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Context: National Wetland Parks (NWPs) are a unique form of protected areas in China that have experienced a rapid increase in number from zero to more than 900 over the past two decades. Aims: We examine the underlying causes of the boom in NWPs and assess their far-reaching ecological and socio-economic impacts. Methods: Utilising GIS information and vector maps, we analysed the spatial distribution of pilot and approved NWPs from 2005 to 2019. Document analysis was employed to explore resource-orientated and legal drivers that have prompted the growth of NWPs. Key results: China's NWPs developed in three phases, namely, the exploration phase (2005–2007), the expansion phase (2008–2014) and the normalisation phase (2015–present). The demand for outdoor recreation and improved wetland legislation were the primary facilitators for the growth of NWPs. Conclusions: The expansion of NWPs is an important contributor to nature conservation and ecological civilisation, yielding a range of ecological, economic and social benefits. Implications: China's experiences in NWPs offers valuable lessons and implications for global nature conservation. Implementing a long-term management mechanism for NWPs is recommended to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands. The number of National Wetland Parks (NWPs) distributed across China has grown from zero to more than 900 over the past two decades. Is this unlimited growth always beneficial? After analysing the distribution and dynamic trends of China's NWPs, we examined the resource-orientated and legal drivers that prompted the growth and its far-reaching ecological, economic, social outcomes and impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hefei's gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate ranks first among all cities in China, and it was the fastest-growing city in China from 2000 to 2020. The high-speed economic development inevitably led to rapid changes in land cover types, e.g., an increment in artificial features (built-up) and decrement in natural features (vegetation). However, (1) many previous studies focus on the land cover change in metropolis or at the global scale, yet few focus on underdeveloped but fast-growing cities; (2) land cover studies mainly focus on global variations, yet seldom on local characteristics. Thus, it is of great significance to monitor the land cover change for the city with the fastest economic growth in China based on the long time-series satellite images from both global and local perspectives. In this study, with support from huge amounts of data (including 719 Landsat TM/ETM+/OLI satellite images, land surface temperature, nighttime satellite images, DEM, multiple land cover products, and various auxiliary data), processing and parallel computing abilities of the GEE platform, classification maps of land cover in Hefei from 2000 to 2020 are produced based on a random forest machine learning method, and the spatio-temporal variations and driving factors are analyzed from both global and local viewpoints. The results show that: (1) the classification accuracy is excellent; the average overall accuracy is 93% and the Kappa coefficient is 0.88; (2) the general spatio-temporal variations in land cover in Hefei from 2000 to 2020 are obvious; the built-up area expanded from 419.72 km2 to 1530.20 km2, with a total growth rate of 264.58%. With the expansion of the built-up area, the vegetation coverage decreased by 16.61% (1652.56 km2); (3) the land surface temperature shows an increment trend in the new town yet a decrement trend in the old town due to the change in vegetation coverage and the decentration of administration centers; further analysis shows that the population and the social economy are two driving factors for land cover changes. It is worth noting that both the area and coverage of vegetation in the old town and water body area in Hefei increased significantly, although the fast urbanization inevitably caused a decrement in vegetation and water area in the whole city, indicating both the high-speed economic development and improvement in green surfaces simultaneously experienced in Hefei from 2000 to 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Abstract The Stability Community of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) held a virtual workshop on “Vaccine Stability Considerations to Enable Rapid Development and Deployment”, on March 24-25, 2021. The workshop included distinguished speakers and panelists from across the industry, academia, regulatory agencies, as well as health care leaders. This paper presents a review of the topics covered. Specifically the challenges in accelerating vaccine development and analytical characterization techniques to establish shelf-life were covered. Additionally, vaccine stability modeling using prior knowledge stability models and advanced kinetic analysis played a key in the EUA approaches discussed during the workshop. Finally, the role of stability studies in addressing the challenges of vaccine distribution and deployment during the pandemic were a focus of presentations and panel discussions. Although the workshop did not have any presentation topics directly dedicated to the mRNA vaccines, the techniques discussed are generally applicable. The mRNA vaccine developers were represented in the panel discussions, where experts involved in the EUA approval/deployment stages for this vaccine type could discuss the challenges as applied to their vaccines.

