A key worldwide challenge in most sectors is to boost the effective adoption of innovation, as underpinned by the new European Union research programme Horizon 2020, which focuses on increasing innovation in Europe from 2014 to 2020. This is particularly relevant in the water sector, often perceived as conservative and averse to change. This paper discusses the role that collaborative knowledge-transfer projects can play in effectively rolling out R&D in the water industry. LNEC (Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil) has designed a structured model based on a phased programme and a network of utilities and researchers. The paper presents the core principles, the rationale, the model and methods used, and the theoretical background, as well as the project's impact, outcomes and products. The discussion highlights the lessons learnt and provides a formal analysis of the advantages of focusing on middle management as an effective entry point, even if innovation is needed across the organization. Making training materials, guidelines, use cases, data and software publicly available after the project's end has proven to have a decisive multiplying effect. The paper also argues in favour of the collaborative model as a basis for R&D sustainability, and details on-going and planned developments. ; 1516–1523pp ; IWA Publishing 2014 DOI:10.2166/wst.2015.362 ; DHA/NES ; Water Science & Technology, 72.9|2015
Cover -- Copyright -- Content -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Foreword -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Measurement Units and Symbols -- Abbreviations -- Other Conventions -- 1. Introduction -- 1.1 Background -- 1.2 Why use performance indicators -- 1.3 Usage of performance indicators -- 1.4 Performance indicators as a component of benchmarking -- 1.5 International Standardisation of water supply and wastewater services -- 2. Development of a manual for wastewater service PIs from the water supply manual -- 2.1 The IWA manual of PIs for water supply -- 2.2 Lessons from the water supply PI pilot testing -- 3. About this manual -- 3.1 Scope -- 3.2 Structure of the document -- 4. The wastewater PI system -- 4.1 Outline -- 4.2 The PI and CI concepts -- 4.3 The wastewater undertaking context -- 4.4 Wastewater system description -- 4.5 Organisational functions and definitions -- 4.6 Financial aspects -- 4.7 Structure of the PI system -- 5. Implementation strategy of a PI system -- 5.1 Introduction -- 5.2 Definition of the strategic performance assessment policy -- 5.3 Selection of PIs to be assessed -- 5.4 Implementation of important PIs -- 5.5 PI assessment, reporting and result interpretation -- 5.6 Definition and implementation of improvement measures -- 6. Data reporting -- 6.1 Confidence grading scheme -- 6.2 Confidence grades -- 6.3 Confidence grades examples -- 6.4 Periods for data assessment -- 7. Performance Indicators -- 7.1 The PI framework -- 7.2 Environmental indicators (wEn) -- 7.3 Personnel indicators (wPe) -- 7.4 Physical indicators (wPh) -- 7.5 Operational indicators (wOp) -- 7.6 Quality of service indicators (wQS) -- 7.7 Economic and financial indicators (wFi) -- 8. Context information -- 8.1 Introduction -- 8.2 Undertaking profile -- 8.3 System profile -- 8.4 Region profile -- 9. References -- 10. About the authors.
