Adequate Labeling Research Articles

Physics-informed unsupervised domain adaptation framework for cross-machine bearing fault diagnosis

Varying components and operating conditions in industrial machines lead to different distribution characteristics and fault states of monitoring data for critical rotating machinery. Adequate and accurate labelling of monitoring data is challenging to achieve. Existing data-driven unsupervised domain adaptation methods exhibit poor interpretability and low confidence in the target domain’s pseudo-labelling. Therefore, a physics-informed unsupervised domain adaptation framework is proposed. Data and physical information are combined to enhance the reliability and interpretability of the model while ensuring its generalization capability. First, physical information is extracted by merging the knowledge of the mechanical component fault characteristics with indicators like the signal spectrum’s energy value. Subsequently, the physical label and loss are created. The physical loss is then embedded in the loss function of the source domain model. Next, by aligning the physical labels and the clustering results of the spectral clustering, the target domain samples’ hard pseudo-labels are obtained. The probability values of the sample belonging to each category as determined by the Wasserstein criterion comprise the soft pseudo-label of the sample. Furthermore, the confidence of hard pseudo-labels is continually increased by iteratively updating the probability values of soft pseudo-labels using the multi-label as a guide and the inverse improved sigmoid function as a gradient. Finally, unsupervised cross-machine diagnostic models with high robustness can be obtained. Three datasets are employed in the experimental section, and five sub-datasets are created and crossed for cross-machine experiments to confirm the suggested approach’s efficacy and superiority.

Healthy food purchase intention: The moderation effect of intuitive thinking and perceived knowledge

This paper aims to study the relationships among intuitive thinking, nutritional information, perceived knowledge, subjective norm, trust, and health concerns on purchase intention. The study was conducted with 461 consumers in Brazil. Structure Equation Modeling (SEM) was applied. Most of our hypotheses were supported and demonstrated that consumers with high perceived knowledge care less about social influence. On the other hand, when it comes to using nutritional information to develop trust in food producers, consumers rely more on intuitive thinking. Trust and health consciousness have a positive effect on purchase intention. Policymakers can benefit from the results to develop accurate public policies, and food manufacturers can use them to adequate resolutions and implement labels with consumers’ well-being under perspective. We confirmed that if consumers perceive that they have sufficient knowledge and can make their decisions mostly based on it, less they will rely on subjective norms.

Level of Adoption of Hygiene Practices in Small-Scale Dairy Plants in Serbia.

The main aim of this study was to analyze hygiene practices in small-scale dairy plants (SSDPs) in Serbia. A total of 60 plants were included in the research. A survey questionnaire used for SSDPs was designed to obtain the main information about hygiene practices they perform, as well as the data about the SSDPs, their production portfolio, and improvement plans. For the purpose of this study, a good hygiene practice score (GHPS) was calculated showing that the average score is 75%, spanning from 71.4% to 80.3% depending on the type of dairy plant. This study showed that the biggest challenges for small-scale dairy plants are associated with adequate labeling and external analysis of their dairy products, followed by record keeping and use of appropriate food contact materials. As expected, registered and approved SSDPs had higher GHPS scores and more information on their labels than those still in the approval or registration process. This study confirms the need for supporting this type of dairy producer to improve two main pillars of their business-the infrastructure for where they produce dairy products and awareness/knowledge of food safety legislative requirements. At the same time, approved processors are significantly underutilizing their processing capacity, which implies the need for both policy change consideration and educational initiatives. The policy changes should aim to align regulations with small-scale dairy processing realities.

