It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, July 20, 2024
New humidity-driven membrane to remove carbon dioxide from the air
A new ambient-energy-driven membrane that pumps carbon dioxide out of the air has been developed by Newcastle University researchers.
NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY
Direct air capture was identified as one of the ‘Seven chemical separations to change the world’. This is because although carbon dioxide is the main contributor to climate change (we release ~40 billion tons into the atmosphere every year), separating carbon dioxide from air is very challenging due to its dilute concentration (~0.04%).
Prof Ian Metcalfe, Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies in the School of Engineering, Newcastle University, UK, and lead investigator states, “Dilute separation processes are the most challenging separations to perform for two key reasons. First, due to the low concentration, the kinetics (speed) of chemical reactions targeting the removal of the dilute component are very slow. Second, concentrating the dilute component requires a lot of energy.”
These are the two challenges that the Newcastle researchers (with colleagues at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, Imperial College London, UK, Oxford University, UK, Strathclyde University, UK and UCL, UK) set out to address with their new membrane process. By using naturally occurring humidity differences as a driving force for pumping carbon dioxide out of air, the team overcame the energy challenge. The presence of water also accelerated the transport of carbon dioxide through the membrane, tackling the kinetic challenge.
The work is published in Nature Energy and Dr Greg A. Mutch, Royal Academy of Engineering Fellow in the School of Engineering, Newcastle University, UK explains, “Direct air capture will be a key component of the energy system of the future. It will be needed to capture the emissions from mobile, distributed sources of carbon dioxide that cannot easily be decarbonised in other ways.”
“In our work, we demonstrate the first synthetic membrane capable of capturing carbon dioxide from air and increasing its concentration without a traditional energy input like heat or pressure. I think a helpful analogy might be a water wheel on a flour mill. Whereas a mill uses the downhill transport of water to drive milling, we use it to pump carbon dioxide out of the air.”
Separation processes
Separation processes underpin most aspects of modern life. From the food we eat, to the medicines we take, and the fuels or batteries in our car, most products we use have been through several separation processes. Moreover, separation processes are important for minimising waste and the need for environmental remediation, such as direct air capture of carbon dioxide.
However, in a world moving towards a circular economy, separation processes will become even more critical. Here, direct air capture might be used to provide carbon dioxide as a feedstock for making many of the hydrocarbon products we use today, but in a carbon-neutral, or even carbon-negative, cycle.
Most importantly, alongside transitioning to renewable energy and traditional carbon capture from point sources like power plants, direct air capture is necessary for realising climate targets, such as the 1.5 °C goal set by the Paris Agreement.
The humidity-driven membrane
Dr Evangelos Papaioannou, Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering, Newcastle University, UK explains, “In a departure from typical membrane operation, and as described in the research paper, the team tested a new carbon dioxide-permeable membrane with a variety of humidity differences applied across it. When the humidity was higher on the output side of the membrane, the membrane spontaneously pumped carbon dioxide into that output stream.”
Using X-ray micro-computed tomography with collaborators at UCL and the University of Oxford, the team were able to precisely characterise the structure of the membrane. This enabled them to provide robust performance comparisons with other state-of-the-art membranes.
A key aspect of the work was modelling the processes occurring in the membrane at the molecular scale. Using density-functional-theory calculations with a collaborator affiliated to both Victoria University of Wellington and Imperial College London, the team identified ‘carriers’ within the membrane. The carrier uniquely transports both carbon dioxide and water but nothing else. Water is required to release carbon dioxide from the membrane, and carbon dioxide is required to release water. Because of this, the energy from a humidity difference can be used to drive carbon dioxide through the membrane from a low concentration to a higher concentration.
Prof Metcalfe adds, “This was a real team effort over several years. We are very grateful for the contributions from our collaborators, and for the support from the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council.”
Reference: Separation and concentration of carbon dioxide from air using a humidity-driven molten-carbonate membrane. I.S. Metcalfe, G.A. Mutch, E.I. Papaioannou, S. Tsochataridou, D. Neagu, D.J.L. Brett, F. Iacoviello, T.S. Miller, P.R. Shearing, P.A. Hunt. Nature Energy. DOI: 10.1038/s41560-024-01588-6
Not all versions of Medicare are created equal – and when it comes to end-of-life care, some versions may serve a patient’s needs better than others. That’s the focus of newly published research by Lauren Hersch Nicholas, PhD, MPP, a University of Colorado Department of Medicine and CU Cancer Center health economist, and her colleagues.
The researchers analyzed the experiences of more than a million people receiving Medicare-funded services in the last six months of their lives. Many of these patients had one or more life-limiting illnesses at the time of death, including cancer, dementia, and end-stage organ failure.
Their paper was published July 19 in JAMA Health Forum.
What Nicholas and her colleagues found is that the kind of Medicare a patient is enrolled in can make a difference in whether that patient gets certain treatments, and whether the patient dies in a hospital or in hospice care.
No one right answer
Nicholas and her colleagues examined two broad types of Medicare: Traditional Medicare, the hospital and medical insurance programs (Parts A and B) provided by the government; and Medicare Advantage Plans, the alternative coverage provided by Medicare-approved private companies.
“Medicare Advantage is a managed care option that includes additional benefits along with limited provider networks,” Nicholas says. “Traditional Medicare offers more flexibility in which doctors patients can see but less financial protection.”
As to which version of Medicare is best for end-of-life patients, the results suggest there is no one right answer for everyone because the needs and wishes of patients and their families differ.
