The surprise player in affecting workplace safety overseas? Multinational buyers.

The Science Museum is presenting the special Unlocking the Secrets - The Science of Conservation at The Palace Museum exhibition to tie in with the 600th anniversary of the Forbidden City in 2020.

More than 100 artefacts from the Palace Museum collection are being showcased to highlight the application of science and technology in conservation.

They include bronzes, clocks, textiles, thangkas, wood furniture, lacquerware and inlaid works along with ceramics, calligraphy and hand-painted copies of ancient paintings.

The show also presents the Conservation Office’s work by showcasing intriguing restoration cases so that visitors can learn more about the work and skills of conservators as well as their mission to preserve Hong Kong’s heritage assets.

The Science Museum will launch a series of interactive family activities, including demonstrations and workshops conducted by Palace Museum conservators, guided tours featuring theatrical plays and storytelling, and visits to conservation laboratories.

Jointly presented by the Leisure & Cultural Services Department and the Palace Museum, the exhibition will run until March 18 next year.

Call 2732 3232 for enquiries.

The Immigration Department announced today that the operation of all nine Smart Identity Card Replacement Centres will be fully resumed on May 11 in light of the more stabilised epidemic situation.

The department earlier suspended the replacement of Hong Kong identity cards at the centres to avoid the increased risk of spreading COVID-19.

To arrange for people affected by the service suspension to replace their identity cards in an orderly manner, the Secretary for Security has made an amendment order to revise the replacement period for people born in 1957 to 1963 and 1970 to 1976 and the arrangement for members of the sixth term of District Councils.

Click here for the arrangements.

If the replacement of identity cards needs to be suspended again in the future to cope with a sudden turn of the epidemic situation, the amendment order also provides that if all the centres are not in service for a period of 21 working days or more from May 11 to July 27 for public health reasons, the specified period for the above people will be further extended or amended.

The amendment order will be tabled at the Legislative Council on May 13 for negative vetting.

To reduce crowd gatherings, applicants who have not made appointments previously should do so via the Internet, the department’s mobile application or the 24-hour hotline at 2121 1234.

The department also appealed to applicants to pre-fill the application form when making appointments through the Internet or mobile application.

For details click here or call 2824 6111.

(Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History) What makes our species unique compared to other hominins? High profile genetic, fossil and material culture discoveries present scientists working in the Late Pleistocene with an ever-more complex picture of interactions between early hominin populations. One distinctive characteristic of Homo sapiens, however, appears to be its global distribution. Exploring how Homo sapiens colonized most of the world's continents in a relatively short period could reveal the exceptional capacities of humans relative to other hominins.

(Florida Museum of Natural History) More than a thousand years ago, people from across the Southeast regularly traveled to a small island on Florida's Gulf Coast to bond over oysters, likely as a means of coping with climate change and social upheaval.

(Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research) Thanks to the support of additional German research vessels, the MOSAiC expedition will continue, despite the coronavirus pandemic. The new team will start in May.

(Oregon State University) The world's oceans play a critical role in climate regulation, mitigation and adaptation and should be integrated into comprehensive 'green new deal' proposals being promoted by elected officials and agency policymakers.

The prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) is an excellent target for theranostic applications in prostate cancer (PCa). However, PSMA-targeted radioligand therapy can cause undesirable effects due to high accumulation of PSMA radiotracers in salivary glands and kidneys. This study assessed orally administered monosodium glutamate (MSG) as a potential means of reducing kidney and salivary gland radiation exposure using a PSMA targeting radiotracer. Methods: This prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled study enrolled 10 biochemically recurrent PCa patients. Each subject served as his own control. [¹⁸F]DCFPyl PET/CT imaging sessions were performed 3 – 7 days apart, following oral administration of either 12.7 g of MSG or placebo. Data from the two sets of images were analyzed by placing regions of interest on lacrimal, parotid and submandibular glands, left ventricle, liver, spleen, kidneys, bowel, urinary bladder, gluteus muscle and malignant lesions. The results from MSG and placebo scans were compared by paired analysis of the ROI data. Results: A total of 142 pathological lesions along with normal tissues were analyzed. As hypothesized a priori, there was a significant decrease in maximal standardized uptake values corrected for lean body mass (SULmax) on images obtained following MSG administration in the parotids (24 ± 14%, P = 0.001), submandibular glands (35 ± 11%, P<0.001) and kidneys (23 ± 26%, P = 0.014). Significant decreases were also observed in lacrimal glands (49 ± 13%, P<0.001), liver (15 ± 6%, P<0.001), spleen (28 ± 13%, P = 0.001) and bowel (44 ± 13%, P<0.001). Mildly lower blood pool SULmean was observed after MSG administration (decrease of 11 ± 13%, P = 0.021). However, significantly lower radiotracer uptake in terms of SULmean, SULpeak, and SULmax was observed in malignant lesions on scans performed after MSG administration compared to the placebo studies (SULmax median decrease 33%, range -1 to 75%, P<0.001). No significant adverse events occurred and vital signs were stable following placebo or MSG administration. Conclusion: Orally administered MSG significantly decreased salivary gland, kidney and other normal organ PSMA radiotracer uptake in human subjects, using [¹⁸F]DCFPyL as an exemplar. However, MSG caused a corresponding reduction in tumor uptake, which may limit the benefits of this approach for diagnostic and therapeutic applications.

From formalising her father’s business and taking it to higher and more profitable heights to sitting on the board of EXIM Bank and lecturing in the field of business development, Lacey-Ann Bartley has earned her stripes as the Distinguished Woman...

The current orthodoxy is that home is the best and preferred place of death for most people, but in this podcast, Kristian Pollock a sociologist from Nottingham University questions these assumptions and calls for greater attention to improving the experience of dying in hospital and elsewhere. Read the full...

15s30m is a social movement to reduce frustration & increase joy - the idea is to spend 15 seconds of your time now, and save someone else 30 minutes down the line. To talk about their movement we're joined by the founders, Rachel Pilling, consultant ophthalmologist, and Dan Wadsworth, transformation manager - both from Bradford Teaching...

Ted Kaptchuk, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical school - and leading placebo researcher, has just published an analysis on bmj.com describing the effect of open label placebo - placebos that patient's know are placebos, but still seem to have some clinical effect. Ted joins us to speculate about what's going on in the body, what this means...

The placenta participates in maternal insulin sensitivity changes during pregnancy; however, mechanisms remain unclear. We investigated associations between maternal insulin sensitivity and placental DNA methylation markers across the genome. We analyzed data from 430 mother-offspring dyads in the Gen3G cohort. All women underwent 75-g oral glucose tolerance tests at ~26 weeks of gestation; we used glucose and insulin measures to estimate insulin sensitivity (Matsuda index). At delivery, we collected samples from placenta (fetal side) and measured DNA methylation using Illumina EPIC arrays. Using linear regression models to quantify associations at 720,077 cytosine-guanine dinucleotides (CpGs), with adjustment for maternal age, gravidity, smoking, BMI, child sex, and gestational age at delivery, we identified 188 CpG sites where placental DNA methylation was associated with Matsuda index (P < 6.94 x 10^–8). Among genes annotated to these 188 CpGs, we found enrichment in targets for miRNAs, in histone modifications, and in parent-of-origin DNA methylation including the H19/MIR675 locus (paternally imprinted). We identified 12 known placenta imprinted genes, including KCNQ1. Mendelian randomization analyses revealed five loci where placenta DNA methylation may causally influence maternal insulin sensitivity, including the maternally imprinted gene DLGAP2. Our results suggest that placental DNA methylation is fundamentally linked to the regulation of maternal insulin sensitivity in pregnancy.

5 November 2019

This ethnographic study is the first of its kind to analyse energy access and resilience strategies deployed in two refugee camps in Kenya and Burkina Faso. It highlights the need for new methodological approaches to expand the evidence base for humanitarian energy interventions and policies.

