A multiple indicator solution approach to endogeneity in discrete-choice models for environmental valuation.

PubMed

Mariel, Petr; Hoyos, David; Artabe, Alaitz; Guevara, C Angelo

2018-08-15

Endogeneity is an often neglected issue in empirical applications of discrete choice modelling despite its severe consequences in terms of inconsistent parameter estimation and biased welfare measures. This article analyses the performance of the multiple indicator solution method to deal with endogeneity arising from omitted explanatory variables in discrete choice models for environmental valuation. We also propose and illustrate a factor analysis procedure for the selection of the indicators in practice. Additionally, the performance of this method is compared with the recently proposed hybrid choice modelling framework. In an empirical application we find that the multiple indicator solution method and the hybrid model approach provide similar results in terms of welfare estimates, although the multiple indicator solution method is more parsimonious and notably easier to implement. The empirical results open a path to explore the performance of this method when endogeneity is thought to have a different cause or under a different set of indicators. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Gene genealogies for genetic association mapping, with application to Crohn's disease

PubMed Central

Burkett, Kelly M.; Greenwood, Celia M. T.; McNeney, Brad; Graham, Jinko

2013-01-01

A gene genealogy describes relationships among haplotypes sampled from a population. Knowledge of the gene genealogy for a set of haplotypes is useful for estimation of population genetic parameters and it also has potential application in finding disease-predisposing genetic variants. As the true gene genealogy is unknown, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approaches have been used to sample genealogies conditional on data at multiple genetic markers. We previously implemented an MCMC algorithm to sample from an approximation to the distribution of the gene genealogy conditional on haplotype data. Our approach samples ancestral trees, recombination and mutation rates at a genomic focal point. In this work, we describe how our sampler can be used to find disease-predisposing genetic variants in samples of cases and controls. We use a tree-based association statistic that quantifies the degree to which case haplotypes are more closely related to each other around the focal point than control haplotypes, without relying on a disease model. As the ancestral tree is a latent variable, so is the tree-based association statistic. We show how the sampler can be used to estimate the posterior distribution of the latent test statistic and corresponding latent p-values, which together comprise a fuzzy p-value. We illustrate the approach on a publicly-available dataset from a study of Crohn's disease that consists of genotypes at multiple SNP markers in a small genomic region. We estimate the posterior distribution of the tree-based association statistic and the recombination rate at multiple focal points in the region. Reassuringly, the posterior mean recombination rates estimated at the different focal points are consistent with previously published estimates. The tree-based association approach finds multiple sub-regions where the case haplotypes are more genetically related than the control haplotypes, and that there may be one or multiple disease-predisposing loci. PMID:24348515

Multiple Myeloma and Glyphosate Use: A Re-Analysis of US Agricultural Health Study (AHS) Data

PubMed Central

Sorahan, Tom

2015-01-01

A previous publication of 57,311 pesticide applicators enrolled in the US Agricultural Health Study (AHS) produced disparate findings in relation to multiple myeloma risks in the period 1993–2001 and ever-use of glyphosate (32 cases of multiple myeloma in the full dataset of 54,315 applicators without adjustment for other variables: rate ratio (RR) 1.1, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.5 to 2.4; 22 cases of multiple myeloma in restricted dataset of 40,719 applicators with adjustment for other variables: RR 2.6, 95% CI 0.7 to 9.4). It seemed important to determine which result should be preferred. RRs for exposed and non-exposed subjects were calculated using Poisson regression; subjects with missing data were not excluded from the main analyses. Using the full dataset adjusted for age and gender the analysis produced a RR of 1.12 (95% CI 0.50 to 2.49) for ever-use of glyphosate. Additional adjustment for lifestyle factors and use of ten other pesticides had little effect (RR 1.24, 95% CI 0.52 to 2.94). There were no statistically significant trends for multiple myeloma risks in relation to reported cumulative days (or intensity weighted days) of glyphosate use. The doubling of risk reported previously arose from the use of an unrepresentative restricted dataset and analyses of the full dataset provides no convincing evidence in the AHS for a link between multiple myeloma risk and glyphosate use. PMID:25635915

Multiple myeloma and glyphosate use: a re-analysis of US Agricultural Health Study (AHS) data.

PubMed

Sorahan, Tom

2015-01-28

A previous publication of 57,311 pesticide applicators enrolled in the US Agricultural Health Study (AHS) produced disparate findings in relation to multiple myeloma risks in the period 1993-2001 and ever-use of glyphosate (32 cases of multiple myeloma in the full dataset of 54,315 applicators without adjustment for other variables: rate ratio (RR) 1.1, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.5 to 2.4; 22 cases of multiple myeloma in restricted dataset of 40,719 applicators with adjustment for other variables: RR 2.6, 95% CI 0.7 to 9.4). It seemed important to determine which result should be preferred. RRs for exposed and non-exposed subjects were calculated using Poisson regression; subjects with missing data were not excluded from the main analyses. Using the full dataset adjusted for age and gender the analysis produced a RR of 1.12 (95% CI 0.50 to 2.49) for ever-use of glyphosate. Additional adjustment for lifestyle factors and use of ten other pesticides had little effect (RR 1.24, 95% CI 0.52 to 2.94). There were no statistically significant trends for multiple myeloma risks in relation to reported cumulative days (or intensity weighted days) of glyphosate use. The doubling of risk reported previously arose from the use of an unrepresentative restricted dataset and analyses of the full dataset provides no convincing evidence in the AHS for a link between multiple myeloma risk and glyphosate use.

Multiple excitation nano-spot generation and confocal detection for far-field microscopy.

PubMed

Mondal, Partha Pratim

2010-03-01

An imaging technique is developed for the controlled generation of multiple excitation nano-spots for far-field microscopy. The system point spread function (PSF) is obtained by interfering two counter-propagating extended depth-of-focus PSF (DoF-PSF), resulting in highly localized multiple excitation spots along the optical axis. The technique permits (1) simultaneous excitation of multiple planes in the specimen; (2) control of the number of spots by confocal detection; and (3) overcoming the point-by-point based excitation. Fluorescence detection from the excitation spots can be efficiently achieved by Z-scanning the detector/pinhole assembly. The technique complements most of the bioimaging techniques and may find potential application in high resolution fluorescence microscopy and nanoscale imaging.

Multiple excitation nano-spot generation and confocal detection for far-field microscopy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mondal, Partha Pratim

2010-03-01

An imaging technique is developed for the controlled generation of multiple excitation nano-spots for far-field microscopy. The system point spread function (PSF) is obtained by interfering two counter-propagating extended depth-of-focus PSF (DoF-PSF), resulting in highly localized multiple excitation spots along the optical axis. The technique permits (1) simultaneous excitation of multiple planes in the specimen; (2) control of the number of spots by confocal detection; and (3) overcoming the point-by-point based excitation. Fluorescence detection from the excitation spots can be efficiently achieved by Z-scanning the detector/pinhole assembly. The technique complements most of the bioimaging techniques and may find potential application in high resolution fluorescence microscopy and nanoscale imaging.

Optimal growth trajectories with finite carrying capacity.

PubMed

Caravelli, F; Sindoni, L; Caccioli, F; Ududec, C

2016-08-01

We consider the problem of finding optimal strategies that maximize the average growth rate of multiplicative stochastic processes. For a geometric Brownian motion, the problem is solved through the so-called Kelly criterion, according to which the optimal growth rate is achieved by investing a constant given fraction of resources at any step of the dynamics. We generalize these finding to the case of dynamical equations with finite carrying capacity, which can find applications in biology, mathematical ecology, and finance. We formulate the problem in terms of a stochastic process with multiplicative noise and a nonlinear drift term that is determined by the specific functional form of carrying capacity. We solve the stochastic equation for two classes of carrying capacity functions (power laws and logarithmic), and in both cases we compute the optimal trajectories of the control parameter. We further test the validity of our analytical results using numerical simulations.

Optimal growth trajectories with finite carrying capacity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Caravelli, F.; Sindoni, L.; Caccioli, F.; Ududec, C.

2016-08-01

We consider the problem of finding optimal strategies that maximize the average growth rate of multiplicative stochastic processes. For a geometric Brownian motion, the problem is solved through the so-called Kelly criterion, according to which the optimal growth rate is achieved by investing a constant given fraction of resources at any step of the dynamics. We generalize these finding to the case of dynamical equations with finite carrying capacity, which can find applications in biology, mathematical ecology, and finance. We formulate the problem in terms of a stochastic process with multiplicative noise and a nonlinear drift term that is determined by the specific functional form of carrying capacity. We solve the stochastic equation for two classes of carrying capacity functions (power laws and logarithmic), and in both cases we compute the optimal trajectories of the control parameter. We further test the validity of our analytical results using numerical simulations.

The effect of podcast lectures on nursing students' knowledge retention and application.

PubMed

Abate, Karen S

2013-01-01

This pilot study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of academic podcasts in promoting knowledge retention and application in nursing students. Nursing education no longer simply occurs in a fixed location or time. Computer-enhanced mobile learning technologies, such as academic podcasts, must be grounded in pedagogically sound characteristics to ensure effective implementation and learning in nursing education. A convenience sample of 35 female undergraduate nursing students was randomized into three groups: a traditional face-to-face lecture group, an unsegmented (non-stop) podcast lecture group, and a segmented podcast lecture group. Retention and application of information were measured through a multiple-choice quiz and a case study based on lecture content. Students in the segmented podcast lecture group demonstrated higher scores on multiple-choice and case-study assessments than those in the other two groups. Nurse educators should be aware of this finding when seeking to employ podcast lectures in nursing education.

Cooperation evolution in random multiplicative environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yaari, G.; Solomon, S.

2010-02-01

Most real life systems have a random component: the multitude of endogenous and exogenous factors influencing them result in stochastic fluctuations of the parameters determining their dynamics. These empirical systems are in many cases subject to noise of multiplicative nature. The special properties of multiplicative noise as opposed to additive noise have been noticed for a long while. Even though apparently and formally the difference between free additive vs. multiplicative random walks consists in just a move from normal to log-normal distributions, in practice the implications are much more far reaching. While in an additive context the emergence and survival of cooperation requires special conditions (especially some level of reward, punishment, reciprocity), we find that in the multiplicative random context the emergence of cooperation is much more natural and effective. We study the various implications of this observation and its applications in various contexts.

A Dual-Intein Autoprocessing Domain that Directs Synchronized Protein Co-Expression in Both Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes

PubMed Central

Zhang, Bei; Rapolu, Madhusudhan; Liang, Zhibin; Han, Zhenlin; Williams, Philip G.; Su, Wei Wen

2015-01-01

Being able to coordinate co-expression of multiple proteins is necessary for a variety of important applications such as assembly of protein complexes, trait stacking, and metabolic engineering. Currently only few options are available for multiple recombinant protein co-expression, and most of them are not applicable to both prokaryotic and eukaryotic hosts. Here, we report a new polyprotein vector system that is based on a pair of self-excising mini-inteins fused in tandem, termed the dual-intein (DI) domain, to achieve synchronized co-expression of multiple proteins. The DI domain comprises an Ssp DnaE mini-intein N159A mutant and an Ssp DnaB mini-intein C1A mutant connected in tandem by a peptide linker to mediate efficient release of the flanking proteins via autocatalytic cleavage. Essentially complete release of constituent proteins, GFP and RFP (mCherry), from a polyprotein precursor, in bacterial, mammalian, and plant hosts was demonstrated. In addition, successful co-expression of GFP with chloramphenicol acetyltransferase, and thioredoxin with RFP, respectively, further substantiates the general applicability of the DI polyprotein system. Collectively, our results demonstrate the DI-based polyprotein technology as a highly valuable addition to the molecular toolbox for multi-protein co-expression which finds vast applications in biotechnology, biosciences, and biomedicine. PMID:25712612

The atypical excretion profile of meldonium: Comparison of urinary detection windows after single- and multiple-dose application in healthy volunteers.

PubMed

Görgens, Christian; Guddat, Sven; Bosse, Christina; Geyer, Hans; Pop, Valentin; Schänzer, Wilhelm; Thevis, Mario

2017-05-10

Following a one-year monitoring program providing unequivocal analytical evidence for a high prevalence in international elite sports, meldonium has been included in the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) list of prohibited substances that came into effect on 1 January 2016. Despite of the polar and hydrophilic nature of the molecule, an unusual long detection window was observed in pilot elimination studies. Consequently, in the present study, urinary excretion profiles after single-dose (5 volunteers, 1×500mg) and multiple-dose oral application (5 volunteers; 2×500mg/day for 6days) were determined in order to facilitate the result management concerning meldonium findings in doping controls. Particularly the option to differentiate between recent use and tapering concentrations was studied. Urinary meldonium concentrations were determined using an analytical approach based on hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography and high resolution tandem mass spectrometry. The study corroborates the hypothesis of a non-linear, dose-depended and biphasic excretion profile after oral application of meldonium and demonstrates that urinary detection windows are of considerable extent with up to 65 and 117days (concentrations>LOQ of 10ng/mL) following single- and multiple-dose applications, respectively. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Information Literacy in Employability Training: The Experience of Inverclyde Libraries

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crawford, John; Irving, Christine

2012-01-01

The study is an evaluation of an employability training programme provided by Inverclyde Libraries in West Central Scotland and the role of information literacy within the training programme. Inverclyde is an area with high unemployment and pockets of multiple deprivation. Modern, applicable skills are also lacking. The findings are based on…

The Tablet for Second Language Vocabulary Learning: Keyboard, Stylus or Multiple Choice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van Hove, Stephanie; Vanderhoven, Ellen; Cornillie, Frederik

2017-01-01

Mobile technologies are increasingly finding their way into classroom practice. While these technologies can create opportunities that may facilitate learning, including the learning of a second or foreign language (L2), the full potential of these new media often remains underexploited. A case in point concerns tablet applications for language…

Energizing the nursing lecture: Application of the Theory of Multiple Intelligence Learning.

PubMed

Amerson, Roxanne

2006-01-01

Nurse educators struggle to find ways to create learning opportunities that are interactive and appeal to the needs of various students. The key to energizing the nursing lecture is to create an environment that encourages students to be active participants. It is essential to use creativity to design cognitive strategies that appeal to students' learning preferences. This article discusses the methods one educator has used to implement the Theory of Multiple Intelligence Learning in the classroom. Specific cognitive strategies that address the learning preferences of each intelligence are discussed.

Metabolic Imaging in Multiple Time Scales

PubMed Central

Ramanujan, V Krishnan

2013-01-01

We report here a novel combination of time-resolved imaging methods for probing mitochondrial metabolism multiple time scales at the level of single cells. By exploiting a mitochondrial membrane potential reporter fluorescence we demonstrate the single cell metabolic dynamics in time scales ranging from milliseconds to seconds to minutes in response to glucose metabolism and mitochondrial perturbations in real time. Our results show that in comparison with normal human mammary epithelial cells, the breast cancer cells display significant alterations in metabolic responses at all measured time scales by single cell kinetics, fluorescence recovery after photobleaching and by scaling analysis of time-series data obtained from mitochondrial fluorescence fluctuations. Furthermore scaling analysis of time-series data in living cells with distinct mitochondrial dysfunction also revealed significant metabolic differences thereby suggesting the broader applicability (e.g. in mitochondrial myopathies and other metabolic disorders) of the proposed strategies beyond the scope of cancer metabolism. We discuss the scope of these findings in the context of developing portable, real-time metabolic measurement systems that can find applications in preclinical and clinical diagnostics. PMID:24013043

Multiple-predators-based capture process on complex networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramiz Sharafat, Rajput; Pu, Cunlai; Li, Jie; Chen, Rongbin; Xu, Zhongqi

2017-03-01

The predator/prey (capture) problem is a prototype of many network-related applications. We study the capture process on complex networks by considering multiple predators from multiple sources. In our model, some lions start from multiple sources simultaneously to capture the lamb by biased random walks, which are controlled with a free parameter $\\alpha$. We derive the distribution of the lamb's lifetime and the expected lifetime $\\left\\langle T\\right\\rangle $. Through simulation, we find that the expected lifetime drops substantially with the increasing number of lions. We also study how the underlying topological structure affects the capture process, and obtain that locating on small-degree nodes is better than large-degree nodes to prolong the lifetime of the lamb. Moreover, dense or homogeneous network structures are against the survival of the lamb.

Formation of multiple focal spots using a high NA lens with a complex spiral phase mask

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lalithambigai, K.; Anbarasan, P. M.; Rajesh, K. B.

2014-07-01

The formation of a transversally polarized beam by transmitting a tightly focused double-ring-shaped azimuthally polarized beam through a complex spiral phase mask and high numerical aperture lens is presented based on vector diffraction theory. The generation of transversally polarized focal spot segment splitting and multiple focal spots is illustrated numerically. Moreover, we found that a properly designed complex spiral phase mask can move the focal spots along the optical axis in the z direction. Therefore, one can achieve a focal segment of two, three or multiple completely transversely polarized focal spots, which finds applications in optical trapping and in material processing technologies.

Heading in the right direction: thermodynamics-based network analysis and pathway engineering.