“None of us want to think about getting sicker,” says Nicholas, a professor in the Division of Geriatric Medicine who’s also on the faculty of the CU Center for Bioethics and Humanities. “But the Medicare plan that you choose when you’re relatively healthy may have implications for what care you’re able to access down the line.”
‘Potentially burdensome’
Nicholas says her new study “united two of my long-term research interests. I’ve been working on differences in Medicare since my dissertation research, which was focused mostly on quality of care and potentially preventable hospitalizations. And I’ve also done a lot of work on end-of-life care, where we have a lot of quality challenges, and where we spend a ton of money on care that patients and their families later are often not happy about, so it’s an area with great potential for improvement.”
The researchers analyzed claims records covering the last six months of life of 360,430 people nationwide enrolled in Medicare Advantage and 659,135 traditional Medicare enrollees who died between 2016 and 2018. About half of those in both groups had various life-limiting illnesses.
For some of these patients, certain invasive treatments – including mechanical ventilation, feeding or breathing tubes, intravenous feeding, or dialysis – could be what the study terms “potentially burdensome,” meaning they “are costly and do not significantly extend length of life or improve quality of life.” For other patients, such treatments might be classified as “appropriate.”
Likewise, the study says, frequent hospitalizations in the last few months of life may be of less benefit to some patients than others. “Despite preferences for home, patients often die in hospitals and nursing homes, experiencing transitions from one health care setting of care to another late in life,” the study says.
Concerning patterns
The study notes that Medicare Advantage is a managed-care alternative to traditional Medicare’s fee-for-service model. Companies that provide Medicare Advantage plans get fixed monthly payments per enrollee regardless of actual service use. As such, Medicare Advantage is designed to reduce over-utilization of medical services.
“For patients near the end-of-life, [Medicare Advantage] incentives may reduce potentially burdensome care and encourage hospice,” Nicholas’ paper says, “but could also restrict access to costly but necessary services.”
Nicholas says her research found that “Medicare Advantage was associated with generally less aggressive health care utilization near the end of life – fewer hospitalizations and less invasive medical care if you are hospitalized, lower rates of things like feeding tubes and dialysis and mechanical ventilations.
“But there were also some concerning patterns,” she adds. “Once a patient was hospitalized, those in Medicare Advantage were more likely to die in the hospital than elsewhere, which could mean that the hospitalization came after care was delayed and nothing else could be done.”
Nicholas says that Medicare Advantage “does have a number of features and incentives that could improve the quality of care for some end-of-life patients, but you might also worry about these plans denying some treatments and leaving very sick, vulnerable people with unmet needs.”
Hospitalization and hospice
Among the study’s key findings:
Medicare Advantage patients in the study were less likely to receive potentially burdensome treatments in the last six months of life than patients enrolled in traditional Medicare.
If hospitalized in the last six months of life, the Medicare Advantage patients were more likely to die in the hospital than were traditional-Medicare enrollees, who were more likely to die elsewhere, including in hospice care.
If hospitalized in the last six months of life and then discharged, Medicare Advantage patients were less likely to receive care at skilled nursing facilities than traditional-Medicare patients, and more likely to receive their end-of-life care at home.
“Receipt of less facility-based and potentially burdensome care near the end-of-life may improve quality of care” for Medicare Advantage patients, the study concludes. “However, the greater reliance on home-based care may leave patients with unmet needs or relying on informal care assistance” from family members or others.
Having a conversation
“Our research points to the need to have a family conversation about the end of life, and what family members do or don’t want to do to help with that,” Nicholas says.
Nicholas notes that her study did not distinguish between traditional-Medicare patients who also had a supplemental private insurance plan (often known as Medigap) to pay extra costs, and those without a Medigap plan. The study also did not differentiate among the various Medicare Advantage Plans, which often charge different out-of-pocket costs and have different rules for service.
Co-authors of the study include CU Department of Medicine faculty members Stacy Fischer, MD, and Christine Jones, MD, as well as Marcelo Perraillon, PhD, of the Colorado School of Public Health. Fischer and Perraillon are also CU Cancer Center members. Alicia Arbaje, MD, PhD, and Daniel Polsky, PhD, both at Johns Hopkins University, also co-authored.
Medicare-Covered Services Near the End of Life in Medicare Advantage vs Traditional Medicare
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
19-Jul-2024
COI STATEMENT
Dr Nicholas reported grants from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) during the conduct of the study; grants from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and grants NIA outside the submitted work. Dr Fischer reported grants from NIA (7R56AG065369-02) during the conduct of the study; grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and grants from the American Cancer Society outside the submitted work. Dr Arbaje reported grants from NIA during the conduct of the study; grants from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality outside the submitted work. Dr Perraillon reported grants from the National Cancer Institute (NCI; R01CA22599) during the conduct of the study. Dr Jones reported grants from Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, grants from NIH, and grants from Commonwealth Foundation outside the submitted work. Dr Polsky reported grants from NIH during the conduct of the study; grants from Arnold Ventures, grants from NIH, and personal fees from Amazon outside the submitted work.
Study shows promise for a universal influenza vaccine
OHSU-led research uses innovative vaccine platform to target interior of virus; scientists validate theory using 1918 flu virus
OREGON HEALTH & SCIENCE UNIVERSITY
IMAGE:
JONAH SACHA, PH.D., SENIOR CO-AUTHOR OF A STUDY PUBLISHED TODAY IN THE JOURNAL NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, SAYS THE RESEARCH COULD LEAD TO A UNIVERSAL INFLUENZA VACCINE WITHIN FIVE YEARS.
