Cooperation In Science And Technology Action Research Articles

A 20-year overview of fertility preservation in boys: new insights gained through a comprehensive international survey.

Twenty years after the inception of the first fertility preservation programme for pre-pubertal boys, what are the current international practices with regard to cryopreservation of immature testicular tissue? Worldwide, testicular tissue has been cryopreserved from over 3000 boys under the age of 18 years for a variety of malignant and non-malignant indications; there is variability in practices related to eligibility, clinical assessment, storage, and funding. For male patients receiving gonadotoxic treatment prior to puberty, testicular tissue cryopreservation may provide a method of fertility preservation. While this technique remains experimental, an increasing number of centres worldwide are cryopreserving immature testicular tissue and are approaching clinical application of methods to use this stored tissue to restore fertility. As such, standards for quality assurance and clinical care in preserving immature testicular tissue should be established. A detailed survey was sent to 17 centres within the recently established ORCHID-NET consortium, which offer testicular tissue cryopreservation to patients under the age of 18 years. The study encompassed 60 questions and remained open from 1 July to 1 November 2022. Of the 17 invited centres, 16 completed the survey, with representation from Europe, Australia, and the USA. Collectively, these centres have cryopreserved testicular tissue from patients under the age of 18 years. Data are presented using descriptive analysis. Since the establishment of the first formal fertility preservation programme for pre-pubertal males in 2002, these 16 centres have cryopreserved tissue from 3118 patients under the age of 18 years, with both malignant (60.4%) and non-malignant (39.6%) diagnoses. All centres perform unilateral biopsies, while 6/16 sometimes perform bilateral biopsies. When cryopreserving tissue, 9/16 centres preserve fragments sized ≤5 mm3 with the remainder preserving fragments sized 6-20 mm3. Dimethylsulphoxide is commonly used as a cryoprotectant, with medium supplements varying across centres. There are variations in funding source, storage duration, and follow-up practice. Research, with consent, is conducted on stored tissue in 13/16 centres. While this is a multi-national study, it will not encompass every centre worldwide that is cryopreserving testicular tissue from males under 18 years of age. As such, it is likely that the actual number of patients is even higher than we report. Whilst the study is likely to reflect global practice overall, it will not provide a complete picture of practices in every centre. Given the research advances, it is reasonable to suggest that cryopreserved immature testicular tissue will in the future be used clinically to restore fertility. The growing number of patients undergoing this procedure necessitates collaboration between centres to better harmonize clinical and research protocols evaluating tissue function and clinical outcomes in these patients. K.D. is supported by a CRUK grant (C157/A25193). R.T.M. is supported by an UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellowship (MR/S017151/1). The MRC Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh is supported by MRC (MR/N022556/1). C.L.M. is funded by Kika86 and ZonMW TAS 116003002. A.M.M.v.P. is supported by ZonMW TAS 116003002. E.G. was supported by the Research Program of the Research Foundation-Flanders (G.0109.18N), Kom op tegen Kanker, the Strategic Research Program (VUB_SRP89), and the Scientific Fund Willy Gepts. J.-B.S. is supported by the Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation (TJ2020-0026). The work of NORDFERTIL is supported by the Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation (PR2019-0123; PR2022-0115), the Swedish Research Council (2018-03094; 2021-02107), and the Birgitta and Carl-Axel Rydbeck's Research Grant for Paediatric Research (2020-00348; 2021-00073; 2022-00317; 2023-00353). C.E is supported by the Health Department of the Basque Government (Grants 2019111068 and 2022111067) and Inocente Inocente Foundation (FII22/001). M.P.R. is funded by a Medical Research Council Centre for Reproductive Health Grant No: MR/N022556/1. A.F. and N.R. received support from a French national research grant PHRC No. 2008/071/HP obtained by the French Institute of Cancer and the French Healthcare Organization. K.E.O. is funded by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the US National Institutes of Health HD100197. V.B-L is supported by the French National Institute of Cancer (Grant Seq21-026). Y.J. is supported by the Royal Children's Hospital Foundation and a Medical Research Future Fund MRFAR000308. E.G., N.N., S.S., C.L.M., A.M.M.v.P., C.E., R.T.M., K.D., M.P.R. are members of COST Action CA20119 (ANDRONET) supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). The Danish Child Cancer Foundation is also thanked for financial support (C.Y.A.). The authors declare no competing interests. N/A.

