Frontline Research Research Articles

Preparation of celecoxib loaded bioactive glass chitosan composite hydrogels: a simple approach for therapeutic delivery of NSAIDs

Arthritis causes inflammatory damage to joints and connective tissues. In the treatment of arthritis, precise and controlled drug delivery to the target site is among the frontline research approaches. In the present research work, celecoxib drug and bioactive glass incorporated chitosan hydrogels were fabricated by the freeze gelation method. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis/differential scanning calorimetry techniques were used to characterize the hydrogels. Different kinetic models were applied to study the drug release kinetics. The celecoxib release was mainly controlled by a Fickian diffusion process followed by the Higuchi model. Maximum 86.2% drug entrapment was observed in 20 mg drug-loaded hydrogel and its swelling ratio was 115.5% in 28 d. Good hydrophilicity, good drug entrapment efficiency, and moderate drug release patterns of hydrogels can make them suitable for sustained drug release. The cytocompatibility of hydrogels was established by performing an MTT assay on the BHK-21 fibroblast cell line. The promising results have proved that hydrogels can be considered potential material for the slow release of anti-inflammatory drug at the target site in arthritis.

A Mini-Review of the Kinetic Energy Partition Method in Quantum Mechanics

Based on the idea of adiabatic symmetry, we present a novel basis set expansion method—the kinetic energy partition (KEP) method—for solving quantum eigenvalue problems. Broken symmetry is responsible for quantum entanglement in many-body systems via parametric non-adiabatic corrections. Starting from simple one-particle-in-one-dimension problems, we gradually increase the complexity in the number of particles and the interaction patterns. Our goal in the mini-review is to advocate for the utility of the KEP method in front-line research, in particular for research beginners in quantum many-body problems.

A Review of the Research of Summary Writing under the Background of New College Entrance Examination in China

After the new college entrance examination reform, summary writing has been formally used in college entrance examination writing in China. This new question type has triggered many scholars and front-line teachers' research and discussion. In order to further understand the current research status of summary writing in China, this paper collates and analyzes the literature related to summary writing in Foreign Language Teaching in Primary and secondary Schools (middle school papers), English Teaching and Research in Primary and Secondary Schools and the core journals of CNKI from 2015 to 2022.The findings are as follows: (1) The publication of literature related to summary writing increased explosively after 2016, but fell back in the last two years;(2) Most of the research methods are non-material research;(3) The research content is mainly teaching practice inquiry. Based on the analysis results, this paper summarizes and discusses the existing problems in the research of summary writing.

Gamma ray detection: building a didactic proposal

A simple and economic scintillator kit in combination with a computer-based oscilloscope was used to develop a learning experience, comprised of a set of activities to introduce students in an interactive way to the physics of gamma-ray detection. The proposal for secondary school and university students is built by means of frequent on-the-fly formative assessment to collect difficulties of students and ways to overcome them. Internal decays of Lutetium–yttrium oxyorthosilicate (LYSO) crystals already present in the scintillator kit are used as sources of gamma rays, so no external sources were needed. In addition, the use of LYSO crystals offers a reason to discuss coincidence measurements, because of the inherent beta background present in the internal decay, which can be at least partially removed with coincidence measurements. The goal of the learning experience is to experience how gamma-ray detection is actually done, discussing the physics involved, motivated by the current frontline research on the detection of gamma-ray bursts.