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Background: Changes in glycosylation are known to play critical roles during gastric carcinogenesis. Expression of truncated O-glycans, such as the Sialyl-Tn (STn) antigen, is a common feature shared by many cancers and is associated with cancer aggressiveness and poor-prognosis. Methods: Glycoengineered cell lines were used to evaluate the impact of truncated O-glycans in cancer cell biology using in vitro functional assays, transcriptomic analysis and in vivo models. Tumor patients 'samples and datasets were used for clinical translational significance evaluation. Findings: In the present study, we demonstrated that gastric cancer cells expressing truncated O-glycans display major phenotypic alterations associated with higher cell motility and cell invasion. Noteworthy, the glycoengineered cancer cells overexpressing STn resulted in tumor xenografts with less cohesive features which had a critical impact on mice survival. Furthermore, truncation of O-glycans induced activation of EGFR and ErbB2 receptors and a transcriptomic signature switch of gastric cancer cells. The disclosed top activated genes were further validated in gastric tumors, revealing that SRPX2 and RUNX1 are concomitantly overexpressed in gastric carcinomas and its expression is associated with patients' poor-survival, highlighting their prognosis potential in clinical practice. Interpretation: This study discloses novel molecular links between O-glycans truncation frequently observed in cancer and key cellular regulators with major impact in tumor progression and patients' clinical outcome. ; This work was funded by FEDER funds through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors-COMPETE ( POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016585 ; POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007274 ; POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028489 ) and National Funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) , under the projects: PTDC/BBB-EBI/0567/2014 (to CAR), PTDC/MED-ONC/28489/2017 (to AM) and UID/BIM/04293/2013 ; and the project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000029 , supported by Norte Portugal Regional Programme ( NORTE 2020 ), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The authors acknowledge the support by Gastric Glyco Explorer Initial Training Network (European Union Seventh Framework Programme GastricGlycoExplorer project, grant number 316929 ). DF acknowledges the FCT PhD Programmes and Programa Operacional Potencial Humano (POPH), specifically the BiotechHealth Programe (Doctoral Programme on Cellular and Molecular Biotechnology Applied to Health Sciences), with the reference PD/0016/2012 funded by FCT . Grants were received from FCT, POPH and FSE (Fundo Social Europeu): SFRH/BD/110636/2015 to DF and SFRH/BPD/115730/2016 to FP. We thank Catharina Steentoft and Henrik Clausen for the cell line models and helpful scientific discussions. We are grateful for Nuno Mendes's technical support. The authors acknowledge the support of José Luis Costa and Mafalda Rocha from the i3S Genomics Platform (GenCore), and Maria G Lazaro from the Bioimaging I3S Scientific Platform , member of the PPBI ( PPBI-POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022122 ).
Combined sewer systems are often unable to respond adequately to rising water volumes draining from urban areas during rainfall events, resulting in frequent direct discharges into receiving waters and floods, with severe environmental and economic impacts. Despite stricter legislation on pollution control and flood risk assessment, there are still some challenges regarding the development of early warning systems based on water quality issues and fully integrated models. An innovative, real-time urban warning system for flooding and pollution events was built for the Alcântara basin (the largest in Lisbon), to provide timely information to wastewater management entities and to civil protection services. The platform provides real-time access to monitoring data and, based on 48-hour precipitation forecasts, predicts the performance of the system through the integrated use of mathematical models for both drainage network and estuary. Predictions are automatically compared and validated with on-line data. This paper presents the overall design of the system and main results obtained thus far. The analysis of the system shows the ability of the integrated models to represent the main spatial and temporal patterns observed, effectively predicting the system response to precipitation events and estimating volumes discharged into the water bodies and their average pollution loads. Furthermore, the overall results strongly indicate UV-Vis spectra to be reliable for TSS and COD estimation in sewer systems. ; f7 ; p10 ; DHA/GTI
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted routine hospital services globally. This study estimated the total number of adult elective operations that would be cancelled worldwide during the 12 weeks of peak disruption due to COVID-19. Methods: A global expert response study was conducted to elicit projections for the proportion of elective surgery that would be cancelled or postponed during the 12 weeks of peak disruption. A Bayesian β-regression model was used to estimate 12-week cancellation rates for 190 countries. Elective surgical case-mix data, stratified by specialty and indication (surgery for cancer versus benign disease), were determined. This case mix was applied to country-level surgical volumes. The 12-week cancellation rates were then applied to these figures to calculate the total number of cancelled operations. Results: The best estimate was that 28 404 603 operations would be cancelled or postponed during the peak 12 weeks of disruption due to COVID-19 (2 367 050 operations per week). Most would be operations for benign disease (90·2 per cent, 25 638 922 of 28 404 603). The overall 12-week cancellation rate would be 72·3 per cent. Globally, 81·7 per cent of operations for benign conditions (25 638 922 of 31 378 062), 37·7 per cent of cancer operations (2 324 070 of 6 162 311) and 25·4 per cent of elective caesarean sections (441 611 of 1 735 483) would be cancelled or postponed. If countries increased their normal surgical volume by 20 per cent after the pandemic, it would take a median of 45 weeks to clear the backlog of operations resulting from COVID-19 disruption. Conclusion: A very large number of operations will be cancelled or postponed owing to disruption caused by COVID-19. Governments should mitigate against this major burden on patients by developing recovery plans and implementing strategies to restore surgical activity safely.