FD3D: Exploiting Foreground Depth Map for Feature-Supervised Monocular 3D Object Detection

Monocular 3D object detection usually adopts direct or hierarchical label supervision. Recently, the distillation supervision transfers the spatial knowledge from LiDAR- or stereo-based teacher networks to monocular detectors, but remaining the domain gap. To mitigate this issue and pursue adequate label manipulation, we exploit Foreground Depth map for feature-supervised monocular 3D object detection named FD3D, which develops the high-quality instructive intermediate features to conduct desirable auxiliary feature supervision with only the original image and annotation foreground object-wise depth map (AFOD) as input. Furthermore, we build up our instructive feature generation network to create instructive spatial features based on the sufficient correlation between image features and pre-processed AFOD, where AFOD provides the attention focus only on foreground objects to achieve clearer guidance in the detection task. Moreover, we apply the auxiliary feature supervision from the pixel and distribution level to achieve comprehensive spatial knowledge guidance. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method achieves state-of-the-art performance on both the KITTI and nuScenes datasets, with no external data and no extra inference computational cost. We also conduct quantitative and qualitative studies to reveal the effectiveness of our designs.

Evaluation of food allergen information, labelling and unintended food allergen presence in imported prepacked foods and drinks purchased online in the UK

Consumers have wide access to global food and drink products online and in store that require food allergen information and labelling. Frequent food and drink product recalls occur UK and worldwide due to incorrect labelling of food allergens and their unintended or undeclared presence. This research aims to evaluate the accuracy and compliance of information and labelling of substances or products causing allergies or intolerances in prepacked food and drink products imported from Asia and purchased online in the UK. The current study assessed 768 randomly selected prepacked products classified into 16 separate product categories, representative of items from 12 countries in Asia, sourced from 8 UK retailers. When screened for precautionary allergen labelling (PAL), 173 (22.5%) items provided PAL, with 24 phrasings being identified. Upon comparing food allergen information on pack and online, 36 products (36.0%) transferred inconsistencies on pack to online pages and 15 (15.0%) were not consistent. Additionally, laboratory studies were performed to detect milk and peanut allergens in a sub-group of 77 products. Following analysis, 24 (31.2%) contained unintended food allergens, with levels ranging from 0.2 to 6780.0 mg/kg. Of these items, 9 products (37.5%) had a risk ratio ≥ 1 exceeding action levels produced with the VITAL® 3.0 ED01 reference doses, recommending PAL, though 7 (29.2%) were found without PAL. A further 10 products (13.0%) overused PAL and 2 products (2.6%) used PAL correctly. This research indicates further refinement of policies to ensure adequate, accurate, clear and current food allergen information and labelling of products.

East meets west: using ethnobotany in ethnic urban markets of Barcelona metropolitan area (Catalonia) as a tool for biocultural exchange

BackgroundEthnobotanical studies in metropolitan areas and urban ethnic markets have grown considerably in recent years as large cities have demonstrated to be significantly rich in biocultural diversity and in driving its evolution, as human populations migrate from one region to another. Urban spaces also represent important places of rich multicultural and multilingual interaction and exchange, where ethnobotany can act as a bridge between research and action. The purpose of this study is to present a case study on how to use ethnobotany in multicultural urban settings by studying people-plant interactions and the larger implications and applications to promote biocultural learning in these areas.MethodsWe inventoried the botanical composition of fresh and dry products sold in most food stores owned by Chinese immigrants in Fondo, a neighbourhood of Barcelona’s metropolitan area, in Santa Coloma de Gramenet municipality (Barcelonès county, Catalonia, Iberian Peninsula), pharmacologically validating the obtained list with the Chinese Pharmacopoeia. We also participated in multiple dissemination activities and materials (non-academic and academic), along with exchanges with the broader community in relation to this research.ResultsIn total, 103 plants were identified at the species level, pertaining to 88 genera and 46 botanical families. Including the infraspecific level, a total of 113 plant taxa were inventoried. One algal and six fungal species were also recorded, but not included in the analyses. Brassicaceae (12.4%) and Fabaceae (10.6%) were the most predominant families inventoried, followed by Cucurbitaceae (7.1%) and Poaceae (7.1%). Over three-quarters of all the taxa have an Asian origin (76.11%), indicating a high conservation of the use of Asian taxa. Over one-third (36.89%) of the plant parts pertain to species contained in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, showing the relevance of medicinal plants in local stores and the preponderance of Eastern Asian food-medicine continuums. To promote ethnobotanical education programmes, over 50 dissemination activities and educational materials were produced from this study and shared with the local urban community in different fora.ConclusionsFurther research in these and similar settings can provide significant ethnographic information to better understand anthropological processes and phenomena underlying migration and transculturation that can be used in an umbrella of applications, from adequate nomenclature and labelling of foreign products in local languages to multicultural integration and social cohesion programmes along with educational activities on biocultural topics.

