Unrealized Potential Research Articles

Biotechnology-based Profiling of Lichens and Their Metabolites for Therapeutic Applications

Lichens have been inadequately studied for their medicinal value though recent studies have established them as potential sources of bioactive compounds that show antimicrobial, anticancer, antioxidant and neuroprotective properties. Ethnobotanical studies have shown that Pseudocyphellaria aurata, Usnea bismolliuscula, Usnea longissimi, Xanthoparmelia conspersa, Sulcaria sulcate and Solorina crocea have been used by humans since ancient times as a part of their folk wisdom. Recent studies have shown that metabolites from lichens show promising bioactive properties. This review focuses on the necessity for utilizing a modern biotechnology-based approach for elucidating the role and unrealized potential of lichens. Technologies such as genomics, metagenomics, and proteomics have been applied to a far lesser extent in lichens, but the limited studies have revealed the unrealized potential of lichens in modern therapeutics. We attempt to provide a broad overview of the known and unknown in lichen research – ranging from the metabolite production pathways to the genomics and metagenomics, and further to the proteomics and transcriptomics of lichens, the threads of which need to be pieced together to provide a roadmap for further studies.

Mapping Fractional Vegetation Cover Using Unoccupied Aerial Vehicle Imagery to Guide Conservation of a Rare Riparian Shrub Ecosystem in Southern California

The use of unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs) for vegetation monitoring is widespread in agriculture and forestry but far less so in ecological restoration where it has tremendous unrealized potential. We tested the ability of multispectral data and a derived vegetation index to classify shrub, herbaceous vegetation, and bare soil cover in a rare alluvial floodplain vegetation community in semiarid Southern California, where shrub cover is manipulated in restoration efforts aimed to provide open habitats required by several threatened and endangered species. Three classifiers and three levels of spatial aggregation were compared for their ability to provide accurate shrub cover estimates at a scale commensurate with the needs of conservation managers. We used object-based image analysis (OBIA) and compared maximum likelihood (ML), support vector machine (SVM), and random forest (RF) classifiers applied to high-spatial resolution (0.14 m) data from a four-band Parrot Sequoia+ multispectral sensor. The SVM and RF classifiers yielded similarly high classification accuracy evaluated using the training data (overall accuracy of 96.4% and 97.6%, respectively), much higher than ML (88%). Aggregating shrub cover data to 25 and 50 m resolutions yielded more accurate and well-calibrated cover estimates (mean absolute error 12% and 11%, respectively, for RF) than 10 m aggregation (MAE 19% for RF). Shrub cover estimated using RF and SVM was able to meet the restoration monitoring needs to distinguish the three phases of shrub habitat characterized by their cover (10–30%, 30–75%, >75%) that differ in habitat quality and restoration prescriptions.

Anchored Cell Sheet Engineering: A Novel Scaffold‐Free Platform for in vitro Modeling

AbstractBiofabricated in vitro models hold unrealized potential in accelerating drug discovery and reducing new drug costs, but current models are overly simplified and lack physiological relevance. Certain platforms capable of mimicking in vivo conditions face hurdles such as complexity, high costs, and non‐standardized applications. Existing cell sheet engineering methodologies, despite being physiologically relevant, have technical limitations like creating suitable 3D forms with proper anchorage. An innovative platform is introduced here, designed for in vitro modeling, which capitalizes on 2D culture systems and scaffold‐free cell sheets to create self‐assembling 3D tissue constructs. It provides precise control over cellular behavior, especially ECM production and remodeling. Scaffold‐free muscle fibers and lung epithelial cell cultures served as examples. This platform can fuse various scaffold‐free models to construct assembloids mimicking organ structures and functions. Different tissues can be linked via a fluidic system for body‐level simulations. Moreover, ECM‐rich constructs from cell sheets can create organ‐level ECM scaffolds, and the resulting cell sheet‐derived ECM (CSdECM) can be solubilized to facilitate 2D cellular behavior. This versatile platform, compatible with other cell sheet engineering techniques, is set to revolutionize in vitro modeling.

The unrealised potential of women’s political leadership in the Caribbean: a co-constitutive approach

ABSTRACT Gendered relations of power coupled with socio-cultural structures such as class, continue to limit opportunities for women who aspire to political leadership in the Caribbean. This article argues that the enduring influences of patriarchy and classism substantively impinge upon the freedom of women to fully participate in political leadership, thereby creating a capability failure. The author suggests that the Capabilities Approach (CA) is a critical missing link in efforts designed to address the question of women’s limited political engagement in the Caribbean. Specifically, integrating CA into current strategies can help us to understand the possibilities for and limits on individual women’s agency in the political sphere. As such, the author suggests a co-constitutive framework that uses CA in conjunction with established strategies such as quotas, for addressing the issue. This proposed method aims to redirect policy foci to the quality of women’s political participation and not just the quantity.

