The media have a key role in communicating advances in medicine to the general public, yet the accuracy of medical journalism is an under-researched area. This project adapted an established monitoring instrument to analyse all identified news reports (n = 312) on a single medical research paper: a meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Cancer which showed a modest link between processed meat consumption and pancreatic cancer. Our most significant finding was that three sources (the journal press release, a story on the BBC News website and a story appearing on the ‘NHS Choices’ website) appeared to account for the content of over 85% of the news stories which covered the meta analysis, with many of them being verbatim or moderately edited copies and most not citing their source. The quality of these 3 primary sources varied from excellent (NHS Choices, 10 of 11 criteria addressed) to weak (journal press release, 5 of 11 criteria addressed), and this variance was reflected in the accuracy of stories derived from them. Some of the methods used in the original meta-analysis, and a proposed mechanistic explanation for the findings, were challenged in a subsequent commentary also published in the British Journal of Cancer, but this discourse was poorly reflected in the media coverage of the story.

Phenolic compounds such as vanillic and p ‐coumaric acids are pollutants of major concern in the agro‐industrial processing, thereby their effective detection in the industrial environment is essential to reduce exposure. Herein, we present the quenching effect of these compounds on the electrochemiluminescence (ECL) of the Ru(bpy) 3 2+ /TPrA (TPrA=tri‐ n ‐propylamine) system at a disposable screen‐printed carbon electrode. Transient ECL profiles are obtained from multiple video frames following 1.2 V application by a smartphone‐based ECL sensor. A wide range of detection was achieved using the sensor with limit of detection of 0.26 μ m and 0.68 μ m for vanillic and p ‐coumaric acids, respectively. The estimated quenching constants determined that the quenching efficiency of vanillic acid is at least two‐fold that of p ‐coumaric acid under the current detection conditions. The present ECL quenching approach provided an effective method to detect phenolic compounds using a low‐cost, portable smartphone‐based ECL sensor.

No abstract

Machine learning (ML) can be an appropriate approach to overcoming common problems associated with sensors for low-cost, point-of-care diagnostics, such as non-linearity, multidimensionality, sensor-to-sensor variations, presence of anomalies, and ambiguity in key features. This study proposes a novel approach based on ML algorithms (neural nets, Gaussian Process Regression, among others) to model the electrochemiluminescence (ECL) quenching mechanism of the [Ru(bpy)3]2+/TPrA system by phenolic compounds, thus allowing their detection and quantification. The relationships between the concentration of phenolic compounds and their effect on the ECL intensity and current data measured using a mobile phone-based ECL sensor is investigated. The ML regression tasks with a tri-layer neural net using minimally processed time series data showed better or comparable detection performance compared to the performance using extracted key features without extra preprocessing. Combined multimodal characteristics produced an 80% more enhanced performance with multilayer neural net algorithms than a single feature based-regression analysis. The results demonstrated that the ML could provide a robust analysis framework for sensor data with noises and variability. It demonstrates that ML strategies can play a crucial role in chemical or biosensor data analysis, providing a robust model by maximizing all the obtained information and integrating nonlinearity and sensor-to-sensor variations.

. Surface-active derivatives containing fluorenylidene groups were synthesized, with the goal of creating thin-film devices incorporating monolayers of electron-transporting materials. The new compounds were studied in monolayers at the air-water interface, and were further characterized by cyclic voltammetry. The spreading behaviour of long-chain esters of a fluorenylidene malononitrile carboxylic acid was relatively insensitive to the cross-sectional area of the hydrocarbon chain, but was more strongly affected by changes in the polarity of the hydrophilic groups. Conditions for Langmuir-Blodgett deposition of multilayers of two of the new compounds on titanium-coated polyester film were also explored.Key words: monolayers, Langmuir-Blodgett films, fluorene, surfactants. Chem. 67,2136Chem. 67, (1989. Dans le but de prkparer des systbmes de films minces incorporant des monocouches de substances pouvant transporter des Clectrons, on a synthCtisC des dCrivts tensio-actifs qui contiennent des groupements fluorenylidbnes. On a CtudiC les nouveaux composCs dans des monocouches h l'interface air-eau et on les a aussi caractCrisCs par voltamttrie cyclique. La propension B se rtpandre que posskdent les esters en longues chaines d'un acide fluorenylidbne malononitrile carboxylique ne varie pas beaucoup avec des variations de la surface de la section droite de la chaine hydrocarbonte; elle est toutefois plus affectCe par les changements dans la polarit6 des groupements hydrophiles. On a aussi explore les conditions d'effectuer une dCposition de Langmuir-Blodgett de multicouches de deux des nouveaux composCs sur un film de polyester recouvert de titane.