was thus avoided as long as possible. A healthcare professional serving as a constant key contact person could be an essential facilitator to overcome these barriers. Contact should be initiated proactively, as early as possible, and a trusting and consistent relationship needs to be established. Beyond that, the findings largely confirm former research and show that barriers to accessing and using formal care still exist across Europe despite a number of national and European initiatives. Further investigations are needed to elaborate how the concept of a key contact person could be integrated with existing case management approaches and how the independence and autonomy of people with dementia can be strengthened when formal care needs to be accessed and used. These may be meaningful facilitators regarding enhanced access to formal care for people with dementia and their families.

17 Apr 2018
TL;DR: This paper investigated the effect of back-translated data on the performance of a neural machine translation (NMT) model for German-to-English translation and showed that back-translation has a significant impact on NMT performance.
Abstract: A prerequisite for training corpus-based machine translation (MT) systems – either Statistical MT (SMT) or Neural MT (NMT) – is the availability of high-quality parallel data. This is arguably more important today than ever before, as NMT has been shown in many studies to outperform SMT, but mostly when large parallel corpora are available; in cases where data is limited, SMT can still outperform NMT. Recently researchers have shown that back-translating monolingual data can be used to create synthetic parallel corpora, which in turn can be used in combination with authentic parallel data to train a high-quality NMT system. Given that large collections of new parallel text become available only quite rarely, back-translation has become the norm when building state-of-the-art NMT systems, especially in resource-poor scenarios. However, we assert that there are many unknown factors regarding the actual effects of back-translated data on the translation capabilities of an NMT model. Accordingly, in this work we investigate how using back-translated data as a training corpus – both as a separate standalone dataset as well as combined with human-generated parallel data – affects the performance of an NMT model. We use incrementally larger amounts of back-translated data to train a range of NMT systems for German-to-English, and analyse the resulting translation performance.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: This paper integrated gender information into NMT systems to improve the translation quality of French-English NMT for multiple language pairs, and found that adding a gender feature to an NMT system significantly improved translation quality for some language pairs.
Abstract: Speakers of different languages must attend to and encode strikingly different aspects of the world in order to use their language correctly (Sapir, 1921; Slobin, 1996). One such difference is related to the way gender is expressed in a language. Saying “I am happy” in English, does not encode any additional knowledge of the speaker that uttered the sentence. However, many other languages do have grammatical gender systems and so such knowledge would be encoded. In order to correctly translate such a sentence into, say, French, the inherent gender information needs to be retained/recovered. The same sentence would become either “Je suis heureux”, for a male speaker or “Je suis heureuse” for a female one. Apart from morphological agreement, demographic factors (gender, age, etc.) also influence our use of language in terms of word choices or even on the level of syntactic constructions (Tannen, 1991; Pennebaker et al., 2003). We integrate gender information into NMT systems. Our contribution is twofold: (1) the compilation of large datasets with speaker information for 20 language pairs, and (2) a simple set of experiments that incorporate gender information into NMT for multiple language pairs. Our experiments show that adding a gender feature to an NMT system significantly improves the translation quality for some language pairs.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Wearable inertial sensor systems for analysing lower limb exercises is a rapidly growing field of research and research over the past 10 years has predominantly focused on validating measurements that the systems produce and classifying users’ exercise quality.
Abstract: Analysis of lower limb exercises is traditionally completed with four distinct methods: (1) 3D motion capture; (2) depth-camera-based systems; (3) visual analysis from a qualified exercise professional; and (4) self-assessment. Each method is associated with a number of limitations. The aim of this systematic review is to synthesise and evaluate studies which have investigated the capacity for inertial measurement unit (IMU) technologies to assess movement quality in lower limb exercises. A systematic review of studies identified through the databases of PubMed, ScienceDirect and Scopus was conducted. Articles written in English and published in the last 10 years which investigated an IMU system for the analysis of repetition-based targeted lower limb exercises were included. The quality of included studies was measured using an adapted version of the STROBE assessment criteria for cross-sectional studies. The studies were categorised into three groupings: exercise detection, movement classification or measurement validation. Each study was then qualitatively summarised. From the 2452 articles that were identified with the search strategies, 47 papers are included in this review. Twenty-six of the 47 included studies were deemed as being of high quality. Wearable inertial sensor systems for analysing lower limb exercises is a rapidly growing field of research. Research over the past 10 years has predominantly focused on validating measurements that the systems produce and classifying users’ exercise quality. There have been very few user evaluation studies and no clinical trials in this field to date.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Easy- Swarm is developed, an open-source UAV swarming platform that adopts the LoRa radio at the physical layer and a low-latency channel access protocol at the MAC layer, showing that using LoRa leads to better reliability, in particular allowing for higher swarm density and longer coverage distance, than when WiFi is used.