Communication and data exchange between objects is a fundamental aspect of Cyber–Physical Systems. Due to the highly distributed nature of the domain, physical and virtual objects rely on the Sense-Think-Act-Communicate model in order to provide remote interfaces for sending and receiving sensor data and actuation commands and for interconnecting processing artifacts with sensing and actuation endpoints. In order to build such interfaces, thing/object specifications must be taken into account in order to write/adapt/use their drivers and ensure appropriate connectivity; this approach is, at least cumbersome and requires hardware engineering expertise. In this paper we present Commlib, a Python library that abstracts low-level protocol-specific properties and specifications and provides a high-level API for creating and managing communication interfaces of distributed nodes over asynchronous message-driven and event-driven communication middleware, such as MQTT, AMQP, Kafka and Redis brokers. Our approach follows the Component-Port-Connector paradigm to model interconnection and intercommunication of distributed nodes via input and output ports from where messages are transferred over open connections between nodes. Commlib is easy-to-use and enables rapid development of Cyber–Physical Systems and applications, allowing users to focus on the envisioned functionality rather than the obvious connectivity/compatibility issues residing in such systems.

The motion control library is a standard set of functional blocks integrated in a programmable integration environment, which is of great significance for the rapid development of reconfigurable Programmable Automation Controllers (PAC). However, due to the encapsulation and concealment of function blocks and the incompatibility between software and hardware, the development efficiency of function blocks is low, which is not conducive to the development of autonomous, controllable PAC. Aiming at the above problems, the methods of function block opening and key technology are studied, and a kind of motion control function library architecture and rapid development method based on the PLCopen specification are proposed. A series of motion control function libraries are developed on domestic PLC software. An experimental platform based on domestic hardware and software was designed to verify the typical motion control function library. Experimental results show that this method can effectively shorten the development cycle and that the developed motion control module can meet the actual control needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged at the end of 2019, generating a rapidly evolving pandemic, raising serious global health implications. Among them was the fear of a mechanical ventilator shortage due to COVID-19's high contagion rate and pathophysiology. Fears of a ventilator shortage unleashed a wave of innovations. This manuscript describes the AmboVent, a ventilator, rapidly developed with a sense of urgency, by a group of Israeli volunteers. Using a decentralized approach, we worked extensively and managed within ten days to create a working ventilator. It utilizes a 64-year-old technological concept, the bag valve mask (BVM), sometimes known by the proprietary name Ambu bag, which we transformed into an automatic, controlled, and feature-rich ventilator by endowing it with contemporary computing technology. Applying a functional rather than a commercial-oriented approach can result in the ad hoc development of lifesaving solutions during a rapidly spreading pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ultra-high voltage transformers have compact structure and low insulation margin. The field strength concentration area was likely to cause "rapid development" discharge faults under the high voltage.In this paper, the high-frequency second impulse current signals under different discharge development stages were obtained by building a "rapid development" creeping discharge test platform for transformer oil-paper insulation based on the "pin-plate" defect.According to the difference of its phase-amplitude and phase-discharge maps, the discharge process was divided into three parts: "early stage"（sparse discharge), "middle stage" (large-value intense discharge) and "late stage"（small-amplitude dense discharge). On the basis of 18 characteristic parameters extracted from its PRPD map, an evaluation method of Stacked Denoising Autoencoder joint Support Vector Machine was constructed, and the development status of the "rapidly developing" creeping discharge of the transformer was evaluated, which shows a good effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hefei’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate ranks first among all cities in China, and it was the fastest-growing city in China from 2000 to 2020. The high-speed economic development inevitably led to rapid changes in land cover types, e.g., an increment in artificial features (built-up) and decrement in natural features (vegetation). However, (1) many previous studies focus on the land cover change in metropolis or at the global scale, yet few focus on underdeveloped but fast-growing cities; (2) land cover studies mainly focus on global variations, yet seldom on local characteristics. Thus, it is of great significance to monitor the land cover change for the city with the fastest economic growth in China based on the long time-series satellite images from both global and local perspectives. In this study, with support from huge amounts of data (including 719 Landsat TM/ETM+/OLI satellite images, land surface temperature, nighttime satellite images, DEM, multiple land cover products, and various auxiliary data), processing and parallel computing abilities of the GEE platform, classification maps of land cover in Hefei from 2000 to 2020 are produced based on a random forest machine learning method, and the spatio-temporal variations and driving factors are analyzed from both global and local viewpoints. The results show that: (1) the classification accuracy is excellent; the average overall accuracy is 93% and the Kappa coefficient is 0.88; (2) the general spatio-temporal variations in land cover in Hefei from 2000 to 2020 are obvious; the built-up area expanded from 419.72 km2 to 1530.20 km2, with a total growth rate of 264.58%. With the expansion of the built-up area, the vegetation coverage decreased by 16.61% (1652.56 km2); (3) the land surface temperature shows an increment trend in the new town yet a decrement trend in the old town due to the change in vegetation coverage and the decentration of administration centers; further analysis shows that the population and the social economy are two driving factors for land cover changes. It is worth noting that both the area and coverage of vegetation in the old town and water body area in Hefei increased significantly, although the fast urbanization inevitably caused a decrement in vegetation and water area in the whole city, indicating both the high-speed economic development and improvement in green surfaces simultaneously experienced in Hefei from 2000 to 2020.