Household Waste Management Strategy in Upper Middle Housing

The growing volume of waste poses a significant challenge, with implications for environmental contamination, health, and aesthetics. While participatory waste management practices have been adopted in some areas, others resort to dumping on vacant land, leading to potential long-term repercussions. The focus on waste source management, particularly within households, becomes imperative. A descriptive study was conducted in the Sukabumi Sub-district, with the most residences. Targeting households with heads of families as respondents, the research encompassed a sample of 120 housing units selected through systematic random sampling. Instruments developed by the researcher were employed for data collection. Analysis was anchored on a univariate approach and the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) method. The community's education, knowledge, and occupation profiles were categorized as 'good'. Despite this, a gap in waste governance was identified. Community knowledge about waste management emerged as a strength, while the unrealized potential of converting organic household waste into compost was recognized as an opportunity. To address waste management effectively, it is recommended to prioritize community strengths and harness available opportunities, like independent composting through suitable technology for limited land areas. Emphasizing household waste reduction through the 3R+P model, tailored for upper-middle-class housing, and bolstering community waste management awareness through continuous campaigns is essential.

Characterizing citrullination by mass spectrometry-based proteomics.

Citrullination is an important post-translational modification (PTM) of arginine, known to play a role in autoimmune disorders, innate immunity response and maintenance of stem cell potency. However, citrullination remains poorly characterized and not as comprehensively understood compared to other PTMs, such as phosphorylation and ubiquitylation. High-resolution mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics offers a valuable approach for studying citrullination in an unbiased manner, allowing confident identification of citrullination modification sites and distinction from deamidation events on asparagine and glutamine. MS efforts have already provided valuable insights into peptidyl arginine deaminase targeting along with site-specific information of citrullination in for example synovial fluids derived from rheumatoid arthritis patients. Still, there is unrealized potential for the wider citrullination field by applying MS-based mass spectrometry approaches for proteome-wide investigations. Here we will outline contemporary methods and current challenges for studying citrullination by MS, and discuss how the development of neoteric citrullination-specific proteomics approaches still may improve our understanding of citrullination networks. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue 'The virtues and vices of protein citrullination'.

Gauging the Power of Perseverance and Extent of Unrealized Potential in One Intellectual Domain

Abstract Human potential and its limits are of broad interest. One issue is whether high-level intellectual performance depends mainly on persistence and extensive practice, or whether genes set widely varying maximum performance levels. Another issue is whether, if genes do limit performance level, how much genetic potential still goes undeveloped in a given domain's participants who progress some way and then stop. International chess is a good test domain because it has objective performance measures, little gatekeeper influence, and abundant longitudinal, population-level data. Performance of 27,362 players entering the international chess domain between 1985 and 1999 was investigated in 6 studies. By June 2022, only about 3% had met the high achievement criterion of grandmaster status, taking a median 9.26 years and 472 internationally rated games to gain the title, far more games than the median all-participant career total of 130. About 67% of those playing over 1,500 games became grandmasters, and almost all grandmasters had achieved the title by 1,500 games. Then, for non-grandmaster participants playing at least 100 but less than 1,500 games, a mathematical model, which predicts future grandmaster performance reasonably well, estimated their unrealized potential. The model projected their learning curves out to over 1,500 games and predicted their peak rating if they actually had played over 1,500 games. By model predictions, perhaps only 10–15% might have achieved the title by persisting. These results show that persistence is important but not all-important because genes may limit maximum performance level. Players also may gauge accurately their ultimate performance prospects.

Client-reported impact of the Attempted Suicide Short Intervention Program

ABSTRACT Background A history of attempted suicide is the most significant predictor of suicidal death. Several brief interventions aimed at tertiary suicide prevention have been investigated in clinical trials. However, suicide attempt survivors’ experiences of such interventions have rarely been reported. Objective To explore how suicide attempt survivors perceive the impact of the Attempted Suicide Short Intervention Program (ASSIP). Method We interviewed 14 Finnish adults who had received ASSIP as an adjunct to treatment as usual. Semi-structured interviews took place 4–10 weeks after the last ASSIP session. A conventional content analysis of the interview data is presented. Results Three core categories depicting ASSIP’s perceived impact were identified. The core category life-affirming change comprised subcategories of feeling better, thinking differently, acting differently, and having new resources. The core category collateral effects comprised difficult feelings and cognitive overload. The core category incompleteness of change comprised lack of desired change, gains as incomplete, need for sustenance, and unrealized potential. Conclusion Clients perceived ASSIP as effectively facilitating life-affirming change but agreed that further support was necessary to retain and build on these gains. Identified needs for improvement included more predictable post-ASSIP service paths and more support for involving affected loved ones.