University teachers’ focus on students: Examining the relationships between visual attention, conceptions of teaching and pedagogical training

Teachers’ focus on their students’ learning is considered central in high-quality university teaching. This frontline research introduces a novel way to study how focusing on students’ learning can be found on the level of teachers’ visual noticing combined with verbal interpretations, i.e. their professional vision, when they observe teaching situations. A central question is also, whether professional vision skills are connected to teachers’ pedagogical education. Two short videos depicting teaching during a lecture, including different types of trigger events, were presented to teachers (N = 49), who were asked to think aloud while watching, and numerically evaluate the success of the teaching, to reveal their interpretation of the teaching situation. The results showed that pedagogically trained teachers paid more visual attention on the students and less on the teacher. Visual noticing of critical incidents preceded the formulation of accurate verbal interpretations. Noticing that the students were not active was connected to learning facilitating conceptions, which were further connected with corresponding numerical evaluation of the successfulness of teaching. Teachers who visually notice the important incidents during teaching can also formulate a more accurate verbal interpretation of the situation. Contrary to studies at lower levels of education, our study did not found evidence on the connection between teaching experience and professional vision. At the university level, pedagogical education seems to be a stronger predictor of professional vision.

Hospital Care for Patients Uninsured due to Immigration Status during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Toronto: Lessons from Front-Line Knowledge Translation.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, patients in Ontario who were uninsured due to immigration status faced barriers to hospital care that resulted in preventable illness and death. In March 2020, the Ontario Ministry of Health issued a memo indicating that it would pay for medically necessary hospital services for uninsured patients (Ontario Ministry of Health 2020). Front-line providers and research workers associated with the Health Network for Uninsured Clients (HNUC) set out to ensure that hospitals in Toronto implemented the ministry's memo. In this paper, we demonstrate a model of front-line worker-led knowledge translation informed by real-time data and anchored in clearly articulated values and goals. On April 1, 2023, the Ontario Ministry of Health cancelled this uninsured coverage (Ontario Ministry of Health 2023). Healthcare provider associations, grassroots groups and coalitions - including the HNUC - are mobilizing to see this uninsured coverage reinstated.

Rethinking Benefit and Responsibility in the Context of Diversity: Perspectives from the Front Lines of Precision Medicine Research

Introduction: Federal agencies have instituted guidelines to prioritize the enrollment and retention of diverse participants in precision medicine research (PMR). Prior studies examining participation of minoritized communities have shown that potential benefits represent a key determinant. Human subject research guidance, however, conceptualizes potential benefits narrowly, emphasizing generalized advances in medical knowledge. Further, few studies have provided qualitative data that critically examine how the concept of “benefit” is interpreted or challenged in the context of research practice. This paper examines the experiences of PMR investigators and frontline research staff to understand how standard approaches to benefit are received, contested, and negotiated “on the ground.” Methods: Findings are drawn from a qualitative project conducted across five US-based, federally funded PMR studies. Data collection included 125 in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of investigators, research staff, community advisory board members, and NIH program officers associated with these PMR studies. Results: Researchers report that the standard approach to benefit – which relies on the premise of altruism and the promise of incrementally advancing scientific knowledge – is frequently contested. Researchers experience moral distress over the unmet clinical, psychosocial, and material needs within the communities they are engaging. Many believe the broader research enterprise has a responsibility to better address these needs. Conclusion: Researchers frequently take issue with and sometimes negotiate what is owed to participants and to their communities in exchange for the data they provide. These experiences of moral distress and these improvisations warrant systematic redress, not by individual researchers but by the broader research ethics infrastructure.

COVoc and COVTriage: novel resources to support literature triage.

Since early 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has confronted the biomedical community with an unprecedented challenge. The rapid spread of COVID-19 and ease of transmission seen worldwide is due to increased population flow and international trade. Front-line medical care, treatment research and vaccine development also require rapid and informative interpretation of the literature and COVID-19 data produced around the world, with 177500 papers published between January 2020 and November 2021, i.e. almost 8500 papers per month. To extract knowledge and enable interoperability across resources, we developed the COVID-19 Vocabulary (COVoc), an application ontology related to the research on this pandemic. The main objective of COVoc development was to enable seamless navigation from biomedical literature to core databases and tools of ELIXIR, a European-wide intergovernmental organization for life sciences. This collaborative work provided data integration into SIB Literature services, an application ontology (COVoc) and a triage service named COVTriage and based on annotation processing to search for COVID-related information across pre-defined aspects with daily updates. Thanks to its interoperability potential, COVoc lends itself to wider applications, hopefully through further connections with other novel COVID-19 ontologies as has been established with Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology. The data at https://github.com/EBISPOT/covoc and the service at https://candy.hesge.ch/COVTriage.

