Comparative analysis of rule elements for transportation of cell therapy products among regulations and standards.

Aim: This study aimed to identify the elements involved in the transportation of cell therapy products by conducting a comparative analysis of four related international standards for temperature-controlled delivery and good distribution practice (GDP). Methods: An analytical framework was constructed to cover the entire transportation process. The descriptions of each element in the Pharmaceutical Inspection Convention and Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme (PIC/S) GDP, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 21973, Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy Common Standards for Cellular Therapies and ISO 23412 were compared. Results: The study identified some elements that were present in the PIC/S GDP and other standards but were absent in ISO 21973, and vice versa. These elements are crucial in view of the increasing opportunities to transport allogeneic cells in the future. Conclusion: The study identified the necessary elements that should be included in the development of transport regulations for cell therapy products.

The quality of cell therapy products needs to be ensured during transportation to the hospital, just like during their manufacture. However, cell therapy products are living cells, and ensuring their quality during transportation is challenging. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has published ISO 21973 to address this issue, but transport regulations for cell therapy products have not been modified yet. To create draft guidance for the transportation of cell therapy products, it is necessary to analyze the relationship between ISO 21973, good distribution practice, Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy Common Standards and ISO 23412. We compared these regulations and standards and identified some elements that are necessary for transporting cell therapy products. These elements are crucial in view of the increasing opportunities to transport allogeneic cells in the future. This study proposed elements to be included in the development of transport regulations for cell therapy products.

Improving the accessibility to public schools in urban areas of developing countries through a location model and an analytical framework.

The location of primary public schools in urban areas of developing countries is the focus of this study. In such areas, new schools and modification of the current schools are required, and this process should be developed using rational and broad supporting tools for decision makers, such as optimization models. We propose a realistic coverage location model and a framework to analyze the location of schools. Our approach considers the existing schools and their resizing, the best locations of the new schools that may have different capacities, population coverage, walking distances and budget provisions for building and updating schools. As a case study, we assess the current primary school network in Ciudad Benito Juarez to provide managerial insights. Through the proposed framework, we analyze the current locations of schools and decisions to be made by considering future scenarios in different time periods. The proposed model is quite flexible and easy to adapt to new considerations, allowing it to be applied to regions in developing countries under similar conditions.

An optimized location service for the fifth generation VANETs inspired by traffic lights.

Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) address a steadily expanding demand, particularly for public emergency applications. Real-time localization of destination vehicles is important for determining the route to deliver messages. Existing location administration services in VANETs are classified as flooding-based, flat-based, and geographic-based location services. Existing localization techniques suffer from network disconnection and overloading because of 5G VANET topology changes. 5G VANETs have low delay and support time-sensitive applications. A traffic light-inspired location service (TLILS) is proposed to manage localization inspired by traffic lights. The proposed optimized localization service uses roadside units (RSUs) as location servers. RSUs with the maximum traffic weight metrics were chosen. Traffic weight metrics are based on speed of vehicles, connection time and density of neighboring vehicles. The proposed TLILS outperforms both Name-ID Hybrid Routing (NIHR) and Zoom-Out Geographic Location Service (ZGLS) for packet delivery ratio (PDR) and delay. TLILSs guarantee the highest PDR (0.96) and the shortest end-to-end delay (0.001 s) over NIHR and ZGLS.

Exploring Challenges to COVID-19 Vaccination in the Darfur Region of Sudan.

The current COVID-19 pandemic has affected the ability of health systems to provide essential services globally. The Darfur region, located in the western part of Sudan, has been largely devastated by the war that began in 2003 and has been drawing considerable attention from the international community. The war, which erupted as a result of environmental, political, and economic factors, has led to tragic outcomes. Collapsing health-care infrastructures, health workforce shortages, lack of storage facilities for medicines and medical products, and inadequate access to health services are some of the effects of the war. After Sudan received the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine through the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access facility, significant challenges have been implicated in the delivery, storage, and use of the vaccine in the Darfur region. Lack of vaccine storage and transportation facilities, vaccination hesitancy, inequity in the distribution to health facilities, and shortage of health-care professionals resulting from insecurity and instability have added an extra layer of burden on local authorities and their ability to manage COVID-19 vaccinations in the region adequately. Addressing the impact of COVID-19 requires an effectively managed vaccination program. In the face of current challenges in Darfur, ensuring a fully vaccinated population might remain far-fetched and improbable if meaningful efforts are not put in place by all stakeholders and actors to address some of the challenges identified.