TRAINING AND MENTORING ON PACKAGING OPTIMIZATION OF POLINEMA CRISPY DUWET BANANA GEDEBOG CHIPS IN THE COMMUNITY OF DUWET VILLAGE, TUMPANG SUB-DISTRICT, MALANG DISTRICT

This PKM/Service program aims to improve the packaging and promotion of "Debog Banana Duwet Polinema Crispy Chips" in Duwet Village, Tumpang District, Malang Regency. The residents of Duwet Village face challenges in effectively packaging and promoting their product, which currently lacks adequate branding and labels. To address these issues, this community service initiative aims to provide guidance and support in improving the packaging of the chips, as well as enhancing their promotional activities. Simple packaging equipment will also be provided to streamline the packaging process. The program's implementation will begin with partner coordination and conclude with a comprehensive evaluation. The outcomes of the training and mentoring activities reveal several key findings: Partners have limited knowledge about product quality improvement, affecting the product's market recognition. Current packaging methods used by partners are basic, consisting of plastic clips without product labels, limiting their market reach to the local community. "Kribog's DuPo Crispy" products, created by partners, lack attractive branding and labels. To ensure the sustainability of "Kribog's DuPo Crispy" products produced by our partners, the following recommendations are made: Conduct training sessions focused on enhancing product quality, fostering creativity, and innovation among "Kribog's DuPo Crispy" producers. Provide support in marketing strategies to address partners' limited knowledge in this area. Offer assistance in obtaining government-issued certifications, such as P-IRT licenses and food safety certifications, to ensure product quality and safety standards for "Kribog's DuPo Crispy."

Cannabidiol safety considerations: Development of a potential acceptable daily intake value and recommended upper intake limits for dietary supplement use

Consumer use of hemp-derived products continues to rise, underscoring the need to establish evidence-based safety guidance. The present study sought to develop recommendations for oral upper intake limits of cannabidiol (CBD) isolate. Sufficiently robust and reliable data for this purpose were identified from published human clinical trials and guideline-compliant toxicity studies in animal models. Based on the metrics used in this assessment, a potential Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) value of 0.43 mg/kg-bw/d (e.g., 30 mg/d for 70-kg adult) was determined for the general population based on liver effects in human studies. This value applies to the most sensitive subpopulations, including children, over a lifetime of exposure and from all sources, including food. For dietary supplements with adequate product labeling intended for use by healthy adults only, a potential Upper Intake Limit (UL) of 70 mg/d was determined based on reproductive effects in animals. For healthy adults, except those trying to conceive, or currently pregnant or lactating, a conservative dietary supplement UL of 100 mg/d was identified based on liver effects; however, as the target population excludes individuals at risk for liver injury, an alternative dietary supplement UL of 160 mg/d for this population can also be considered.

Impact of Sugar Reduction on Physicochemical and Nutritional Quality of Yogurt and Sensory Response with Label Stimulation

This paper is aimed at developing yoghurts with reduced sugar content and evaluating their physicochemical, microbiological, and sensory characteristics including the stimulation of labels with nutritional indications. Four yoghurt formulations were developed (TY (traditional yoghurt), RSY (reduced sugar yoghurt), RSYL (yoghurt with reduced sugar and lactase), and RSYM (yogurt with reduced sugar and flavour modulator)). Yoghurts were evaluated on the first day of storage for physical-chemical aspects: fat, total protein, ash, total dry extract, reducing and nonreducing sugars, and pH, acidity in lactic acid, syneresis, and viscosity (non-Newtonian fluid) parameters were monitored until the end of refrigerated storage. Online questionnaires were carried out for sensory evaluation of acceptability and purchase intention of appearance. The labels were compared to each other to define which one communicated best with the consumer. The results showed that the reduction of sugar in yoghurt interferes with different physical-chemical parameters: pH, acidity, increasing syneresis, decreasing viscosity, total dry extract, and ash content. Storage influences the pH and acidity stabilization of all yogurts. Knowledge about lower sugar content positively influences acceptability and purchase intention, which preferred more flashy nutritional labels. The formulation adjustment associated with adequate labeling can encourage the consumption of yogurts with reduced added sugar content.