Mesenchymal Stem Cell (MSCs) Therapy for Ischemic Heart Disease: A Promising Frontier.

Although tremendous progress has been made in conventional treatment for ischemic heart disease, it still remains a major cause of death and disability. Cell-based therapeutics holds an exciting frontier of research for complete cardiac recuperation. The capacity of diverse stem and progenitor cells to stimulate cardiac renewal has been analysed, with promising results in both pre-clinical and clinical trials. Mesenchymal stem cells have been ascertained to have regenerative ability via a variety of mechanisms, including differentiation from the mesoderm lineage, immunomodulatory properties, and paracrine effects. Also, their availability, maintenance, and ability to replenish endogenous stem cell niches have rendered them suitable for front-line research. This review schemes to outline the use of mesenchymal stem cell therapeutics for ischemic heart disease, their characteristics, the potent mechanisms of mesenchymal stem cell-based heart regeneration, and highlight preclinical data. Additionally, we discuss the results of the clinical trials to date as well as ongoing clinical trials on ischemic heart disease.

Tunable Conductance of MoS2 and WS2 Quantum Dots by Electron Transfer with Redox-Active Quinone.

Due to their uniqueness in tunable photophysics, transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) based quantum dots (QDs) have emerged as the next-generation quantum materials for technology-based semiconductor applications. This demands frontline research on the rational synthesis of the TMD QDs with controlled shape, size, nature of charge migration at the interface, and their easy integration in optoelectronic devices. In this article, with a controlled solution-processed synthesis of MoS2 and WS2 QDs, we demonstrate the disparity in their structural, optical, and electrical characteristics in bulk and confinement. With a series of steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopic measurements in different media, we explore the uncommon photophysics of MoS2 and WS2 QDs such as excitation-dependent photoluminescence and assess their excited state charge transfer kinetics with a redox-active biomolecule, menadione (MQ). In comparison to the homogeneous aqueous medium, photoinduced charge transfer between the QDs and MQ becomes more plausible in encapsulated cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) micelles. Current sensing atomic force microscopy (CS-AFM) measurements at a single molecular level reveal that the facilitated charge transfer of QDs with MQ strongly correlates with an enhancement in their charge transport behavior. An increase in charge transport further depends on the density of states of the QDs directing a change in Schottky emission to Fowler-Nordheim (FN) type of tunneling across the metal-QD-metal junction. The selective response of the TMD QDs while in proximity to external molecules can be used to design advanced optoelectronic devices and applications involving rectifiers and tunnel diodes for future quantum technology.

“The more, the merrier?” – A Systematic Review of the Effects of Technology-Induced Employee Transparency on Frontline Service Employees

Technology infusion in the service encounter is profoundly altering the workplace of frontline service employees. As digitalization increasingly enables data-driven transparency of employee conduct, this paper argues for a more employee-centric approach to organizational transparency, consequently introducing technology-induced employee transparency as a refined transparency conceptualization. Further, service literature has largely neglected studying the implications of frontline technology use on frontline workers. In an effort to fill this void in organizational frontline research, this paper provides an interdisciplinary systematic literature review on technology-induced transparency and its effects on employees and their work outcomes in related fields like management, psychology, social sciences, and computer science. Reflecting on the findings, directions for future research in the service management domain are proposed.