New research led by Oregon Health & Science University reveals a promising approach to developing a universal influenza vaccine — a so-called “one and done” vaccine that confers lifetime immunity against an evolving virus.
The study, published today in the journal Nature Communications, tested an OHSU-developed vaccine platform against the virus considered most likely to trigger the next pandemic.
Researchers reported the vaccine generated a robust immune response in nonhuman primates that were exposed to the avian H5N1 influenza virus. But the vaccine wasn’t based on the contemporary H5N1 virus; instead, the primates were inoculated against the influenza virus of 1918 that killed millions of people worldwide.
“It’s exciting because in most cases, this kind of basic science research advances the science very gradually; in 20 years, it might become something,” said senior author Jonah Sacha, Ph.D., professor and chief of the Division of Pathobiology at OHSU’s Oregon National Primate Research Center. “This could actually become a vaccine in five years or less.”
Researchers reported that six of 11 nonhuman primates inoculated against the virus that circulated a century ago — the 1918 flu — survived exposure to one of the deadliest viruses in the world today, H5N1. In contrast, a control group of six unvaccinated primates exposed to the H5N1 virus succumbed to the disease.
Sacha said he believes the platform “absolutely” could be useful against other mutating viruses, including SARS-CoV-2.
“It’s a very viable approach,” he said. “For viruses of pandemic potential, it’s critical to have something like this. We set out to test influenza, but we don’t know what’s going to come next.”
A senior co-author from the University of Pittsburgh concurred.
“Should a deadly virus such as H5N1 infect a human and ignite a pandemic, we need to quickly validate and deploy a new vaccine,” said co-corresponding author Douglas Reed, Ph.D., associate professor of immunology at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Vaccine Research.
Finding a stationary target
This approach harnesses a vaccine platform previously developed by scientists at OHSU to fight HIV and tuberculosis, and in fact is already being used in a clinical trial against HIV.
The method involves inserting small pieces of target pathogens into the common herpes virus cytomegalovirus, or CMV, which infects most people in their lifetimes and typically produces mild or no symptoms. The virus acts as a vector specifically designed to induce an immune response from the body’s own T cells.
This approach differs from common vaccines — including the existing flu vaccines — which are designed to induce an antibody response that targets the most recent evolution of the virus, distinguished by the arrangement of proteins covering the exterior surface.
“The problem with influenza is that it’s not just one virus,” Sacha said. “Like the SARS-CoV-2 virus, it’s always evolving the next variant and we’re always left to chase where the virus was, not where it’s going to be.”
The spike proteins on the virus exterior surface evolve to elude antibodies. In the case of flu, vaccines are updated regularly using a best estimate of the next evolution of the virus. Sometimes it’s accurate, sometimes less so.
In contrast, a specific type of T cell in the lungs, known as effector memory T cell, targets the internal structural proteins of the virus, rather than its continually mutating outer envelope. This internal structure doesn’t change much over time — presenting a stationary target for T cells to search out and destroy any cells infected by an old or newly evolved influenza virus.
Success with a century-old template
To test their T cell theory, researchers designed a CMV-based vaccine using the 1918 influenza virus as a template. Working within a highly secure biosafety level 3 laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh, they exposed the vaccinated nonhuman primates to small particle aerosols containing the avian H5N1 influenza virus — an especially severe virus that is currently circulating among dairy cows in the United States.
Remarkably, six of the 11 vaccinated primates survived the exposure, despite the century-long period of virus evolution.
“It worked because the interior protein of the virus was so well preserved,” Sacha said. “So much so, that even after almost 100 years of evolution, the virus can’t change those critically important parts of itself.”
The study raises the potential for developing a protective vaccine against H5N1 in people.
“Inhalation of aerosolized H5N1 influenza virus causes a cascade of events that can trigger respiratory failure,” said co-senior author Simon Barratt-Boyes, Ph.D., professor of infectious diseases, microbiology and immunology at Pitt. “The immunity induced by the vaccine was sufficient to limit virus infection and lung damage, protecting the monkeys from this very serious infection.”
By synthesizing more up-to-date virus templates, the new study suggests CMV vaccines may be able to generate an effective, long-lasting immune response against a wide suite of new variants.
“I think it means within five to 10 years, a one-and-done shot for influenza is realistic,” Sacha said.
The same CMV platform developed by OHSU researchers has advanced to a clinical trial to protect against HIV, and a recent publication by those scientists suggests it may even be useful targeting specific cancer cells. The HIV clinical trial is being led by Vir Biotechnology, which licensed the vaccine platform from OHSU.
Sacha sees the development as the latest in the rapid advance of medical research to treat or prevent disease.
“It’s a massive sea change within our lifetimes,” Sacha said. “There is no question we are on the cusp of the next generation of how we address infectious disease.”
In addition to OHSU, research institutions involved in the study included the Tulane National Primate Research Center, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Washington, and the Washington National Primate Research Center at the UW.
In the interest of ensuring the integrity of our research and as part of our commitment to public transparency, OHSU actively regulates, tracks and manages relationships that our researchers may hold with entities outside of OHSU. In regard to this research, OHSU and OHSU faculty involved in this research, including Jonah Sacha, Ph.D., have a significant financial interest in VIR Biotechnology Inc., a company that may have a commercial interest in the results of this research and technology.
All research involving animal subjects is reviewed and approved by auniversity’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). The IACUC’s priority is to ensure the health and safety of animal research subjects. The IACUC also reviews procedures to ensure the health and safety of the people who work with the animals. The IACUC conducts a rigorous review of all animal research proposals to ensure they demonstrate scientific value and justify the use of live animals.