PubMed

Ataman, Meric; Hatzimanikatis, Vassily

2015-12-01

Thermodynamics-based network analysis through the introduction of thermodynamic constraints in metabolic models allows a deeper analysis of metabolism and guides pathway engineering. The number and the areas of applications of thermodynamics-based network analysis methods have been increasing in the last ten years. We review recent applications of these methods and we identify the areas that such analysis can contribute significantly, and the needs for future developments. We find that organisms with multiple compartments and extremophiles present challenges for modeling and thermodynamics-based flux analysis. The evolution of current and new methods must also address the issues of the multiple alternatives in flux directionalities and the uncertainties and partial information from analytical methods. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Application of model predictive control for optimal operation of wind turbines

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yuan, Yuan; Cao, Pei; Tang, J.

2017-04-01

For large-scale wind turbines, reducing maintenance cost is a major challenge. Model predictive control (MPC) is a promising approach to deal with multiple conflicting objectives using the weighed sum approach. In this research, model predictive control method is applied to wind turbine to find an optimal balance between multiple objectives, such as the energy capture, loads on turbine components, and the pitch actuator usage. The actuator constraints are integrated into the objective function at the control design stage. The analysis is carried out in both the partial load region and full load region, and the performances are compared with those of a baseline gain scheduling PID controller. The application of this strategy achieves enhanced balance of component loads, the average power and actuator usages in partial load region.

Deep space network resource scheduling approach and application

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eggemeyer, William C.; Bowling, Alan

1987-01-01

Deep Space Network (DSN) resource scheduling is the process of distributing ground-based facilities to track multiple spacecraft. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has carried out extensive research to find ways of automating this process in an effort to reduce time and manpower costs. This paper presents a resource-scheduling system entitled PLAN-IT with a description of its design philosophy. The PLAN-IT's current on-line usage and limitations in scheduling the resources of the DSN are discussed, along with potential enhancements for DSN application.

Activity Enhancement Based on the Chemical Equilibrium of Multiple-Subunit Nitrile Hydratase from Bordetella petrii.

PubMed

Liu, Yi; Liu, Ping; Lin, Lu; Zhao, Yueqin; Zhong, Wenjuan; Wu, Lunjie; Zhou, Zhemin; Sun, Weifeng

2016-09-01

The maturation mechanism of nitrile hydratase (NHase) of Pseudomonas putida NRRL-18668 was discovered and named as "self-subunit swapping." Since the NHase of Bordetella petrii DSM 12804 is similar to that of P. putida, the NHase maturation of B. petrii is proposed to be the same as that of P. putida. However, there is no further information on the application of NHase according to these findings. We successfully rapidly purified NHase and its activator through affinity his tag, and found that the cell extracts of NHase possessed multiple types of protein ingredients including α, β, α2β2, and α(P14K)2 who were in a state of chemical equilibrium. Furthermore, the activity was significantly enhanced through adding extra α(P14K)2 to the cell extracts of NHase according to the chemical equilibrium. Our findings are useful for the activity enhancement of multiple-subunit enzyme and for the first time significantly increased the NHase activity according to the chemical equilibrium.

The development of a biomimetic acoustic direction finding system for use on multiple platforms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Deligeorges, Socrates; Anderson, David; Browning, Cassandra A.; Cohen, Howard; Freedman, David; Gore, Tyler; Karl, Christian; Kelsall, Sarah; Mountain, David; Nourzad, Marianne; Pu, Yirong; Sandifer, Matt; Xue, Shuwan; Ziph-Schatzberg, Leah; Hubbard, Allyn

2008-04-01

This paper describes the flow of scientific and technological achievements beginning with a stationary "small, smart, biomimetic acoustic processor" designed for DARPA that led to a program aimed at acoustic characterization and direction finding for multiple, mobile platforms. ARL support and collaboration has allowed us to adapt the core technology to multiple platforms including a Packbot robotic platform, a soldier worn platform, as well as a vehicle platform. Each of these has varying size and power requirements, but miniaturization is an important component of the program for creating practical systems which we address further in companion papers. We have configured the system to detect and localize gunfire and tested system performance with live fire from numerous weapons such as the AK47, the Dragunov, and the AR15. The ARL-sponsored work has led to connections with Natick Labs and the Future Force Warrior program, and in addition, the work has many and obvious applications to homeland defense, police, and civilian needs.

Experimental characterization of quantum correlated triple beams generated by cascaded four-wave mixing processes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qin, Zhongzhong; Cao, Leiming; Jing, Jietai

2015-05-01

Quantum correlations and entanglement shared among multiple modes are fundamental ingredients of most continuous-variable quantum technologies. Recently, a method used to generate multiple quantum correlated beams using cascaded four-wave mixing (FWM) processes was theoretically proposed and experimentally realized by our group [Z. Qin et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 023602 (2014)]. Our study of triple-beam quantum correlation paves the way to showing the tripartite entanglement in our system. Our system also promises to find applications in quantum information and precision measurement such as the controlled quantum communications, the generation of multiple quantum correlated images, and the realization of a multiport nonlinear interferometer. For its applications, the degree of quantum correlation is a crucial figure of merit. In this letter, we experimentally study how various parameters, such as the cell temperatures, one-photon, and two-photon detunings, influence the degree of quantum correlation between the triple beams generated from the cascaded two-FWM configuration.

Experimental characterization of quantum correlated triple beams generated by cascaded four-wave mixing processes

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Qin, Zhongzhong; Cao, Leiming; Jing, Jietai, E-mail: jtjing@phy.ecnu.edu.cn

2015-05-25

Quantum correlations and entanglement shared among multiple modes are fundamental ingredients of most continuous-variable quantum technologies. Recently, a method used to generate multiple quantum correlated beams using cascaded four-wave mixing (FWM) processes was theoretically proposed and experimentally realized by our group [Z. Qin et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 023602 (2014)]. Our study of triple-beam quantum correlation paves the way to showing the tripartite entanglement in our system. Our system also promises to find applications in quantum information and precision measurement such as the controlled quantum communications, the generation of multiple quantum correlated images, and the realization of a multiportmore » nonlinear interferometer. For its applications, the degree of quantum correlation is a crucial figure of merit. In this letter, we experimentally study how various parameters, such as the cell temperatures, one-photon, and two-photon detunings, influence the degree of quantum correlation between the triple beams generated from the cascaded two-FWM configuration.« less

Ultrasound-driven Megahertz Faraday Waves for Generation of Monodisperse Micro Droplets and Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsai, Chen S.; Mao, Rong W.; Lin, Shih K.; Tsai, Shirley C.; Boss, Gerry; Brenner, Matt; Smaldone, Gerry; Mahon, Sari; Shahverdi, Kaveh; Zhu, Yun

Our theoretical findings on instability of Faraday waves at megahertz (MHz) drive frequency and realization of silicon-based MHz multiple-Fourier horn ultrasonic nozzles (MFHUNs) together have enabled generation of mono-disperse droplets of controllable diameter (2.5-6.0 μm) at very low electrical drive power (<0.5 Watt). The resulting battery-run clogging-free droplet generator has imminent application to pulmonary (inhalation) drug delivery and other potential applications. Here an update of advances on analysis and design of the MHz MFHUNs and the underlying physical mechanism for generation of mono-disperse micro droplets, and the nebulizer platform for application to detoxification of cyanide poisoning are presented.

Real-time tracking and fast retrieval of persons in multiple surveillance cameras of a shopping mall

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bouma, Henri; Baan, Jan; Landsmeer, Sander; Kruszynski, Chris; van Antwerpen, Gert; Dijk, Judith

2013-05-01

The capability to track individuals in CCTV cameras is important for e.g. surveillance applications at large areas such as train stations, airports and shopping centers. However, it is laborious to track and trace people over multiple cameras. In this paper, we present a system for real-time tracking and fast interactive retrieval of persons in video streams from multiple static surveillance cameras. This system is demonstrated in a shopping mall, where the cameras are positioned without overlapping fields-of-view and have different lighting conditions. The results show that the system allows an operator to find the origin or destination of a person more efficiently. The misses are reduced with 37%, which is a significant improvement.

[Posttraumatic retroperitoneal hematoma in injured persons with severe closed multiple and combined abdominal trauma].

PubMed

Rylov, A I; Kravets, N S

2001-01-01

The experience of treatment of 69 injured persons with posttraumatic retroperitoneal hematoma suffering severe multiple combined abdominal trauma was analyzed. Application of the classification proposed permits to formulate diagnosis and to choose the tactic of treatment correctly. The intraoperative tactics algorithm was elaborated. It promotes the correct analysis of intraoperative findings and reduction of the diagnostic mistakes frequency as well. In the presence of vast defect, making impossible to suture over the parietal peritoneum, extraperitonization using cerebral dura mater was done. Operative intervention was concluded by drainage with subsequent laserotherapy.

Rationales and treatment approaches underpinning the use of acupuncture and related techniques for plantar heel pain: a critical interpretive synthesis.

PubMed

Clark, Maria T; Clark, Richard J; Toohey, Shane; Bradbury-Jones, Caroline

2017-03-01

Acupuncture shows promise as a treatment for plantar heel pain (PHP) or plantar fasciitis (PF), but data heterogeneity has undermined demonstration of efficacy. Recognising that acupuncture is a diverse field of practice, the aim of this study was to gain a broader, global perspective on the different approaches and rationales used in the application of acupuncture in PHP. We built upon an earlier systematic review (which was limited by the necessity of a methodological focus on efficacy) using the critical interpretive synthesis (CIS) method to draw upon a wider international sample of 25 clinical sources, including case reports and case series. Multiple tracks of analysis led to an emergent synthesis. Findings are presented at three levels: primary (summarised data); secondary (patterns observed); and tertiary (emergent synthesis). Multiple treatments and rationales were documented but no single approach dominated. Notable contradictions emerged such as the application of moxibustion by some authors and ice by others. Synthesis of findings revealed a 'patchwork' of factors influencing the approaches taken. The complexity of the field of acupuncture was illustrated through the 'lens' of PHP. The 'patchwork' metaphor provides a unifying framework for a previously divergent community of practice and research. Several directions for future research were identified, such as: importance of prior duration; existence of diagnostic subgroups; and how practitioners make clinical decisions and report their findings. CIS was found to provide visibility for multiple viewpoints in developing theory and modelling the processes of 'real world' practice by acupuncturists addressing the problem of PHP. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

A New High-Resolution Direction Finding Architecture Using Photonics and Neural Network Signal Processing for Miniature Air Vehicle Applications

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-09-01

3 4. Probability of Intercept .................................................................3 5. Superresolution ...intercept. This alignment gives the shortest mean-time-to-intercept and can be less than one second. 4 5. Superresolution For single signals...at each antenna element. For multiple signals, superresolution DF techniques are often used. These techniques can be broken down into beamforming

Integrating DICOM structure reporting (SR) into the medical imaging informatics data grid

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Jasper; Le, Anh; Liu, Brent

2008-03-01

The Medical Imaging Informatics (MI2) Data Grid developed at the USC Image Processing and Informatics Laboratory enables medical images to be shared securely between multiple imaging centers. Current applications include an imaging-based clinical trial setting where multiple field sites perform image acquisition and a centralized radiology core performs image analysis, often using computer-aided diagnosis tools (CAD) that generate a DICOM-SR to report their findings and measurements. As more and more CAD tools are being developed in the radiology field, the generated DICOM Structure Reports (SR) holding key radiological findings and measurements that are not part of the DICOM image need to be integrated into the existing Medical Imaging Informatics Data Grid with the corresponding imaging studies. We will discuss the significance and method involved in adapting DICOM-SR into the Medical Imaging Informatics Data Grid. The result is a MI2 Data Grid repository from which users can send and receive DICOM-SR objects based on the imaging-based clinical trial application. The services required to extract and categorize information from the structured reports will be discussed, and the workflow to store and retrieve a DICOM-SR file into the existing MI2 Data Grid will be shown.

Modeling and simulation of evacuation behavior using fuzzy logic in a goal finding application

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sharma, Sharad; Ogunlana, Kola; Sree, Swetha

2016-05-01

Modeling and simulation has been widely used as a training and educational tool for depicting different evacuation strategies and damage control decisions during evacuation. However, there are few simulation environments that can include human behavior with low to high levels of fidelity. It is well known that crowd stampede induced by panic leads to fatalities as people are crushed or trampled. Our proposed goal finding application can be used to model situations that are difficult to test in real-life due to safety considerations. It is able to include agent characteristics and behaviors. Findings of this model are very encouraging as agents are able to assume various roles to utilize fuzzy logic on the way to reaching their goals. Fuzzy logic is used to model stress, panic and the uncertainty of emotions. The fuzzy rules link these parts together while feeding into behavioral rules. The contributions of this paper lies in our approach of utilizing fuzzy logic to show learning and adaptive behavior of agents in a goal finding application. The proposed application will aid in running multiple evacuation drills for what-if scenarios by incorporating human behavioral characteristics that can scale from a room to building. Our results show that the inclusion of fuzzy attributes made the evacuation time of the agents closer to the real time drills.

Quantifying and modeling long-range cross correlations in multiple time series with applications to world stock indices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Duan; Podobnik, Boris; Horvatić, Davor; Stanley, H. Eugene

2011-04-01

We propose a modified time lag random matrix theory in order to study time-lag cross correlations in multiple time series. We apply the method to 48 world indices, one for each of 48 different countries. We find long-range power-law cross correlations in the absolute values of returns that quantify risk, and find that they decay much more slowly than cross correlations between the returns. The magnitude of the cross correlations constitutes “bad news” for international investment managers who may believe that risk is reduced by diversifying across countries. We find that when a market shock is transmitted around the world, the risk decays very slowly. We explain these time-lag cross correlations by introducing a global factor model (GFM) in which all index returns fluctuate in response to a single global factor. For each pair of individual time series of returns, the cross correlations between returns (or magnitudes) can be modeled with the autocorrelations of the global factor returns (or magnitudes). We estimate the global factor using principal component analysis, which minimizes the variance of the residuals after removing the global trend. Using random matrix theory, a significant fraction of the world index cross correlations can be explained by the global factor, which supports the utility of the GFM. We demonstrate applications of the GFM in forecasting risks at the world level, and in finding uncorrelated individual indices. We find ten indices that are practically uncorrelated with the global factor and with the remainder of the world indices, which is relevant information for world managers in reducing their portfolio risk. Finally, we argue that this general method can be applied to a wide range of phenomena in which time series are measured, ranging from seismology and physiology to atmospheric geophysics.

Quantifying and modeling long-range cross correlations in multiple time series with applications to world stock indices.

PubMed

Wang, Duan; Podobnik, Boris; Horvatić, Davor; Stanley, H Eugene

2011-04-01

We propose a modified time lag random matrix theory in order to study time-lag cross correlations in multiple time series. We apply the method to 48 world indices, one for each of 48 different countries. We find long-range power-law cross correlations in the absolute values of returns that quantify risk, and find that they decay much more slowly than cross correlations between the returns. The magnitude of the cross correlations constitutes "bad news" for international investment managers who may believe that risk is reduced by diversifying across countries. We find that when a market shock is transmitted around the world, the risk decays very slowly. We explain these time-lag cross correlations by introducing a global factor model (GFM) in which all index returns fluctuate in response to a single global factor. For each pair of individual time series of returns, the cross correlations between returns (or magnitudes) can be modeled with the autocorrelations of the global factor returns (or magnitudes). We estimate the global factor using principal component analysis, which minimizes the variance of the residuals after removing the global trend. Using random matrix theory, a significant fraction of the world index cross correlations can be explained by the global factor, which supports the utility of the GFM. We demonstrate applications of the GFM in forecasting risks at the world level, and in finding uncorrelated individual indices. We find ten indices that are practically uncorrelated with the global factor and with the remainder of the world indices, which is relevant information for world managers in reducing their portfolio risk. Finally, we argue that this general method can be applied to a wide range of phenomena in which time series are measured, ranging from seismology and physiology to atmospheric geophysics.

Application of machine learning on brain cancer multiclass classification

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Panca, V.; Rustam, Z.

2017-07-01

Classification of brain cancer is a problem of multiclass classification. One approach to solve this problem is by first transforming it into several binary problems. The microarray gene expression dataset has the two main characteristics of medical data: extremely many features (genes) and only a few number of samples. The application of machine learning on microarray gene expression dataset mainly consists of two steps: feature selection and classification. In this paper, the features are selected using a method based on support vector machine recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE) principle which is improved to solve multiclass classification, called multiple multiclass SVM-RFE. Instead of using only the selected features on a single classifier, this method combines the result of multiple classifiers. The features are divided into subsets and SVM-RFE is used on each subset. Then, the selected features on each subset are put on separate classifiers. This method enhances the feature selection ability of each single SVM-RFE. Twin support vector machine (TWSVM) is used as the method of the classifier to reduce computational complexity. While ordinary SVM finds single optimum hyperplane, the main objective Twin SVM is to find two non-parallel optimum hyperplanes. The experiment on the brain cancer microarray gene expression dataset shows this method could classify 71,4% of the overall test data correctly, using 100 and 1000 genes selected from multiple multiclass SVM-RFE feature selection method. Furthermore, the per class results show that this method could classify data of normal and MD class with 100% accuracy.

Locating multiple diffusion sources in time varying networks from sparse observations.