The Stability Community of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) held a virtual workshop on "Vaccine Stability Considerations to Enable Rapid Development and Deployment", on March 24-25, 2021. The workshop included distinguished speakers and panelists from across the industry, academia, regulatory agencies, as well as health care leaders. This paper presents a review of the topics covered. Specifically the challenges in accelerating vaccine development and analytical characterization techniques to establish shelf-life were covered. Additionally, vaccine stability modeling using prior knowledge stability models and advanced kinetic analysis played a key in the EUA approaches discussed during the workshop. Finally, the role of stability studies in addressing the challenges of vaccine distribution and deployment during the pandemic were a focus of presentations and panel discussions. Although the workshop did not have any presentation topics directly dedicated to the mRNA vaccines, the techniques discussed are generally applicable. The mRNA vaccine developers were represented in the panel discussions, where experts involved in the EUA approval/deployment stages for this vaccine type could discuss the challenges as applied to their vaccines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kuala Muda has seen significant change over the last two decades. Population growth and rapid development are predicted to have an impact on the environment in this region. There are some unsustainable activities due to development that sacrificed environmental values in Kuala Muda, including deforestation that changed the land cover of Kuala Muda in addition to pollution that affected the water quality of Sungai Merbok Basin and Sungai Muda Basin as a water catchment area. These are the most important sources of water for irrigated agriculture and potable water in Kedah, Penang and Perlis. Clearing mangrove forests for aquaculture will have an impact as they are important for the protection of the coastline and surrounding communities from the effects of winds and waves from the Straits of Malacca. Flooding is also a major issue during the monsoon season. Kedah has recently faced a water crisis, with Sungai Muda' water level falling during the dry season. Better management and protection of Kuala Muda is thus very important as it provides invaluable environmental services to the northern states of Peninsular Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The provision of high quality, equitable, and accessible education resources is a key to supporting continuing professional development (CPD) in health organizations. The Health Education and Training Institute (HETI) and its operational model for districts (District HETI Operational Model), is a novel approach that supports this imperative for over 155,000 staff working across the state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The model uses three principles in education and training development. These include collaborative partnerships, rapid resource development, and effective leadership within virtual teams. A state-wide learning management system has been implemented to support this initiative. Over 451 standardized, education, and training online modules have been developed for medical, nursing and midwifery, dental, allied health, and nonclinical NSW Health employees since 2013. These educational resources are accessible 24 hours a day. Cost-effective online programs have enabled more than 13.6 million learner completions. Program evaluations highlight the value of these resources in providing a positive learning experience. Furthermore, the District HETI Operational Model has been recognized by multiple national and international excellence awards in learning and development. The principles of the District HETI Operational Model apply to other health organizations that may choose to adopt a similar model. Such a model may support equity of access to contemporary, standardized, evidence-based education resources for health professionals working across geographically and clinically diverse environments. Implementation of a similar model for future CPD interventions warrants consideration by practitioners, researchers, and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frogs and toads (anurans) are widely used to study many biological processes. Yet, few anuran genomes have been sequenced, limiting research on these organisms. Here, we produce a draft genome for the Mexican spadefoot toad, Spea multiplicata, which is a member of an unsequenced anuran clade. Atypically for amphibians, spadefoots inhabit deserts. Consequently, they possess many unique adaptations, including rapid growth and development, prolonged dormancy, phenotypic (developmental) plasticity, and adaptive, interspecies hybridization. We assembled and annotated a 1.07 Gb Sp. multiplicata genome containing 19,639 genes. By comparing this sequence to other available anuran genomes, we found gene amplifications in the gene families of nodal, hyas3, and zp3 in spadefoots, and obtained evidence that anuran genome size differences are partially driven by variability in intergenic DNA content. We also used the genome to identify genes experiencing positive selection and to study gene expression levels in spadefoot hybrids relative to their pure-species parents. Completion of the Sp. multiplicata genome advances efforts to determine the genetic bases of spadefoots’ unique adaptations and enhances comparative genomic research in anurans.