DFT Studies on Cun/TiO2 (n=1-7) System for Water Splitting

Copper deposited on titania is active in numerous catalytic reactions, incl. water splitting [1]. The activity of the system depends on the size of the copper phase, whether it is present as single atoms, sub-nanometer clusters, or nanoparticles.The aim of the current contribution is to elucidate the relationship between the size of the copper active phase and its electronic and geometric properties by performing Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations with PBE functional and the def2-TZVP basis set.Theoretical model of the system comprised of a cluster model of anatase phase of titania – (TiO2)34 - with clusters of copper of varying sizes on top of it. The ground-state geometric and electronic structures were elucidated. Next, their redox and photochemical properties were determined: frontier (HOMO, LUMO) orbitals were defined, energy gaps, total and partial density of states were plotted and analysed. The interactions between components of the systems, in particular the influence of the support on the copper electronic structure, were investigated. Next, the reactivity of the metal phase towards typical intermediates observed during water splitting (H2O, OH, O, and H) was studied.The performed calculations demonstrated that the presence of metal determines the energetics and character of the frontier orbitals of the catalyst. The size of copper active phase influences the bond lengths and bond orders with studied reagents.Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the National Science Centre, Poland within Solar-Driven Chemistry project no 2019/01/Y/ST4/00024. This publication is based upon work from COST Action CA 18234 “Computational materials sciences for efficient water splitting with nanocrystals from abundant elements”, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). We gratefully acknowledge Polish high-performance computing infrastructure PLGrid (HPC Centers: ACK Cyfronet AGH) for providing computer facilities and support within computational grant no. PLG/2020/013927.Literature:[1] Cheng Cheng, Wei-Hai Fang, Run Long, and Oleg V. Prezhdo, JACS Au 2021, 1, 5, 550–559

Inequality and growth impacts of climate change—insights from South Africa * *This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 821124 (NAVIGATE), the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program under Grant Agreement No 101081369 (SPARCCLE), the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program under Grant Agreement No.

The impact of climate change on economic growth has been the subject of numerous studies in recent years, with macro-econometric analyses estimating the effect of rising temperatures on gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates at the country-level. However, the distributional impact of warming on inequality and poverty at the micro-level remains relatively unexplored. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between temperature and inequality in South Africa at the national and sub-national level. Our analysis reveals a significant -shaped relationship between temperature and inequality indices, with inequality lowest at moderate temperatures (11 ∘C–18 ∘C) and increasing sharply as temperatures increase. We find that the optimal temperatures are lower for inequality measures than for income levels. This indicates that substantial increases in inequality are expected at higher temperatures compared to growth impacts. This effect is particularly noticeable for the poorer segments of the population, whose productivity and wages decline as temperatures increase, while the impact on the richer segments is less significant due to their greater adaptive capacity. In terms of mechanisms, we find that agricultural households are more likely to experience an increase in inequality due to warming. Our findings suggest that global warming has two adverse effects on hot countries: reducing average growth and increasing inequality. We compare the outcomes of the moderate RCP6.0 scenario to a reference scenario without warming and find that by the end of the century, the Gini coefficient in South Africa is expected to increase by 3–6 points, resulting in a potential welfare loss of approximately 50% when combined with the impact of warming on GDP (which alone can reach up to 43% by 2100 in South Africa). Our findings highlight the importance of investigating the distributional effects of climate change at the micro-level, particularly in low- or middle-income countries where vulnerable populations are more susceptible to its impacts.