Nearly 6 million Afghans fled after violence erupted in the late 1970s, primarily to Iran and Pakistan. While millions returned after the collapse of the Taliban in 2001, the security situation has since deteriorated and the government struggles to meet the needs of vulnerable populations, particularly the internally displaced. This country profile explores Afghanistan’s complex migration and displacement history as well as ongoing challenges.

With nearly 1.4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), Ukraine is home to one of the largest IDP populations in the world. Five years after Russia's annexation of Crimea, displaced Ukrainians continue to face challenges related to national identity, social cohesion, and political participation. While the Ukrainian government has had some success integrating IDPs, the conflict’s end remains uncertain, and many are unlikely to return to their communities of origin no matter the outcome.

From earthquakes to drought, natural disasters and climate change played a key role in migration flows in 2015. Climate-induced migration surfaced as a concern at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (known as COP21) as international organizations and policymakers have begun to recognize the growing challenges, and potential protection obligations, of such movement.

Climate-related displacement is not hypothetical: An average of 21.5 million people per year have been displaced since 2008 by natural disasters, and thousands more have fled slow-onset environmental hazards. While migration can serve as a safety valve to adapt to changing conditions, few orderly, legal channels exist for climate migrants (also known as environmental migrants), as this article explores.

OBJECTIVE

In patients with type 1 diabetes and end-stage renal disease, it is controversial whether a simultaneous pancreas-kidney (SPK) transplantation improves survival compared with kidney transplantation alone. We compared long-term survival in SPK and living- or deceased-donor kidney transplant recipients.

OBJECTIVE

Reparixin is an inhibitor of CXCR1/2 chemokine receptor shown to be an effective anti-inflammatory adjuvant in a pilot clinical trial in allotransplant recipients.

Robert R. Henry
Mar 1, 2015; 38:412-419
Evolving Tactics With Inhibition of Sodium-Glucose Cotransporters

Hans-Ulrich Häring
Jun 1, 2014; 37:1650-1659
Emerging Technologies and Therapeutics

Khalid A. Jadoon
Oct 1, 2016; 39:1777-1786
Emerging Technologies and Therapeutics

Vanita R. Aroda
Sep 1, 2019; 42:1724-1732
Emerging Therapies: Drugs and Regimens

OBJECTIVE

Topical oxygen has been used for the treatment of chronic wounds for more than 50 years. Its effectiveness remains disputed due to the limited number of robust high-quality investigations. The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of multimodality cyclical pressure Topical Wound Oxygen (TWO2) home care therapy in healing refractory diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) that had failed to heal with standard of care (SOC) alone.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the effects of dapagliflozin in patients with heart failure (HF) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) on left ventricular (LV) remodeling using cardiac MRI.

As big Labor Day sales roll around, computer stores will tell you about laptops that now come with biometric fingerprint readers. Car companies will talk about "variable air suspension" features that allow you to change the ride of a car, depending on terrain. And video game manufacturers will ha...

Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, psychologist Jennifer Lerner conducted a national field experiment: She asked a random sampling of Americans how likely it was that they would be the victim of a terrorist attack in the next 12 months.

In Eliot Spitzer's sex scandal and tragicomic downfall, the question that bugged many people did not have to do with ethics or politics, but whether Spitzer got a raw deal.

John B. Buse
Jul 1, 2002; 20:
Feature Articles

The climate crisis is too vast and complicated to solve with a silver bullet, says author David Wallace-Wells. What we need is a shift in how we live. Follow along as he lays out some of the dramatic actions we could take to build a livable, prosperous world in the age of global warming.

State Board of Education members weighed in today about a proposal to eliminate their elected positions and replace the board with an appointed commission.

An internationally known gifted-education center is scouting—and helping to develop—gifted students in after-school programs and pullout classes in one of Maryland’s most challenged school districts.

Gov. Christie has pushed to flatten the state's funding formula so that the state's impoverished urban districts would get the same amount of money wealthy suburban districts get.