PubMed

Hu, Zhao-Long; Shen, Zhesi; Cao, Shinan; Podobnik, Boris; Yang, Huijie; Wang, Wen-Xu; Lai, Ying-Cheng

2018-02-08

Data based source localization in complex networks has a broad range of applications. Despite recent progress, locating multiple diffusion sources in time varying networks remains to be an outstanding problem. Bridging structural observability and sparse signal reconstruction theories, we develop a general framework to locate diffusion sources in time varying networks based solely on sparse data from a small set of messenger nodes. A general finding is that large degree nodes produce more valuable information than small degree nodes, a result that contrasts that for static networks. Choosing large degree nodes as the messengers, we find that sparse observations from a few such nodes are often sufficient for any number of diffusion sources to be located for a variety of model and empirical networks. Counterintuitively, sources in more rapidly varying networks can be identified more readily with fewer required messenger nodes.

Benford’s Law: Textbook Exercises and Multiple-Choice Testbanks

PubMed Central

Slepkov, Aaron D.; Ironside, Kevin B.; DiBattista, David

2015-01-01

Benford’s Law describes the finding that the distribution of leading (or leftmost) digits of innumerable datasets follows a well-defined logarithmic trend, rather than an intuitive uniformity. In practice this means that the most common leading digit is 1, with an expected frequency of 30.1%, and the least common is 9, with an expected frequency of 4.6%. Currently, the most common application of Benford’s Law is in detecting number invention and tampering such as found in accounting-, tax-, and voter-fraud. We demonstrate that answers to end-of-chapter exercises in physics and chemistry textbooks conform to Benford’s Law. Subsequently, we investigate whether this fact can be used to gain advantage over random guessing in multiple-choice tests, and find that while testbank answers in introductory physics closely conform to Benford’s Law, the testbank is nonetheless secure against such a Benford’s attack for banal reasons. PMID:25689468

Benford's Law: textbook exercises and multiple-choice testbanks.

PubMed

Slepkov, Aaron D; Ironside, Kevin B; DiBattista, David

2015-01-01

Benford's Law describes the finding that the distribution of leading (or leftmost) digits of innumerable datasets follows a well-defined logarithmic trend, rather than an intuitive uniformity. In practice this means that the most common leading digit is 1, with an expected frequency of 30.1%, and the least common is 9, with an expected frequency of 4.6%. Currently, the most common application of Benford's Law is in detecting number invention and tampering such as found in accounting-, tax-, and voter-fraud. We demonstrate that answers to end-of-chapter exercises in physics and chemistry textbooks conform to Benford's Law. Subsequently, we investigate whether this fact can be used to gain advantage over random guessing in multiple-choice tests, and find that while testbank answers in introductory physics closely conform to Benford's Law, the testbank is nonetheless secure against such a Benford's attack for banal reasons.

Turning challenges into design principles: Telemonitoring systems for patients with multiple chronic conditions.

PubMed

Sultan, Mehwish; Kuluski, Kerry; McIsaac, Warren J; Cafazzo, Joseph A; Seto, Emily

2018-01-01

People with multiple chronic conditions often struggle with managing their health. The purpose of this research was to identify specific challenges of patients with multiple chronic conditions and to use the findings to form design principles for a telemonitoring system tailored for these patients. Semi-structured interviews with 15 patients with multiple chronic conditions and 10 clinicians were conducted to gain an understanding of their needs and preferences for a smartphone-based telemonitoring system. The interviews were analyzed using a conventional content analysis technique, resulting in six themes. Design principles developed from the themes included that the system must be modular to accommodate various combinations of conditions, reinforce a routine, consolidate record keeping, as well as provide actionable feedback to the patients. Designing an application for multiple chronic conditions is complex due to variability in patient conditions, and therefore, design principles developed in this study can help with future innovations aimed to help manage this population.

Storage and retrieval of vector beams of light in a multiple-degree-of-freedom quantum memory.

PubMed

Parigi, Valentina; D'Ambrosio, Vincenzo; Arnold, Christophe; Marrucci, Lorenzo; Sciarrino, Fabio; Laurat, Julien

2015-07-13

The full structuration of light in the transverse plane, including intensity, phase and polarization, holds the promise of unprecedented capabilities for applications in classical optics as well as in quantum optics and information sciences. Harnessing special topologies can lead to enhanced focusing, data multiplexing or advanced sensing and metrology. Here we experimentally demonstrate the storage of such spatio-polarization-patterned beams into an optical memory. A set of vectorial vortex modes is generated via liquid crystal cell with topological charge in the optic axis distribution, and preservation of the phase and polarization singularities is demonstrated after retrieval, at the single-photon level. The realized multiple-degree-of-freedom memory can find applications in classical data processing but also in quantum network scenarios where structured states have been shown to provide promising attributes, such as rotational invariance.

Storage and retrieval of vector beams of light in a multiple-degree-of-freedom quantum memory

PubMed Central

Parigi, Valentina; D'Ambrosio, Vincenzo; Arnold, Christophe; Marrucci, Lorenzo; Sciarrino, Fabio; Laurat, Julien

2015-01-01

The full structuration of light in the transverse plane, including intensity, phase and polarization, holds the promise of unprecedented capabilities for applications in classical optics as well as in quantum optics and information sciences. Harnessing special topologies can lead to enhanced focusing, data multiplexing or advanced sensing and metrology. Here we experimentally demonstrate the storage of such spatio-polarization-patterned beams into an optical memory. A set of vectorial vortex modes is generated via liquid crystal cell with topological charge in the optic axis distribution, and preservation of the phase and polarization singularities is demonstrated after retrieval, at the single-photon level. The realized multiple-degree-of-freedom memory can find applications in classical data processing but also in quantum network scenarios where structured states have been shown to provide promising attributes, such as rotational invariance. PMID:26166257

Multilateral Telecoordinated Control of Multiple Robots With Uncertain Kinematics.

PubMed

Zhai, Di-Hua; Xia, Yuanqing

2017-06-06

This paper addresses the telecoordinated control of multiple robots in the simultaneous presence of asymmetric time-varying delays, nonpassive external forces, and uncertain kinematics/dynamics. To achieve the control objective, a neuroadaptive controller with utilizing prescribed performance control and switching control technique is developed, where the basic idea is to employ the concept of motion synchronization in each pair of master-slave robots and among all slave robots. By using the multiple Lyapunov-Krasovskii functionals method, the state-independent input-to-output practical stability of the closed-loop system is established. Compared with the previous approaches, the new design is straightforward and easier to implement and is applicable to a wider area. Simulation results on three pairs of three degrees-of-freedom robots confirm the theoretical findings.

Manuscript Architect: a Web application for scientific writing in virtual interdisciplinary groups

PubMed Central

Pietrobon, Ricardo; Nielsen, Karen C; Steele, Susan M; Menezes, Andreia P; Martins, Henrique; Jacobs, Danny O

2005-01-01

Background Although scientific writing plays a central role in the communication of clinical research findings and consumes a significant amount of time from clinical researchers, few Web applications have been designed to systematically improve the writing process. This application had as its main objective the separation of the multiple tasks associated with scientific writing into smaller components. It was also aimed at providing a mechanism where sections of the manuscript (text blocks) could be assigned to different specialists. Manuscript Architect was built using Java language in conjunction with the classic lifecycle development method. The interface was designed for simplicity and economy of movements. Manuscripts are divided into multiple text blocks that can be assigned to different co-authors by the first author. Each text block contains notes to guide co-authors regarding the central focus of each text block, previous examples, and an additional field for translation when the initial text is written in a language different from the one used by the target journal. Usability was evaluated using formal usability tests and field observations. Results The application presented excellent usability and integration with the regular writing habits of experienced researchers. Workshops were developed to train novice researchers, presenting an accelerated learning curve. The application has been used in over 20 different scientific articles and grant proposals. Conclusion The current version of Manuscript Architect has proven to be very useful in the writing of multiple scientific texts, suggesting that virtual writing by interdisciplinary groups is an effective manner of scientific writing when interdisciplinary work is required. PMID:15960855

Efficacy of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) in the Treatment of Schizophrenia: A Review of the Literature to Date.

PubMed

Cole, Jonathan C; Green Bernacki, Carolyn; Helmer, Amanda; Pinninti, Narsimha; O'reardon, John P

2015-01-01

We reviewed the literature on transcranial magnetic stimulation and its uses and efficacy in schizophrenia. Multiple sources were examined on transcranial magnetic stimulation efficacy in relieving positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Literature review was conducted via Ovid Medline and PubMed databases. We found multiple published studies and metaanalyses that give evidence that repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation can have benefit in relieving positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia, particularly auditory hallucinations. These findings should encourage the psychiatric community to expand research into other applications for which transcranial magnetic stimulation may be used to treat patients with psychiatric disability.

A Parallel Independent Component Analysis Approach to Investigate Genomic Influence on Brain Function

PubMed Central

Liu, Jingyu; Demirci, Oguz; Calhoun, Vince D.

2009-01-01

Relationships between genomic data and functional brain images are of great interest but require new analysis approaches to integrate the high-dimensional data types. This letter presents an extension of a technique called parallel independent component analysis (paraICA), which enables the joint analysis of multiple modalities including interconnections between them. We extend our earlier work by allowing for multiple interconnections and by providing important overfitting controls. Performance was assessed by simulations under different conditions, and indicated reliable results can be extracted by properly balancing overfitting and underfitting. An application to functional magnetic resonance images and single nucleotide polymorphism array produced interesting findings. PMID:19834575

A Parallel Independent Component Analysis Approach to Investigate Genomic Influence on Brain Function.

PubMed

Liu, Jingyu; Demirci, Oguz; Calhoun, Vince D

2008-01-01

Relationships between genomic data and functional brain images are of great interest but require new analysis approaches to integrate the high-dimensional data types. This letter presents an extension of a technique called parallel independent component analysis (paraICA), which enables the joint analysis of multiple modalities including interconnections between them. We extend our earlier work by allowing for multiple interconnections and by providing important overfitting controls. Performance was assessed by simulations under different conditions, and indicated reliable results can be extracted by properly balancing overfitting and underfitting. An application to functional magnetic resonance images and single nucleotide polymorphism array produced interesting findings.

HoloHands: games console interface for controlling holographic optical manipulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McDonald, C.; McPherson, M.; McDougall, C.; McGloin, D.

2013-03-01

The increasing number of applications for holographic manipulation techniques has sparked the development of more accessible control interfaces. Here, we describe a holographic optical tweezers experiment which is controlled by gestures that are detected by a Microsoft Kinect. We demonstrate that this technique can be used to calibrate the tweezers using the Stokes drag method and compare this to automated calibrations. We also show that multiple particle manipulation can be handled. This is a promising new line of research for gesture-based control which could find applications in a wide variety of experimental situations.

[Development and Application of Metabonomics in Forensic Toxicology].

PubMed

Yan, Hui; Shen, Min

2015-06-01

Metabonomics is an important branch of system biology following the development of genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics. It can perform high-throughput detection and data processing with multiple parameters, potentially enabling the identification and quantification of all small metabolites in a biological system. It can be used to provide comprehensive information on the toxicity effects, toxicological mechanisms and biomarkers, sensitively finding the unusual metabolic changes caused by poison. This article mainly reviews application of metabonomics in toxicological studies of abused drugs, pesticides, poisonous plants and poisonous animals, and also illustrates the new direction of forensic toxicology research.

Graphene-based aptamer logic gates and their application to multiplex detection.

PubMed

Wang, Li; Zhu, Jinbo; Han, Lei; Jin, Lihua; Zhu, Chengzhou; Wang, Erkang; Dong, Shaojun

2012-08-28

In this work, a GO/aptamer system was constructed to create multiplex logic operations and enable sensing of multiplex targets. 6-Carboxyfluorescein (FAM)-labeled adenosine triphosphate binding aptamer (ABA) and FAM-labeled thrombin binding aptamer (TBA) were first adsorbed onto graphene oxide (GO) to form a GO/aptamer complex, leading to the quenching of the fluorescence of FAM. We demonstrated that the unique GO/aptamer interaction and the specific aptamer-target recognition in the target/GO/aptamer system were programmable and could be utilized to regulate the fluorescence of FAM via OR and INHIBIT logic gates. The fluorescence changed according to different input combinations, and the integration of OR and INHIBIT logic gates provided an interesting approach for logic sensing applications where multiple target molecules were present. High-throughput fluorescence imagings that enabled the simultaneous processing of many samples by using the combinatorial logic gates were realized. The developed logic gates may find applications in further development of DNA circuits and advanced sensors for the identification of multiple targets in complex chemical environments.

Estimating False Discovery Proportion Under Arbitrary Covariance Dependence*

PubMed Central

Fan, Jianqing; Han, Xu; Gu, Weijie

2012-01-01

Multiple hypothesis testing is a fundamental problem in high dimensional inference, with wide applications in many scientific fields. In genome-wide association studies, tens of thousands of tests are performed simultaneously to find if any SNPs are associated with some traits and those tests are correlated. When test statistics are correlated, false discovery control becomes very challenging under arbitrary dependence. In the current paper, we propose a novel method based on principal factor approximation, which successfully subtracts the common dependence and weakens significantly the correlation structure, to deal with an arbitrary dependence structure. We derive an approximate expression for false discovery proportion (FDP) in large scale multiple testing when a common threshold is used and provide a consistent estimate of realized FDP. This result has important applications in controlling FDR and FDP. Our estimate of realized FDP compares favorably with Efron (2007)’s approach, as demonstrated in the simulated examples. Our approach is further illustrated by some real data applications. We also propose a dependence-adjusted procedure, which is more powerful than the fixed threshold procedure. PMID:24729644

Fatal fentanyl intoxication following excessive transdermal application.

PubMed

Edinboro, L E; Poklis, A; Trautman, D; Lowry, S; Backer, R; Harvey, C M

1997-07-01

The case history and toxicological findings of a fatal fentanyl intoxication due to the application of multiple transdermal patches are presented. An 83 year-old white female with terminal cancer was found dead with three 100 mg/h fentanyl patches on her chest. The autopsy and subsequent histological studies revealed extensive areas of gastric carcinoma, a large atrial tumor, ulceration of esophagus, metastasis of peripancreatic lymph nodes and a recent surgical removal of part of the lower lobe of the left lung. Toxicological analysis by GC/MS yielded fentanyl concentrations of blood, 25 ng/mL; brain, 54 ng/g; heart 94 ng/g; kidney 69 ng/g; and liver 104 ng/g. The cause of death was determined to be fentanyl overdose and the manner of death was ruled undetermined as the investigation was unable to conclusively establish whether this was an accidental overdose, a suicide, an assisted suicide, or possible a homicide. This case demonstrates the need for caution in self-administration of transdermal fentanyl patches, in particular, the dangers inherent in the application of multiple patches which can result in the release of potentially toxic or lethal doses.

Modulating optical rectification, second and third harmonic generation of doped quantum dots: Interplay between hydrostatic pressure, temperature and noise

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ganguly, Jayanta; Saha, Surajit; Bera, Aindrila; Ghosh, Manas

2016-10-01

We examine the profiles of optical rectification (OR), second harmonic generation (SHG) and third harmonic generation (THG) of impurity doped QDs under the combined influence of hydrostatic pressure (HP) and temperature (T) in presence and absence of Gaussian white noise. Noise has been incorporated to the system additively and multiplicatively. In order to study the above nonlinear optical (NLO) properties the doped dot has been subjected to a polarized monochromatic electromagnetic field. Effect of application of noise is nicely reflected through alteration of peak shift (blue/red) and variation of peak height (increase/decrease) of above NLO properties as temperature and pressure are varied. All such changes again sensitively depends on mode of application (additive/multiplicative) of noise. The remarkable influence of interplay between noise strength and its mode of application on the said profiles has also been addressed. The findings illuminate fascinating role played by noise in tuning above NLO properties of doped QD system under the active presence of both hydrostatic pressure and temperature.

Single Versus Multiple Events Error Potential Detection in a BCI-Controlled Car Game With Continuous and Discrete Feedback.

PubMed

Kreilinger, Alex; Hiebel, Hannah; Müller-Putz, Gernot R

2016-03-01

This work aimed to find and evaluate a new method for detecting errors in continuous brain-computer interface (BCI) applications. Instead of classifying errors on a single-trial basis, the new method was based on multiple events (MEs) analysis to increase the accuracy of error detection. In a BCI-driven car game, based on motor imagery (MI), discrete events were triggered whenever subjects collided with coins and/or barriers. Coins counted as correct events, whereas barriers were errors. This new method, termed ME method, combined and averaged the classification results of single events (SEs) and determined the correctness of MI trials, which consisted of event sequences instead of SEs. The benefit of this method was evaluated in an offline simulation. In an online experiment, the new method was used to detect erroneous MI trials. Such MI trials were discarded and could be repeated by the users. We found that, even with low SE error potential (ErrP) detection rates, feasible accuracies can be achieved when combining MEs to distinguish erroneous from correct MI trials. Online, all subjects reached higher scores with error detection than without, at the cost of longer times needed for completing the game. Findings suggest that ErrP detection may become a reliable tool for monitoring continuous states in BCI applications when combining MEs. This paper demonstrates a novel technique for detecting errors in online continuous BCI applications, which yields promising results even with low single-trial detection rates.

Comprehensive mitigation framework for concurrent application of multiple clinical practice guidelines.