Shapley–Scarf Housing Markets: Respecting Improvement, Integer Programming, and Kidney Exchange

In a housing market of Shapley and Scarf, each agent is endowed with one indivisible object and has preferences over all objects. An allocation of the objects is in the (strong) core if there exists no (weakly) blocking coalition. We show that, for strict preferences, the unique strong core allocation “respects improvement”—if an agent’s object becomes more desirable for some other agents, then the agent’s allotment in the unique strong core allocation weakly improves. We extend this result to weak preferences for both the strong core (conditional on nonemptiness) and the set of competitive allocations (using probabilistic allocations and stochastic dominance). There are no counterparts of the latter two results in the two-sided matching literature. We provide examples to show how our results break down when there is a bound on the length of exchange cycles. Respecting improvements is an important property for applications of the housing markets model, such as kidney exchange: it incentivizes each patient to bring the best possible set of donors to the market. We conduct computer simulations using markets that resemble the pools of kidney exchange programs. We compare the game-theoretical solutions with current techniques (maximum size and maximum weight allocations) in terms of violations of the respecting improvement property. We find that game-theoretical solutions fare much better at respecting improvements even when exchange cycles are bounded, and they do so at a low efficiency cost. As a stepping stone for our simulations, we provide novel integer programming formulations for computing core, competitive, and strong core allocations. Funding: P. Biró gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund, OTKA [Grant K143858] and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences [Grant LP2021-2]. F. Klijn gratefully acknowledges financial support from AGAUR–Generalitat de Catalunya [Grants 2017-SGR-1359 and 2021-SGR-00416] and the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación [Grants ECO2017-88130-P and PID2020-114251GB-I00] (funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) and the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (Barcelona School of Economics) [Grant CEX2019-000915-S]. Research visits related to this work were financed by COST Action [Grant CA15210 ENCKEP], supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), http://www.cost.eu/ .

Cultural sustainability in urban third places: Assessing the impact of 'Co-operation in Science and Technology' in cultural third places

Cultural sustainability, as a fourth dimension and independent aspect of sustainable development, has gained acceptance and has become an essential constituent of sustainable urban planning. The European Co-operation in Science and Technology (COST) integrated culture as a critical component and identified its three main roles: 'IN', FOR', 'AS' to achieve sustainable development goals. The new concept in urban design, namely the 'Third Place', seeks to include culture in integrated sustainability planning of urban spaces to support sociability and place attachment. Based on the (COST Action), the research aims to explore the three roles of culture in sustainable development (SD), and to develop a theoretical framework for cultural sustainability in the urban third place. The framework is applied to a selected urban third place (Briggate Street) in Leeds, UK, to test the validity of the extracted criteria and indicators. Visual surveys and interviews helped determine users' perceptions. The research concluded the critical role of cultural sustainability as part of the urban third place and the importance of the survey, which is clearly expressed in the cultural continuity s high results when compared to the lowest results of cultural vitality and behavioral shift of users. Finally, the research suggests a number of recommendations to improve the quality of urban third places and achieve cultural well-being while sustaining the cultural heritage of these places.

Unifying approaches to Functional Marine Connectivity for improved marine resource management: the European SEA-UNICORN COST Action

Truly sustainable development in a human-altered, fragmented marine environment subject to unprecedented climate change, demands informed planning strategies in order to be successful. Beyond a simple understanding of the distribution of marine species, data describing how variations in spatio-temporal dynamics impact ecosystem functioning and the evolution of species are required. Marine Functional Connectivity (MFC) characterizes the flows of matter, genes and energy produced by organism movements and migrations across the seascape. As such, MFC determines the ecological and evolutionary interdependency of populations, and ultimately the fate of species and ecosystems. Gathering effective MFC knowledge can therefore improve predictions of the impacts of environmental change and help to refine management and conservation strategies for the seas and oceans. Gathering these data are challenging however, as access to, and survey of marine ecosystems still presents significant challenge. Over 50 European institutions currently investigate aspects of MFC using complementary methods across multiple research fields, to understand the ecology and evolution of marine species. The aim of SEA-UNICORN, a COST Action supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), is to bring together this research effort, unite the multiple approaches to MFC, and to integrate these under a common conceptual and analytical framework. The consortium brings together a diverse group of scientists to collate existing MFC data, to identify knowledge gaps, to enhance complementarity among disciplines, and to devise common approaches to MFC. SEA-UNICORN will promote co-working between connectivity practitioners and ecosystem modelers to facilitate the incorporation of MFC data into the predictive models used to identify marine conservation priorities. Ultimately, SEA-UNICORN will forge strong forward-working links between scientists, policy-makers and stakeholders to facilitate the integration of MFC knowledge into decision support tools for marine management and environmental policies.