Abstract: UAVs are powerful IoT components, offering sensing, communications and data analysis in the air. Recently, 3GPP TS 22.261, TR 22.862, and TR 36.777 have specified performance requirements for communications between multiple UAVs in the 5G domain. This article discusses communications reliability challenges in a UAV swarm context. Recommendations for designing an ultra-reliable communications system for UAV swarms are introduced with a focus on the software protocol stack and RF hardware. For the purpose of demonstration, we developed Easy- Swarm, an open-source UAV swarming platform that adopts the LoRa radio at the physical layer and a low-latency channel access protocol at the MAC layer. Real-life testbeds are built consisting of 10 UAVs and 20 robotic cars that produce background traffic. LoRa, WiFi and LTE networks are employed to provide broadband and cellular wireless network support. Results show that using LoRa leads to better reliability, in particular allowing for higher swarm density and longer coverage distance, than when WiFi is used. In addition, LTE provides the best reliability and latency for UAV swarms with good network connectivity.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: These findings show that BNP is implicated in AD and that IL‐31 regulates BNP in both DRGs and the skin, thereby coordinating the signaling pathways involved in itch.
Abstract: Background T H 2 cell–released IL-31 is a critical mediator in patients with atopic dermatitis (AD), a prevalent and debilitating chronic skin disorder Brain-derived natriuretic peptide (BNP) has been described as a central itch mediator The importance of BNP in peripheral (skin-derived) itch and its functional link to IL-31 within the neuroimmune axis of the skin is unknown Objective We sought to investigate the function of BNP in the peripheral sensory system and skin in IL-31–induced itch and neuroepidermal communication in patients with AD Methods Ca 2+ imaging, immunohistochemistry, quantitative real-time PCR, RNA sequencing, knockdown, cytokine/phosphokinase arrays, enzyme immune assay, and pharmacologic inhibition were performed to examine the cellular basis of the IL-31–stimulated, BNP-related itch signaling in dorsal root ganglionic neurons (DRGs) and skin cells, transgenic AD-like mouse models, and human skin of patients with AD and healthy subjects Results In human DRGs we confirmed expression and co-occurrence of oncostatin M receptor β subunit and IL-31 receptor A in a small subset of the neuronal population Furthermore, IL-31 activated approximately 50% of endothelin-1–responsive neurons, and half of the latter also responded to histamine In murine DRGs IL-31 upregulated Nppb and induced soluble N-ethylmaleimide–sensitive factor activating protein receptor–dependent BNP release In Grhl3PAR2 /+ mice house dust mite–induced severe AD-like dermatitis was associated with Nppb upregulation Lesional IL-31 transgenic mice also exhibited increased Nppb transcripts in DRGs and the skin; accordingly, skin BNP receptor levels were increased Importantly, expression of BNP and its receptor were increased in the skin of patients with AD In human skin cells BNP stimulated a proinflammatory and itch-promoting phenotype Conclusion For the first time, our findings show that BNP is implicated in AD and that IL-31 regulates BNP in both DRGs and the skin IL-31 enhances BNP release and synthesis and orchestrates cytokine and chemokine release from skin cells, thereby coordinating the signaling pathways involved in itch Inhibiting peripheral BNP function might be a novel therapeutic strategy for AD and pruritic conditions

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The demonstration of a fully integrated, wireless, wearable and flexible sweat sensing device for non-obtrusive and continuous monitoring of electrolytes during moderate to intense exertion as a metric for hydration status.
