Renaissance Services (United States)

Improving sustainability of agricultural production has been at the forefront of research in recent years due to external factors, such as drought and urbanization. Producers are interested in exploring new practices to remain viable. One practice being researched is vertical farming systems (VFS) to produce feed. These VFS control temperature, water, light, and sprout cereal grains that can be fed whole to livestock, but to date, little research has been completed on feeding sprouted grains to livestock. This study utilized growing Angus steers (n = 60) that were stratified by weight (385 kg ± 10.3) into two different diet groups, control (CON, n = 30) or sprouted barley (SB, n = 30). The CON diet was a traditional finishing ration for the region (rolled barley, corn silage, and alfalfa), while SB was fed a ration with 20% dry matter (DM) sprouted barley. All animals were fed out of Vytelle® units to assess individual intake. At harvest, one loin from each animal was obtained for meat quality analysis. Meat quality was assessed using PROC MIXED in SAS, with day as a repeated measure to evaluate main effects of diet on color. Sensory data were analyzed using a paired two-way t-test. Welch’s t-test was employed for meat metabolome analysis, while feed metabolome data was evaluated using an ANOVA. Color (L*, a*, and b*) nor three meat quality markers (cooking loss, drip loss, Warner-Bratzler Shear Force) were impacted by diet (P ≥ 0.19). Deoxymyoglobin (DMb) content was not affected by diet (P = 0.18), but metmyoglobin (MMb) was (P = 0.05) and oxymyoglobin (OMb) tended (P = 0.08) to be different. MMb increased over time for both diets, but CON generally had increased MMb compared to SB. Changes in OMb are explained by both CON and SB decreasing over the seven-day period with SB generally having more OMb compared to CON throughout. A consumer acceptance panel revealed SB and CON to not be different (P ≥ 0.11) in terms of liking for overall acceptance, aroma, flavor, tenderness, nor juiciness. Despite 71 out of 85 phytochemical metabolites being different in the feeds (P < 0.05) with 28 being elevated in the SB feed at 20% DM, only two out of 23 phytochemical metabolites differed (P < 0.05) in meat samples. The inclusion of sprouted barley at 20% DM in the diets of finishing Angus steers had no significant impact on meat quality, nor many aspects of sensory analysis.

Skin quality treatments by injecting uncrosslinked hyaluronic acid (HA) are widely used in aesthetic medicine. The proven biological effect of native high molecular weight HA contributes to moisturize, improve skin color and texture, as well as restore its density by stimulating neocollagenesis. HA-based injectables have a proven profile of efficacy and safety. They are biocompatible with human tissues; therefore, they are actively used in programs of age-related changes treatment. The biorevitalization treatment is intradermal injection of HA in order to replenish the lost reserve of glycosaminoglycans and restore natural conditions for cell's functioning. The treatment result is the activation of the autoregulation mechanism of the synthesis of endogenous HA and other components of the dermal intercellular. Biorevitalization provides improvement of elasticity and turgor of tissues, rehydration and increase the antioxidant potential of skin. There are numerous cosmetic preparations, injectables and energy-based methods designed to treat involutional skin changes. The comprehensive approach involves the possibility of combining biorevitalization treatment with peelings, HA fillers, polylactic acid (PLLA), botulinum toxin, high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU), lasers and thread lift. The inclusion of biorevitalization in combined programs contributes to the optimization of aesthetic effect due to the multiple components and synergy of action mechanism. The use of combined effects contributes to favorable clinical results and high patients' satisfaction with their general appearance.

Place-Based Initiatives (PBIs) involve efforts to mobilise and coordinate local resources, services and expertise across multiple organisations and sectors in order to strengthen the social, structural, physical and economic conditions of historically disinvested neighbourhoods. While promising, these initiatives have had some documented challenges, and some are leveraging partnerships with academic institutions to address those challenges. In this article, we explore perspectives of leaders and staff from three PBI organisations in Charlotte, NC to better understand the benefits of PBI-academic partnerships and the conditions under which they are most effective. Thematic analysis of 23 semi-structured interviews revealed that PBIs leverage partnerships with academic institutions to accomplish two key goals. First, these partnerships stimulate asset- based community development (ABCD) by connecting community organisations and neighbourhood residents with academic resources and by strengthening PBI service delivery. Second, some partnerships give rise to community-based research efforts that help address external accountability challenges and inform PBI programming. The findings also illuminated several pitfalls in academic-PBI partnerships, sometimes rooted in conflicting priorities and approaches of academic researchers and non-profit practitioners. Finally, insights delineate key recommendations for improving PBI-academic collaborations, including countering academic exploitation by plugging into PBIs’ mission and respecting PBI expertise.