Methodological considerations for circulating long noncoding RNA quantification.

In the past decade, significant resources have been invested in long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) research. Despite the knowledge available, we are far from incorporation of lncRNA into clinical practice. Here, we emphasize the technical challenges in the field, hoping to provoke a response leading to new consensus and guidelines.

PB2207: IN VITRO VALIDATION OF DENDRIMER-BASED APPROACH FOR MICRO-RNA DELIVERY INTO LEUKEMIA CELLS

Background: microRNAs are known to be important players in the epigenetic regulation of many cell processes. Some of them demonstrate anti-tumor properties (e.g. miR-34), others are associated with the enhancing of the tumor growth (e.g. miR-21), therefore being prospective effectors and targets for the gene therapy. For this aim, synthetic microRNAs or microRNA inhibitors can be used. We suggest to use dendrimers - highly symmetric hyperbranched polymers - as a novel type of nanocarriers for therapeutic RNAs delivery and gene therapy. Aims: In this work we assessed the effects of microRNA-34a (miR-34a) and microRNA-21 inhibitor (anti-miR-21) on Jurkat and 1301 cells (human T-cell leukemia) upon the dendrimer-mediated delivery. Methods: As carriers for microRNAs, amphiphilic second- and third generation triazine-carbosilane dendrons (DG2 and DG3 respectively) and fully symmetrical 3rd generation carbosilane (BDEF33) and phosphorus (AE2G3) dendrimers have been taken. Oligonucleotides were complexed onto the surface of dendrimer vesicles by means of electrostatic interactions, forming dendriplexes. To prove the dendriplexes can be sufficiently internalized, we performed FACS analysis after 3 h of incubating cells with FITC-labelled microRNA. Cells were cultivated with free dendrimers or complexes (25, 50, 100, 150 nM RNA, 10-fold excess of cations) in the complete cell medium for 72 h. We investigated cell viability (MTT assay, Annexin V/PI apoptosis assay) in comparison with non-tumor cells (PBMCs), IL-10 secretion and expression of several markers, characterizing interaction of tumor with immune microenvironment - PD-L1, TIM-3, CD47. Statistical analysis was done by using Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon tests, differences between groups were considered significant if p<0.05. This work was supported by RFBR grant No.18-33-20109, by the grant of the President of the Russian Federation No.2278.2019.4, by the HHU STIBET Scholarship grant support and based upon work from COST Action CA 17140 “Cancer Nanomedicine from the Bench to the Bedside” supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). Results: Free dendrimers have their own dose-dependent toxic effects, which is slightly higher for tumor cells, than for PBMCs. Treatment by free dendritic molecules led to increasing of expression of PD-L1, TIM-3 and CD47 on Jurkat cells, but decreased the IL-10 secretion. Dendriplexes can be efficiently internalized into tumor cells, transport activity of dendrimers was higher than for Lipofectamine 3000 or was comparable. Dendron-based dendriplexes (DG2, DG3) had pro-apoptotic effect on leukemia cells. PD-L1 expression did not change after treatment by dendriplexes. Summary/Conclusion: Dendrimers not onle have their own toxic effect per se, but also they can be used as effective nanocarriers for therapeutic microRNAs. Using of complexes, containing microRNAs with anti-tumor activity, leads to induction of apoptosis of leukemia cells. Treatment by free dendrimers, but not by dendriplexes, increases expression of PD-L1, TIM-3, CD47 on Jurkat cells, but IL-10 secretion was found to be decreased. We suppose, that dendrimer-based approach can be useful and perspective tool for delivery of therapeuthic microRNAs into tumor cells. At the same moment, characterization of their effects on interactions between tumor and immune microenvironment demands the further studies.

Complete Genome Sequence Resource for Xanthomonas translucens pv. undulosa MAI5034, a Wheat Pathogen from Uruguay.

Complete Genome Sequence Resource for Xanthomonas translucens pv. undulosa MAI5034, a Wheat Pathogen from Uruguay.