Cardiac macrophages and emerging roles for their metabolism after myocardial infarction.

Interest in cardioimmunology has reached new heights as the experimental cardiology field works to tap the unrealized potential of immunotherapy for clinical care. Within this space is the cardiac macrophage, a key modulator of cardiac function in health and disease. After a myocardial infarction, myeloid macrophages both protect and harm the heart. To varying degrees, such outcomes are a function of myeloid ontogeny and heterogeneity, as well as functional cellular plasticity. Diversity is further shaped by the extracellular milieu, which fluctuates considerably after coronary occlusion. Ischemic limitation of nutrients constrains the metabolic potential of immune cells, and accumulating evidence supports a paradigm whereby macrophage metabolism is coupled to divergent inflammatory consequences, although experimental evidence for this in the heart is just emerging. Herein we examine the heterogeneous cardiac macrophage response following ischemic injury, with a focus on integrating putative contributions of immunometabolism and implications for therapeutically relevant cardiac injury versus cardiac repair.

"Yes, these are the dog days, Fortunatus": W.H. Auden and the Latin Poet Venantius Fortunatus

Abstract: W.H. Auden's "Under Sirius" (1949), constructed as an engaging interrogation of the Late Latin poet Venantius Fortunatus, has long been recognized as a vehicle for Auden's own self-examination. Yet, despite the importance of "Under Sirius" to the study of Auden's self-awareness and development as a poet, this poem's relationship to Fortunatus's poetry has not previously been explored in depth. A sustained close reading of "Under Sirius" together with its informing texts reveals that Auden has appropriated significant material from Fortunatus's poems. Rather than viewing Venantius Fortunatus as a minor poet who served as an object lesson in unrealized potential, Auden expected an informed reader to know that ultimately this poet had risen above the decadence of his times to fulfill his artistic promise.

Untapped Potential of Deep Eutectic Solvents for the Synthesis of Bioinspired Inorganic-Organic Materials.

Since the discovery of deep eutectic solvents (DESs) in 2003, significant progress has been made in the field, specifically advancing aspects of their preparation and physicochemical characterization. Their low-cost and unique tailored properties are reasons for their growing importance as a sustainable medium for the resource-efficient processing and synthesis of advanced materials. In this paper, the significance of these designer solvents and their beneficial features, in particular with respect to biomimetic materials chemistry, is discussed. Finally, this article explores the unrealized potential and advantageous aspects of DESs, focusing on the development of biomineralization-inspired hybrid materials. It is anticipated that this article can stimulate new concepts and advances providing a reference for breaking down the multidisciplinary borders in the field of bioinspired materials chemistry, especially at the nexus of computation and experiment, and to develop a rigorous materials-by-design paradigm.

Improving climate and biodiversity outcomes through restoration of forest integrity.

Targeting degraded areas in forested landscapes for restoration could deliver rapid climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation, improve resilience of forested lands to future climate change, and potentially reduce the trade-offs between nature recovery and agriculture. Although the importance of forest restoration for climate mitigation is acknowledged, current estimates of its climate mitigation potential may be underestimated because they focus predominantly on reforesting cleared areas. We built on recent analyses of forest integrity and unrealized forest biomass potential to examine the potential for restoring the integrity of degraded forests. There are over 1.5 billion ha of forestsworldwide that retain 50-80% oftheirpotential biomass. Prioritizing restoration in these areas could deliver rapid biodiversity and climate mitigation benefits, relative to restoring forest on cleared land. We applied a spatial planning approach to demonstrate how restoration interventions can be targeted to support the conservation of high-integrity forest, a potential pathway to the delivery of the 30×30 goal of the Convention on Biodiversity's Global Biodiversity Framework.