PubMed

Wilk, Szymon; Michalowski, Martin; Michalowski, Wojtek; Rosu, Daniela; Carrier, Marc; Kezadri-Hamiaz, Mounira

2017-02-01

In this work we propose a comprehensive framework based on first-order logic (FOL) for mitigating (identifying and addressing) interactions between multiple clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) applied to a multi-morbid patient while also considering patient preferences related to the prescribed treatment. With this framework we respond to two fundamental challenges associated with clinical decision support: (1) concurrent application of multiple CPGs and (2) incorporation of patient preferences into the decision making process. We significantly expand our earlier research by (1) proposing a revised and improved mitigation-oriented representation of CPGs and secondary medical knowledge for addressing adverse interactions and incorporating patient preferences and (2) introducing a new mitigation algorithm. Specifically, actionable graphs representing CPGs allow for parallel and temporal activities (decisions and actions). Revision operators representing secondary medical knowledge support temporal interactions and complex revisions across multiple actionable graphs. The mitigation algorithm uses the actionable graphs, revision operators and available (and possibly incomplete) patient information represented in FOL. It relies on a depth-first search strategy to find a valid sequence of revisions and uses theorem proving and model finding techniques to identify applicable revision operators and to establish a management scenario for a given patient if one exists. The management scenario defines a safe (interaction-free) and preferred set of activities together with possible patient states. We illustrate the use of our framework with a clinical case study describing two patients who suffer from chronic kidney disease, hypertension, and atrial fibrillation, and who are managed according to CPGs for these diseases. While in this paper we are primarily concerned with the methodological aspects of mitigation, we also briefly discuss a high-level proof of concept implementation of the proposed framework in the form of a clinical decision support system (CDSS). The proposed mitigation CDSS "insulates" clinicians from the complexities of the FOL representations and provides semantically meaningful summaries of mitigation results. Ultimately we plan to implement the mitigation CDSS within our MET (Mobile Emergency Triage) decision support environment. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Heritability Across the Distribution: An Application of Quantile Regression

PubMed Central

Petrill, Stephen A.; Hart, Sara A.; Schatschneider, Christopher; Thompson, Lee A.; Deater-Deckard, Kirby; DeThorne, Laura S.; Bartlett, Christopher

2016-01-01

We introduce a new method for analyzing twin data called quantile regression. Through the application presented here, quantile regression is able to assess the genetic and environmental etiology of any skill or ability, at multiple points in the distribution of that skill or ability. This method is compared to the Cherny et al. (Behav Genet 22:153–162, 1992) method in an application to four different reading-related outcomes in 304 pairs of first-grade same sex twins enrolled in the Western Reserve Reading Project. Findings across the two methods were similar; both indicated some variation across the distribution of the genetic and shared environmental influences on non-word reading. However, quantile regression provides more details about the location and size of the measured effect. Applications of the technique are discussed. PMID:21877231

A global approach to kinematic path planning to robots with holonomic and nonholonomic constraints

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Divelbiss, Adam; Seereeram, Sanjeev; Wen, John T.

1993-01-01

Robots in applications may be subject to holonomic or nonholonomic constraints. Examples of holonomic constraints include a manipulator constrained through the contact with the environment, e.g., inserting a part, turning a crank, etc., and multiple manipulators constrained through a common payload. Examples of nonholonomic constraints include no-slip constraints on mobile robot wheels, local normal rotation constraints for soft finger and rolling contacts in grasping, and conservation of angular momentum of in-orbit space robots. The above examples all involve equality constraints; in applications, there are usually additional inequality constraints such as robot joint limits, self collision and environment collision avoidance constraints, steering angle constraints in mobile robots, etc. The problem of finding a kinematically feasible path that satisfies a given set of holonomic and nonholonomic constraints, of both equality and inequality types is addressed. The path planning problem is first posed as a finite time nonlinear control problem. This problem is subsequently transformed to a static root finding problem in an augmented space which can then be iteratively solved. The algorithm has shown promising results in planning feasible paths for redundant arms satisfying Cartesian path following and goal endpoint specifications, and mobile vehicles with multiple trailers. In contrast to local approaches, this algorithm is less prone to problems such as singularities and local minima.

Overview: The Design, Adoption, and Analysis of a Visual Document Mining Tool for Investigative Journalists.

PubMed

Brehmer, Matthew; Ingram, Stephen; Stray, Jonathan; Munzner, Tamara

2014-12-01

For an investigative journalist, a large collection of documents obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request or a leak is both a blessing and a curse: such material may contain multiple newsworthy stories, but it can be difficult and time consuming to find relevant documents. Standard text search is useful, but even if the search target is known it may not be possible to formulate an effective query. In addition, summarization is an important non-search task. We present Overview, an application for the systematic analysis of large document collections based on document clustering, visualization, and tagging. This work contributes to the small set of design studies which evaluate a visualization system "in the wild", and we report on six case studies where Overview was voluntarily used by self-initiated journalists to produce published stories. We find that the frequently-used language of "exploring" a document collection is both too vague and too narrow to capture how journalists actually used our application. Our iterative process, including multiple rounds of deployment and observations of real world usage, led to a much more specific characterization of tasks. We analyze and justify the visual encoding and interaction techniques used in Overview's design with respect to our final task abstractions, and propose generalizable lessons for visualization design methodology.

Spatio-Temporal Pattern Mining on Trajectory Data Using Arm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khoshahval, S.; Farnaghi, M.; Taleai, M.

2017-09-01

Preliminary mobile was considered to be a device to make human connections easier. But today the consumption of this device has been evolved to a platform for gaming, web surfing and GPS-enabled application capabilities. Embedding GPS in handheld devices, altered them to significant trajectory data gathering facilities. Raw GPS trajectory data is a series of points which contains hidden information. For revealing hidden information in traces, trajectory data analysis is needed. One of the most beneficial concealed information in trajectory data is user activity patterns. In each pattern, there are multiple stops and moves which identifies users visited places and tasks. This paper proposes an approach to discover user daily activity patterns from GPS trajectories using association rules. Finding user patterns needs extraction of user's visited places from stops and moves of GPS trajectories. In order to locate stops and moves, we have implemented a place recognition algorithm. After extraction of visited points an advanced association rule mining algorithm, called Apriori was used to extract user activity patterns. This study outlined that there are useful patterns in each trajectory that can be emerged from raw GPS data using association rule mining techniques in order to find out about multiple users' behaviour in a system and can be utilized in various location-based applications.

Methods of reconstruction of multi-particle events in the new coordinate-tracking setup

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vorobyev, V. S.; Shutenko, V. V.; Zadeba, E. A.

2018-01-01

At the Unique Scientific Facility NEVOD (MEPhI), a large coordinate-tracking detector based on drift chambers for investigations of muon bundles generated by ultrahigh energy primary cosmic rays is being developed. One of the main characteristics of the bundle is muon multiplicity. Three methods of reconstruction of multiple events were investigated: the sequential search method, method of finding the straight line and method of histograms. The last method determines the number of tracks with the same zenith angle in the event. It is most suitable for the determination of muon multiplicity: because of a large distance to the point of generation of muons, their trajectories are quasiparallel. The paper presents results of application of three reconstruction methods to data from the experiment, and also first results of the detector operation.

Dietitians’ Perspectives on Interventions to Enhance Adherence to Dietary Advice for Chronic Diseases in Adults

PubMed Central

DESROCHES, SOPHIE; LAPOINTE, ANNIE; DESCHÊNES, SARAH-MAUDE; BISSONNETTE-MAHEUX, VÉRONIQUE; GRAVEL, KARINE; THIRSK, JAYNE; LÉGARÉ, FRANCE

2016-01-01

Purpose To assess dietitians’ perspectives on the importance and applicability of interventions to enhance adherence to dietary advice for preventing and managing chronic diseases in adults in the Canadian context. Methods Based on a Cochrane systematic review, we identified 8 promising interventions for enhancing adherence to dietary advice: behavioural contracts, exchange lists, feedback based on self-monitoring, individualized menu suggestions, multiple interventions, portion size awareness, telephone follow-up, and videos. Thirty-two dietitians then completed a 3-round Delphi study by responding to an electronic questionnaire asking them to rate the importance and applicability in their practice of the 8 interventions on a 7-point Likert scale. Results Using a ≥75% level of agreement, 4 interventions showed strong consensus: multiple interventions, feedback based on self-monitoring, portion size awareness, and videos. Among these, the most significant were (means ± SD for importance and applicability, respectively) feedback based on self-monitoring (6.97 ± 0.18 and 6.72 ± 0.46), portion size awareness (6.69 ± 0.54 and 6.75 ± 0.51), and multiple interventions (6.94 ± 0.25 and 6.81 ± 0.40). Conclusions These findings can guide the development of educational training sessions for dietitians to help them provide practice-relevant interventions that will increase the likelihood that patients adhere to their advice regarding prevention and management of chronic diseases. PMID:26280789

Application of MSCTA combined with VRT in the operation of cervical dumbbell tumors

PubMed Central

Wang, Wan; Lin, Jia; Knosp, Engelbert; Zhao, Yuanzheng; Xiu, Dianhui; Guo, Yongchuan

2015-01-01

Cervical dumbbell tumor poses great difficulties for neurosurgical treatment and incurs remarkable local recurrence rate as the formidable problem for neurosurgery. However, as the routine preoperative evaluation scheme, MRI and CT failed to reveal the mutual three-dimensional relationships between tumor and adjacent structures. Here, we report the clinical application of MSCTA and VRT in three-dimensional reconstruction of cervical dumbbell tumors. From January 2012 to July 2014, 24 patients diagnosed with cervical dumbbell tumor were retrospectively analyzed. All patients enrolled were indicated for preoperative MSCTA/VRT image reconstruction to explore the three-dimensional stereoscopic anatomical relationships among neuroma, spinal cord and vertebral artery to achieve optimal surgical approach from multiple configurations and surgical practice. Three-dimensional mutual anatomical relationships among tumor, adjacent vessels and vertebrae were vividly reconstructed by MSCTA/VRT in all patients in accordance with intraoperative findings. Multiple configurations for optimal surgical approach contribute to total resection of tumor, minimal damage to vessels and nerves, and maximal maintenance of cervical spine stability. Preoperative MSCTA/VRT contributes to reconstruction of three-dimensional stereoscopic anatomical relationships between cervical dumbbell tumor and adjacent structures for optimal surgical approach by multiple configurations and reduction of intraoperative damages and postoperative complications. PMID:26550385

Application of MSCTA combined with VRT in the operation of cervical dumbbell tumors.

PubMed

Wang, Wan; Lin, Jia; Knosp, Engelbert; Zhao, Yuanzheng; Xiu, Dianhui; Guo, Yongchuan

2015-01-01

Cervical dumbbell tumor poses great difficulties for neurosurgical treatment and incurs remarkable local recurrence rate as the formidable problem for neurosurgery. However, as the routine preoperative evaluation scheme, MRI and CT failed to reveal the mutual three-dimensional relationships between tumor and adjacent structures. Here, we report the clinical application of MSCTA and VRT in three-dimensional reconstruction of cervical dumbbell tumors. From January 2012 to July 2014, 24 patients diagnosed with cervical dumbbell tumor were retrospectively analyzed. All patients enrolled were indicated for preoperative MSCTA/VRT image reconstruction to explore the three-dimensional stereoscopic anatomical relationships among neuroma, spinal cord and vertebral artery to achieve optimal surgical approach from multiple configurations and surgical practice. Three-dimensional mutual anatomical relationships among tumor, adjacent vessels and vertebrae were vividly reconstructed by MSCTA/VRT in all patients in accordance with intraoperative findings. Multiple configurations for optimal surgical approach contribute to total resection of tumor, minimal damage to vessels and nerves, and maximal maintenance of cervical spine stability. Preoperative MSCTA/VRT contributes to reconstruction of three-dimensional stereoscopic anatomical relationships between cervical dumbbell tumor and adjacent structures for optimal surgical approach by multiple configurations and reduction of intraoperative damages and postoperative complications.

Robust phase retrieval of complex-valued object in phase modulation by hybrid Wirtinger flow method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wei, Zhun; Chen, Wen; Yin, Tiantian; Chen, Xudong

2017-09-01

This paper presents a robust iterative algorithm, known as hybrid Wirtinger flow (HWF), for phase retrieval (PR) of complex objects from noisy diffraction intensities. Numerical simulations indicate that the HWF method consistently outperforms conventional PR methods in terms of both accuracy and convergence rate in multiple phase modulations. The proposed algorithm is also more robust to low oversampling ratios, loose constraints, and noisy environments. Furthermore, compared with traditional Wirtinger flow, sample complexity is largely reduced. It is expected that the proposed HWF method will find applications in the rapidly growing coherent diffractive imaging field for high-quality image reconstruction with multiple modulations, as well as other disciplines where PR is needed.

Multiple mobility edges in a 1D Aubry chain with Hubbard interaction in presence of electric field: Controlled electron transport

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saha, Srilekha; Maiti, Santanu K.; Karmakar, S. N.

2016-09-01

Electronic behavior of a 1D Aubry chain with Hubbard interaction is critically analyzed in presence of electric field. Multiple energy bands are generated as a result of Hubbard correlation and Aubry potential, and, within these bands localized states are developed under the application of electric field. Within a tight-binding framework we compute electronic transmission probability and average density of states using Green's function approach where the interaction parameter is treated under Hartree-Fock mean field scheme. From our analysis we find that selective transmission can be obtained by tuning injecting electron energy, and thus, the present model can be utilized as a controlled switching device.

Gratitude and Adolescents’ Subjective Well-Being in School: The Multiple Mediating Roles of Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction at School

PubMed Central

Tian, Lili; Pi, Luyang; Huebner, E. S.; Du, Minmin

2016-01-01

Based on the relation between gratitude and general subjective well-being (SWB), and Basic Psychological Needs Theory (Ryan and Deci, 2000), the present study’s aim was to use structural equation modeling to test the multiple mediational roles of the satisfaction of three basic psychological needs at school in accounting for the association between gratitude and SWB in school (school satisfaction, school affect) in adolescents. A total of 881 Chinese adolescents (427 males; Mean age = 12.97) completed a multi-measure questionnaire that tapped the targeted variables. Findings revealed that gratitude related significantly, positively to adolescents’ SWB in school. Moreover, a multiple-mediators analysis suggested that relatedness and competence needs satisfaction at school mediated the relation between gratitude and SWB in school. Lastly, a multiple-mediators analysis also indicated that autonomy needs satisfaction mediated the relation between relatedness and competence needs and SWB in school. Limitations and practical applications of the study were discussed. PMID:27708601

Gratitude and Adolescents' Subjective Well-Being in School: The Multiple Mediating Roles of Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction at School.

PubMed

Tian, Lili; Pi, Luyang; Huebner, E S; Du, Minmin

2016-01-01

Based on the relation between gratitude and general subjective well-being (SWB), and Basic Psychological Needs Theory (Ryan and Deci, 2000), the present study's aim was to use structural equation modeling to test the multiple mediational roles of the satisfaction of three basic psychological needs at school in accounting for the association between gratitude and SWB in school (school satisfaction, school affect) in adolescents. A total of 881 Chinese adolescents (427 males; Mean age = 12.97) completed a multi-measure questionnaire that tapped the targeted variables. Findings revealed that gratitude related significantly, positively to adolescents' SWB in school. Moreover, a multiple-mediators analysis suggested that relatedness and competence needs satisfaction at school mediated the relation between gratitude and SWB in school. Lastly, a multiple-mediators analysis also indicated that autonomy needs satisfaction mediated the relation between relatedness and competence needs and SWB in school. Limitations and practical applications of the study were discussed.

Multiphase flow microfluidics for the production of single or multiple emulsions for drug delivery.

PubMed

Zhao, Chun-Xia

2013-11-01

Considerable effort has been directed towards developing novel drug delivery systems. Microfluidics, capable of generating monodisperse single and multiple emulsion droplets, executing precise control and operations on these droplets, is a powerful tool for fabricating complex systems (microparticles, microcapsules, microgels) with uniform size, narrow size distribution and desired properties, which have great potential in drug delivery applications. This review presents an overview of the state-of-the-art multiphase flow microfluidics for the production of single emulsions or multiple emulsions for drug delivery. The review starts with a brief introduction of the approaches for making single and multiple emulsions, followed by presentation of some potential drug delivery systems (microparticles, microcapsules and microgels) fabricated in microfluidic devices using single or multiple emulsions as templates. The design principles, manufacturing processes and properties of these drug delivery systems are also discussed and compared. Furthermore, drug encapsulation and drug release (including passive and active controlled release) are provided and compared highlighting some key findings and insights. Finally, site-targeting delivery using multiphase flow microfluidics is also briefly introduced. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Analytic study of a rolling sphere on a rough surface

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Florea, Olivia A.; Rosca, Ileana C.

2016-11-01

In this paper it is realized an analytic study of the rolling's sphere on a rough horizontal plane under the action of its own gravity. The necessities of integration of the system of dynamical equations of motion lead us to find a reference system where the motion equations should be transformed into simpler expressions and which, in the presence of some significant hypothesis to permit the application of some original methods of analytical integration. In technical applications, the bodies may have a free rolling motion or a motion constrained by geometrical relations in assemblies of parts and machine parts. This study involves a lot of investigations in the field of tribology and of applied dynamics accompanied by experiments. Multiple recordings of several trajectories of the sphere, as well as their treatment of images, also followed by statistical processing experimental data allowed highlighting a very good agreement between the theoretical findings and experimental results.