Construction of critical systems (e.g. disaster/emergency management systems) demands extra efforts from the developers as compared to non-critical systems. A critical system may be comprised of hardware communication infrastructure and the management system software. Many of hardware failures or in-capabilities can be handled by the resilient software components. The management software's main tasks are to continuously collect data (from distributed sensors), to predict possible threats, and to intimate the right authorities for timely action to avoid/reduce the damages of the threats. For the construction of such systems, by reusing existing reliable software components, a verifiable software composition mechanism is highly desired. In this paper, we select a component model (EX-MAN) from the component-based development approaches for providing pre-defined exogenous connectors. In this paper, at the methodological level, we define an approach to verify the correctness of exogenous connectors. To evaluate our approach, we design an emergency management system in EX-MAN and implement the system in our tool for EX-MAN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid development is essential for IoT (Internet of Things) application developers to obtain first-mover advantages and reduce the development cost. In this article, we present TinyLink, a holistic system for rapid development of IoT applications. The key idea of TinyLink is to use a top-down approach for designing both the hardware and the software of IoT applications. Developers write the application code in a C-like language to specify the key logic of their applications, without dealing with the details of the specific hardware components. Taking the application code as input, TinyLink automatically generates the hardware configuration as well as the binary program executable on the target hardware platform. TinyLink provides unified APIs for applications to interact with the underlying hardware components. We implement TinyLink and evaluate its performance using real-world IoT applications. Results show that (1) TinyLink achieves rapid development of IoT applications, reducing 52.58% of lines of code on average compared with traditional approaches; (2) TinyLink searches a much larger design space and thus can generate a superior solution for the hardware configuration, compared with the state-of-the-art approach; (3) TinyLink incurs acceptable overhead in terms of execution time and program memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land-use change in Pandaan District was identified as the fourth-highest in East Java Province. This change is due to the population increase caused by the strategic location of the Pandaan Sub-district, which is passed by the Surabaya-Malang City connecting road, creating a rapid development of built-up land. The spread of built-up land development with low density becomes the initial identification of the sprawl phenomenon. Changes in land-use due to push factors caused inconsistencies in the development of existing land as stipulated in spatial planning documents. This study aims to determine land-use change and land-use prediction in Pandaan Sub-district to be used for future planning. Research methods incorporated spatial analysis of land-use change and the land-use planning process in ArcMap and SELVA IDRISI. The land use forecasts for modeling are based on the use of the Cellular Automata (CA) -Markov method and the ANN / MLP method. Land-use changes were identified through land-use comparisons in recent years. The land-use prediction was determined through the land-use change transition by including the motivating and inhibiting variables of land-use changes. The results of the study stated that the most significant land-use change occurred in rural/urban villages passed by arterial and collector road connecting Surabaya-Malang City. CAMarkov results showed that the results of land-use prediction have a linear development pattern in the spreading road networks and residential settlements. The prediction results show that settlement increase13,62% and industry increase 20,7%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Rapid development and production of vaccines against emerging diseases requires well established, validated, robust technologies to allow industrial scale production and accelerated licensure of products. Areas covered: A versatile Vero cell platform has been developed and utilized to deliver a wide range of candidate and licensed vaccines against emerging viral diseases. This platform builds on the 35 years’ experience and safety record with inactivated whole virus vaccines such as polio vaccine. The current platform has been optimized to include a novel double inactivation procedure in order to ensure a highly robust inactivation procedure for novel emerging viruses. The utility of this platform in rapidly developing inactivated whole virus vaccines against pandemic (-like) influenza viruses and other emerging viruses such as West Nile, Chikungunya, Ross River and SARS is reviewed. The potential of the platform for development of vaccines against other emerging viruses such as Zika virus is described. Expert commentary: Use of this platform can substantially accelerate process development and facilitate licensure because of the substantial existing data set available for the cell matrix. However, programs to provide vaccines against emerging diseases must allow alternative clinical development paths to licensure, without the requirement to carry out large scale field efficacy studies.