Export Potential and Competitiveness of Processed Food Products from India

The liberalization of trade and India's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) have brought about significant changes in India's agricultural trade and food processing industry. This study aims to evaluate the export competitiveness of processed food products from India by analyzing their comparative advantage and export potential over a specified time period.
 The study utilizes secondary data from sources such as the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and International Trade Centre (ITC) for the analysis. The selection of processed food products is based on the major processed food products exported by food processing industries in Gujarat. Analytical tools employed are compound annual growth rate (CAGR), revealed comparative advantage (RCA), and nominal protection coefficient (NPC). These tools help assess growth rates, comparative advantage, and competitiveness of the selected commodities with the data on export potential Provided by ITC.
 The study highlights the export potential and unrealized potential of processed foods which is more than 7.9 billion dollars and 4.5 billion dollars respectively. Among the selected commodities the food preparations with HS code 210690 are observed to have the highest potential. The analysis identifies the largest unrealized potential was in countries such as the United States, Saudi Arabia, China, and UAE for many of the selected processed food products. It was also observed in the export performance of selected processed foods for the last 10 years, with notable growth rates observed in miscellaneous preparations and bread, pastry, and other baked foods. This study concludes by highlighting the Potential of selected food products and also shows the presence of competitive advantage of selected foods in the USA, UAE, UK, Australia, and Saudi Arabia. It highlights the opportunities for manufacturers to expand their exports, capitalize on untapped market potential, and enhance their business growth.

Bringing researchers to the consumer table: The process and outcomes of a consumer roundtable on telehealth.

Despite the significant expansion and rapid uptake of telehealth services as a COVID-19 response, the pandemic restricted opportunities to involve health consumers in telehealth research. Authentic consumer and community involvement in research begins with engagement in priority-setting. We report here on the process and outcomes of a consumer-led event intended to support involvement of consumers, from early in the research process. In 2022, The University of Queensland's Consumer and Community Network hosted a Consumer Roundtable to 'bring researchers to the consumer table' and explore emerging issues and priorities for future research. The event used World Café Method, with three 20-min rounds of small group discussion centred on questions about telehealth experiences, followed by a facilitated harvest discussion about future research directions. Participants' notes from small group discussions were subjected to conventional inductive content analysis, and a visual record was created in real-time by a graphic artist. Twenty-eight consumers and 22 researchers took part. Content analysis identified three main foci from discussions: person-centred care, better access to better care, the (unrealised) potential of telehealth. Research questions prioritised by consumer vote focussed on marginalised groups and stigmatised conditions; differences between telehealth and face-to-face healthcare delivery; and the experience of conveying and receiving compassion via telehealth. The Consumer Roundtable created early engagement between health consumer representatives and telehealth researchers, which has yielded ongoing partnerships. World Café method proved particularly useful for seeding relationships between researchers and consumers. However, there was limited opportunity to generate consensus about research priorities.

Implementing micronutrient fortification programs as a potential practical contribution to achieving sustainable diets.

Due to sustainability concerns related to current diets and environmental challenges, it is crucial to have sound policies to protect human and planetary health. It is proposed that sustainable diets will improve public health and food security and decrease the food system's effect on the environment. Micronutrient deficiencies are a well-known major public health concern. One-third to half of the world's population suffers from nutrient deficiencies, which have a negative impact on society in terms of unrealised potential and lost economic productivity. Large-scale fortification with different micronutrients has been found to be a useful strategy to improve public health. As a cost-effective strategy to improve micronutrient deficiency, this review explores the role of micronutrient fortification programmes in ensuring the nutritional quality (and affordability) of diets that are adjusted to help ensure environmental sustainability in the face of climate change, for example by replacing some animal-sourced foods with nutrient-dense, plant-sourced foods fortified with the micronutrients commonly supplied by animal-sourced foods. Additionally, micronutrient fortification considers food preferences based on the dimensions of a culturally sustainable diet. Thus, we conclude that investing in micronutrient fortification could play a significant role in preventing and controlling micronutrient deficiencies, improving diets and being environmentally, culturally and economically sustainable.

Impact investing in disadvantaged urban areas

AbstractResearch SummaryWe examine whether impact investing is more effective in fostering business venture success and social impact when investments are directed toward ventures in disadvantaged urban areas compared to similar investments directed toward ventures outside these areas. We explore this question in the context of loans made to business ventures in French “banlieues” versus “non‐banlieues.” We find that, following the loan issuance, banlieue ventures achieve greater improvements in financial performance and greater social impact in terms of the creation of local employment opportunities, quality jobs, and gender‐equitable jobs. This suggests that impact investors are able to contract with ventures of greater unrealized potential in banlieues, as banlieue ventures tend to be discriminated on the traditional loan market. The latter is corroborated in a controlled lab experiment.Managerial SummaryWe shed light on the unrealized potential of business ventures in economically disadvantaged urban areas, known as “banlieues” in France. Our results show that, after receiving loans from an impact investor, banlieue ventures achieve greater financial performance compared to non‐banlieue ventures. What is more, banlieue ventures achieve greater social impact by creating more jobs that benefit the local community. Why are traditional investors missing out on these opportunities? Our results point toward discrimination of banlieue ventures on the traditional loan market. This is confirmed in a controlled lab experiment, in which participants are less likely to approve loans to banlieue ventures compared to identical non‐banlieue ventures. These insights can guide managers and investors seeking sustainable, socially impactful, and financially viable investment opportunities.