The research was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges grant awards OPP1213553 and National Institute of Allergy And Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health award R01AI40888; with support from the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health award P51OD011092 to the Oregon National Primate Research Center at OHSU. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or the National Institutes of Health.
Cytomegalovirus vaccine vector-induced effector memory CD4+ T cells protect cynomolgus macaques from lethal aerosolized heterologous avian influenza
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
19-Jul-2024
COI STATEMENT
In the interest of ensuring the integrity of our research and as part of our commitment to public transparency, OHSU actively regulates, tracks and manages relationships that our researchers may hold with entities outside of OHSU. In regard to this research, OHSU and OHSU faculty involved in this research, including Jonah Sacha, Ph.D., have a significant financial interest in VIR Biotechnology Inc., a company that may have a commercial interest in the results of this research and technology.
Marshall University awarded grant to further fentanyl addiction research
MARSHALL UNIVERSITY JOAN C. EDWARDS SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Marshall University was awarded a $3.3 million grant (#R01DA057931) from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to examine the genetic mechanisms that underlie fentanyl addiction.
In 2022, fentanyl overdose was the leading cause of death for U.S. adults aged 18 to 45, according to Families Against Fentanyl (2023).
“This alarming statistic highlights the urgent need to understand why some people are more susceptible to fentanyl addiction,” said Price E. Dickson, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical sciences at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine and lead investigator of this five-year study. “Identifying how certain genes influence the brain’s response to fentanyl will pave the way for the development of effective treatments, thus addressing a critical public health need.”
According to the incentive sensitization theory of addiction, repeated drug use can make the brain’s reward system overly sensitive to drug-related cues, leading to a powerful craving for the drug. While both fentanyl addiction and incentive sensitization are known to be highly inheritable in humans and mice, the specific genetic mechanisms linking incentive sensitization to fentanyl addiction have remained elusive.
Dickson and his team will use a panel of genetically diverse mice in concert with advanced neurogenomics and neuroscience approaches to discover the genes and brain mechanisms that underlie vulnerability and resistance to fentanyl addiction. Co-investigators Brandon J. Henderson, Ph.D., and Alejandro Q. Nato Jr. Ph.D., both associate professors of biomedical sciences at Marshall University, will bring expertise in neuroscience, bioinformatics and statistical genetics.
Ultimately, this pioneering research may result in the development of novel, more effective addiction treatments and, in so doing, address a critical need in public health.
An R01 research grant is a prestigious funding mechanism through the National Institutes of Health and its affiliated institutes and centers that supports health-related research projects. Securing this highly competitive grant signifies recognition of the project's scientific merit and its potential impact on advancing medical knowledge and improving public health.
ABOLISH PRISONS
University of Cincinnati study examines impact of incarceration on youth health
College of Nursing researcher works to uncover health outcomes for children and families
Researcher Samantha Boch has studied the impact of incarceration on child and family health for more than a decade.
Her latest research examines the health records and health care use of youth, individuals under age 21, who likely have been involved or whose families have been involved in the justice system. The challenge was identifying youth who have been impacted by mass incarceration, as most health care systems don’t routinely ask about incarceration. Families may not disclose that information due to stigma, fear of child protective services involvement, or judgment.
“There are few, if any, large community-level studies about the health of youth affected by incarceration, or their family’s incarceration, using medical records," explains Boch, an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Nursing. "Despite a lot of youth and families affected by incarceration, gaps remain in understanding its prevalence and consequences. There are numerous reasons for this, some include a lack of provider awareness, lack of curriculum in provider training, lack of funding for this research and lack of routine sensitive screening for exposure.”
Boch and her research team searched the electronic medical records for justice-related keywords such as “prison,” “jail,” “sentenced,” “probation,” “parole,” and others, to determine the impact of incarceration. The researchers used data from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital collected over an 11-year period.
Their study, published in Academic Pediatrics, found that of the more than 1.7 million records reviewed, 38,263 (or 2.2%) of youth seen between January 2009 and December 2020 likely had a parent incarcerated or faced some type of confinement as a juvenile. This small percentage was also responsible for a disproportionate number of physical and mental health diagnoses and health care visits at Cincinnati Children’s. They were compared against a socio demographically matched sample without a justice keyword and the total sample population of youth.
Nearly 63.3% of all behavioral health inpatient admissions, 23.7% of all hospitalization inpatient days and 45.5% of all foster care visits were attributed to the 2.2% of youth who had documented probable personal or family justice system involvement. The findings complement another study led by Boch, published in 2021 using data from Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
Youth with a justice keyword in their record had 1.5 to 16.2 times the prevalence of various physical and mental health disorder groupings studied compared to matched youth who didn't have a justice keyword but do have similar socioeconomic backgrounds. They also had 428.2 more physical health diagnoses and 269.2 more mental health diagnoses per 100 youth than the matched youth.
According to the study, youth with a justice keyword made up a large proportion of all of those who were diagnosed with health disorders or conditions at Cincinnati Children’s from 2009-2020. This includes 42.9% of all schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders, 42.1% of all bipolar and related disorders, 38.3% of all suicide and self-injury disorders, 24.5% of all trauma and stress related disorders, 44.9% of all shaken baby syndrome cases, 13.9% of all infectious diseases, 12.5% of speech language disorders and 12.8% of all youth pregnancies.
Nationally, about 7% of U.S. youth have had a parent incarcerated. Findings at Cincinnati Children’s and Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus grossly underestimate the number of youth affected by incarceration or confinement, says Boch.