Frogs and toads (anurans) are widely used to study many biological processes. Yet, few anuran genomes have been sequenced, limiting research on these organisms. Here, we produce a draft genome for the Mexican spadefoot toad, Spea multiplicata, which is a member of an unsequenced anuran clade. Atypically for amphibians, spadefoots inhabit deserts. Consequently, they possess many unique adaptations, including rapid growth and development, prolonged dormancy, phenotypic (developmental) plasticity, and adaptive, interspecies hybridization. We assembled and annotated a 1.07 Gb Sp. multiplicata genome containing 19,639 genes. By comparing this sequence to other available anuran genomes, we found gene amplifications in the gene families of nodal, hyas3, and zp3 in spadefoots, and obtained evidence that anuran genome size differences are partially driven by variability in intergenic DNA content. We also used the genome to identify genes experiencing positive selection and to study gene expression levels in spadefoot hybrids relative to their pure-species parents. Completion of the Sp. multiplicata genome advances efforts to determine the genetic bases of spadefoots' unique adaptations and enhances comparative genomic research in anurans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Survival, especially the youth, is critical for the reproduction of a species. Giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) cubs are not well developed and are vulnerable at birth, and they have developed many survival strategy to assist with survival until adulthood, including rapid growth of their young. By analysing the changes in the daily milk intake and weight gain during the early stages of cub growth for 11 years (2004-2014) over 42 healthy giant panda cubs, we found that milk intake by the cubs increased rapidly during the first 10 days. After 10 days, the daily milk intake decreased gradually and stabilized beginning at 35 days. In addition, the cubs with lower birth weight exhibited higher daily milk intake, while those with higher birth weight consumed less milk per unit of body weight. This study explored the characteristics of daily milk intake during the early growth stage of giant panda cubs, offering insight into adaptations strategy of newborns in this species and providing valuable information for artificial rearing to improve the survival rate of captive panda cubs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of tourism in the inland waters, various types of accidents in the waters have posed a great threat to human life, property, and the environment. This has caused concern in all circles of society. According to water tourism safety issues, and relying on Internet technology, shipping safety, and public safety management theory, this paper has proposed the concept and design plan of an Internet + maritime emergency management platform. This platform includes functions such as the intelligent perception of a ship's navigation status, the scientific selection of a maritime emergency rescue site, the emergency rescue scene, the online dynamic management of maritime emergency resources, and the online production of a maritime emergency rescue plan. The design scheme has been used in the platform's development. This paper has taken the application of the Internet + maritime emergency management platform for the Liujiaxia reservoir in the Gansu Province of China as an example. The results showed that the design of the platform that has been proposed in this paper is reasonable and that it can provide scientific, fast and accurate decision information for emergency command in the Liujiaxia reservoir and improve the effective control of the accident site as well as the use of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: While a trade‐off between larval development and adult life span is key to understand why not all animals develop at their maximum rate and why life histories align along a fast‐slow continuum, it has been rarely studied. More general, the physiological mechanisms underlying life‐history trade‐offs are poorly understood and there is ongoing debate about the mediatory role of oxidative stress. We explicitly investigated the role of oxidative stress in mediating the trade‐off between larval development and adult life span in the damselfly Lestes viridis. We exposed larvae to time stress (by manipulating photoperiods) and manipulated oxidative stress levels using the mitochondrial uncoupler 2,4‐dinitrophenol (DNP) that causes a reduced production of reactive oxygen species. In addition, we considered other costs of an accelerated development in terms of reductions in immune function (the activity of phenoloxidase [PO]) and energy storage (fat content). Larvae accelerated their development but not growth under time stress, allowing to identify costs of rapid development without confounding effects of rapid growth. Rapid development came at the cost of a much shorter life span, which was associated with an increase in oxidative damage to lipids, proteins and DNA. Other costs in the adult stage of a rapid larval development included a lower body mass and reduced immune function, while the fat and protein contents were not reduced. Time‐stressed animals exposed to DNP developed even faster and did not show the increase in oxidative damage. Notably, they did not suffer the costs of rapid development: they had no shorter life span, lower body mass or reduced PO activity. Our results provide strong experimental support for a trade‐off between rapid development and life span and for the mediatory role of oxidative stress in shaping this life‐history trade‐off. Our study highlights that manipulation of mitochondrial uncoupling may be a powerful method to study the mechanistic underpinnings of life‐history trade‐offs. A plain language summary is available for this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with a new criterion “relation to the leader” to classification of development types. According to this feature the development is divided into catching-up, rapid and development at the leader’s level. Authors determine three blocks of characteristics that enhance to understand the nature of these types: economic characteristics, innovation activity and governance. A comparative analysis of these development types is conducted.