Mission Analysis for Multiple Rendezvous of Near-Earth Asteroids Using Earth Gravity Assist

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-03-01

devices. Finding solutions with this approach leads to a quicker timeline for possible missions since one does not have to wait for the propulsion...in this research. The discussion focuses on their approach to the problem and the applicability to this research. The headings are the titles of... approach the problem utilizing conventional impulsive thrust propulsion systems and utilize data presented from the JPL website for locating the

Multiple-Quantum Transitions and Charge-Induced Decoherence of Donor Nuclear Spins in Silicon

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Franke, David P.; Pflüger, Moritz P. D.; Itoh, Kohei M.; Brandt, Martin S.

2017-06-01

We study single- and multiquantum transitions of the nuclear spins of an ensemble of ionized arsenic donors in silicon and find quadrupolar effects on the coherence times, which we link to fluctuating electrical field gradients present after the application of light and bias voltage pulses. To determine the coherence times of superpositions of all orders in the 4-dimensional Hilbert space, we use a phase-cycling technique and find that, when electrical effects were allowed to decay, these times scale as expected for a fieldlike decoherence mechanism such as the interaction with surrounding Si 29 nuclear spins.

An Algorithm Based Wavelet Entropy for Shadowing Effect of Human Detection Using Ultra-Wideband Bio-Radar

PubMed Central

Liu, Miao; Zhang, Yang; Liang, Fulai; Qi, Fugui; Lv, Hao; Wang, Jianqi; Zhang, Yang

2017-01-01

Ultra-wide band (UWB) radar for short-range human target detection is widely used to find and locate survivors in some rescue missions after a disaster. The results of the application of bistatic UWB radar for detecting multi-stationary human targets have shown that human targets close to the radar antennas are very often visible, while those farther from radar antennas are detected with less reliability. In this paper, on account of the significant difference of frequency content between the echo signal of the human target and that of noise in the shadowing region, an algorithm based on wavelet entropy is proposed to detect multiple targets. Our findings indicate that the entropy value of human targets was much lower than that of noise. Compared with the method of adaptive filtering and the energy spectrum, wavelet entropy can accurately detect the person farther from the radar antennas, and it can be employed as a useful tool in detecting multiple targets by bistatic UWB radar. PMID:28973988

An Algorithm Based Wavelet Entropy for Shadowing Effect of Human Detection Using Ultra-Wideband Bio-Radar.

PubMed

Xue, Huijun; Liu, Miao; Zhang, Yang; Liang, Fulai; Qi, Fugui; Chen, Fuming; Lv, Hao; Wang, Jianqi; Zhang, Yang

2017-09-30

Ultra-wide band (UWB) radar for short-range human target detection is widely used to find and locate survivors in some rescue missions after a disaster. The results of the application of bistatic UWB radar for detecting multi-stationary human targets have shown that human targets close to the radar antennas are very often visible, while those farther from radar antennas are detected with less reliability. In this paper, on account of the significant difference of frequency content between the echo signal of the human target and that of noise in the shadowing region, an algorithm based on wavelet entropy is proposed to detect multiple targets. Our findings indicate that the entropy value of human targets was much lower than that of noise. Compared with the method of adaptive filtering and the energy spectrum, wavelet entropy can accurately detect the person farther from the radar antennas, and it can be employed as a useful tool in detecting multiple targets by bistatic UWB radar.

Automatic multiple-sample applicator and electrophoresis apparatus

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Grunbaum, B. W. (Inventor)

1977-01-01

An apparatus for performing electrophoresis and a multiple-sample applicator is described. Electrophoresis is a physical process in which electrically charged molecules and colloidal particles, upon the application of a dc current, migrate along a gel or a membrane that is wetted with an electrolyte. A multiple-sample applicator is provided which coacts with a novel tank cover to permit an operator either to depress a single button, thus causing multiple samples to be deposited on the gel or on the membrane simultaneously, or to depress one or more sample applicators separately by means of a separate button for each applicator.

Translating Alcohol Research

PubMed Central

Batman, Angela M.; Miles, Michael F.

2015-01-01

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) and its sequelae impose a major burden on the public health of the United States, and adequate long-term control of this disorder has not been achieved. Molecular and behavioral basic science research findings are providing the groundwork for understanding the mechanisms underlying AUD and have identified multiple candidate targets for ongoing clinical trials. However, the translation of basic research or clinical findings into improved therapeutic approaches for AUD must become more efficient. Translational research is a multistage process of streamlining the movement of basic biomedical research findings into clinical research and then to the clinical target populations. This process demands efficient bidirectional communication across basic, applied, and clinical science as well as with clinical practitioners. Ongoing work suggests rapid progress is being made with an evolving translational framework within the alcohol research field. This is helped by multiple interdisciplinary collaborative research structures that have been developed to advance translational work on AUD. Moreover, the integration of systems biology approaches with collaborative clinical studies may yield novel insights for future translational success. Finally, appreciation of genetic variation in pharmacological or behavioral treatment responses and optimal communication from bench to bedside and back may strengthen the success of translational research applications to AUD. PMID:26259085

Translating Alcohol Research: Opportunities and Challenges.

PubMed

Batman, Angela M; Miles, Michael F

2015-01-01

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) and its sequelae impose a major burden on the public health of the United States, and adequate long-term control of this disorder has not been achieved. Molecular and behavioral basic science research findings are providing the groundwork for understanding the mechanisms underlying AUD and have identified multiple candidate targets for ongoing clinical trials. However, the translation of basic research or clinical findings into improved therapeutic approaches for AUD must become more efficient. Translational research is a multistage process of stream-lining the movement of basic biomedical research findings into clinical research and then to the clinical target populations. This process demands efficient bidirectional communication across basic, applied, and clinical science as well as with clinical practitioners. Ongoing work suggests rapid progress is being made with an evolving translational framework within the alcohol research field. This is helped by multiple interdisciplinary collaborative research structures that have been developed to advance translational work on AUD. Moreover, the integration of systems biology approaches with collaborative clinical studies may yield novel insights for future translational success. Finally, appreciation of genetic variation in pharmacological or behavioral treatment responses and optimal communication from bench to bedside and back may strengthen the success of translational research applications to AUD.

Teaching Multiplication and Multiplication Tables by the Application of Finger Multiplication

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bahadir, Elif

2017-01-01

Developments in mathematics education tend to emphasize mathematics teaching with the help of activities that will allow the students to create these concepts rather than to make them memorize mathematical rules. The purpose of this study is to analyze the applicability of the application of multiplication with fingers developed by the researcher.…

How does curcumin work with poor bioavailability? Clues from experimental and theoretical studies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shen, Liang; Liu, Cui-Cui; An, Chun-Yan; Ji, Hong-Fang

2016-02-01

Curcumin is a natural product with multiple biological activities and numerous potential therapeutic applications. However, its poor systemic bioavailability fails to explain the potent pharmacological effects and hinders its clinical application. Using experimental and theoretical approaches, we compared curcumin and its degradation products for its biological activities against Alzheimer’s disease (AD), including the superoxide anion radical (O2.-)-scavenging activity, Aβ fibrils (fAβ) formation-inhibiting activity, and enzymatic inhibition activity. We showed that compared to the parent compound curcumin, the degradation products mixture possessed higher O2.--scavenging activity and stronger inhibition against fAβ formation. The docking simulations revealed that the bioactive degradation products should make important contribution to the experimentally observed enzymatic inhibition activities of curcumin. Given that curcumin is readily degraded under physiological condition, our findings strongly suggested that the degradation products should make important contribution to the diverse biological activities of curcumin. Our novel findings not only provide novel insights into the complex pharmacology of curcumin due to its poor bioavailability, but also open new avenues for developing therapeutic applications of this natural product.

Multiple-Zone Diffractive Optic Element for Laser Ranging Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ramos-Izquierdo, Luis A.

2011-01-01

A diffractive optic element (DOE) can be used as a beam splitter to generate multiple laser beams from a single input laser beam. This technology has been recently used in LRO s Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument to generate five laser beams that measure the lunar topography from a 50-km nominal mapping orbit (see figure). An extension of this approach is to use a multiple-zone DOE to allow a laser altimeter instrument to operate over a wider range of distances. In particular, a multiple-zone DOE could be used for applications that require both mapping and landing on a planetary body. In this case, the laser altimeter operating range would need to extend from several hundred kilometers down to a few meters. The innovator was recently involved in an investigation how to modify the LOLA instrument for the OSIRIS asteroid mapping and sample return mission. One approach is to replace the DOE in the LOLA laser beam expander assembly with a multiple-zone DOE that would allow for the simultaneous illumination of the asteroid with mapping and landing laser beams. The proposed OSIRIS multiple-zone DOE would generate the same LOLA five-beam output pattern for high-altitude topographic mapping, but would simultaneously generate a wide divergence angle beam using a small portion of the total laser energy for the approach and landing portion of the mission. Only a few percent of the total laser energy is required for approach and landing operations as the return signal increases as the inverse square of the ranging height. A wide divergence beam could be implemented by making the center of the DOE a diffractive or refractive negative lens. The beam energy and beam divergence characteristics of a multiple-zone DOE could be easily tailored to meet the requirements of other missions that require laser ranging data. Current single-zone DOE lithographic manufacturing techniques could also be used to fabricate a multiple-zone DOE by masking the different DOE zones during the manufacturing process, and the same space-compatible DOE substrates (fused silica, sapphire) that are used on standard DOE s could be used for multiple- zone DOE s. DOEs are an elegant and cost-effective optical design option for spacebased laser altimeters that require multiple output laser beams. The use of multiple-zone DOEs would allow for the design and optimization of a laser altimeter instrument required to operate over a large range of target distances, such as those designed to both map and land on a planetary body. In addition to space-based laser altimeters, this technology could find applications in military or commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that fly at an altitude of several kilometers and need to land. It is also conceivable that variations of this approach could be used in land-based applications such as collision avoidance and robotic control of cars, trains, and ships.

Probabilistic inversion with graph cuts: Application to the Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pirot, Guillaume; Linde, Niklas; Mariethoz, Grégoire; Bradford, John H.

2017-02-01

Inversion methods that build on multiple-point statistics tools offer the possibility to obtain model realizations that are not only in agreement with field data, but also with conceptual geological models that are represented by training images. A recent inversion approach based on patch-based geostatistical resimulation using graph cuts outperforms state-of-the-art multiple-point statistics methods when applied to synthetic inversion examples featuring continuous and discontinuous property fields. Applications of multiple-point statistics tools to field data are challenging due to inevitable discrepancies between actual subsurface structure and the assumptions made in deriving the training image. We introduce several amendments to the original graph cut inversion algorithm and present a first-ever field application by addressing porosity estimation at the Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site, Boise, Idaho. We consider both a classical multi-Gaussian and an outcrop-based prior model (training image) that are in agreement with available porosity data. When conditioning to available crosshole ground-penetrating radar data using Markov chain Monte Carlo, we find that the posterior realizations honor overall both the characteristics of the prior models and the geophysical data. The porosity field is inverted jointly with the measurement error and the petrophysical parameters that link dielectric permittivity to porosity. Even though the multi-Gaussian prior model leads to posterior realizations with higher likelihoods, the outcrop-based prior model shows better convergence. In addition, it offers geologically more realistic posterior realizations and it better preserves the full porosity range of the prior.

Staging of breast cancer and the advanced applications of digital mammogram: what the physician needs to know?

PubMed

Helal, Maha H; Mansour, Sahar M; Zaglol, Mai; Salaleldin, Lamia A; Nada, Omniya M; Haggag, Marwa A

2017-03-01

To study the role of advanced applications of digital mammogram, whether contrast-enhanced spectral mammography (CESM) or digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT), in the "T" staging of histologically proven breast cancer before planning for treatment management. In this prospective analysis, we evaluated 98 proved malignant breast masses regarding their size, multiplicity and the presence of associated clusters of microcalcifications. Evaluation methods included digital mammography (DM), 3D tomosynthesis and CESM. Traditional DM was first performed then in a period of 10-14-day interval; breast tomosynthesis and contrast-based mammography were performed for the involved breast only. Views at tomosynthesis were acquired in a "step-and-shoot" tube motion mode to produce multiple (11-15), low-dose images and in contrast-enhanced study, low-energy (22-33 kVp) and high-energy (44-49 kVp) exposures were taken after the i.v. injection of the contrast agent. Operative data were the gold standard reference. Breast tomosynthesis showed the highest accuracy in size assessment (n = 69, 70.4%) than contrast-enhanced (n = 49, 50%) and regular mammography (n = 59, 60.2%). Contrast-enhanced mammography presented the least performance in assessing calcifications, yet it was most sensitive in the detection of multiplicity (92.3%), followed by tomosynthesis (77%) and regular mammography (53.8%). The combined analysis of the three modalities provided an accuracy of 74% in the "T" staging of breast cancer. The combined application of tomosynthesis and contrast-enhanced digital mammogram enhanced the performance of the traditional DM and presented an informative method in the staging of breast cancer. Advances in knowledge: Staging and management planning of breast cancer can divert according to tumour size, multiplicity and the presence of microcalcifications. DBT shows sharp outlines of the tumour with no overlap tissue and spots microcalcifications. Contrast-enhanced spectral mammogram shows the extent of abnormal contrast uptake and detects multiplicity. Integrated analysis provides optimal findings for proper "T" staging of breast cancer.

Developing the mental health workforce: review and application of training approaches from multiple disciplines.

PubMed

Lyon, Aaron R; Stirman, Shannon Wiltsey; Kerns, Suzanne E U; Bruns, Eric J

2011-07-01

Strategies specifically designed to facilitate the training of mental health practitioners in evidence-based practices (EBPs) have lagged behind the development of the interventions themselves. The current paper draws from an interdisciplinary literature (including medical training, adult education, and teacher training) to identify useful training and support approaches as well as important conceptual frameworks that may be applied to training in mental health. Theory and research findings are reviewed, which highlight the importance of continued consultation/support following training workshops, congruence between the training content and practitioner experience, and focus on motivational issues. In addition, six individual approaches are presented with careful attention to their empirical foundations and potential applications. Common techniques are highlighted and applications and future directions for mental health workforce training and research are discussed.

Impact of the economic downturn on nursing schools.

PubMed

Terry, Allison J; Whitman, Marilyn V

2011-01-01

The challenges posed by the economic downturn on baccalaureate nursing schools in the southeast as it relates to their perceptions of changes in the number of applicants, acceptance rates, employer recruitment efforts, and student clinical and job placement were explored. Responses from deans and program directors indicated nursing schools are experiencing negative effects of the economic downturn in the form of graduates having difficulty finding employment, decreased recruitment efforts from prospective employers, difficulty locating clinical placements for students, and no change in faculty applicants despite an increase in undergraduate student applicants as well as graduate student applicants. These multiple factors combined could signal the death knell for programs that are ill-prepared to deal with such a crisis. Programs need to be aggressive in their efforts to draw health care recruiters as well as qualified faculty applicants to their campuses. Nursing schools must be able to clearly show why their graduates are superior to other programs' graduates when competing for both highly qualified faculty applicants and prospective student employers.

Multiplex engineering of industrial yeast genomes using CRISPRm.

PubMed

Ryan, Owen W; Cate, Jamie H D

2014-01-01

Global demand has driven the use of industrial strains of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae for large-scale production of biofuels and renewable chemicals. However, the genetic basis of desired domestication traits is poorly understood because robust genetic tools do not exist for industrial hosts. We present an efficient, marker-free, high-throughput, and multiplexed genome editing platform for industrial strains of S. cerevisiae that uses plasmid-based expression of the CRISPR/Cas9 endonuclease and multiple ribozyme-protected single guide RNAs. With this multiplex CRISPR (CRISPRm) system, it is possible to integrate DNA libraries into the chromosome for evolution experiments, and to engineer multiple loci simultaneously. The CRISPRm tools should therefore find use in many higher-order synthetic biology applications to accelerate improvements in industrial microorganisms.

Distributed Factorization Computation on Multiple Volunteered Mobile Resource to Break RSA Key

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jaya, I.; Hardi, S. M.; Tarigan, J. T.; Zamzami, E. M.; Sihombing, P.

2017-01-01

Similar to common asymmeric encryption, RSA can be cracked by usmg a series mathematical calculation. The private key used to decrypt the massage can be computed using the public key. However, finding the private key may require a massive amount of calculation. In this paper, we propose a method to perform a distributed computing to calculate RSA’s private key. The proposed method uses multiple volunteered mobile devices to contribute during the calculation process. Our objective is to demonstrate how the use of volunteered computing on mobile devices may be a feasible option to reduce the time required to break a weak RSA encryption and observe the behavior and running time of the application on mobile devices.

DOPAMINE POSTSYNAPTIC RECEPTOR EFFECTS OF RESTRICTED SCHEDULES OF ELECTROCONVULSIVE SHOCK

PubMed Central

Andrade, Chittaranjan; Gangadhar, B.N.; Meena, M.; Pradhan, N.