“Our data reflects families who disclosed and health providers who documented,” says Boch. “Families who refrain from disclosing or whose information is not documented were not represented which is a key limitation. This study is an attempt to uncover the size of the impact of mass incarceration on youth health in Cincinnati. Our health care systems and correctional systems clearly overlap and impact the lives of children.
“Replication of these findings in other communities would strengthen the growing justification for decarceration efforts and other reforms, especially if we want all U.S. children and families to thrive,” says Boch. “We will continue to have health care disparities and lead the world with poor health outcomes if we continue to lead in incarceration.”
Other co-authors of the study include Joshua Lambert, PhD, University of Cincinnati; Christopher Wilderman, PhD, Duke University; and Judith Dexheimer, PhD; Robert Kahn, MD; and Sarah Beal, PhD, all of the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children’s.
The research study of Cincinnati youth was supported by Boch’s awards, including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (AHRQ/PCORI) K12 PEDSnet Scholars Learning Health Systems Career Development Program, internal funding from the University of Cincinnati College of Nursing Dean’s New Investigator Award, internal funding from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence, and the NIH/NIMHD Loan Repayment Award for Clinician Scientists from Disadvantaged Backgrounds.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- In an “Industry Watch” research paper in the journal Tobacco Control, two scientists at the University of California, Riverside, raise the alarm on new electronic cigarette products equipped with touch screens, animated displays, and built-in games. Because the products are user friendly and attractive to youth, they may couple nicotine addiction with gaming disorder, the researchers caution.
Of particular concern to the researchers is that coupling nicotine to existing youth behaviors, such as video gaming and screen time use, could broaden the smart electronic cigarette market to include youth with no prior interest in nicotine products, while also reinforcing nicotine addiction among current users.
“Our lab is constantly monitoring the electronic cigarette market for new devices, especially ones that target youth and young adults,” said Man Wong, first author of the paper and an assistant in the lab of Prue Talbot, a professor of the graduate division. “One of these devices, Craftbox V-Play, can run Pac-Man, Tetris, and F22 — classic arcade games. Other devices that we found alarming were vapes that had digital games that encourage users to vape, vapes with animations that change as users puff, vapes that have built-in bluetooth and can be customized with personal photos, and vapes with celebrity endorsements that offer promotional trading cards.”
Talbot stressed that it is critical to pay attention to shifting trends in vape designs, especially disposable vapes that are user friendly and popular among youth.
“Disposable vapes were relatively simple two years ago, and functioned as nicotine delivery devices,” she said. “Now they are designed to resemble and include features of smart phones and handheld gaming devices. These features make vapes more attractive to youth.”
Talbot and Wong believe the new devices need to be closely monitored and regulated. They report that unlike prior versions of electronic cigarettes, smart vapes prey on three potential addictions: nicotine dependence, gaming disorder, and screen time obsession. Talbot and Wong hope their research will encourage the Food and Drug Administration and other government agencies to regulate the sales of these devices.
“In the long-term, increasing awareness of how vapes can evolve in short periods of time can increase surveillance and monitoring to ensure products that are targeting youth are swiftly removed from the market,” Talbot said. “More strict regulation can be put into place to restrict some features of vapes, and it may even be appropriate to push for a disposable vape ban altogether, as some countries have.”
The researchers were surprised to learn that some smart vapes had games requiring the user to vape to progress in the games, potentially accelerating nicotine addiction. For example, they found the “URSA Pocket,” a refillable pod-system, has three built-in games.
“One game contains a virtual pet, which you feed with coins that you acquire by vaping; another game counts your puffs and has leaderboards, which you can submit your rankings to social media for a chance to win prizes,” Wong said. “CB15K is a vape endorsed by a celebrity and offers trading cards when you purchase the device. The trading cards have a scannable QR code and the message ‘scan for a chance to win.’ The vape also has a display that has animations when the user puffs the device and is built in with wireless charging. These features can entice youth to purchase and use vapes.”
The researchers are concerned that many of the devices are affordable, around $15-20 each, which could entice youth to purchase them.
“This is roughly the same price as, or cheaper than, the price of PUFF BARs or ELFBARs when they dominated the market,” Wong said. “These new products, however, offer much more puffs, higher power, and smart features for a lower price. A majority of the new disposable vapes come with many advanced functions. Regulation has not kept up with vapes at the rate they are evolving, and youth are vulnerable to these devices. In addition, disposable vapes create a lot of waste as they are one-time-use products, and adding screens, bluetooth, and digital storage to these devices exacerbates the waste generated by vapes.”
The research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Center for Tobacco Products.
The research paper is titled “Pac-Man on a vape: electronic cigarettes that target youth as handheld multimedia and gaming devices.”
The University of California, Riverside is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment is more than 26,000 students. The campus opened a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual impact of more than $2.7 billion on the U.S. economy. To learn more, visit www.ucr.edu.
Pac-Man on a vape: electronic cigarettes that target youth as handheld multimedia and gaming devices
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
15-Jun-2024
COI STATEMENT
No competing interests declared.
ETRI breathes digital life into cultural heritage
Leading cooperation with the National Museum of Korea for digital transformation of world-class cultural heritage. Development and demonstration of an intelligent platform combining AI and cultural heritage digitization.
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
IMAGE:
INCHEON AIRPORT MEDIA WALL - 2023 IF DESIGN AWARD WINNER
CREDIT: ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH INSTITUTE(ETRI)
South Korean researchers are revitalizing the nation's world-class cultural heritage through digital transformation. By collaborating with museums, they are bringing the rich history and culture of Korea to life using AI-based technology development.