Introduction: Rapid development and production of vaccines against emerging diseases requires well established, validated, robust technologies to allow industrial scale production and accelerated licensure of products. Areas covered: A versatile Vero cell platform has been developed and utilized to deliver a wide range of candidate and licensed vaccines against emerging viral diseases. This platform builds on the 35 years’ experience and safety record with inactivated whole virus vaccines such as polio vaccine. The current platform has been optimized to include a novel double inactivation procedure in order to ensure a highly robust inactivation procedure for novel emerging viruses. The utility of this platform in rapidly developing inactivated whole virus vaccines against pandemic (-like) influenza viruses and other emerging viruses such as West Nile, Chikungunya, Ross River and SARS is reviewed. The potential of the platform for development of vaccines against other emerging viruses such as Zika virus is described. Expert commentary: Use of this platform can substantially accelerate process development and facilitate licensure because of the substantial existing data set available for the cell matrix. However, programs to provide vaccines against emerging diseases must allow alternative clinical development paths to licensure, without the requirement to carry out large scale field efficacy studies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose Implementing new magnetic resonance experiments, or sequences, often involves extensive programming on vendor-specific platforms, which can be time consuming and costly. This situation is exacerbated when research sequences need to be implemented on several platforms simultaneously, for example, at different field strengths. This work presents an alternative programming environment that is hardware-independent, open-source, and promotes rapid sequence prototyping. Methods A novel file format is described to efficiently store the hardware events and timing information required for an MR pulse sequence. Platform-dependent interpreter modules convert the file to appropriate instructions to run the sequence on MR hardware. Sequences can be designed in high-level languages, such as MATLAB, or with a graphical interface. Spin physics simulation tools are incorporated into the framework, allowing for comparison between real and virtual experiments. Results Minimal effort is required to implement relatively advanced sequences using the tools provided. Sequences are executed on three different MR platforms, demonstrating the flexibility of the approach. Conclusion A high-level, flexible and hardware-independent approach to sequence programming is ideal for the rapid development of new sequences. The framework is currently not suitable for large patient studies or routine scanning although this would be possible with deeper integration into existing workflows. Magn Reson Med 77:1544-1552, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three parallel bioreactors were operated with different inoculation of activated sludge (R1), intertidal sludge (ItS) (R2), and ItS-added AS (R3), respectively, to explore the effects of ItS bioaugmentation on the formation of salt-tolerant aerobic granular sludge (SAGS) and the enhancement of COD removal performance. The results showed that compared to the control (R1-2), R3 promoted a more rapid development of SAGS with a cultivation time of 25 d. Following 110-day cultivation, R3 exhibited a higher granular diameter of 1.3 mm and a higher hydrophobic aromatic protein content than that in control. Compared to the control, the salt-tolerant performance in R3 was also enhanced with the COD removal efficiency of 96.4% due to the higher sludge specific activity of 14.4 g·gVSS−1·d−1 and the salinity inhibition constant of 49.3 gL−1. Read- and genome-resolved metagenomics together indicated that a higher level of tryptophan/tyrosine synthase gene (trpBD , tyrBC) and enrichment of the key gene hosts Rhodobacteraceae , Marinicella in R3, which was about 5.4-fold and 1.4-fold of that in control, could be the driving factors of rapid development of SAGS. Furthermore, the augmented salt-tolerant potential in R3 could result from that R1 was dominated by Rhodospirillaceae , Bacteroidales , which carried more trehalose synthase gene (otsB , treS), while the dominant members Rhodobacteraceae , Marinicella in R3 were main contributors to the glycine betaine synthase gene (ectC , betB , gbsA). This study could provide deeper insights into the rapid development and improved salt-tolerant potential of SAGS via bioaugmentation of intertidal sludge, which could promote the application of hypersaline wastewater