“The more, the merrier?” – A Systematic Review of the Effects of Technology-Induced Employee Transparency on Frontline Service Employees

Technology infusion in the service encounter is profoundly altering the workplace of frontline service employees. As digitalization increasingly enables data-driven transparency of employee conduct, this paper argues for a more employee-centric approach to organizational transparency, consequently introducing technology-induced employee transparency as a refined transparency conceptualization. Further, service literature has largely neglected studying the implications of frontline technology use on frontline workers. In an effort to fill this void in organizational frontline research, this paper provides an interdisciplinary systematic literature review on technology-induced transparency and its effects on employees and their work outcomes in related fields like management, psychology, social sciences, and computer science. Reflecting on the findings, directions for future research in the service management domain are proposed.

Transition metal-catalyzed double Cvinyl-H bond activation: synthesis of conjugated dienes.

Conjugated dienes have occupied a pivotal position in the field of synthetic organic chemistry and medicinal chemistry. They act as important synthons for the synthesis of various biologically important molecules and therefore, gain tremendous attention worldwide. A wide range of synthetic routes to access these versatile molecules have been developed in the past decades. Transition metal-catalyzed cross-dehydrogenative coupling (CDC) has emerged as one of the utmost front-line research areas in current synthetic organic chemistry due to its high atom economy, efficiency, and viability. In this review, an up-to-date summary including scope, limitations, mechanistic studies, stereoselectivities, and synthetic applications of transition metal-catalyzed double Cvinyl-H bond activation for the synthesis of conjugated dienes has been reported since 2013. The literature reports mentioned in this review have been classified into three different categories, i.e. (a) Cvinyl-Cvinyl bond formation via oxidative homo-coupling of terminal alkenes; (b) Cvinyl-Cvinyl bond formation via non-directed oxidative cross-coupling of linear/cyclic alkenes and terminal/internal alkenes, and (c) Cvinyl-Cvinyl bond formation via oxidative cross-coupling of directing group bearing alkenes and terminal/internal alkenes. Overall, this review aims to provide a concise overview of the current status of the considerable development in this field and is expected to stimulate further innovation and research in the future.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS IMPACT ON THE HUMAN RIGHTS: NORTH-EAST INDIA IN CONTEXT

The impact of climate change upon the basic human rights of the people is emerging as a frontline research area particularly in the North East region of India- the region which is more prone to the gushing impacts of global climate change due to its geo-ecological delicateness, shared international boundaries, rugged mountain terrains and the regions’ high dependency on climate sensitive livelihood such as agriculture, tea and forestry. Profound impacts of climate change in the region are being seen already in the form of rise in average temperature, slight changes in rainfall patterns, changes in the biodiversity, decrease of air quality which has ultimately threatened an array of human rights of the people in the region such as their Right to Life, Right to Food, Right to health and so on. Although Climate change has a cascading effect upon the people of the North East region of India, this area has been under-acknowledged and under-researched. Therefore, the paper purports to explore and evaluate the threats that anthropogenic climate change has imposed upon the human rights of the people of North-East India along albeit interrogating the measures that have been undertaken to address the issue and their efficacy.

Construction of a Review About Epigenetics for Biology Teachers and Other Non-experts

Epigenetics, the new research field at the cutting edge of biology research, needs to be introduced in biology education. The aim of this review is to support biology teachers and other non-experts to get an overview of the field, as a review in epigenetics has hardly been written for these groups. This review was done by finding documents describing central features of epigenetics, increasing the understanding of epigenetics’ contribution to perspectives in society, and to be a model for a review in a rapidly developing science field. As an example of societal perspectives, the old dispute about “nature” or “nurture” is discussed, epigenetics focusing on the role of “nurture’s” influence on “nature.” Consequently, epigenetics dispels biological determinism. As this review was intended to fill a gap in the literature, a theoretical framework for the construction of the review had to be invented. This was done in an iterative process during the construction of the review. Documents were searched for in the databases of ERIC, Scopus, and Web of Science, peer-reviewed, and had been published by a well-renowned publisher. The search time frame was January 2016 to December 2019, including document types books and book chapters, plus journal articles for ERIC; documents had to be written in English and published as open access. Searches were divided into pre-defined categories based on a newly performed Delphi study. Exemplar studies, which best described each category, are discussed in the light of frontline research. As implications from epigenetics are important for a variety of areas within society, the review is a contribution to the field of sociology of science, aiming to support science education at the very front of science.