Since 2020, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and the National Museum of Korea have been working together under a Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism R&D project to develop and demonstrate key technologies for the digital transformation of Korean cultural heritage.
The two institutions have been applying AI technology to enhance the quality and usability of museum data, and they have been promoting research on foundational technologies and the development of an intelligent heritage platform that manages and utilizes new types of data in various environments and for different purposes.
ETRI has focused on AI-based data analysis and standardization of cultural heritage. Notable efforts include:
- Data fabric-based archives1) 1) Data Fabric Based Archives: Technology that connects and provides access to relevant data anytime, anywhere, based on AI.
- AI-based cultural heritage analysis2) 2) AI-Based Cultural Heritage Analysis: Technology for analyzing cultural heritage data and automatically generating metadata.
- Digital heritage standards3) 3) Digital Heritage Standards: Standards for the comprehensive utilization of increasing digital cultural heritage data.
- Generative AI-based data expansion4) 4) Generative AI-Based Data Expansion: Technology supporting the generation of required resolutions, qualities, and styles for content and devices.
- Sharing platforms for various demands5) 5) Sharing Platforms for Various Demands: Platform technology that can support purposes such as preservation, exhibition, education, and management.
Using these technologies, the research team has been striving to create an intelligent digital heritage sharing platform to support:
- Museum artifact management
- Cultural heritage preservation research
- Immersive content creation
- Interactive cultural heritage education
The developing digital heritage sharing platform uses data fabric technology based on AI, enabling immediate utilization of the diverse forms of digital cultural heritage data continuously increasing in museums, aiming for the world’s top-class usability.
Globally, attempts to enhance the value and usability of cultural heritage by integrating digital and AI technologies are increasing. However, museums often find it challenging to have a practical platform integrating these technologies due to the complexity and specific needs of digital heritage.
Around the world, experts in cultural heritage and digital technology are collaborating, yet significant trial and error occurs due to differences in experience and knowledge, along with issues related to data structure, usability limitations, and conflicts with museum processes.
In this context, developing and applying the new platform to the work of the National Museum of Korea staff is considered crucial in advancing South Korea's leadership in the digital transformation of cultural heritage.
Moreover, a digital standard process for storing and utilizing high-quality digital cultural heritage data, generated and utilized by new technologies annually, is being completed in collaboration with museums, a world-first achievement.
This digital heritage standard process guarantees the availability of data not only for existing cultural heritage but also for various applications like virtual reality, digital twin, and the metaverse. This transformation allows museums to become proprietors of their data, adapting it into various forms.
Data produced through the standard process creates a foundation for the highest level of cultural heritage, usable in exhibitions, preservation, education, and more. In the digital age, we can expect strategic digital incursions and unfounded claims from certain countries aiming to advance their own interests. Particularly during such times, it is crucial for nations to strive to secure the digital scalability of their cultural heritage. Thus, the completion of a comprehensive digital standards process holds significant importance.
Through four years of joint efforts, ETRI and the National Museum of Korea have established a high-quality digitalization process for cultural heritage, which includes sharing and spreading this process to affiliated research institutes, related industries, and academic institutions such as Technology Research Institute for Culture & Heritage, LiST Co., Ltd., Chung-Ang University, and Korea National University of Cultural Heritage.
Using the digital standard technology developed last year, ETRI, the National Museum of Korea, and the Technology Research Institute for Culture & heritage have created digital content of the National Treasure “Pensive Bodhisattva” at the Millennium Hall of Incheon International Airport Terminal 1. This work won the public branding category of the German IF Design Award, one of the world's top three design awards, last year.
Additionally, the “Pyeongsaengdo” content of the National Museum of Korea, which implements world-class high-quality cultural heritage content, won the Red Dot Award last year.
The research team has utilized ultra-high-resolution digital asset data for the digital “Gwanggaeto Stele” content in the main lobby of the National Museum of Korea, “The Path of History.” In addition, the Korea Heritage Service co-exhibited cultural heritage immersive content using ‘Chilbo Sando Folding Screen’ with the Cleveland Museum of Art in the U.S., showcasing the world's top-level digitalization of cultural heritage based on the developed technology.
The foundation of these achievements lies in the followings:
- Improving the quality of cultural heritage digital data
- Developing technology for visualizing cultural heritage networks
- Text mining technology for generating knowledge-based cultural heritage relationships
This includes research on developing AI technologies specialized for cultural heritage and studies on the creation and utilization of cultural heritage assets.
The collaboration model between the two institutions addresses digital cultural heritage data utilization and field issues in areas like preservation, exhibition, education, archives, and open storage.
Complete digital transformation will be achieved when a platform is built that allows broad searchability and easy utilization and sharing of cultural heritage information and data within people's lives.
ETRI, together with the National Museum of Korea, has advanced numerous cutting-edge studies, including:
- Cultural property database modeling
- AI-based automatic digital conversion of traditional cultural heritage data
- Standardization research on ultra-high-resolution digital cultural heritage assets
Tae-hee Lee, a researcher at the National Museum of Korea, said, “We expect that the long-term collaboration between these two leading institutions in cultural heritage and advanced technology will set the stage for developing AI technology and application models usable in the specialized field of Korean cultural heritage.”