Modelling of integrated scheduling problem of capacitated equipment systems with a multi-lane road network.

The coordination of different container-handling equipment is an important method for improving the overall efficiency of automated container terminals. In the real terminal, we should consider many real-life issues, such as the equipment capacity, the equipment collision, changing lanes in the multi-lane road, and choosing one of container-handling lanes for each container. This paper proposes the integrated scheduling problem of three container-handling equipment with the capacity constraint and the dual-cycle strategy, for simultaneously solving the equipment scheduling problem, the assignment problem of the container-handling lane and the conflict-free route planning problem of automated guided vehicles (AGVs). With the objective of minimizing the ship's berth time, we propose a mixed-integer programming model based on the space-time network representation method and two bilevel optimization algorithms based on conflict resolution rules. Finally, numerical experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model and two bilevel optimization algorithms.

Spatio-temporal evolution of urban thermal environment and its driving factors: Case study of Nanjing, China.

In recent years, with rapid urbanization, the underlying urban surface has changed dramatically. Various urban eco-environmental problems have emerged globally, among which the urban heat island effect has become one of the most obvious urban eco-environmental problems. In this study, Nanjing, China, was chosen as the study area. Based on Landsat 8 remote sensing image data collected in Nanjing from 2014 to 2018, land surface temperatures were retrieved, the spatiotemporal variation track and characteristics of the thermal environment pattern were systematically depicted, and the driving factors of these variations were revealed. The results show that over the past five years, the spatial pattern of the heat field in Nanjing changed from a scattered distribution in the periphery of the city to a centralized distribution in the centre of the city, and the heat island intensity increased annually. Changes in administrative divisions, changes in the layout of the transportation trunk lines, transfer of industrial centres, and ecological construction projects are important driving factors for the evolution of the land surface thermal environment patterns of these regions. These research results will provide scientific and technological support for similar cities with typical heat island effects elsewhere in the world to formulate urban development plan, and to improve the urban ecological environment.

Transportation container for pre-processing cytogenetic assays in radiation accidents.

We report a shipping container that enables a disruptive logistics for cytogenetic biodosimetry for radiation countermeasures through pre-processing cell culture during transportation. The container showed precise temperature control (< 0.01 °C) with uniform sample temperature (< 0.1 °C) to meet the biodosimetry assay requirements. Using an existing insulated shipping box and long shelf life alkaline batteries makes it ideal for national stockpile. Dose curve of cytogenetic biodosimetry assay using the shipping container showed clear dose response and high linear correlation with the control dose curve using a laboratory incubator (Pearson's correlation coefficient: 0.992). The container's ability of pre-processing biological samples during transportation could have a significant impact on radiation countermeasure, as well as potential impacts in other applications such as biobanking, novel molecular or cell-based assays or therapies.

Trens das linhas 4 e 5 de metrô recebem higienização para combate a vírus e bactérias

Saiba mais em www.viamobilidade.com.br

Transporte Coletivo: entenda a fase emergencial do Plano SP

Saiba mais em www.saopaulo.sp.gov.br/coronavirus/planosp

Taxis e Motoristas de APP: entenda a fase emergencial do Plano SP

Saiba mais em www.saopaulo.sp.gov.br/coronavirus/planosp

Rodoviárias: entenda a fase emergencial do Plano SP

Saiba mais em www.saopaulo.sp.gov.br/coronavirus/planosp

Home Care Aide Safety Concerns and Job Challenges During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Home care aides are on the frontlines providing care to vulnerable individuals in their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic yet are often excluded from policies to protect health care workers. The goal of this study was to examine experiences of agency-employed home care aides during the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify ways to mitigate concerns. We used an innovative journaling approach with thirty-seven aides as well as in-depth interviews with fifteen aides and leadership representatives from nine home health agencies in New York and Michigan. Workers described a range of concerns around workplace safety including uncertainty around whether a client had COVID-19, inadequate access to personal protective equipment and safe transportation, as well as fundamental changes to interactions with clients. Agencies also faced challenges acquiring personal protective equipment for their aides. This research points to needed resources to support home care aides and home health agencies both during a public health crisis and in the future.

