Experimental data from flesh quality assessment and shelf life monitoring of high pressure processed European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) fillets

Fresh fish are highly perishable food products and their short shelf-life limits their commercial exploitation and leads to waste, which has a negative impact on aquaculture sustainability. New non-thermal food processing methods, such as high pressure (HP) processing, prolong shelf-life while assuring high food quality. The effect of HP processing (600MPa, 25 °C, 5min) on European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) fillet quality and shelf life was investigated. The data presented comprises microbiome and proteome profiles of control and HP-processed sea bass fillets from 1 to 67 days of isothermal storage at 2 °C. Bacterial diversity was analysed by Illumina high-throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene in pooled DNAs from control or HP-processed fillets after 1, 11 or 67 days and the raw reads were deposited in the NCBI-SRA database with accession number PRJNA517618. Yeast and fungi diversity were analysed by high-throughput sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region for control and HP-processed fillets at the end of storage (11 or 67 days, respectively) and have the SRA accession number PRJNA517779. Quantitative label-free proteomics profiles were analysed by SWATH-MS (Sequential Windowed data independent Acquisition of the Total High-resolution-Mass Spectra) in myofibrillar or sarcoplasmic enriched protein extracts pooled for control or HP-processed fillets after 1, 11 and 67 days of storage. Proteome data was deposited in the ProteomeXchange Consortium via the PRIDE partner repository with the dataset identifiers PXD012737. These data support the findings reported in the associated manuscript "High pressure processing of European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) fillets and tools for flesh quality and shelf life monitoring", Tsironi et al., 2019, JFE 262:83-91, doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2019.05.010.FCT (Foundation of Science and Technology) COFASP/0002/2015; Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology UID/Multi/04326/2019 POCI-01-0145-FEDER007440 UID/NEU/04539/2019info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Detecting hate speech on twitter using a convolution-GRU based deep neural network

In recent years, the increasing propagation of hate speech on social media and the urgent need for effective counter-measures have drawn significant investment from governments, companies, as well as empirical research. Despite a large number of emerging scientific studies to address the problem, existing methods are limited in several ways, such as the lack of comparative evaluations which makes it difficult to assess the contribution of individual works. This paper introduces a new method based on a deep neural network combining convolutional and long short term memory networks, and conducts an extensive evaluation of the method against several baselines and state of the art on the largest collection of publicly available datasets to date. We show that our proposed method outperforms state of the art on 6 out of 7 datasets by between 0.2 and 13.8 points in F1. We also carry out further analysis using automatic feature selection to understand the impact of the conventional manual feature engineering process that distinguishes most methods in this field. Our findings challenge the existing perception of the importance of feature engineering, as we show that: the automatic feature selection algorithm drastically reduces the original feature space by over 90% and selects predominantly generic features from datasets; nevertheless, machine learning algorithms perform better using automatically selected features than the original features

Book Review:B. BITTON-ASHKELONY - D. KRUEGER, Prayer and Worship in Eastern Christianities, 5th to 11th Centuries, Routledge 2017.

Book Review:B. Bitton-Ashkelony - D. Krueger, Prayer and Worship in Eastern Christianities, 5th to 11th Centuries, Routledge 2017, pp. xvii+ 31

Book Review:B. BITTON-ASHKELONY - D. KRUEGER, Prayer and Worship in Eastern Christianities, 5th to 11th Centuries, Routledge 2017.

Book Review:B. Bitton-Ashkelony - D. Krueger, Prayer and Worship in Eastern Christianities, 5th to 11th Centuries, Routledge 2017, pp. xvii+ 31

Prevention of Cardiomyopathy in Transfusion-Dependent Homozygous Thalassaemia Today and the Role of Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Transfusion and iron chelation therapy revolutionised survival and reduced morbidity in patients with transfusion-dependent beta thalassaemia major. Despite these improvements, cardiac disease remained the most common cause of death in those patients. Recently the ability to determine the degree of cardiac iron overload, through cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) has allowed more logical approaches to iron removal, particularly from the heart. The availability of two oral chelators, deferiprone and deferasirox has reduced the need for the injectable chelator deferrioxamine and an additional benefit has been that deferiprone has been shown to be more cardioprotective than deferrioxamine. This review on the prevention of cardiac disease makes recommendations on the chelation regime that would be desirable for patients according to their cardiac iron status as determined by CMR determined by CMR. It also discusses approaches to chelation management should CMR not be available

Blockchain in Aquaculture: Enhancing Sustainability and Transparency

This desk research explores current and prospective blockchain applications within the aquaculture sector. The primary aim is to create a theoretical foundation for deeper future research. Given the emerging nature of this topic, academic resources specific to blockchain use in aquaculture are limited. This paper reviews blockchain adoption in aquaculture, focusing on its role in tracking seafood supply chains and enhancing transparency and traceability. It highlights opportunities for advancing blockchain applications in aquaculture, including enhancing safety and quality control during critical stages such as transportation and distribution, as well as expanding its use for payments. This article provides a foundational understanding for stakeholders in aquaculture, policymakers and researchers, offering insights into the potential of blockchain to improve transparency, ustainability and efficiency within the sector. The findings also suggest directions for integrating advanced technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), to further enhance the benefits of blockchain in aquaculture

Measuring pain self-efficacy and health related quality of life among hemodialysis patients in Greece: a cross-sectional study

Patients suffering from end-stage kidney disease often complain about pain. It is also known that the presence of chronic pain greatly impacts upon patients’ quality of life (QOL) and can play a crucial role in the co-morbidity of mental health symptoms such as depression and anxiety. The main aim of this study protocol is the investigation of pain self-efficacy, QOL as well as their relation in patients undergoing hemodialysis treatment. The final sample size will be around 70-80 patients. Each subject’s QOL and pain self-efficacy will be measured using the following instruments: i) the Missoula-ITAS Quality of Life Index-15 and ii) the Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire. QOL is expected to be related to pain self-efficacy scores. This probable association will be indicated performing regression as well as correlation analysis after controlling for gender, age, education and marital status

Intravitreal Bevacizumab for Photodynamic Therapy-Induced Massive Macular Detachment in Acute Central Serous Chorioretinopathy

We present a long followed up case of acute central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC) complicated by a severe visual loss due to massive pigment epithelium detachment of the macula after a full-dose photodynamic therapy (PDT). Rapid anatomical and functional improvement was observed after a single intravitreal injection of bevacizumab. To our knowledge, we report the first case of PDT-treated CSC complicated by severe visual loss. We can only speculate that the serous detachment of the posterior pole might have been caused by PDT-induced VEGF overexpression, explaining such an impressive response to Avastin treatment