1990-01-01

SUMMMARY Little work is available on the acute and time-dependant dopaminergic effects of single electroconvulsive shock (ECS) and multiple ECS despite the posited clinical utility of such schedules of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) administration and the posited role of dopaminergic mechanisms in iieuropsychiatric disorders. In this study, using the apomorphine-induced motility-alteration behavioural paradigm, single session multiple ECS was found to produce no significant effect while single ECS behaviourally downregulated dopamine postsynaptic receptor functioning one week after the ECS, which effect was also seen (albeit to a lesser extent) a further week later. These findings indicate a possible application of restricted schedules of ECT to dopamine postsynaptic receptor supersensitivity syndromes. Lines for future research are suggested. PMID:21927479

The Applicability of the International Staging System in Chinese Patients with Multiple Myeloma Receiving Bortezomib or Thalidomide-Based Regimens as Induction Therapy: A Multicenter Analysis

PubMed Central

Lu, Jing; Lu, Jin; Liu, Aijun; Fu, Weijun; Du, Juan; Huang, Xiaojun; Chen, Wenming; Hou, Jian

2015-01-01

The International Staging System (ISS) is the most important prognostic system for multiple myeloma (MM). It was identified in the era of conventional agents. The outcome of MM has significantly changed by novel agents. Thus the applicability of ISS system in the era of novel agents in Chinese patients needs to be demonstrated. We retrospectively analyzed the clinical outcomes and prognostic significance of ISS system in 1016 patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma in Chinese patients between 2008 and 2012, who received bortezomib- or thalidomide-based regimens as first-line therapy. The median overall survival (OS) of patients for ISS stages I/II/III was not reached/55.4 months/41.7 months (p < 0.001), and the median progression-free survival (PFS) was 30/29.5/25 months (p = 0.072), respectively. Statistically significant difference in survival was confirmed among three ISS stages in thalidomide-based group, but not between ISS stages I and II in bortezomib-based group. These findings suggest that ISS system can predict the survival in the era of novel agents in Chinese MM patients, and bortezomib may have the potential to partially overcome adverse effect of risk factors on survival, especially in higher stage of ISS system. PMID:26640799

45 CFR 2523.110 - Can Federal agencies submit multiple applications?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 45 Public Welfare 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Can Federal agencies submit multiple applications? 2523.110 Section 2523.110 Public Welfare Regulations Relating to Public Welfare (Continued) CORPORATION... AMERICORPS PROGRAM ASSISTANCE § 2523.110 Can Federal agencies submit multiple applications? No. The...

Electromagnetic interference-aware transmission scheduling and power control for dynamic wireless access in hospital environments.

PubMed

Phunchongharn, Phond; Hossain, Ekram; Camorlinga, Sergio

2011-11-01

We study the multiple access problem for e-Health applications (referred to as secondary users) coexisting with medical devices (referred to as primary or protected users) in a hospital environment. In particular, we focus on transmission scheduling and power control of secondary users in multiple spatial reuse time-division multiple access (STDMA) networks. The objective is to maximize the spectrum utilization of secondary users and minimize their power consumption subject to the electromagnetic interference (EMI) constraints for active and passive medical devices and minimum throughput guarantee for secondary users. The multiple access problem is formulated as a dual objective optimization problem which is shown to be NP-complete. We propose a joint scheduling and power control algorithm based on a greedy approach to solve the problem with much lower computational complexity. To this end, an enhanced greedy algorithm is proposed to improve the performance of the greedy algorithm by finding the optimal sequence of secondary users for scheduling. Using extensive simulations, the tradeoff in performance in terms of spectrum utilization, energy consumption, and computational complexity is evaluated for both the algorithms.

Theoretical Studies on InGaAs/InAlAs SAGCM Avalanche Photodiodes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cao, Siyu; Zhao, Yue; ur Rehman, Sajid; Feng, Shuai; Zuo, Yuhua; Li, Chuanbo; Zhang, Lichun; Cheng, Buwen; Wang, Qiming

2018-05-01

In this paper, we provide a detailed insight on InGaAs/InAlAs separate absorption, grading, charge, and multiplication avalanche photodiodes (SAGCM APDs) and a theoretical model of APDs is built. Through theoretical analysis and two-dimensional (2D) simulation, the influence of charge layer and tunneling effect on the APDs is fully understood. The design of charge layer (including doping level and thickness) can be calculated by our predictive model for different multiplication thickness. We find that as the thickness of charge layer increases, the suitable doping level range in charge layer decreases. Compared to thinner charge layer, performance of APD varies significantly via several percent deviations of doping concentrations in thicker charge layer. Moreover, the generation rate ( G btt ) of band-to-band tunnel is calculated, and the influence of tunneling effect on avalanche field was analyzed. We confirm that avalanche field and multiplication factor ( M n ) in multiplication will decrease by the tunneling effect. The theoretical model and analysis are based on InGaAs/InAlAs APD; however, they are applicable to other APD material systems as well.

Abstract-Reasoning Software for Coordinating Multiple Agents

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Clement, Bradley; Barrett, Anthony; Rabideau, Gregg; Knight, Russell

2003-01-01

A computer program for scheduling the activities of multiple agents that share limited resources has been incorporated into the Automated Scheduling and Planning Environment (ASPEN) software system, aspects of which have been reported in several previous NASA Tech Briefs articles. In the original intended application, the agents would be multiple spacecraft and/or robotic vehicles engaged in scientific exploration of distant planets. The program could also be used on Earth in such diverse settings as production lines and military maneuvers. This program includes a planning/scheduling subprogram of the iterative repair type that reasons about the activities of multiple agents at abstract levels in order to greatly improve the scheduling of their use of shared resources. The program summarizes the information about the constraints on, and resource requirements of, abstract activities on the basis of the constraints and requirements that pertain to their potential refinements (decomposition into less-abstract and ultimately to primitive activities). The advantage of reasoning about summary information is that time needed to find consistent schedules is exponentially smaller than the time that would be needed for reasoning about the same tasks at the primitive level.

Microparticle based morphology engineering of filamentous microorganisms for industrial bio-production.

PubMed

Walisko, Robert; Krull, Rainer; Schrader, Jens; Wittmann, Christoph

2012-11-01

Filamentous microorganisms are important work horses in industrial biotechnology and supply enzymes, antibiotics, pharmaceuticals, bulk and fine chemicals. Here we highlight recent findings on the use of microparticles in the cultivation of filamentous bacteria and fungi, with the aim of enabling a more precise control of their morphology towards better production performance. First examples reveal a broad application range of microparticle based processes, since multiple filamentous organisms are controllable in their growth characteristics and respond by enhanced product formation.

Grindr, Scruff, and on the Hunt: Predictors of Condomless Anal Sex, Internet Use, and Mobile Application Use Among Men Who Have Sex With Men.

PubMed

Whitfield, Darren L; Kattari, Shanna K; Walls, N Eugene; Al-Tayyib, Alia

2017-05-01

In 2016, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) comprise more than half of all new HIV diagnoses in the United States, with the primary mode of infection being condomless anal sex (CAS). While studies report an association between use of Internet-based social networking sites and increased CAS, the research on the relationship between cell phone mobile applications (e.g., Grindr, Scruff, Jack'd) and CAS is much less developed. The present study examines whether the manner in which gay, bisexual, and other MSM find sexual partners predicts an increase in likelihood of engaging in CAS in an urban, noncoastal U.S. city. Conducting a secondary data analysis of the 2011 National HIV Behavioral Surveillance survey for Denver ( N = 546), the authors performed binary logistic regression analyses to assess the models that predict how MSM find sexual partners, and the odds of engaging in CAS. While the results suggest that age and race are associated with the mode of finding sexual partners, using the Internet or a mobile app to find sexual partners was not predictive of CAS ( Z Wald = .41, p = .52; Z Wald = .80, p = .37). In terms of HIV prevention, these findings suggest a need for intervention to address HIV prevention on multiple levels (e.g., individual, group, community).

Grindr, Scruff, and on the Hunt: Predictors of Condomless Anal Sex, Internet Use, and Mobile Application Use Among Men Who Have Sex With Men

PubMed Central

Whitfield, Darren L.; Kattari, Shanna K.; Walls, N. Eugene; Al-Tayyib, Alia

2017-01-01

In 2016, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) comprise more than half of all new HIV diagnoses in the United States, with the primary mode of infection being condomless anal sex (CAS). While studies report an association between use of Internet-based social networking sites and increased CAS, the research on the relationship between cell phone mobile applications (e.g., Grindr, Scruff, Jack’d) and CAS is much less developed. The present study examines whether the manner in which gay, bisexual, and other MSM find sexual partners predicts an increase in likelihood of engaging in CAS in an urban, noncoastal U.S. city. Conducting a secondary data analysis of the 2011 National HIV Behavioral Surveillance survey for Denver (N = 546), the authors performed binary logistic regression analyses to assess the models that predict how MSM find sexual partners, and the odds of engaging in CAS. While the results suggest that age and race are associated with the mode of finding sexual partners, using the Internet or a mobile app to find sexual partners was not predictive of CAS (ZWald = .41, p = .52; ZWald = .80, p = .37). In terms of HIV prevention, these findings suggest a need for intervention to address HIV prevention on multiple levels (e.g., individual, group, community). PMID:28134002

Assessing exposure to violence using multiple informants: application of hierarchical linear model.

PubMed

Kuo, M; Mohler, B; Raudenbush, S L; Earls, F J

2000-11-01

The present study assesses the effects of demographic risk factors on children's exposure to violence (ETV) and how these effects vary by informants. Data on exposure to violence of 9-, 12-, and 15-year-olds were collected from both child participants (N = 1880) and parents (N = 1776), as part of the assessment of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). A two-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) with multivariate outcomes was employed to analyze information obtained from these two different groups of informants. The findings indicate that parents generally report less ETV than do their children and that associations of age, gender, and parent education with ETV are stronger in the self-reports than in the parent reports. The findings support a multivariate approach when information obtained from different sources is being integrated. The application of HLM allows an assessment of interactions between risk factors and informants and uses all available data, including data from one informant when data from the other informant is missing.

Virus-Bacteria Interactions: Implications and Potential for the Applied and Agricultural Sciences.

PubMed

Moore, Matthew D; Jaykus, Lee-Ann

2018-02-02

Eukaryotic virus-bacteria interactions have recently become an emerging topic of study due to multiple significant examples related to human pathogens of clinical interest. However, such omnipresent and likely important interactions for viruses and bacteria relevant to the applied and agricultural sciences have not been reviewed or compiled. The fundamental basis of this review is that these interactions have importance and deserve more investigation, as numerous potential consequences and applications arising from their discovery are relevant to the applied sciences. The purpose of this review is to highlight and summarize eukaryotic virus-bacteria findings in the food/water, horticultural, and animal sciences. In many cases in the agricultural sciences, mechanistic understandings of the effects of virus-bacteria interactions remain unstudied, and many studies solely focus on co-infections of bacterial and viral pathogens. Given recent findings relative to human viral pathogens, further research related to virus-bacteria interactions would likely result in numerous discoveries and beneficial applications.

Developing the Mental Health Workforce: Review and Application of Training Approaches from Multiple Disciplines

PubMed Central

Lyon, Aaron R.; Stirman, Shannon Wiltsey; Kerns, Suzanne E. U.; Bruns, Eric J.

2011-01-01

Strategies specifically designed to facilitate the training of mental health practitioners in evidence-based practices (EBPs) have lagged behind the development of the interventions themselves. The current paper draws from an interdisciplinary literature (including medical training, adult education, and teacher training) to identify useful training and support approaches as well as important conceptual frameworks that may be applied to training in mental health. Theory and research findings are reviewed, which highlight the importance of continued consultation/ support following training workshops, congruence between the training content and practitioner experience, and focus on motivational issues. In addition, six individual approaches are presented with careful attention to their empirical foundations and potential applications. Common techniques are highlighted and applications and future directions for mental health workforce training and research are discussed. PMID:21190075

A mHealth Application for Chronic Wound Care: Findings of a User Trial

PubMed Central

Friesen, Marcia R.; Hamel, Carole; McLeod, Robert D.

2013-01-01

This paper reports on the findings of a user trial of a mHealth application for pressure ulcer (bedsore) documentation. Pressure ulcers are a leading iatrogenic cause of death in developed countries and significantly impact quality of life for those affected. Pressure ulcers will be an increasing public health concern as the population ages. Electronic information systems are being explored to improve consistency and accuracy of documentation, improve patient and caregiver experience and ultimately improve patient outcomes. A software application was developed for Android Smartphones and tablets and was trialed in a personal care home in Western Canada. The software application provides an electronic medical record for chronic wounds, replacing nurses’ paper-based charting and is positioned for integration with facility’s larger eHealth framework. The mHealth application offers three intended benefits over paper-based charting of chronic wounds, including: (1) the capacity for remote consultation (telehealth between facilities, practitioners, and/or remote communities), (2) data organization and analysis, including built-in alerts, automatically-generated text-based and graph-based wound histories including wound images, and (3) tutorial support for non-specialized caregivers. The user trial yielded insights regarding the software application’s design and functionality in the clinical setting, and highlighted the key role of wound photographs in enhancing patient and caregiver experiences, enhancing communication between multiple healthcare professionals, and leveraging the software’s telehealth capacities. PMID:24256739

Statistical technique for analysing functional connectivity of multiple spike trains.

PubMed

Masud, Mohammad Shahed; Borisyuk, Roman

2011-03-15

A new statistical technique, the Cox method, used for analysing functional connectivity of simultaneously recorded multiple spike trains is presented. This method is based on the theory of modulated renewal processes and it estimates a vector of influence strengths from multiple spike trains (called reference trains) to the selected (target) spike train. Selecting another target spike train and repeating the calculation of the influence strengths from the reference spike trains enables researchers to find all functional connections among multiple spike trains. In order to study functional connectivity an "influence function" is identified. This function recognises the specificity of neuronal interactions and reflects the dynamics of postsynaptic potential. In comparison to existing techniques, the Cox method has the following advantages: it does not use bins (binless method); it is applicable to cases where the sample size is small; it is sufficiently sensitive such that it estimates weak influences; it supports the simultaneous analysis of multiple influences; it is able to identify a correct connectivity scheme in difficult cases of "common source" or "indirect" connectivity. The Cox method has been thoroughly tested using multiple sets of data generated by the neural network model of the leaky integrate and fire neurons with a prescribed architecture of connections. The results suggest that this method is highly successful for analysing functional connectivity of simultaneously recorded multiple spike trains. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Multi-view video segmentation and tracking for video surveillance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mohammadi, Gelareh; Dufaux, Frederic; Minh, Thien Ha; Ebrahimi, Touradj

2009-05-01

Tracking moving objects is a critical step for smart video surveillance systems. Despite the complexity increase, multiple camera systems exhibit the undoubted advantages of covering wide areas and handling the occurrence of occlusions by exploiting the different viewpoints. The technical problems in multiple camera systems are several: installation, calibration, objects matching, switching, data fusion, and occlusion handling. In this paper, we address the issue of tracking moving objects in an environment covered by multiple un-calibrated cameras with overlapping fields of view, typical of most surveillance setups. Our main objective is to create a framework that can be used to integrate objecttracking information from multiple video sources. Basically, the proposed technique consists of the following steps. We first perform a single-view tracking algorithm on each camera view, and then apply a consistent object labeling algorithm on all views. In the next step, we verify objects in each view separately for inconsistencies. Correspondent objects are extracted through a Homography transform from one view to the other and vice versa. Having found the correspondent objects of different views, we partition each object into homogeneous regions. In the last step, we apply the Homography transform to find the region map of first view in the second view and vice versa. For each region (in the main frame and mapped frame) a set of descriptors are extracted to find the best match between two views based on region descriptors similarity. This method is able to deal with multiple objects. Track management issues such as occlusion, appearance and disappearance of objects are resolved using information from all views. This method is capable of tracking rigid and deformable objects and this versatility lets it to be suitable for different application scenarios.

Feynman formulas for semigroups generated by an iterated Laplace operator

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buzinov, M. S.

2017-04-01

In the present paper, we find representations of a one-parameter semigroup generated by a finite sum of iterated Laplace operators and an additive perturbation (the potential). Such semigroups and the evolution equations corresponding to them find applications in the field of physics, chemistry, biology, and pattern recognition. The representations mentioned above are obtained in the form of Feynman formulas, i.e., in the form of a limit of multiple integrals as the multiplicity tends to infinity. The term "Feynman formula" was proposed by Smolyanov. Smolyanov's approach uses Chernoff's theorems. A simple form of representations thus obtained enables one to use them for numerical modeling the dynamics of the evolution system as a method for the approximation of solutions of equations. The problems considered in this note can be treated using the approach suggested by Remizov (see also the monograph of Smolyanov and Shavgulidze on path integrals). The representations (of semigroups) obtained in this way are more complicated than those given by the Feynman formulas; however, it is possible to bypass some analytical difficulties.

Optimal assessment of multiple cues.