A Scoping Review of Bikeability Assessment Methods.

Bicycling holds promise as a healthy and sustainable means of transportation and physical activity. Despite the growing interest in community-based environmental approaches to promoting physical activity, bikeability has received relatively little attention. This paper provides a scoping review of the instruments developed to measure bikeability along with practice-based analyses of the tools related to user expertise, estimated cost, and required time to implement. The review summarizes the literature, identifies research gaps, and informs stakeholders with articles from EBSCO and transportation databases published after 2003 when the previous bikeability instrument review paper was published. Data extraction included the tool name, data collection method, study location, data collection scale, type of measure, and description. Two reviewers independently reviewed articles included in the full text review, and the inter-rater agreement exceeded 90%. The database search yielded 388 unique articles, and 17 met the inclusion/exclusion criteria. Most of the studies, 11 of 17, were applied to settings outside of the U.S. Five studies employed a self-report survey, and five studies examined bikeability using geospatial data, like GIS. Seven studies used a direct observation audit tool-one specifically using a mobile app and another using virtual observation techniques with Google Street View. Bikeability tools are useful for assessing communities and their supports for bicycling. Our primary finding is that advances in technology over the past two decades have driven innovative and useful methodologies, in a variety of disciplines, for assessing the environment, but more consensus is needed to provide a universal definition of bikeability.

Ovarian tissue transportation: a systematic review.

In recent years, some countries and fertility preservation networks have started adopting 24 h transportation for ovarian tissue, a practice that has the potential to spread very quickly due to the high costs and bureaucracy involved in the establishment of ovarian tissue cryobanks. While pregnancies and live births have been reported after such long periods of transportation, this, however, remains an empirical procedure. This review aims to prompt reflection on ovarian tissue transport, highlighting the lack of knowledge in humans by providing a counterpoint looking into more than 40 studies published in different animal models. By discussing these studies in animals, the findings of various models can be deciphered, and light shed on the patterns identified. Like the development of different assisted reproductive technology procedures, this is an important step in creating guidelines for future studies on human ovarian tissue transportation.

Analysis of the lateral slope's impact on the calculation of water-filled rut depth.

Accurate calculation of the water-filled rut depth is critical for assessing hydroplaning potential. Nevertheless, due to the difficulty in collecting and calculating the water-filled rut depth, most transportation agencies do not use i, especially in the case of lateral slopes, although water-filled rut depth is a key parameter that impacts driving safety. Contributions of this paper are development of a methodology to reliably compute the water-filled rut depth and quantitatively evaluate the influence of lateral slope on the water-filled rut depth. The proposed method include: 1) acquisition of the high-resolution 3D point cloud data of rut, 2) smooth processing of rut profile through moving average method with Matlab programming, 3) water-filled rut depth computation at different lateral slopes with the assistance of key points based on rut sections. With the variation of water-filled rut depth (ΔWD), its change rate (δWD), and the calculation error between the rut depth and the water-filled rut depth (Δn) as evaluation indexes, the variation law of water-filled rut depth under different lateral slopes is analyzed when considering the severity level and rut shape of the rut profile. Results show that: 1) the increase in lateral slope leads to the reduction of water-filled rut depth; 2) the water-filled rut depth is affected by the rut shape, including rut side wall's slope and the key points' elevation. The accurate calculation of the water-filled rut depth can provide reliable suggestions for safe driving.

[Analysis of the implementation of a unified transportation system of the neonatal screening samples in Catalonia.] / Análisis de la implementación de un sistema de transporte unificado de las muestras de cribado neonatal en Cataluña.