Management of Urban Waters with Nature-Based Solutions in Circular Cities—Exemplified through Seven Urban Circularity Challenges

Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) have been proven to effectively mitigate and solve resource depletion and climate-related challenges in urban areas. The COST (Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action CA17133 entitled “Implementing nature-based solutions (NBS) for building a resourceful circular city” has established seven urban circularity challenges (UCC) that can be addressed effectively with NBS. This paper presents the outcomes of five elucidation workshops with more than 20 European experts from different backgrounds. These international workshops were used to examine the effectiveness of NBS to address UCC and foster NBS implementation towards circular urban water management. A major outcome was the identification of the two most relevant challenges for water resources in urban areas: ‘Restoring and maintaining the water cycle’ (UCC1) and ‘Water and waste treatment, recovery, and reuse’ (UCC2). s Moreover, significant synergies with ‘Nutrient recovery and reuse’, ‘Material recovery and reuse’, ‘Food and biomass production’, ‘Energy efficiency and recovery’, and ‘Building system recovery’ were identified. Additionally, the paper presents real-life case studies to demonstrate how different NBS and supporting units can contribute to the UCC. Finally, a case-based semi-quantitative assessment of the presented NBS was performed. Most notably, this paper identifies the most typically employed NBS that enable processes for UCC1 and UCC2. While current consensus is well established by experts in individual NBS, we presently highlight the potential to address UCC by combining different NBS and synergize enabling processes. This study presents a new paradigm and aims to enhance awareness on the ability of NBS to solve multiple urban circularity issues.

Discriminating the HTM and MLRSM models in collider studies via doubly charged Higgs boson pair production and the subsequent leptonic decays * *The research has been supported by the Polish National Science Center (NCN) under grant 2015/17/N/ST2/04067, COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action CA16201 PARTICLEFACE and the research activities co-financed by the funds granted under the Research Excellence

We present a case study for the doubly charged Higgs boson pair production in and pp colliders with their subsequent decays to four charged leptons. We consider the Higgs Triplet Model ( ), which is not restricted by the custodial symmetry, and the Minimal Left-Right Symmetric Model ( ). These models include scalar triplets with different complexities of scalar potentials and, because of experimental restrictions, completely different scales of non-standard triplet vacuum expectation values. In both models, a doubly charged Higgs boson can acquire a mass of hundreds of gigaelectronvolts, which can be probed at the HL-LHC, future , and hadron colliders. We take into account a comprehensive set of constraints on the parameters of both models coming from neutrino oscillations, LHC, , and low-energy lepton flavor violating data and assume the same mass of . Our finding is that the pair production in lepton and hadron colliders is comparable in both models, though more pronounced in the . We show that the decay branching ratios can be different within both models, leading to distinguishable four-lepton signals, and that the strongest are events yielded by the . Typically, we find that the signals are one order of magnitude larger those in the . For example, the signal for 1 TeV mass results in a clearly detectable significance of for the HL-LHC and for the FCC-hh. Finally, we provide quantitative predictions for the dilepton invariant mass distributions and lepton separations, which help to identify non-standard signals.

Red europea para la investigación de la presión arterial en niños y adolescentes (COST Action CA19115)

High blood pressure is a clearly established modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular and renal disease. Although most of its adverse effects develop in adulthood, it has become clear that high BP is a lifelong problem that can manifest early in life. While few would dispute the importance of taking effective steps to identify and manage this condition in middle-aged and elderly individuals, relatively little attention has been paid to the problem of high BP in children and adolescents. Therefore, the development of actions focused on early childhood, childhood and adolescence and the investigation of the underlying causes of this epidemic are of utmost importance. There is a pressing need for comprehensive pan-European action to increase the knowledge on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of high blood pressure in children and adolescents, the current scarcity of which impedes the development of consensus across different research fields and hinders efforts to introduce changes in clinical practice. There are some aspects that demand urgent action: the definition of hypertension, the prevalence of high BP in Europe, accurate measurement for early identification, the assessment of hypertension-mediated organ damage and the development and implementation of prevention strategies. In order to provide answers to all of these unanswered questions and challenges, a multidisciplinary network was established, maintained and funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Association. COST is a funding organization for the creation of research networks known as COST Actions. In this case, the network will promote coordinated and collaborative activities on personalized preventive measures for children and adolescents across Europe.