Promise and unrealized potential: 10 years of the American Medical Association classifying obesity as a disease.

In June 2013, the American Medical Association (AMA), one of the most influential healthcare organizations in the United States, voted to recognize obesity as a disease. Many who supported this change believed that recognition by AMA of obesity as a disease would serve as a tipping point that would increase access to care, accelerate training and research on the prevention and treatment of obesity, and reduce weight stigma. On the 10-year anniversary of this vote, this perspective piece outlines key advances made, as well as unrealized potential, in improving the obesity public health landscape since the AMA's classification of obesity as a disease. We draw on the empirical literature, as well as our experiences as clinical psychologists, a physician, and public health researchers specializing in obesity, to provide an overview of major advances and continued challenges in improving access to obesity treatment, accelerating prevention and training, and reducing weight stigma. We also outline important next steps to advance these goals. While several notable advancements have occurred, significant work remains to create equitable access to evidence-based treatments, bring research and training on obesity on par with its prevalence, and reduce the pervasiveness and harm of weight stigma. The past decade has witnessed some advances with respect to access to care and attention, yet there is unrealized potential that awaits attention. Truly conceptualizing and treating obesity as a chronic disease requires a major paradigm shift.

Lymphatics: Future Perspectives Unrealized Potential

Proposed fundamental laws of biology and a model of health and disease underscore the importance of the lymphatic system. The lymphatics are responsible for two of the laws of biology and the fulcrum of health and disease balancing regeneration with degeneration through the immune system. It is responsible for protection from the environment and repair of senile and damaged tissue. Life is constantly bombarded by forces that increase entropy. Lymphatics provide negative entropy to maintain health. Lymphatics help maintain cellular homeostasis removing products of metabolism. Using these principles, the role of lymphatics is investigated in salt sensitivity hypertension, cardio-renal system, the new pillar of heart failure and kidney disease—Sodium-Glucose Transport Protein 2 (SGLT2) Inhibitors, and brain diseases. The realization of organ lymphatics in maintenance of health and disease opens the avenue to new therapeutics. This is the unrealized potential of lymphatic study.

DC Microgrids: A Propitious Smart Grid Paradigm for Smart Cities

Recent years have seen a surge in interest in DC microgrids as DC loads and DC sources like solar photovoltaic systems, fuel cells, batteries, and other options have become more mainstream. As more distributed energy resources (DERs) are integrated into an existing smart grid, DC networks have come to the forefront of the industry. DC systems completely sidestep the need for synchronization, reactive power control, and frequency control. DC systems are more dependable and productive than ever before because AC systems are prone to all of these issues. There is a lot of unrealized potential in DC power, but it also faces some significant challenges. Protecting a DC system is difficult because there is no discrete location of where the current disappears. DC microgrid stability that is dependent on inertia must also be considered during the planning stage. The problems that DC microgrids have include insufficient power quality and poor communication. The power quality, inertia, communication, and economic operations of these value streams, as well as their underlying architectures and protection schemes, are all extensively discussed in this paper. This review paper examines the pros and cons of both grid-connected and isolated DC microgrids. In addition, the paper compares the different kinds of microgrids in terms of power distribution and energy management agency, such as the prerequisites for a DC microgrid’s planning, operation, and control that must be met before state-of-the-art systems can be implemented.

Local supply, temporal dynamics, and unrealized potential in teacher hiring

AbstractWe explore the dynamics of competitive search in the K–12 public education sector. Using detailed panel data on teacher hiring from Boston Public Schools, we document how teacher labor supply varies substantially across vacancies even within a single district depending on position type, school characteristics, and the timing of job postings. We find that early‐posted positions are more likely to be filled and end up securing new hires that are better qualified, more effective, and more likely to remain at a school. In contrast, the number of applicants to a position is largely unassociated with hire quality, suggesting that schools may struggle to identify and select the best candidates even when there is a large pool of qualified applicants. These patterns persist even when we restrict comparisons to only positions within an individual school using school fixed effects. Our findings point to substantial unrealized potential for improving teacher hiring.