Implementation of a Customized Safety Checklist in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and the Importance of Team Time Out-A Dual-Center Pilot Study.

Background and Objectives: Checking and correctly preparing the patient for endoscopic procedures is a mandatory step for the safety and quality of the interventions. The aim of this paper is to emphasize the importance and necessity of a "team time out" as well as the implementation of a customized "checklist" before the actual procedure. Material and Methods: We developed and implemented a checklist for the safe conduct of endoscopies and for the entire team to thoroughly know about the patient's medical history. The subjects of this study were 15 physicians and 8 endoscopy nurses who performed overall 572 consecutive GI endoscopic procedures during the study period. Results: This is a prospective pilot study performed in the endoscopy unit of two tertiary referral medical centers. We customized a safety checklist that includes the steps to be followed before, during and after the examination. It brings together the whole team participating in the procedure in order to check the key points during the following three vital phases: before the patient falls asleep, before the endoscope is inserted and before the team leaves the examination room. The perception of team communication and teamwork was improved after the introduction of the checklist. The checklist completion rates, identity verification rates of patients by the endoscopist, adequate histological labeling management and explicit recording of follow-up recommendations are some of the parameters that improved post-intervention. Conclusions: Using a checklist and adapting it to local conditions is a high-level recommendation of the Romanian Ministry of Health. In a medical world where safety and quality are essential, a checklist could prevent medical errors, and team time out can ensure high-quality endoscopy, enhance teamwork and offer patients confidence in the medical team.

Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism: The Case of Iain M. Banks’ Culture

The Culture series created by Scottish author Iain (M.) Banks consists of nine novels, one novella and a couple of short stories situated in the same fictional universe. The eponymous Culture is a space-faring (and spacedwelling) civilization, a conglomeration of several humanoid species and sentient machines, most intellectually powerful beings called The Minds. Technological advances made the Culture a post-scarcity society focused on the maximization of personal freedom. The character of its socio-political structure, however, is somewhat unclear. Based on the differences between its internal and external politics, scholars have mostly placed the Culture within the categories of Utopia and Empire. This is, as the present paper argues, a false dilemma since the Culture is simultaneously both and neither of those. The main argument is that the truly adequate label for the political complexities of the Culture civilization was coined only after the untimely death of the author himself – around 2015, when the far (or, some would say, radical) left activists on the Internet coined the phrase Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism. Using both writings of Marx and Engels on the features of communism and Ollman’s systematization of these features, I will try to show that this is indeed the case.

SAFE MANAGEMENT OF MEDICAL RADIOLOGICAL WASTE

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) defines radioactive waste as material, of no useful value, that contains or is contaminated with nuclides in concentrations higher than levels specified by relevant bodies. Healthcare institutions and users whose business activities generate radioactive waste have the obligation to collect, label and store it in the prescribed manner until such time as it is taken over by a company which is authorized for its transportation, collection, keeping and storage. The goal of this paper is to point out the importance of improving the quality of health services through the process of regulating medical waste management, with a focus on measures and procedures for the disposal of waste generated in radiology. The system for the separation of radiological waste, and its adequate labeling with a number corresponding to its category, is a top priority for radiological waste management at all health institutions. The importance of controlling the generation of radioactive waste is primarily reflected in measures that contribute to its reduction, followed by reuse and recycling. Data on physical, mechanical, chemical, radiological, and biological characteristics is provided to characterize radioactive waste, thus ensuring its safe and secure management. The storage of radioactive waste is the procedure for the temporary placement of radioactive waste in a dedicated facility, i.e., in a warehouse for a specific period of time, in compliance with the prescribed measures for radiation and nuclear safety and the safety of stored waste. During the storage of radioactive waste, it is necessary to carry out a whole series of activities: radiation protection, monitoring radioactivity in the environment around the warehouse, inspection of the state of radioactive waste packaging and inspection of equipment, warehouse components and systems, maintenance of the warehouse, and the labeling and recording of radioactive waste packaging. The process for disposing of radioactive waste implies its isolation from people and the environment. While the location, designed barriers and operation of the facility for disposal of radioactive waste, should enable the application of all radiation safety and security measures and the prevention of reaching criticality. States should assume an unequivocal ethical obligation to eliminate the unnecessary burden, associated with the complex issue of radioactive waste disposal, from future generations.