Jae-Ho Lee, the head researcher at ETRI's Content Convergence Research Section, added, “The numerous digital projects on cultural heritage data at the National Museum of Korea can be considered the starting point of South Korea's digital transformation. Both institutions have prepared for the digitalization of heritage-related information, such as descriptions of each cultural property, related materials, and relationships with other heritage items.”
ETRI explained that their new challenge this year in the data fabric field is innovative and promising, offering a positive opportunity to secure international technological competitiveness in the era of digital transformation.
Digital Pyeongsaengdo - 2023 Red Dot Award Winner
Joint exhibition and digital repatriation of “Mountain Chilbo Screen” owned by the Cleveland Museum of Art
CREDIT
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute(ETRI)
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This technology has achieved results as part of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's project, “Development of Intelligent Heritage Sharing Platform Technology Leading Digital Standards for Cultural Heritage.”
ETRI is a non-profit government-funded research institute. Since its foundation in 1976, ETRI, a global ICT research institute, has been making its immense effort to provide Korea a remarkable growth in the field of ICT industry. ETRI delivers Korea as one of the top ICT nations in the World, by unceasingly developing world’s first and best technologies.
Revolutionizing the abilities of adaptive
radar with AI
AI approaches and an enormous open-source dataset could spark rapid advancements in adaptive radar systems similar to those seen in computer vision over the past two decades.
DUKE UNIVERSITY
IMAGE:
ADAPTIVE RADAR HAS A MUCH EASIER TIME FINDING AND TRACKING OBJECTS IN FLAT, SIMPLE GEOGRAPHIES LIKE THE UTAH SALT FLATS (LEFT) THAN IT DOES COMPLEX TERRAIN LIKE MT. RAINIER (RIGHT). RECENTLY PUBLISHED RESEARCH IS USING AI TO TAKE GEOGRAPHICAL MAPS LIKE THOSE SHOWN INTO ACCOUNT TO PUSH ADAPTIVE RADAR INTO AN ENTIRELY NEW TIER OF EFFECTIVENESS.
DURHAM, N.C. – The world around us is constantly being flash photographed by adaptive radar systems. From salt flats to mountains and everything in between, adaptive radar is used to detect, locate and track moving objects. Just because human eyes can’t see these ultra-high frequency (UHF) ranges doesn’t mean they’re not taking pictures.
Although adaptive radar systems have been around since World War II, they’ve hit a fundamental performance wall in the past couple of decades. But with the help of modern AI approaches and lessons learned from computer vision, researchers at Duke University have broken through that wall, and they want to bring everyone else in the field along with them.
In a new paper published July 16 in the journal IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation, Duke engineers show that using convolutional neural networks (CNNs) — a type of AI that revolutionized computer vision — can greatly enhance modern adaptive radar systems. And in a move that parallels the impetus of the computer vision boom, they have released a large dataset of digital landscapes for other AI researchers to build on their work.
“Classical radar methods are very good, but they aren’t good enough to meet industry demands for products such as autonomous vehicles,” said Shyam Venkatasubramanian, a graduate research assistant working in the lab of Vahid Tarokh, the Rhodes Family Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke. “We’re working to bring AI into the adaptive radar space to tackle problems like object detection, localization and tracking that industry needs solved.”
At its most basic level, radar is not difficult to understand. A pulse of high-frequency radio waves is broadcast, and an antenna gathers data from any waves that bounce back. As technology has advanced, however, so too have the concepts used by modern radar systems. With the ability to shape and direct signals, process multiple contacts at once, and filter out background noise, the technology has come a long way in the past century.
But radar has come just about as far as it can using these techniques alone. Adaptive radar systems still struggle to accurately localize and track moving objects, especially in complex environments like mountainous terrain.
To move adaptive radar into the age of AI, Venkatasubramanian and Tarokh were inspired by the history of computer vision. In 2010, researchers at Stanford University released an enormous image database consisting of over 14 million annotated images called ImageNet. Researchers around the world used ImageNet to test and compare new AI approaches that became industry standard.
In the new paper, Venkatasubramanian and his collaborators show that using the same AI approaches greatly improves the performance of current adaptive radar systems.
“Our research parallels the research of the earliest users of AI in computer vision and the creators of ImageNet, but within adaptive radar,” Venkatasubramanian said. “Our proposed AI takes as input processed radar data and outputs a prediction of the target's location through a simple architecture that can be thought of as paralleling the predecessor of most modern computer vision architectures.”
While the group has yet to test their methods in the field, they benchmarked their AI’s performance on a modeling and simulation tool called RFView®, which gains its accuracy by incorporating the Earth's topography and terrain into its modeling toolbox. Then, continuing in the footsteps of computer vision, they created 100 airborne radar scenarios based on landscapes from across the contiguous United States and released it as an open-source asset called “RASPNet.”
This is a valuable asset, as only a handful of teams have access to RFView®. The researchers, however, received special permission from the creators of RFView® to build the dataset — which contains more than 16 terabytes of data built over the course of several months — and make it publicly available.
“I am delighted that this groundbreaking work has been published, and particularly that the associated data is being made available in the RASPNet repository,” said Hugh Griffiths, Fellow Royal Academy of Engineering, Fellow IEEE, Fellow IET, OBE, and the THALES/Royal Academy Chair of RF Sensors at University College London, who was not involved with the work. “This will undoubtedly stimulate further work in this important area, and ensure that the results can readily be compared with each other.”
The scenarios included were handpicked by radar and machine learning experts and have a wide range of geographical complexity. On the easiest side for adaptive radar systems to handle is the Bonneville Salt Flats, while the hardest is Mount Rainier. Venkatasubramanian and his group hope that others will take their ideas and dataset and build even better AI approaches.