Abstract: Implementation of wearable sweat sensors for continuous measurement of fluid based biomarkers (including electrolytes, metabolites and proteins) is an attractive alternative to common, yet intrusive and invasive, practices such as urine or blood analysis. Recent years have witnessed several key demonstrations of sweat based electrochemical sensing in wearable formats, however, there are still significant challenges and opportunities in this space for clinical acceptance, and thus mass implementation of these devices. For instance, there are inherent challenges in establishing direct correlations between sweat-based and gold-standard plasma-based biomarker concentrations for clinical decision-making. In addition, the wearable sweat monitoring devices themselves may exacerbate these challenges, as they can significantly alter sweat physiology (example, sweat rate and composition). Reported here is the demonstration of a fully integrated, wireless, wearable and flexible sweat sensing device for non-obtrusive and continuous monitoring of electrolytes during moderate to intense exertion as a metric for hydration status. The focus of this work is twofold: 1- design of a conformable fluidics systems to suit conditions of operation for sweat collection (to minimize sensor lag) with rapid removal of sweat from the sensing site (to minimize effects on sweat physiology). 2- integration of Na+ and K+ ion-selective electrodes (ISEs) with flexible microfluidics and low noise small footprint electronics components to enable wireless, wearable sweat monitoring. While this device is specific to electrolyte analysis during intense perspiration, the lessons in microfluidics and overall system design are likely applicable across a broad range of analytes.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify and theorise the complex relationships between online culture, technology and misogyny, and ask how the internet's anti-woman spaces and discourses have changed over time.
Abstract: This special issue seeks to identify and theorise the complex relationships between online culture, technology and misogyny It asks how the internet’s anti-woman spaces and discourses have

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This mini review underlines the potential of the zebrafish as complementary models for developmental neurotoxicity screening of chemicals and describes the different endpoints utilized for such screening with some studies illustrating their use.
Abstract: The developing central nervous system and the blood brain barrier are especially vulnerable and sensitive to different chemicals, including environmental contaminants and drugs. Developmental exposure to these compounds has been involved in several neurological disorders, such as autism spectrum disorders as well as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Zebrafish (Danio Rerio) have emerged as powerful toxicological model systems that can speed up chemical hazard assessment and can be used to extrapolate neurotoxic effects that chemicals have on humans. Zebrafish embryos and larvae are convenient for high-throughput screening of chemicals, due to their small size, low-cost, easy husbandry, and transparency. Additionally, zebrafish are homologous to other higher order vertebrates in terms of molecular signaling processes, genetic compositions, and tissue/organ structures as well as neurodevelopment. This mini review underlines the potential of the zebrafish as complementary models for developmental neurotoxicity screening of chemicals and describes the different endpoints utilized for such screening with some studies illustrating their use.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Ratiometric electrochemical sensors are being considered a significant advance in the fields of electroanalysis and are now attracting the attention of many research laboratories as mentioned in this paper, where the ratiometric signal readout mode provides a built-in correction factor to eliminate the contribution from non-specific interferences.
Abstract: Ratiometric electrochemical sensors are being considered a significant advance in the fields of electroanalysis and are now attracting the attention of many research laboratories. Different from classic electrochemical sensors which typically adopt the absolute value of the signal as the output, ratiometric electrochemical sensors possess dual electrochemical signals and the quantitative measurement of target is based on the ratio of these two signals. The ratiometric signal readout mode provides a built-in correction factor to eliminate the contribution from non-specific interferences. Thus, greater reproducibility, accuracy and sensitivity are obtained, which are critical demands of the classic electrochemical sensor. In this review, we discuss recent advances in ratiometric electrochemical sensors. In addition, we give critical perspectives on the different design schemes, development status and application prospects for ratiometric electrochemical sensors.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This survey identifies salient features of optical multicarrier generators, review and compare these techniques both from a physical and network layer perspective and discusses the impact of such sources on the network performance and real-world deployment strategies with reference to cost, power consumption, and level of flexibility.
Abstract: Elastic optical networks (EON) have been proposed to meet the network capacity and dynamicity challenges. Hardware and software resource optimization and re-configurability are key enablers for EONs. Recently, innovative multi-carrier transmission techniques have been extensively investigated to realize high capacity (Tb/s) flexible transceivers. In addition to standard telecommunication lasers, optical carrier generators based on optical frequency combs (OFC) have also been considered with expectations of reduced cost and inventory, improved spectral efficiency, and flexibility. A wide range of OFC generation techniques have been proposed in the literature over the past few years. It is imperative to summarize the state of the art, compare and assess these diverse techniques from a practical perspective. In this survey, we identify salient features of optical multicarrier generators, review and compare these techniques both from a physical and network layer perspective. OFC demultiplexing/filtering techniques have also been reviewed. In addition to transmission performance, the impact of such sources on the network performance and real-world deployment strategies with reference to cost, power consumption, and level of flexibility have also been discussed. Field trials, integrated solutions, and flexibility demonstrations are also reported. Finally, open issues and possible future directions that can lead to real network deployment are highlighted.