Ten simple rules to host an inclusive conference.

Conferences are spaces to meet and network within and across academic and technical fields, learn about new advances, and share our work. They can help define career paths and create long-lasting collaborations and opportunities. However, these opportunities are not equal for all. This article introduces 10 simple rules to host an inclusive conference based on the authors' recent experience organizing the 2021 edition of the useR! statistical computing conference, which attracted a broad range of participants from academia, industry, government, and the nonprofit sector. Coming from different backgrounds, career stages, and even continents, we embraced the challenge of organizing a high-quality virtual conference in the context of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and making it a kind, inclusive, and accessible experience for as many people as possible. The rules result from our lessons learned before, during, and after the organization of the conference. They have been written mainly for potential organizers and selection committees of conferences and contain multiple practical tips to help a variety of events become more accessible and inclusive. We see this as a starting point for conversations and efforts towards building more inclusive conferences across the world. * Translated versions of the English abstract and the list of rules are available in 10 languages in S1 Text: Arabic, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Tamil, and Thai.

Operations and outcomes of a Hospital-wide Emergency Airway Response Team (HEART) in a quaternary academic children's hospital.

BACKGROUND: To improve pediatric airway management outside of the operating room, a Hospital-wide Emergency Airway Response Team (HEART) program composed of anesthesiology, otorhinolaryngology, and respiratory therapy clinicians was developed. AIMS: To report processes and outcomes of HEART activations in a quaternary academic children's hospital. METHODS: A retrospective observational cohort study between January 2017 and December 2019. Local airway emergency database was reviewed for HEART activations. Additional safety data was obtained from patients' electronic health records. PRIMARY OUTCOME: Adverse airway outcomes, either adverse tracheal intubation-associated events or oxygen desaturation (SpO2 <80%). We compared airway management by primary teams before HEART arrival and by HEART after arrival. RESULTS: Of 96 HEART activations, 36 were from neonatal intensive care unit, 35 from pediatric and cardiac intensive care units, 14 from emergency department, and 11 from inpatient wards. 56 (62%) children had airway anomalies and 41/96 (43%) were invasively ventilated. Median HEART arrival time was 5 min (interquartile range, 3-5). 56/96 (58%) required insertion of an advanced airway (supra/extra-glottic airway, endotracheal tube, tracheostomy tube). HEART succeeded in establishing a definitive airway in 53/56 (94%). Adverse airway outcomes were more common before (56/96, 58%) versus after HEART arrival (28/96, 29%; absolute risk difference 29%; 95% confidence interval 16, 41%; p < .001). Oxygen desaturation occurred more frequently before (46/96, 48%) versus after HEART arrival (24/96, 25%; absolute risk difference 23%; 95% confidence interval 11, 35%; p = .02). Cardiac arrests were more common before (9/96, 9%) versus after HEART arrival (3/96, 3%). Multiple (≥3) intubation attempts were more frequent before (14/42, 33%) versus after HEART arrival (9/46, 20%; absolute risk difference -14%; 95% confidence interval -32, 5%; p = .15). CONCLUSIONS: A multidisciplinary emergency airway response team plays an important role in pediatric airway management outside of the operating room. Adverse airway outcomes were more frequent before compared to after HEART arrival.

Interdisciplinary ICU cardiac arrest debriefing improves survival outcomes*.

OBJECTIVE: In-hospital cardiac arrest is an important public health problem. High-quality resuscitation improves survival but is difficult to achieve. Our objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of a novel, interdisciplinary, postevent quantitative debriefing program to improve survival outcomes after in-hospital pediatric chest compression events. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS: Single-center prospective interventional study of children who received chest compressions between December 2008 and June 2012 in the ICU. INTERVENTIONS: Structured, quantitative, audiovisual, interdisciplinary debriefing of chest compression events with front-line providers. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Primary outcome was survival to hospital discharge. Secondary outcomes included survival of event (return of spontaneous circulation for ≥ 20 min) and favorable neurologic outcome. Primary resuscitation quality outcome was a composite variable, termed "excellent cardiopulmonary resuscitation," prospectively defined as a chest compression depth ≥ 38 mm, rate ≥ 100/min, ≤ 10% of chest compressions with leaning, and a chest compression fraction > 90% during a given 30-second epoch. Quantitative data were available only for patients who are 8 years old or older. There were 119 chest compression events (60 control and 59 interventional). The intervention was associated with a trend toward improved survival to hospital discharge on both univariate analysis (52% vs 33%, p = 0.054) and after controlling for confounders (adjusted odds ratio, 2.5; 95% CI, 0.91-6.8; p = 0.075), and it significantly increased survival with favorable neurologic outcome on both univariate (50% vs 29%, p = 0.036) and multivariable analyses (adjusted odds ratio, 2.75; 95% CI, 1.01-7.5; p = 0.047). Cardiopulmonary resuscitation epochs for patients who are 8 years old or older during the debriefing period were 5.6 times more likely to meet targets of excellent cardiopulmonary resuscitation (95% CI, 2.9-10.6; p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Implementation of an interdisciplinary, postevent quantitative debriefing program was significantly associated with improved cardiopulmonary resuscitation quality and survival with favorable neurologic outcome.

Protein products obtained by site-preferred partial crosslinking in protein crystals and "liberated" by redissolution.

The use of protein crystals as a source of nanoscale biotemplates has attracted growing interest in recent years owing to their inherent internal order. As these crystals are vulnerable to environmental changes, potential applications require their stabilization by chemical crosslinking. We have previously shown that such intermolecular chemical crosslinking reactions occurring within protein crystals are not random events, but start at preferred crosslinking sites imposed by the alignment of protein molecules and their packing within the crystalline lattice. Here we propose a new working hypothesis and demonstrate its feasibility in enabling us to extricate homogeneous populations of single protein molecules that display chemical point mutations or of dimers that show homogeneous chemical crosslinking, and that have the potential for isolation of higher structures. Characterization of the crosslinking mechanism and its end products opens the way to the potential retrieval of such specific modified/intermolecular crosslinked products simply by effecting partial crosslinking at identified preferred sites, followed by time-controlled arrest of the crosslinking reaction and dissolution of the crystals by medium exchange complemented by chromatographic purification.

The application of hierarchical cluster analysis to the selection of isomorphous crystals.

It is generally assumed that the quality of X-ray diffraction data can be improved by merging data sets from several crystals. However, this effect is only valid if the data sets used are from crystals that are structurally identical. It is found that frozen macromolecular crystals very often have relatively low structure identity (and are therefore not isomorphous); thus, to obtain a real gain from multi-crystal data sets one needs to make an appropriate selection of structurally similar crystals. The application of hierarchical cluster analysis, based on the matrix of the correlation coefficient between scaled intensities, is proposed for the identification of isomorphous data sets. Multi-crystal single-wavelength anomalous dispersion data sets from four different protein molecules have been probed to test the applicability of this method. The use of hierarchical cluster analysis permitted the selection of batches of data sets which when merged together significantly improved the crystallographic indicators of the merged data and allowed solution of the structure.