Kilocalorie labelling in the out-of-home sector: an observational study of business practices and consumer behaviour prior to implementation of the mandatory calorie labelling policy in England, 2022

BackgroundRegulations mandating kilocalorie (kcal) labelling for large businesses in the out-of-home food sector (OHFS) came into force on 6th April 2022 as a policy to reduce obesity in England. To provide indicators of potential reach and impact, kcal labelling practices were studied in the OHFS, and customer purchasing and consumption behaviours prior to implementation of the mandatory kcal labelling policy in England.MethodsFrom August-December 2021, large OHFS businesses subject to the kcal labelling regulations were visited prior to regulations coming into force on 6th April 2022. 3308 customers were recruited from 330 outlets and collected survey information on the number of kcal purchased and consumed by customers, customers’ knowledge of the kcal content of their purchases, and customers noticing and use of kcal labelling. In a subset of 117 outlets, data was collected on nine recommended kcal labelling practices.ResultsThe average number of kcals purchased (1013 kcal, SD = 632 kcal) was high with 69% of purchases exceeding the recommendation of a maximum of 600 kcal per meal. Participants underestimated the energy content of their purchased meals by on average 253 kcal (SD = 644 kcals). In outlets providing kcal labelling in which customer survey data was collected, a minority of customers reported noticing (21%) or using (20%) kcal labelling. Out of the 117 outlets assessed for kcal labelling practices, 24 (21%) provided any in-store kcal labelling. None of the outlets met all nine aspects of recommended labelling practices.ConclusionsPrior to implementation of 2022 kcal labelling policy, the majority of sampled OHFS large business outlets in England did not provide kcal labelling. Few customers noticed or used the labels and on average customers purchased and consumed substantially more energy than recommended in public health guidelines. The findings suggest that reliance on voluntary action for kcal labelling implementation failed to produce widespread, consistent, and adequate kcal labelling practices.

Less than a Lingua franca but more than just ‘any other language’: conceptualising German in the Baltic States as ‘additional language of society’

ABSTRACT This paper discusses contemporary societal roles of German in the Baltic states (Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania). Speaker and learner statistics and a summary of sociolinguistic research (Linguistic Landscapes, language learning motivation, language policies, international roles of languages) suggest that German has by far fewer speakers and functions than the national languages, English, and Russian, and it is not a dominant language in the contemporary Baltics anymore. However, German is ahead of ‘any other language’ in terms of users and societal roles as a frequent language in education, of economic relations, as a historical lingua franca, and a language of traditional and new minorities. Highly diverse groups of users and language policy actors form a ‘coalition of interested parties’ which creates niches which guarantee German a frequent use. In the light of the abundance of its functions, the paper suggests the concept ‘additional language of society’ for a variety such as German in the Baltics – since there seems to be no adequate alternative labelling which would do justice to all societal roles. The paper argues that this concept may also be used for languages in similar societal situations and, not least, be useful in language marketing and the promotion of multilingualism.

Accidental allergic reactions to food in adolescents and adults: An overview of the factors involved and implications for prevention.