European Network on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (EUROMENE): Expert Consensus on the Diagnosis, Service Provision, and Care of People with ME/CFS in Europe.

Designed by a group of ME/CFS researchers and health professionals, the European Network on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (EUROMENE) has received funding from the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST)—COST action 15111—from 2016 to 2020. The main goal of the Cost Action was to assess the existing knowledge and experience on health care delivery for people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) in European countries, and to enhance coordinated research and health care provision in this field. We report our findings and make recommendations for clinical diagnosis, health services and care for people with ME/CFS in Europe, as prepared by the group of clinicians and researchers from 22 countries and 55 European health professionals and researchers, who have been informed by people with ME/CFS.

Transition of patients with interstitial lung disease from paediatric to adult care

The European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) is a funding organisation for the creation of research networks, called COST Actions. COST Action 16125 was dedicated to European network for translational research in children's and adult interstitial lung disease. Working Group 5 of the COST Action CA16125 focussed on the problems of transition of children with interstitial lung diseases from paediatric to adult care. Results of this survey performed among members of the Working Group and some affiliated specialists showed highly variable and inadequate current system of transitions of these patients to adult care in most centres. In most centres there is no established and consistent procedure to guarantee appropriate transfer of information and prepare the patient for transition to a new specialist and a new team. Immediate action is therefore required. The Working Group has prepared a model procedure for the transition, based on protocols from several centres with established pathways, either for childhood interstitial lung disease or other chronic respiratory diseases.

European Network for blood pressure research in children and adolescents (COST Action CA 19115)

High blood pressure is a clearly established modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular and renal disease. Although most of its adverse effects develop in adulthood, it has become clear that high BP is a lifelong problem that can manifest early in life. While few would dispute the importance of taking effective steps to identify and manage this condition in middle-aged and elderly individuals, relatively little attention has been paid to the problem of high BP in children and adolescents.Therefore, the development of actions focused on early childhood, childhood and adolescence and the investigation of the underlying causes of this epidemic are of utmost importance. There is a pressing need for comprehensive pan-European action to increase the knowledge on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of high blood pressure in children and adolescents, the current scarcity of which impedes the development of consensus across different research fields and hinders efforts to introduce changes in clinical practice. There are some aspects that demand urgent action: the definition of hypertension, the prevalence of high BP in Europe, accurate measurement for early identification, the assessment of hypertension-mediated organ damage and the development and implementation of prevention strategies. In order to provide answers to all of these unanswered questions and challenges, a multidisciplinary network was established, maintained and funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Association. COST is a funding organization for the creation of research networks known as COST Actions. In this case, the network will promote coordinated and collaborative activities on personalized preventive measures for children and adolescents across Europe.

Implementing Regenerative Design Principles: A Refurbishment Case Study of the First Regenerative Building in Spain

The conventional building design and construction have detrimental impact onto the environment. With the current pace of development of the contemporary society, these issues cannot be fully addressed with the concept of sustainable design and construction, which is based on causing less harm to the environment. Thus, the regenerative concept is gaining relevance, as it is changing the construction paradigm toward the delivery of a human-centric environment, which, when coupled with the circular economy, aims to enable the natural environment to evolve. In order to have a more frequent delivery of regenerative buildings, it is necessary to broaden the knowledge on regenerative design, which is the objective of this paper. The aim is to investigate the design process, strategies, and technologies that are applied during the design and construction of a refurbished residential building, which is intended to be the first regenerative building in Spain, and is currently in the process of certification as per the Living Building Challenge (LBC) standard. Therefore, a literature review was performed, followed by a site visit of the case-study building. The research is organized according to the seven categories (petals) of the Living Building Challenge standard, and all 20 imperatives of the LBC are discussed. Additionally, the aspects of costs and project management are investigated. The findings point out the main design features and challenges toward the realization of regenerative refurbishment, in order to fully adhere to the demands of the LBC, and discusses their potential for a broader application in rural as well as urban settings. The analysis of the case-study design and construction can serve as a valuable insight to deliver future regenerative buildings and accelerate their implementation in the construction industry. This article is based upon the work of COST Action RESTORE CA16114, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology).