The Neonatal Screening Program in Catalonia from its inception fifty years ago until today, has enabled the early diagnosis and treatment of more than 2,000 newborns. In the last decade, the Program has undergone various extensions regarding its panel of diseases and has improved its evaluation with the inclusion of quality indicators in all its stages. One of the pending subjects of the screening program has been the improvement of the quality indexes related to the sample's arrival time to the laboratory after their extraction. The extension of the territory, the dispersion of numerous maternal centers, as well as the diversity and heterogeneity of the sample transport systems, have been an obstacle to quality compliance of these indexes. With the aim of reducing the period of samples arrival to the laboratory and continue to move towards meeting the standards established by the Ministry of Health, in 2020 a unified sample transport system has been implemented for the entire Catalan territory. The times obtained during the first months with the new system, have shown a notable improvement in the results, achieving a reduction of 50% of the days between the extraction of the sample and its arrival at the laboratory.

El Programa de Cribado Neonatal (PCN) de Cataluña ha permitido el diagnóstico y tratamiento precoz de más de 2.000 recién nacidos desde su inicio hace cincuenta años hasta la actualidad. En la última década, el PCN ha experimentado diversas ampliaciones en cuanto a su panel de enfermedades y ha mejorado su evaluación con la inclusión de indicadores de calidad en todas sus etapas. Una de las asignaturas pendientes del programa de cribado ha sido la mejora de los indicadores relativos al tiempo de llegada de las muestras al laboratorio desde su extracción. La extensión territorial, la dispersión de los sesenta y seis centros maternales, así como la diversidad y heterogeneidad de los sistemas de transporte de muestras, han supuesto un obstáculo para el cumplimiento de la calidad de este indicador. Con el objetivo de reducir el período de llegada de las muestras al laboratorio y seguir avanzando en el cumplimiento de los estándares establecidos por el Ministerio de Sanidad, en 2020 se ha implementado un sistema de transporte de muestras unificado para todo el territorio catalán. Los tiempos obtenidos durante los primeros meses con el nuevo sistema muestran una mejora notable de los resultados, consiguiendo una reducción del 50% de los días transcurridos desde la extracción de la muestra hasta su llegada al laboratorio.

Logistics of an advanced therapy medicinal product during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: successful delivery of mesenchymal stromal cells in dry ice.

BACKGROUND: During the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, Italian hospitals faced the most daunting challenges of their recent history, and only essential therapeutic interventions were feasible. From March to April 2020, the Laboratory of Advanced Cellular Therapies (Vicenza, Italy) received requests to treat a patient with severe COVID-19 and a patient with acute graft-versus-host disease with umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (UC-MSCs). Access to clinics was restricted due to the risk of contagion. Transport of UC-MSCs in liquid nitrogen was unmanageable, leaving shipment in dry ice as the only option. METHODS: We assessed effects of the transition from liquid nitrogen to dry ice on cell viability; apoptosis; phenotype; proliferation; immunomodulation; and clonogenesis; and validated dry ice-based transport of UC-MSCs to clinics. RESULTS: Our results showed no differences in cell functionality related to the two storage conditions, and demonstrated the preservation of immunomodulatory and clonogenic potentials in dry ice. UC-MSCs were successfully delivered to points-of-care, enabling favourable clinical outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: This experience underscores the flexibility of a public cell factory in its adaptation of the logistics of an advanced therapy medicinal product during a public health crisis. Alternative supply chains should be evaluated for other cell products to guarantee delivery during catastrophes.

Two-way left turn lane or raised median? A truck safety based study.

INTRODUCTION: Due to their size and weight, trucks require more space and time to make left turns when exiting or entering a roadway. Therefore, appropriate median treatments are critical for roadways with substantial truck traffic. The two-way left-turn lane (TWLTL) and raised median (RM) are the two types of median most commonly used to improve roadway mobility and manage roadway accessibility. However, previous studies on these median treatments have focused primarily on the general traffic conditions and geometric roadway features without considering the truck traffic impact. METHOD: To fill this gap, this study investigates the truck impacts on TWLTL and RM by considering two major influencing factors - truck percentage and roadway access point density. First, a negative binomial regression is developed to analyze the relationship between crash frequency and various influencing factors. Next, the crash rate difference analysis between the TWLTL and RM is conducted to identify critical points for these two factors. RESULTS: The findings indicate that, compared with RM, TWLTL has significantly higher crash frequency, especially for roadways with a higher percentage of trucks. This suggests that the percentage of trucks should be taken into consideration when selecting an appropriate type of roadway median.