Accidental allergic reactions to food are one of the major problems in adult patients diagnosed with food allergy. Such reactions occur frequently, are often severe and are associated with higher medical and non-medical costs. The aim of this Perspective is to provide insight into the different factors involved in the occurrence of accidental allergic reactions and to present an overview of practical implications for effective preventive measures. Several factors affect the occurrence of accidental reactions. These factors are related to the patient, health care, or food. The most important patient-related factors are age, social barriers to disclosing their allergy and non-adherence to the elimination diet. With regards to healthcare, the degree to which clinical practice is tailored to the individual patient is an important factor. The major food-related factor is the absence of adequate precautionary allergen labeling (PAL) guidelines. Since many factors are involved in accidental allergic reactions, different preventive strategies are needed. It is highly recommended that health care be tailored to the individual patient, with regard to education about the elimination diet, support on behavioral and psychosocial aspects, usage of shared decision-making and taking into account health literacy. In addition, it is crucial that steps are taken to improve policies and guidelines for PAL.

A Framework for Understanding Unstructured Financial Documents Using RPA and Multimodal Approach

The financial business process worldwide suffers from huge dependencies upon labor and written documents, thus making it tedious and time-consuming. In order to solve this problem, traditional robotic process automation (RPA) has recently been developed into a hyper-automation solution by combining computer vision (CV) and natural language processing (NLP) methods. These solutions are capable of image analysis, such as key information extraction and document classification. However, they could improve on text-rich document images and require much training data for processing multilingual documents. This study proposes a multimodal approach-based intelligent document processing framework that combines a pre-trained deep learning model with traditional RPA used in banks to automate business processes from real-world financial document images. The proposed framework can perform classification and key information extraction on a small amount of training data and analyze multilingual documents. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed framework, extensive experiments were conducted using Korean financial document images. The experimental results show the superiority of the multimodal approach for understanding financial documents and demonstrate that adequate labeling can improve performance by up to about 15%.

Cerebral perfusion using ASL in patients with COVID-19 and neurological manifestations: A retrospective multicenter observational study

Background and purposeCerebral hypoperfusion has been reported in patients with COVID-19 and neurological manifestations in small cohorts. We aimed to systematically assess changes in cerebral perfusion in a cohort of 59 of these patients, with or without abnormalities on morphological MRI sequences. MethodsPatients with biologically-confirmed COVID-19 and neurological manifestations undergoing a brain MRI with technically adequate arterial spin labeling (ASL) perfusion were included in this retrospective multicenter study. ASL maps were jointly reviewed by two readers blinded to clinical data. They assessed abnormal perfusion in four regions of interest in each brain hemisphere: frontal lobe, parietal lobe, posterior temporal lobe, and temporal pole extended to the amygdalo-hippocampal complex. ResultsFifty-nine patients (44 men (75%), mean age 61.2 years) were included. Most patients had a severe COVID-19, 57 (97%) needed oxygen therapy and 43 (73%) were hospitalized in intensive care unit at the time of MRI. Morphological brain MRI was abnormal in 44 (75%) patients. ASL perfusion was abnormal in 53 (90%) patients, and particularly in all patients with normal morphological MRI. Hypoperfusion occurred in 48 (81%) patients, mostly in temporal poles (52 (44%)) and frontal lobes (40 (34%)). Hyperperfusion occurred in 9 (15%) patients and was closely associated with post-contrast FLAIR leptomeningeal enhancement (100% [66.4%-100%] of hyperperfusion with enhancement versus 28.6% [16.6%-43.2%] without, p = 0.002). Studied clinical parameters (especially sedation) and other morphological MRI anomalies had no significant impact on perfusion anomalies. ConclusionBrain ASL perfusion showed hypoperfusion in more than 80% of patients with severe COVID-19, with or without visible lesion on conventional MRI abnormalities.