Model for developing context-sensitive responses to vulnerability in research: managing ethical dilemmas faced by frontline research staff in Kenya

Health research in low-resource settings often involves individuals and populations defined as ‘vulnerable’. There is growing attention in the literature to the ethical dilemmas that frontline research staff face while...

Emotional distress among frontline research staff

Public health research frequently deals with sensitive topics. A growing body of evidence suggests that frontline researchers who elicit or process participant's traumatic experiences are themselves at risk of developing emotional distress or secondary trauma from daily immersion in these data. This both threatens a study's data quality and calls into question how the harms and benefits of conducting research are distributed across a study team. The objective of this study was to explore how frontline research staff in Eswatini experience and process emotional distress as part of their daily work and to describe potential strategies for resilience and coping using qualitative research methods. We conducted 21 in-depth interviews with informants who had worked in data collection, data entry, and transcription on a number of sensitive topics, including HIV, sex work, and LGBT health. We found that emotional distress is a salient experience among frontline research staff working in Eswatini. This distress stems from conducting research against a generalized backdrop of high rates of HIV, violence, and poverty, particularly since research staff are drawn from affected communities and have their own firsthand knowledge of the phenomena they are studying. Moreover, the qualities study staff are often hired for – empathy, compassion, and emotional intelligence – are also traits that may increase their likelihood of feeling distressed by the narratives they encounter in their work. The workplace can serve as a prism, exacerbating or potentially mitigating these risks into harm at the individual, interpersonal, and community level. While not all study teams may have access to formal mental health services, several informants recommended incorporating regular meetings with a trained counselor as part of the overall project. Others recommended building time for team-building or debriefing conversations into the normal workweek, a strategy that would address both the issue of workload and could bolster the already existent strategy of relying on team members for mental health support.

2.15 or Not 2.15? An Historical‐Analytical Inquiry into the Nearest‐Neighbor Statistic

Nearest‐neighbor analysis (NNA)—a method for assessing the degree to which a spatial point pattern departs from randomness in the direction of being either clustered or regular—was imported into academic geography from an article published in 1954 by ecologists Clark and Evans. In its simplest form, concerned with distances to the first nearest neighbor, NNA hinged on the behavior of the “nearest‐neighbour statistic,” Rn, supposed to vary between 0 (complete clustering) and 2.15 (complete regularity). NNA and the wider body of work on point pattern analysis quickly gained in sophistication, meaning that this simple test statistic only featured briefly in the frontline research literature of geographical analysis. Nonetheless, given its easy‐to‐grasp logic, it became and remains a staple of quantitative geography textbooks for undergraduate students and statistical methods training in school‐level geography curricula. The purpose of this paper is to chart the history of NNA and its test statistic in academic geography, and to provide an analytical demonstration that the value of 2.15 has been mistakenly identified as an upper limit for the latter. Broader speculations are then offered about what may be learned from the history of how the discipline has handled this statistic.

Women in Nuclear Science & Technology in India: Challenges & Opportunities

Women have been actively contributing toward frontline research and development of various advanced technologies in the nuclear domain and playing a crucial role in key positions. However, proportional representation of women in various decision-making positions at higher levels in politics, diplomacy, military affairs, science, and technology remains low, and most of these positions remain male-dominated. We see that women often find it difficult to achieve leadership roles for several reasons, but often from an implicit bias in society. The stereotypical image of women in society is still propagated very discreetly. In recent times, Indian women have made big strides in several frontline sectors like Information Technology (IT), Biotechnology, and on corporate levels. More recently, organizations, including the Indian government, have been promoting an awareness of gender equality in various fields including nuclear technology. Amity University has also been motivating women academicians to take a lead in various fields including nuclear technology and nuclear security. This paper describes various initiatives that the Government of India has taken, along with many Indian organizations, including Amity University, to promote women in various fields especially in nuclear technology. This paper also discusses the opportunities for Indian women, their contributions, and challenges.