treatment. [Display omitted] • Intertidal sludge-added activated sludge was more favorable for granulation process. • The intertidal sludge enhanced the salt-tolerant potential of SAGS. • The possible tryptophan/tyrosine protein contributor Rhodobacteraceae, Marinicella were dominated. • The metagenomic portrait of communities responsible for salt-tolerant physiology were identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing availability of high quality digital texts and usage data about them provides opportunities to identify new uses for collections, alternative ways to present and explore content, and expanded audiences for the materials. Using this information and a rapid development model called a “flash build,” JSTOR is creating and partnering with other organizations to build new tools that add value to library investments in digital collections. Two examples are discussed: “Classroom Readings,” a tool designed to help educators find articles on JSTOR that are good candidates for teaching, and “Understanding Shakespeare,” a resource created in collaboration with the Folger Shakespeare Library that enables scholars to follow links in lines from Shakespeare plays to articles on JSTOR that reference them. The rapid development model used for these projects is easily reproducible and effective, and could be applied to many library-driven efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The first complete simulation based on OpenSurgSim (OSS) is used as a case study for analyzing how the toolkit can accelerate the development of surgical simulations. The Burr Hole Trainer (BHT) is designed to train non-neurosurgeons to drill holes in the skull to relieve intracranial pressure, and the majority of its simulation functionality is provided by OSS. Based on code size, using OSS cut the development time in half, reduced the necessary size of the development team by two-thirds, and saved millions of US dollars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The 2019 novel COVID-19 has severely burdened the health care system through its rapid transmission. Mobile health (mHealth) is a viable solution to facilitate remote monitoring and continuity of care for patients with COVID-19 in a home environment. However, the conceptualization and development of mHealth apps are often time and labor-intensive and are laden with concerns relating to data security and privacy. Implementing mHealth apps is also a challenging feat as language-related barriers limit adoption, whereas its perceived lack of benefits affects sustained use. The rapid development of an mHealth app that is cost-effective, secure, and user-friendly will be a timely enabler., Objective: This project aimed to develop an mHealth app, DrCovid+, to facilitate remote monitoring and continuity of care for patients with COVID-19 by using the rapid development approach. It also aimed to address the challenges of mHealth app adoption and sustained use., Methods: The Rapid Application Development approach was adopted. Stakeholders including decision makers, physicians, nurses, health care administrators, and research engineers were engaged. The process began with requirements gathering to define and finalize the project scope, followed by an iterative process of developing a working prototype, conducting User Acceptance Tests, and improving the prototype before implementation. Co-designing principles were applied to ensure equal collaborative efforts and collective agreement among stakeholders., Results: DrCovid+ was developed on Telegram Messenger and hosted on a cloud server. It features a secure patient enrollment and data interface, a multilingual communication channel, and both automatic and personalized push messaging. A back-end dashboard was also developed to collect patients' vital signs for remote monitoring and continuity of care. To date, 400 patients have been enrolled into the system, amounting to 2822 hospital bed-days saved., Conclusions: The rapid development and implementation of DrCovid+ allowed for timely clinical care management for patients with COVID-19. It facilitated early patient hospital discharge and continuity of care while addressing issues relating to data security and labor-, time-, and cost-effectiveness. The use case for DrCovid+ may be extended to other medical conditions to advance patient care and empowerment within the community, thereby meeting existing and rising population health challenges., (©Jamaica Pei Ying Tan, Michelle W J Tan, Rachel Marie Towle, Joanne Sze Win Lee, Xiaofeng Lei, Yong Liu, Rick Siow Mong Goh, Franklin Tan Chee Ping, Teck Choon Tan, Daniel Shu Wei Ting, Chen Ee Lee, Lian Leng Low. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 07.02.2023.)