PubMed Central

Fawcett, Tim W; Johnstone, Rufus A

2003-01-01

In a wide range of contexts from mate choice to foraging, animals are required to discriminate between alternative options on the basis of multiple cues. How should they best assess such complex multicomponent stimuli? Here, we construct a model to investigate this problem, focusing on a simple case where a 'chooser' faces a discrimination task involving two cues. These cues vary in their accuracy and in how costly they are to assess. As an example, we consider a mate-choice situation where females choose between males of differing quality. Our model predicts the following: (i) females should become less choosy as the cost of finding new males increases; (ii) females should prioritize cues differently depending on how choosy they are; (iii) females may sometimes prioritize less accurate cues; and (iv) which cues are most important depends on the abundance of desirable mates. These predictions are testable in mate-choice experiments where the costs of choice can be manipulated. Our findings are applicable to other discrimination tasks besides mate choice, for example a predator's choice between palatable and unpalatable prey, or an altruist's choice between kin and non-kin. PMID:12908986

Terrestrial Micro Renewable Energy Applications of Space Technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Komerath, N. M.; Komerath, P. P.

This paper explores the synergy between technologies intended for extraterrestrial in situ resource utilization and those for terrestrial mass-market micro renewable power generation systems. The case for a micro renewable energy architecture is presented. The obstacles hindering market success are summarized, along with opportunities from recent demonstrations suggesting that the public appetite for sophisticated technology worldwide may be underappreciated by technical researchers. Technical innovations from space research are summarized along with estimates of possible conversion efficiencies. It is argued that the cost-effectiveness of micro power generation must be viewed through the value of the first few watts of available power, rather than the marginal cost per kilowatt-hour of electric power from utility power grids. This leads to the finding that the actual target cost per unit power, and efficiency, are well within reach of space technology products. Hybrid systems integrating power extraction from multiple resources, and adaptable for multiple applications, can break through mass market price barriers. Recent work to develop learning resources and test beds as part of a Micro Renewable Energy Laboratory is summarized.

Application of High-Throughput In Vitro Assays for Risk-Based ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Multiple drivers shape the types of human-health assessments performed on chemicals by U.S. EPA resulting in chemical assessments are “fit-for-purpose” ranging from prioritization for further testing to full risk assessments. Layered on top of the diverse assessment needs are the resource intensive nature of traditional toxicological studies used to test chemicals and the lack of toxicity information on many chemicals. To address these challenges, the Agency initiated the ToxCast program to screen thousands of chemicals across hundreds of high-throughput screening assays in concentrations-response format. One of the findings of the project has been that the majority of chemicals interact with multiple biological targets within a narrow concentration range and the extent of interactions increases rapidly near the concentration causing cytotoxicity. This means that application of high-throughput in vitro assays to chemical assessments will need to identify both the relative selectivity at chemicals interact with biological targets and the concentration at which these interactions perturb signaling pathways. The integrated analyses will be used to both define a point-of-departure for comparison with human exposure estimates and identify which chemicals may benefit from further studies in a mode-of-action or adverse outcome pathway framework. The application of new technologies in a risk-based, tiered manner provides flexibility in matching throughput and cos

20150325 - Application of High-Throughput In Vitro Assays for ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Multiple drivers shape the types of human-health assessments performed on chemicals by U.S. EPA resulting in chemical assessments are “fit-for-purpose” ranging from prioritization for further testing to full risk assessments. Layered on top of the diverse assessment needs are the resource intensive nature of traditional toxicological studies used to test chemicals and the lack of toxicity information on many chemicals. To address these challenges, the Agency initiated the ToxCast program to screen thousands of chemicals across hundreds of high-throughput screening assays in concentrations-response format. One of the findings of the project has been that the majority of chemicals interact with multiple biological targets within a narrow concentration range and the extent of interactions increases rapidly near the concentration causing cytotoxicity. This means that application of high-throughput in vitro assays to chemical assessments will need to identify both the relative selectivity at chemicals interact with biological targets and the concentration at which these interactions perturb signaling pathways. The integrated analyses will be used to both define a point-of-departure for comparison with human exposure estimates and identify which chemicals may benefit from further studies in a mode-of-action or adverse outcome pathway framework. The application of new technologies in a risk-based, tiered manner provides flexibility in matching throughput and cos

Origin of multiple band gap values in single width nanoribbons

PubMed Central

Goyal, Deepika; Kumar, Shailesh; Shukla, Alok; Kumar, Rakesh

2016-01-01

Deterministic band gap in quasi-one-dimensional nanoribbons is prerequisite for their integrated functionalities in high performance molecular-electronics based devices. However, multiple band gaps commonly observed in graphene nanoribbons of the same width, fabricated in same slot of experiments, remain unresolved, and raise a critical concern over scalable production of pristine and/or hetero-structure nanoribbons with deterministic properties and functionalities for plethora of applications. Here, we show that a modification in the depth of potential wells in the periodic direction of a supercell on relative shifting of passivating atoms at the edges is the origin of multiple band gap values in nanoribbons of the same width in a crystallographic orientation, although they carry practically the same ground state energy. The results are similar when calculations are extended from planar graphene to buckled silicene nanoribbons. Thus, the findings facilitate tuning of the electronic properties of quasi-one-dimensional materials such as bio-molecular chains, organic and inorganic nanoribbons by performing edge engineering. PMID:27808172

Innovative applications of food-related emulsions.

PubMed

Kiokias, S; Varzakas, T

2017-10-13

Research on oxidative stability of multiple emulsions is very scarce. Given that this is a relevant topic that must be ascertained before the successful application of multiple emulsions in foods (especially when a combination of highly unsaturated oils is used as a lipid phase), this review mainly focuses on various aspects of the multiple emulsions. Fat replacement in meat products using emulsions is critically discussed along with innovative applications of natural antioxidants in food-based emulsions and multiple emulsions based on bioactive compounds/encapsulation as well as confectionery products.

Segmentation Fusion Techniques with Application to Plenoptic Images: A Survey.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Evin, D.; Hadad, A.; Solano, A.; Drozdowicz, B.

2016-04-01

The segmentation of anatomical and pathological structures plays a key role in the characterization of clinically relevant evidence from digital images. Recently, plenoptic imaging has emerged as a new promise to enrich the diagnostic potential of conventional photography. Since the plenoptic images comprises a set of slightly different versions of the target scene, we propose to make use of those images to improve the segmentation quality in relation to the scenario of a single image segmentation. The problem of finding a segmentation solution from multiple images of a single scene, is called segmentation fusion. This paper reviews the issue of segmentation fusion in order to find solutions that can be applied to plenoptic images, particularly images from the ophthalmological domain.

Ephedrine QoS: An Antidote to Slow, Congested, Bufferless NoCs

PubMed Central

Fang, Juan; Yao, Zhicheng; Sui, Xiufeng; Bao, Yungang

2014-01-01

Datacenters consolidate diverse applications to improve utilization. However when multiple applications are colocated on such platforms, contention for shared resources like networks-on-chip (NoCs) can degrade the performance of latency-critical online services (high-priority applications). Recently proposed bufferless NoCs (Nychis et al.) have the advantages of requiring less area and power, but they pose challenges in quality-of-service (QoS) support, which usually relies on buffer-based virtual channels (VCs). We propose QBLESS, a QoS-aware bufferless NoC scheme for datacenters. QBLESS consists of two components: a routing mechanism (QBLESS-R) that can substantially reduce flit deflection for high-priority applications and a congestion-control mechanism (QBLESS-CC) that guarantees performance for high-priority applications and improves overall system throughput. We use trace-driven simulation to model a 64-core system, finding that, when compared to BLESS, a previous state-of-the-art bufferless NoC design, QBLESS, improves performance of high-priority applications by an average of 33.2% and reduces network-hops by an average of 42.8%. PMID:25250386

Experiences Using Formal Methods for Requirements Modeling

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Easterbrook, Steve; Lutz, Robyn; Covington, Rick; Kelly, John; Ampo, Yoko; Hamilton, David

1996-01-01

This paper describes three cases studies in the lightweight application of formal methods to requirements modeling for spacecraft fault protection systems. The case studies differ from previously reported applications of formal methods in that formal methods were applied very early in the requirements engineering process, to validate the evolving requirements. The results were fed back into the projects, to improve the informal specifications. For each case study, we describe what methods were applied, how they were applied, how much effort was involved, and what the findings were. In all three cases, the formal modeling provided a cost effective enhancement of the existing verification and validation processes. We conclude that the benefits gained from early modeling of unstable requirements more than outweigh the effort needed to maintain multiple representations.

Developing a customized multiple interview for dental school admissions.

PubMed

Gardner, Karen M

2014-04-01

From the early 1980s until recently, the University of British Columbia Faculty of Dentistry had employed the Canadian Dental Association (CDA) Structured Interview in its Phase 2 admissions process (with those applicants invited for interviews). While this structured interview had demonstrated reliability and validity, the Faculty of Dentistry came to believe that a multiple interview process using scenarios would help it better identify applicants who would match its mission. After a literature review that investigated such interview protocols as unstructured, semi-structured, computerized, and telephone formats, a multiple interview format was chosen. This format was seen as an emerging trend, with evidence that it has been deemed fairer by applicants, more reliable by interviewers, more difficult for applicants to provide set answers for the scenarios, and not to require as many interviewers as other formats. This article describes the process undertaken to implement a customized multiple interview format for admissions and reports these outcomes of the process: a smoothly running multiple interview; effective training protocols for staff, interviewers, and applicants; and reports from successful applicants and interviewers that they felt the multiple interview was a more reliable and fairer recruiting tool than other models.

How multiplicity determines entropy and the derivation of the maximum entropy principle for complex systems.

PubMed

Hanel, Rudolf; Thurner, Stefan; Gell-Mann, Murray

2014-05-13

The maximum entropy principle (MEP) is a method for obtaining the most likely distribution functions of observables from statistical systems by maximizing entropy under constraints. The MEP has found hundreds of applications in ergodic and Markovian systems in statistical mechanics, information theory, and statistics. For several decades there has been an ongoing controversy over whether the notion of the maximum entropy principle can be extended in a meaningful way to nonextensive, nonergodic, and complex statistical systems and processes. In this paper we start by reviewing how Boltzmann-Gibbs-Shannon entropy is related to multiplicities of independent random processes. We then show how the relaxation of independence naturally leads to the most general entropies that are compatible with the first three Shannon-Khinchin axioms, the (c,d)-entropies. We demonstrate that the MEP is a perfectly consistent concept for nonergodic and complex statistical systems if their relative entropy can be factored into a generalized multiplicity and a constraint term. The problem of finding such a factorization reduces to finding an appropriate representation of relative entropy in a linear basis. In a particular example we show that path-dependent random processes with memory naturally require specific generalized entropies. The example is to our knowledge the first exact derivation of a generalized entropy from the microscopic properties of a path-dependent random process.

Construction of multi-scale consistent brain networks: methods and applications.

PubMed

Ge, Bao; Tian, Yin; Hu, Xintao; Chen, Hanbo; Zhu, Dajiang; Zhang, Tuo; Han, Junwei; Guo, Lei; Liu, Tianming

2015-01-01

Mapping human brain networks provides a basis for studying brain function and dysfunction, and thus has gained significant interest in recent years. However, modeling human brain networks still faces several challenges including constructing networks at multiple spatial scales and finding common corresponding networks across individuals. As a consequence, many previous methods were designed for a single resolution or scale of brain network, though the brain networks are multi-scale in nature. To address this problem, this paper presents a novel approach to constructing multi-scale common structural brain networks from DTI data via an improved multi-scale spectral clustering applied on our recently developed and validated DICCCOLs (Dense Individualized and Common Connectivity-based Cortical Landmarks). Since the DICCCOL landmarks possess intrinsic structural correspondences across individuals and populations, we employed the multi-scale spectral clustering algorithm to group the DICCCOL landmarks and their connections into sub-networks, meanwhile preserving the intrinsically-established correspondences across multiple scales. Experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method can generate multi-scale consistent and common structural brain networks across subjects, and its reproducibility has been verified by multiple independent datasets. As an application, these multi-scale networks were used to guide the clustering of multi-scale fiber bundles and to compare the fiber integrity in schizophrenia and healthy controls. In general, our methods offer a novel and effective framework for brain network modeling and tract-based analysis of DTI data.

Funding resources for rare disease research.

PubMed

Stehr, F; Forkel, M

2013-11-01

Research is an expensive venture requiring multiple sources of funding for small projects that test new theories, large projects to make major advancements, training the next generation of researchers and facilitating meetings to share findings and support collaboration. For rare conditions, such as Batten disease, research funds can be difficult to find. To see how investigators supported their work in the past, we did a key word search of the Acknowledgement Section of peer-reviewed literature published in Batten disease in the last 6.5 years. Interestingly, we discovered 193 separate funding sources. The authors hope that, by showing where funds are available, we will enable Batten disease researchers to continue their pursuits and expand their studies; moving key findings from discovery to application phases. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: The Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinoses or Batten Disease. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Tuneable complementary metamaterial structures based on graphene for single and multiple transparency windows

PubMed Central

Ding, Jun; Arigong, Bayaner; Ren, Han; Zhou, Mi; Shao, Jin; Lu, Meng; Chai, Yang; Lin, Yuankun; Zhang, Hualiang

2014-01-01

Novel graphene-based tunable plasmonic metamaterials featuring single and multiple transparency windows are numerically studied in this paper. The designed structures consist of a graphene layer perforated with quadrupole slot structures and dolmen-like slot structures printed on a substrate. Specifically, the graphene-based quadrupole slot structure can realize a single transparency window, which is achieved without breaking the structure symmetry. Further investigations have shown that the single transparency window in the proposed quadrupole slot structure is more likely originated from the quantum effect of Autler-Townes splitting. Then, by introducing a dipole slot to the quadrupole slot structure to form the dolmen-like slot structure, an additional transmission dip could occur in the transmission spectrum, thus, a multiple-transparency-window system can be achieved (for the first time for graphene-based devices). More importantly, the transparency windows for both the quadrupole slot and the dolmen-like slot structures can be dynamically controlled over a broad frequency range by varying the Fermi energy levels of the graphene layer (through electrostatic gating). The proposed slot metamaterial structures with tunable single and multiple transparency windows could find potential applications in many areas such as multiple-wavelength slow-light devices, active plasmonic switching, and optical sensing. PMID:25146672

Tuneable complementary metamaterial structures based on graphene for single and multiple transparency windows.

PubMed

Ding, Jun; Arigong, Bayaner; Ren, Han; Zhou, Mi; Shao, Jin; Lu, Meng; Chai, Yang; Lin, Yuankun; Zhang, Hualiang

2014-08-22

Novel graphene-based tunable plasmonic metamaterials featuring single and multiple transparency windows are numerically studied in this paper. The designed structures consist of a graphene layer perforated with quadrupole slot structures and dolmen-like slot structures printed on a substrate. Specifically, the graphene-based quadrupole slot structure can realize a single transparency window, which is achieved without breaking the structure symmetry. Further investigations have shown that the single transparency window in the proposed quadrupole slot structure is more likely originated from the quantum effect of Autler-Townes splitting. Then, by introducing a dipole slot to the quadrupole slot structure to form the dolmen-like slot structure, an additional transmission dip could occur in the transmission spectrum, thus, a multiple-transparency-window system can be achieved (for the first time for graphene-based devices). More importantly, the transparency windows for both the quadrupole slot and the dolmen-like slot structures can be dynamically controlled over a broad frequency range by varying the Fermi energy levels of the graphene layer (through electrostatic gating). The proposed slot metamaterial structures with tunable single and multiple transparency windows could find potential applications in many areas such as multiple-wavelength slow-light devices, active plasmonic switching, and optical sensing.

Staging of breast cancer and the advanced applications of digital mammogram: what the physician needs to know?

PubMed Central

Helal, Maha H; Zaglol, Mai; Salaleldin, Lamia A; Nada, Omniya M; Haggag, Marwa A

2017-01-01

Objective: To study the role of advanced applications of digital mammogram, whether contrast-enhanced spectral mammography (CESM) or digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT), in the “T” staging of histologically proven breast cancer before planning for treatment management. Methods: In this prospective analysis, we evaluated 98 proved malignant breast masses regarding their size, multiplicity and the presence of associated clusters of microcalcifications. Evaluation methods included digital mammography (DM), 3D tomosynthesis and CESM. Traditional DM was first performed then in a period of 10–14-day interval; breast tomosynthesis and contrast-based mammography were performed for the involved breast only. Views at tomosynthesis were acquired in a “step-and-shoot” tube motion mode to produce multiple (11–15), low-dose images and in contrast-enhanced study, low-energy (22–33 kVp) and high-energy (44–49 kVp) exposures were taken after the i.v. injection of the contrast agent. Operative data were the gold standard reference. Results: Breast tomosynthesis showed the highest accuracy in size assessment (n = 69, 70.4%) than contrast-enhanced (n = 49, 50%) and regular mammography (n = 59, 60.2%). Contrast-enhanced mammography presented the least performance in assessing calcifications, yet it was most sensitive in the detection of multiplicity (92.3%), followed by tomosynthesis (77%) and regular mammography (53.8%). The combined analysis of the three modalities provided an accuracy of 74% in the “T” staging of breast cancer. Conclusion: The combined application of tomosynthesis and contrast-enhanced digital mammogram enhanced the performance of the traditional DM and presented an informative method in the staging of breast cancer. Advances in knowledge: Staging and management planning of breast cancer can divert according to tumour size, multiplicity and the presence of microcalcifications. DBT shows sharp outlines of the tumour with no overlap tissue and spots microcalcifications. Contrast-enhanced spectral mammogram shows the extent of abnormal contrast uptake and detects multiplicity. Integrated analysis provides optimal findings for proper “T” staging of breast cancer. PMID:28055247

Visual analytics techniques for large multi-attribute time series data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hao, Ming C.; Dayal, Umeshwar; Keim, Daniel A.