Bi-Classifier Adversarial Network for Cross-Scene Hyperspectral Image Classification

Labeling hyperspectral images (HSIs) is time-consuming and labor-intensive for researchers, so the deficiency of adequate labeling samples is a giant obstacle to conducting HSI classification. Especially, such issue is exacerbated when there are no available labeled samples in the target scene. For the sake of resolving aforesaid issue, we put forward a novel cross-scene HSI classification method namely bi-classifier adversarial augmentation network (BCAN) so as to transfer knowledge from a similar but different source domain to an unlabeled target domain. First, the source and target domain distributions are aligned by maximizing and minimizing the decision discrepancy between two classifiers, respectively. Then, more accurate samples corresponding to pseudo-labels are selected as reliable samples and added to the training set. Finally, the spectral band random zeroing (SBRZ) method is proposed to expand the training samples for reliable samples, which handles the problem of insufficient network training resulted from insufficient samples in the source domain. By using multi-classifiers for domain adaptation and data augmentation, the accuracy of the network for cross-scene HSI classification tasks are improved. BCAN can extract the source domain’s helpful information to complete the target domain classification task. Experiments conducted on ten HSI data pairs show that BCAN outperforms many state-of-the-art baselines.

Hybrid ultrasound-activated nanoparticles based on graphene quantum dots for cancer treatment

Theranostic liposomes have recently found a broad range of applications in nanomedicine due to stability, the high solubility of biomacromolecules, bioavailability, efficacy, and low adverse effects. However, the limitations of liposomes concerning the short systemic circulation in the body, limited controllability of the release rate, and the inability of in vivo imaging remain challenging. Herein, the development of novel hybrid ultrasound-activated piezoelectric nanoparticles based on a hybrid liposome nanocarrier composed of poly(vinylidene fluoride‐trifluoroethylene), graphene quantum dots (GQDs), and Silibinin (a hydrophobic drug) is presented. The hybrid nanoparticles are an acoustically sensitive drug delivery platform that releases the biomacromolecules in a specific tissue area (through surface labeling with PD-1 antibody) in a non-invasive and controlled manner. We show that the developed hybrid nanoparticles (with an average outer diameter of ∼ 230 ± 20 nm) enable piezoelectric-stimulated drug delivery combined with simultaneous fluorescent imaging of cancer cells in vivo. Significant enhancement (>80 % up to 240 h) and tunable drug release from the nanocarrier through enhanced diffusion from the liposome membrane are demonstrated. Cytotoxicity assays using MCF-7, 4T1, and NIH3T3 cell lines exhibit no confrontational influence of nanoparticles on cell viability up to 125 µg/ml. The PD-1 antibody on the surface of the hybrid nanocarrier allows for selective delivery to breast cancer tumors and low biodistribution to other tissues. Our results affirm that the developed ultrasound-activated piezoelectric nanoparticles have great potential as multifunctional platforms with sustainable release profiles for the delivery of hydrophobic drugs to breast cancer, especially when the ability for adequate labeling and cell monitoring is valued.

Population designations in biomedical research: Limitations and perspectives.

In biomedical research, population differences are of central interest. Variations in the frequency and severity of diseases and in treatment effects among human subpopulation groups are common in many medical conditions. Unfortunately, the practices in terms of subpopulation labeling do not exhibit the level of rigor one would expect in biomedical research, especially when studying multifactorial diseases such as cancer or atherosclerosis. The reporting of population differences in clinical research is characterized by large disparities in practices, and fraught with methodological issues and inconsistencies. The actual designations such as "Black" or "Asian" refer to broad and heterogeneous groups, with a great discrepancy among countries. Moreover, the use of obsolete concepts such as "Caucasian" is unfortunate and imprecise. The use of adequate labeling to reflect the scientific hypothesis needs to be promoted. Furthermore, the use of "race/ethnicity" as a unique cause of human heterogeneity may distract from investigating other factors related to a medical condition, particularly if this label is employed as a proxy for cultural habits, diet, or environmental exposure. In addition, the wide range of opinions among researchers does not facilitate the attempts made for resolving this heterogeneity in labeling. "Race," "ethnicity," "ancestry," "geographical origin," and other similar concepts are saturated with meanings. Even if the feasibility of a global consensus on labeling seems difficult, geneticists, sociologists, anthropologists, and ethicists should help develop policies and practices for the biomedical field.