What's a Hospital to Do? Equipoise, Pandemics and Single-site Clinical Trials.

What's a Hospital to Do?Equipoise, Pandemics and Single-site Clinical Trials Todd B. Seto I learned a lot about clinical trials over the past year. Some things were unexpected, and challenged the validity and feasibility of implementing research during a pandemic. Some things were anticipated, based on long-standing differences in philosophies of care and the bureaucracy of research regulations. Some things were reaffirming, and reminded me of the importance of scientific discourse and how much I enjoy my job and working with my colleagues. I learned the most during the spring, when initial reports of potential COVID-19 therapies were largely observational and poorly designed. We tried—and failed—to join multi-center clinical trials that were forming to study new therapies. Rather than waiting, we designed and ran our own single-center randomized clinical trials, basing our protocol on recommendations from the WHO and anticipating that we could eventually contribute our data to larger collaborative efforts and meta-analyses. Our first studies were randomized controlled trials of hydroxychloroquine (NCT04345692) and tocilizumab (NCT04412772) for hospitalized patients with COVID-19 that started on March 26, 2020 and June 2, 2020 respectively. The most unexpected lesson should have been better anticipated. Equipoise does not mean the same thing to all people, particularly among [End Page 24] physicians who highly value autonomy and in the midst of the anxiety and uncertainty of a growing pandemic. For some of us, clinical equipoise—when there is professional disagreement among the community of expert practitioners as to the preferred treatment—was sufficient to justify enrolling patients into randomized clinical trials. For others, it was not. Rather, individual equipoise—when a health care provider is uncertain as to the preferred treatment—was the standard. Seemingly entrenched on the extremes of two sides, it was hard for our clinicians to find common ground. Thus, discussions on the merits of hydroxychloroquine quickly shifted to disagreement on the role of physician autonomy vis-à-vis the broader professional community, the meaning of "evidence-based," the obligations of physicians to their patients, and the ethics of randomized controlled trials during pandemics. Recognizing the importance of open discussion and transparency, we convened a COVID-19 therapeutics advisory group, with broad representation by front-line clinicians, pharmacy and research staff. Although the group was unable to reconcile the tension between clinical and individual equipoise, there was still broad support for the clinical trials as long as access to the study drugs were not restricted to study participants. Interestingly, nearly all study eligible patients were ultimately offered the opportunity to participate in our studies. The most anticipated lesson I learned was both the most frustrating and satisfying. As we started our clinical trials, it was apparent that the bureaucracy of research regulation and compliance, built over decades to minimize institutional risk and maximize human subjects protection, was poorly suited to match the rapidly evolving clinical milieu of the early pandemic. As the COVID-19 community incidence steadily increased and the hospitalization rate started to rise, we knew that waiting months for IRB approval and weeks for Medicare Coverage Analyses (MCA) and financial start-up would be too slow. Also, it was a shock when we were reminded that our institution, as the sponsor of this single-center study, had to pay for the cost of the study drugs—manageable for hydroxychloroquine but less so for tocilizumab, particularly without external funding support or the ability to bill insurance. Scientifically and fiscally responsible, it seemed as if we were being "punished" for doing the right thing—offering these medications as part of a randomized controlled trial rather than usual care. However, we were fortunate to have institutional support to pursue our studies. Our hospital IRB committee held ad hoc meetings to help expedite our study reviews; our MCAs were prioritized and completed within 48 hours; our hospital leadership agreed to internally fund all study-related costs; and it took 7 days to go from conceptualizing our hydroxychloroquine study to enrolling our first patient. It was rewarding to see our research administrative team recognize its role in our institution's response to COVID-19. On a larger scale and looking back over the past year...