Analysis Protocol for the Quantification of Renal pH Using Chemical Exchange Saturation Transfer (CEST) MRI.

The kidney plays a major role in maintaining body pH homeostasis. Renal pH, in particular, changes immediately following injuries such as intoxication and ischemia, making pH an early biomarker for kidney injury before the symptom onset and complementary to well-established laboratory tests. Because of this, it is imperative to develop minimally invasive renal pH imaging exams and test pH as a new diagnostic biomarker in animal models of kidney injury before clinical translation. Briefly, iodinated contrast agents approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for computed tomography (CT) have demonstrated promise as novel chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) MRI agents for pH-sensitive imaging. The generalized ratiometric iopamidol CEST MRI analysis enables concentration-independent pH measurement, which simplifies in vivo renal pH mapping. This chapter describes quantitative CEST MRI analysis for preclinical renal pH mapping, and their application in rodents, including normal conditions and acute kidney injury.This publication is based upon work from the COST Action PARENCHIMA, a community-driven network funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) program of the European Union, which aims to improve the reproducibility and standardization of renal MRI biomarkers. This analysis protocol chapter is complemented by two separate chapters describing the basic concepts and experimental procedure.

Dynamic Contrast Enhancement (DCE) MRI-Derived Renal Perfusion and Filtration: Basic Concepts.

Dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI monitors the transit of contrast agents, typically gadolinium chelates, through the intrarenal regions, the renal cortex, the medulla, and the collecting system. In this way, DCE-MRI reveals the renal uptake and excretion of the contrast agent. An optimal DCE-MRI acquisition protocol involves finding a good compromise between whole-kidney coverage (i.e., 3D imaging), spatial and temporal resolution, and contrast resolution. By analyzing the enhancement of the renal tissues as a function of time, one can determine indirect measures of clinically important single-kidney parameters as the renal blood flow, glomerular filtration rate, and intrarenal blood volumes. Gadolinium-containing contrast agents may be nephrotoxic in patients suffering from severe renal dysfunction, but otherwise DCE-MRI is clearly useful for diagnosis of renal functions and for assessing treatment response and posttransplant rejection.Here we introduce the concept of renal DCE-MRI, describe the existing methods, and provide an overview of preclinical DCE-MRI applications to illustrate the utility of this technique to measure renal perfusion and glomerular filtration rate in animal models.This publication is based upon work from the COST Action PARENCHIMA, a community-driven network funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) program of the European Union, which aims to improve the reproducibility and standardization of renal MRI biomarkers. This introduction is complemented by two separate publications describing the experimental procedure and data analysis.

Dynamic Contrast Enhanced (DCE) MRI-Derived Renal Perfusion and Filtration: Experimental Protocol.

Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) can provide a noninvasive way for assessing renal functional information following the administration of a small molecular weight gadolinium-based contrast agent. This method may be useful for investigating renal perfusion and glomerular filtration rates of rodents in vivo under various experimental (patho)physiological conditions. Here we describe a step-by-step protocol for DCE-MRI studies in small animals providing practical notes on acquisition parameters, sequences, T1 mapping approaches and procedures.This chapters is based upon work from the COST Action PARENCHIMA, a community-driven network funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) program of the European Union, which aims to improve the reproducibility and standardization of renal MRI biomarkers. This experimental protocol chapter is complemented by two separate chapters describing the basic concept and data analysis.

Preparation and Monitoring of Small Animals in Renal MRI.

Renal diseases remain devastating illnesses with unacceptably high rates of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Animal models are essential tools to better understand the pathomechanism of kidney-related illnesses and to develop new, successful therapeutic strategies. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been actively explored in the last decades for assessing renal function, perfusion, tissue oxygenation as well as the degree of fibrosis and inflammation. This chapter aims to provide an overview of the preparation and monitoring of small animals before, during, and after surgical interventions or MR imaging. Standardization of experimental settings such as body temperature or hydration of animals and minimizing pain and distress are essential for diminishing nonexperimental variables as well as for conducting ethical research.This publication is based upon work from the COST Action PARENCHIMA, a community-driven network funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) program of the European Union, which aims to improve the reproducibility and standardization of renal MRI biomarkers.