In the original article, it was written that “Then the MLE scoring and DIF analysis with RDIF statistics were performed using the est_score and rdif functions, respectively, in the R (R Core Team, 2019) package irtplay (p.90).” However, the irtplay package has been removed from the CRAN repository due to intellectual property (IP) violation issues. Instead, a new R package called irtQ (Lim & Wells, 2023) has been released as a successor to irtplay. All IP issues have been resolved in irtQ, ensuring that the package is compliant with industry standards. https://doi.org/10.1111/jedm.12313 We would like to inform that the same functions of est_score and rdif used in the original study are also included in irtQ. Thus, it can be used as a replacement for irtplay. We apologize for any confusion caused by the previous version of the article.

<strong>Context for this profile</strong> CSCCE Community Profiles provide a snapshot of scientific communities. The data for these profiles were collected by surveying scientific community managers as part of a research project conducted by CSCCE staff. This profile showcases the ASAPbio Community, and is part of a second collection of profiles published in July 2021. You can view and download all of the CSCCE Community Profiles, including those in the first collection that was published in 2020, here. If you would like CSCCE to create a profile for your scientific community or organization, please contact us: info@cscce.org. <strong>About CSCCE</strong> The Center for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement (CSCCE) champions the importance of human infrastructure for effective collaboration in STEM. We provide training and support for the people who make scientific collaborations succeed at scale - and we also research the impact of these emerging roles. Find out more about us on our website: CSCCE.org

<strong>Context for this profile</strong> CSCCE Community Profiles provide a snapshot of scientific communities. The data for these profiles were collected by surveying scientific community managers as part of a research project conducted by CSCCE staff. This profile showcases the International Soil Modeling Consortium, and is part of a second collection of profiles published in July 2021. You can view and download all of the CSCCE Community Profiles, including those in the first collection that was published in 2020, here. If you would like CSCCE to create a profile for your scientific community or organization, please contact us: info@cscce.org. <strong>About CSCCE</strong> The Center for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement (CSCCE) champions the importance of human infrastructure for effective collaboration in STEM. We provide training and support for the people who make scientific collaborations succeed at scale - and we also research the impact of these emerging roles. Find out more about us on our website: CSCCE.org

Abstract One commonly used compromise standard‐setting method is the Beuk (1984) method. A key assumption of the Beuk method is that the emphasis given to the pass rate and the percent correct ratings should be proportional to the extent that the panelists agree on their ratings. However, whether the slope of Beuk line reflects the emphasis that panelists believe should be assigned to the pass rate and the percentage correct ratings has not be fully tested. In this article, I evaluate this critical assumption of the Beuk method by asking panelists to assign importance weights to their percentage correct and pass rate judgments. I show that in several cases that the emphasis suggested by the Beuk slope is noticeably different from what one would expect and is inconsistent with importance weight ratings. I also suggest two ways that the importance weights can be used to calculate alternate cut scores, and I show that one of the ways of calculating cut scores using the importance weights leads to larger potential differences in cut score estimates. I suggest that practitioners should consider collecting importance weights when the Beuk method is used for determining cut scores.

This work establishes the exact exponents for the soft-covering phenomenon of a memoryless channel under the total variation metric when random (i.i.d. and constant-composition) channel codes are used. The exponents, established herein, are strict improvements in both directions on bounds found in the literature. This complements the recent literature establishing the exact exponents under the relative entropy metric; however, the proof techniques have significant differences, and thus, neither result trivially implies the other. The found exponents imply new and improved bounds for various problems that use soft-covering as their achievability argument, including new lower bounds for the resolvability exponent and the secrecy exponent in the wiretap channel.

Different management systems, including quality management systems, are widely used in enterprises and organizations nowadays. The procedure for establishing and effectively using quality management systems is regulated by the system of national standards. At the same time, the approaches to organization and the performance of quality management systems in enterprises depend on the personnel’s training, knowledge and understanding of existing regulations in the field of standardization and technical regulation. The main problems of effective quality management using quality management systems arise from inept application of existing regulations and a formal approach to organization and management of quality management systems. This primarily happens due to lack of involvement of the staff, lack of understanding of the role and responsibility of the process owner. Ensuring the required quality of processes is achieved by hiring competent managers and specialists for the enterprise. This means that human resources are sufficiently prepared, with a quality system of motivation and a high corporate culture. The company has created a system of information support, electronic document management system. In many enterprises, QMS documents are maintained by quality services, which are perceived as units solely responsible for maintaining the quality management system in working condition. Unfortunately, the functions of quality services are often limited to maintaining the QMS documentation in working order. However, all units of the enterprise must have the required documentation for the QMS available and keep the records prescribed by the QMS documents, the employees should know the contents of QMS documentation, have the skills necessary for document management. A formal approach to quality management systems in enterprises means that the resources allocated to maintaining the management system are used inefficiently. The article gives a brief analysis of the specific problems arising in application of quality management systems and the main directions for eliminating non-compliance of systems with the requirements of federal legislation and normative documents in the field of standardization. We have emphasized that the basic principle of building a quality management system in the enterprise should be the adapting the system to the needs of the enterprise while complying with the national standards of the Russian Federation. This paper presents a generalized view of scientists and specialists on actual problems encountered in implementing QMS in enterprises. We have proposed specific practical solutions (recommendations) formed on the basis of practical construction and application of the QMS.