For example, in a previous paper, Venkatasubramanian showed that an AI tailored to a specific geographical location could achieve up to a seven-fold improvement in localizing objects over classical methods. If an AI could select a scenario on which it had already been trained that is similar to its current environment, it should substantially improve in performance.
“We think this will have a really big impact on the adaptive radar community,” Venkatasubramanian said. “As we move forward and continue adding capabilities to the dataset, we want to provide the community with everything it needs to push the field forward into using AI.”
This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-21-1-0235, 20RYCORO51, 20RYCOR052).
CITATIONS: “Data-Driven Target Localization Using Adaptive Radar Processing and Convolutional Neural Networks,” Shyam Venkatasubramanian, Sandeep Gogineni, Bosung Kang, Ali Pezeshki, Muralidhar Rangaswamy, Vahid Tarokh. IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation, July 16, 2024. DOI: 10.1049/rsn2.12600
“RASPNet: A Benchmark Dataset for Radar Adaptive Signal Processing Applications,” Shyam Venkatasubramanian, Bosung Kang, Ali Pezeshki, Muralidhar Rangaswamy, Vahid Tarokh. arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.09638
Artificial intelligence (AI) has grown rapidly in the last few years, and with that increase, industries have been able to automate and improve their efficiency in operations.
A feature article published inAIChE Journal identifies the challenges and benefits of using Intelligence Augmentation (IA) in process safety systems.
Contributors to this work are Dr. Faisal Khan, professor and chemical engineering department head at Texas A&M University, Dr. Stratos Pistikopoulos, professor and director of the Energy Institute, Drs. Rajeevan Arunthavanathan, Tanjin Amin, and Zaman Sajid from the Mary Kay O’Connor Safety Center.
Additionally, Dr. Yuhe Tian from West Virginia University contributed the novel perspective of using AI in process plants from a safety perspective.
The research basis is to use an AI approach to process safety alongside humans rather than replacing them in operational decision-making, according to Khan.
“This research aims to develop a comprehensive framework based on IA that integrates AI and Human intelligence (HI) into process safety systems, ensuring enhanced safety and efficiency,” Arunthavanathan said. “We aim to provide a clear understanding of the potential and limitations of AI, propose IA strategies for their effective implementation to minimize risks and improve safety outcomes.”
Helping Humans, Not Replacing Them
Khan believes that AI and human intelligence can be combined, dispelling the fear that AI may eventually replace humans as it advances in its ability to perform tasks.
“The study examines the challenges in incorporating AI technology in real-world industrial applications and how IA can improve process monitoring, fault detection, and decision-making to improve process safety,” Amin said.
Khan contends that AI will improve safety by analyzing real-time data, predicting maintenance needs, and automatically detecting faults. However, the IA approach, using human decision-making, is also expected to reduce incident rates, lower operational costs, and increase reliability.
“The application of AI in chemical engineering presents significant challenges, which means it is not enough to ensure comprehensive process safety,” Sajid said. “To overcome these limitations, IA is introduced to work alongside human expertise rather than replace it.”
The research identifies several risks associated with implementing AI and IA in process industries. AI risks include data quality issues, overreliance on AI, lack of contextual understanding, model misinterpretation, and training and adaptation challenges. On the other hand, the risks associated with IA include human error in feedback, conflict in AI-HI decision-making, biased judgment, complexity in implementation, and reliability issues.
“The researchers are particularly interested in the challenges of AI and conceptualize IA to augment human decision-making in process safety,” Tian said. “They are fascinated by how AI can provide accurate and prompt responses based on data analysis while human intelligence can offer broader insights and considerations, including ethical and social factors.”
Khan believes that this research emphasizes the importance of developing reliable, trustworthy, and safe AI systems tailored to industrial applications.
“The collaboration between AI and human intelligence is seen as essential for advancing process safety,” Khan said. “Ongoing exploration of this synergy to meet the evolving demands of industrial safety will continue to enhance AI’s capabilities while ensuring robust risk management frameworks are in place,” Pistikopoulos added.
By Raven Wuebker, Texas A&M University Engineering
Process safety 4.0: Artificial intelligence or intelligence augmentation for safer process operation?
Estimating rainfall intensity using surveillance audio and deep-learning
A new approach for high-resolution hydrological sensing for environmental resilience
EURASIA ACADEMIC PUBLISHING GROUP
Surveillance cameras generate both video and audio outputs. Unlike video images recorded, the audio can be supplemented reliably as audio sources resist background interference and lighting variability. Creating a reliable way to use these audio sources to estimate the intensity of rainfall could open a new chapter in rainfall intensity estimation.
In a study published in Environmental Science and Ecotechnology, researchers created an audio dataset of six real-world rainfall events, named the Surveillance Audio Rainfall Intensity Dataset (SARID). This dataset's audio recordings were segmented into 12,066 pieces and annotated with rainfall intensity and environmental information, such as underlying surfaces, temperature, humidity, and wind.
The researchers developed a deep learning-based baseline to estimate rainfall intensity from surveillance audio. Validated from ground truth data, the research baseline from the system deployed achieved a root mean absolute error of 0.88 mm h-1 and a coefficient of correlation of 0.765.
These findings demonstrate the potential of surveillance audio-based models as practical and effective tools for rainfall observation systems, initiating a new chapter in rainfall intensity estimation.
The work offers a new approach for high-resolution hydrological sensing and contributes to the broader landscape of urban sensing, emergency response, and environmental resilience.
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