2008-01-01

Time series data commonly occur when variables are monitored over time. Many real-world applications involve the comparison of long time series across multiple variables (multi-attributes). Often business people want to compare this year's monthly sales with last year's sales to make decisions. Data warehouse administrators (DBAs) want to know their daily data loading job performance. DBAs need to detect the outliers early enough to act upon them. In this paper, two new visual analytic techniques are introduced: The color cell-based Visual Time Series Line Charts and Maps highlight significant changes over time in a long time series data and the new Visual Content Query facilitates finding the contents and histories of interesting patterns and anomalies, which leads to root cause identification. We have applied both methods to two real-world applications to mine enterprise data warehouse and customer credit card fraud data to illustrate the wide applicability and usefulness of these techniques.

34 CFR 75.224 - What are the procedures for using a multiple tier review process to evaluate applications?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... 34 Education 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false What are the procedures for using a multiple tier... applications received. (d) The Secretary may, in any tier— (1) Use more than one group of experts to gain... procedures for using a multiple tier review process to evaluate applications? (a) The Secretary may use a...

Biological auctions with multiple rewards

PubMed Central

Reiter, Johannes G.; Kanodia, Ayush; Gupta, Raghav; Nowak, Martin A.; Chatterjee, Krishnendu

2015-01-01

The competition for resources among cells, individuals or species is a fundamental characteristic of evolution. Biological all-pay auctions have been used to model situations where multiple individuals compete for a single resource. However, in many situations multiple resources with various values exist and single reward auctions are not applicable. We generalize the model to multiple rewards and study the evolution of strategies. In biological all-pay auctions the bid of an individual corresponds to its strategy and is equivalent to its payment in the auction. The decreasingly ordered rewards are distributed according to the decreasingly ordered bids of the participating individuals. The reproductive success of an individual is proportional to its fitness given by the sum of the rewards won minus its payments. Hence, successful bidding strategies spread in the population. We find that the results for the multiple reward case are very different from the single reward case. While the mixed strategy equilibrium in the single reward case with more than two players consists of mostly low-bidding individuals, we show that the equilibrium can convert to many high-bidding individuals and a few low-bidding individuals in the multiple reward case. Some reward values lead to a specialization among the individuals where one subpopulation competes for the rewards and the other subpopulation largely avoids costly competitions. Whether the mixed strategy equilibrium is an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) depends on the specific values of the rewards. PMID:26180069

Telehealth on advanced networks.

PubMed

Wilson, Laurence S; Stevenson, Duncan R; Cregan, Patrick

2010-01-01

We address advanced Internet for complex telehealth applications by reviewing four hospital-based broadband telehealth projects and identifying common threads. These projects were conducted in Australia under a 6-year research project on broadband Internet applications. Each project addressed specific clinical needs and its development was guided by the clinicians involved. Each project was trialed in the field and evaluated against the initial requirements. The four projects covered remote management of a resuscitation team in a district hospital, remote guidance and interpretation of echocardiography, virtual-reality-based instructor-student surgical training, and postoperative outpatient consultations following pediatric surgery. Each was characterized by a high level of interpersonal communication, a high level of clinical expertise, and multiple participants. Each made use of multiple high-quality video and audio links and shared real-time access to clinical data. Four common threads were observed. Each application provided a high level of usability and task focus because the design and use of broadband capability was aimed directly to meet the clinicians' needs. Each used the media quality available over broadband to convey words, gestures, body movements, and facial expressions to support communication and a sense of presence among the participants. Each required a complex information space shared among the participants, including real-time access to stored patient data and real-time interactive access to the patients themselves. Finally, each application supported the social and organizational aspects of their healthcare focus, creating and maintaining relationships between the various participants, and this was done by placing the telehealth application into a wider functioning clinical context. These findings provide evidence for a significantly enhanced role for appropriate telemedicine systems running on advanced networks, in a wider range of clinical applications, more deeply integrated into healthcare systems.

Automatic multiple applicator electrophoresis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Grunbaum, B. W.

1977-01-01

Easy-to-use, economical device permits electrophoresis on all known supporting media. System includes automatic multiple-sample applicator, sample holder, and electrophoresis apparatus. System has potential applicability to fields of taxonomy, immunology, and genetics. Apparatus is also used for electrofocusing.

libFLASM: a software library for fixed-length approximate string matching.

PubMed

Ayad, Lorraine A K; Pissis, Solon P P; Retha, Ahmad

2016-11-10

Approximate string matching is the problem of finding all factors of a given text that are at a distance at most k from a given pattern. Fixed-length approximate string matching is the problem of finding all factors of a text of length n that are at a distance at most k from any factor of length ℓ of a pattern of length m. There exist bit-vector techniques to solve the fixed-length approximate string matching problem in time [Formula: see text] and space [Formula: see text] under the edit and Hamming distance models, where w is the size of the computer word; as such these techniques are independent of the distance threshold k or the alphabet size. Fixed-length approximate string matching is a generalisation of approximate string matching and, hence, has numerous direct applications in computational molecular biology and elsewhere. We present and make available libFLASM, a free open-source C++ software library for solving fixed-length approximate string matching under both the edit and the Hamming distance models. Moreover we describe how fixed-length approximate string matching is applied to solve real problems by incorporating libFLASM into established applications for multiple circular sequence alignment as well as single and structured motif extraction. Specifically, we describe how it can be used to improve the accuracy of multiple circular sequence alignment in terms of the inferred likelihood-based phylogenies; and we also describe how it is used to efficiently find motifs in molecular sequences representing regulatory or functional regions. The comparison of the performance of the library to other algorithms show how it is competitive, especially with increasing distance thresholds. Fixed-length approximate string matching is a generalisation of the classic approximate string matching problem. We present libFLASM, a free open-source C++ software library for solving fixed-length approximate string matching. The extensive experimental results presented here suggest that other applications could benefit from using libFLASM, and thus further maintenance and development of libFLASM is desirable.

Thermotropic Liquid Crystal-Assisted Chemical and Biological Sensors

PubMed Central

Honaker, Lawrence W.; Usol’tseva, Nadezhda; Mann, Elizabeth K.

2017-01-01

In this review article, we analyze recent progress in the application of liquid crystal-assisted advanced functional materials for sensing biological and chemical analytes. Multiple research groups demonstrate substantial interest in liquid crystal (LC) sensing platforms, generating an increasing number of scientific articles. We review trends in implementing LC sensing techniques and identify common problems related to the stability and reliability of the sensing materials as well as to experimental set-ups. Finally, we suggest possible means of bridging scientific findings to viable and attractive LC sensor platforms. PMID:29295530

Preparation of 13C/15N-labeled oligomers using the polymerase chain reaction

DOEpatents

Chen, Xian; Gupta, Goutam; Bradbury, E. Morton

2001-01-01

Preparation of .sup.13 C/.sup.15 N-labeled DNA oligomers using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). A PCR based method for uniform (.sup.13 C/.sup.15 N)-labeling of DNA duplexes is described. Multiple copies of a blunt-ended duplex are cloned into a plasmid, each copy containing the sequence of interest and restriction Hinc II sequences at both the 5' and 3' ends. PCR using bi-directional primers and uniformly .sup.13 C/.sup.15 N-labeled dNTP precursors generates labeled DNA duplexes containing multiple copies of the sequence of interest. Twenty-four cycles of PCR, followed by restriction and purification, gave the uniformly .sup.13 C/.sup.15 N-labeled duplex sequence with a 30% yield. Such labeled duplexes find significant applications in multinuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Review of the novelties presented at the 28th Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) (III).

PubMed

Fernández, Óscar; Arnal-García, Carmen; Arroyo-González, Rafael; Brieva, Lluís; Calles-Hernández, M Carmen; Casanova-Estruch, Bonaventura; Comabella, Manuel; de las Heras, Virginia; García-Merino, Juan A; Hernández-Pérez, Miguel A; Izquierdo, Guillermo; Matas, Elisabet; Meca-Lallana, José E; Mendibe-Bilbao, María del Mar; Muñoz-García, Delicias; Olascoaga, Javier; Oreja-Guevara, Celia; Prieto, José M; Ramió-Torrentà, Lluís; Rodríguez-Antigüedad, Alfredo; Saiz, Albert; Téllez, Nieves; Villar, Luisa M; Tintoré, Mar

2013-10-01

The most significant data presented at the 28th Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS), held in France in October 2012, have been summarised in the fifth edition of the Post-ECTRIMS Experts Meeting, held in Madrid in October 2012. This led to the drafting of this review, which has been published in three parts. This third part of the Post-ECTRIMS review presents the findings from the latest studies conducted with disease-modifying treatments, more specifically with glatiramer acetate, laquinimod, ponesimod, BG-12, teriflunomide, daclizumab, natalizumab and secukinumab (AIN457). Likewise, we also address the reasons that justify the search for innovative treatments for multiple sclerosis, with antigen-specific therapy, cell therapy and therapy aimed at promoting remyelination being highlighted among other future therapeutic strategies. Access to new pharmacological agents and the complexity of the therapy of multiple sclerosis in the future will require new design strategies and directions in clinical trials, including the use of surrogate markers, new statistical applications, superiority, inferiority or equivalence clinical trials and adaptable designs.

A survey of the state of the art and focused research in range systems, task 2

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Yao, K.

1986-01-01

Many communication, control, and information processing subsystems are modeled by linear systems incorporating tapped delay lines (TDL). Such optimized subsystems result in full precision multiplications in the TDL. In order to reduce complexity and cost in a microprocessor implementation, these multiplications can be replaced by single-shift instructions which are equivalent to powers of two multiplications. Since, in general, the obvious operation of rounding the infinite precision TDL coefficients to the nearest powers of two usually yield quite poor system performance, the optimum powers of two coefficient solution was considered. Detailed explanations on the use of branch-and-bound algorithms for finding the optimum powers of two solutions are given. Specific demonstration of this methodology to the design of a linear data equalizer and its implementation in assembly language on a 8080 microprocessor with a 12 bit A/D converter are reported. This simple microprocessor implementation with optimized TDL coefficients achieves a system performance comparable to the optimum linear equalization with full precision multiplications for an input data rate of 300 baud. The philosophy demonstrated in this implementation is dully applicable to many other microprocessor controlled information processing systems.

Multiresource allocation and scheduling for periodic soft real-time applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gopalan, Kartik; Chiueh, Tzi-cker

2001-12-01

Real-time applications that utilize multiple system resources, such as CPU, disks, and network links, require coordinated scheduling of these resources in order to meet their end-to-end performance requirements. Most state-of-the-art operating systems support independent resource allocation and deadline-driven scheduling but lack coordination among multiple heterogeneous resources. This paper describes the design and implementation of an Integrated Real-time Resource Scheduler (IRS) that performs coordinated allocation and scheduling of multiple heterogeneous resources on the same machine for periodic soft real-time application. The principal feature of IRS is a heuristic multi-resource allocation algorithm that reserves multiple resources for real-time applications in a manner that can maximize the number of applications admitted into the system in the long run. At run-time, a global scheduler dispatches the tasks of the soft real-time application to individual resource schedulers according to the precedence constraints between tasks. The individual resource schedulers, which could be any deadline based schedulers, can make scheduling decisions locally and yet collectively satisfy a real-time application's performance requirements. The tightness of overall timing guarantees is ultimately determined by the properties of individual resource schedulers. However, IRS maximizes overall system resource utilization efficiency by coordinating deadline assignment across multiple tasks in a soft real-time application.

Diffraction effects and inelastic electron transport in angle-resolved microscopic imaging applications.

PubMed

Winkelmann, A; Nolze, G; Vespucci, S; Naresh-Kumar, G; Trager-Cowan, C; Vilalta-Clemente, A; Wilkinson, A J; Vos, M

2017-09-01

We analyse the signal formation process for scanning electron microscopic imaging applications on crystalline specimens. In accordance with previous investigations, we find nontrivial effects of incident beam diffraction on the backscattered electron distribution in energy and momentum. Specifically, incident beam diffraction causes angular changes of the backscattered electron distribution which we identify as the dominant mechanism underlying pseudocolour orientation imaging using multiple, angle-resolving detectors. Consequently, diffraction effects of the incident beam and their impact on the subsequent coherent and incoherent electron transport need to be taken into account for an in-depth theoretical modelling of the energy- and momentum distribution of electrons backscattered from crystalline sample regions. Our findings have implications for the level of theoretical detail that can be necessary for the interpretation of complex imaging modalities such as electron channelling contrast imaging (ECCI) of defects in crystals. If the solid angle of detection is limited to specific regions of the backscattered electron momentum distribution, the image contrast that is observed in ECCI and similar applications can be strongly affected by incident beam diffraction and topographic effects from the sample surface. As an application, we demonstrate characteristic changes in the resulting images if different properties of the backscattered electron distribution are used for the analysis of a GaN thin film sample containing dislocations. © 2017 The Authors. Journal of Microscopy published by JohnWiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Microscopical Society.

Telerobotic management system: coordinating multiple human operators with multiple robots

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

King, Jamie W.; Pretty, Raymond; Brothers, Brendan; Gosine, Raymond G.

2003-09-01

This paper describes an application called the Tele-robotic management system (TMS) for coordinating multiple operators with multiple robots for applications such as underground mining. TMS utilizes several graphical interfaces to allow the user to define a partially ordered plan for multiple robots. This plan is then converted to a Petri net for execution and monitoring. TMS uses a distributed framework to allow robots and operators to easily integrate with the applications. This framework allows robots and operators to join the network and advertise their capabilities through services. TMS then decides whether tasks should be dispatched to a robot or a remote operator based on the services offered by the robots and operators.

A Thiazole Coumarin (TC) Turn-On Fluorescence Probe for AT-Base Pair Detection and Multipurpose Applications in Different Biological Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Narayanaswamy, Nagarjun; Kumar, Manoj; Das, Sadhan; Sharma, Rahul; Samanta, Pralok K.; Pati, Swapan K.; Dhar, Suman K.; Kundu, Tapas K.; Govindaraju, T.

2014-09-01

Sequence-specific recognition of DNA by small turn-on fluorescence probes is a promising tool for bioimaging, bioanalytical and biomedical applications. Here, the authors report a novel cell-permeable and red fluorescent hemicyanine-based thiazole coumarin (TC) probe for DNA recognition, nuclear staining and cell cycle analysis. TC exhibited strong fluorescence enhancement in the presence of DNA containing AT-base pairs, but did not fluoresce with GC sequences, single-stranded DNA, RNA and proteins. The fluorescence staining of HeLa S3 and HEK 293 cells by TC followed by DNase and RNase digestion studies depicted the selective staining of DNA in the nucleus over the cytoplasmic region. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis by flow cytometry demonstrated the potential application of TC in cell cycle analysis in HEK 293 cells. Metaphase chromosome and malaria parasite DNA imaging studies further confirmed the in vivo diagnostic and therapeutic applications of probe TC. Probe TC may find multiple applications in fluorescence spectroscopy, diagnostics, bioimaging and molecular and cell biology.

A Thiazole Coumarin (TC) Turn-On Fluorescence Probe for AT-Base Pair Detection and Multipurpose Applications in Different Biological Systems

PubMed Central

Narayanaswamy, Nagarjun; Kumar, Manoj; Das, Sadhan; Sharma, Rahul; Samanta, Pralok K.; Pati, Swapan K.; Dhar, Suman K.; Kundu, Tapas K.; Govindaraju, T.

2014-01-01

Sequence-specific recognition of DNA by small turn-on fluorescence probes is a promising tool for bioimaging, bioanalytical and biomedical applications. Here, the authors report a novel cell-permeable and red fluorescent hemicyanine-based thiazole coumarin (TC) probe for DNA recognition, nuclear staining and cell cycle analysis. TC exhibited strong fluorescence enhancement in the presence of DNA containing AT-base pairs, but did not fluoresce with GC sequences, single-stranded DNA, RNA and proteins. The fluorescence staining of HeLa S3 and HEK 293 cells by TC followed by DNase and RNase digestion studies depicted the selective staining of DNA in the nucleus over the cytoplasmic region. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis by flow cytometry demonstrated the potential application of TC in cell cycle analysis in HEK 293 cells. Metaphase chromosome and malaria parasite DNA imaging studies further confirmed the in vivo diagnostic and therapeutic applications of probe TC. Probe TC may find multiple applications in fluorescence spectroscopy, diagnostics, bioimaging and molecular and cell biology. PMID:25252596

The interpretation of physical activity, exercise, and sedentary behaviours by persons with multiple sclerosis.

PubMed

Kinnett-Hopkins, Dominique; Learmonth, Yvonne; Hubbard, Elizabeth; Pilutti, Lara; Roberts, Sarah; Fanning, Jason; Wójcicki, Thomas; McAuley, Edward; Motl, Robert

2017-11-07

This study adopted a qualitative research design with directed content analysis and examined the interpretations of physical activity, exercise, and sedentary behaviour by persons with multiple sclerosis. Fifty three persons with multiple sclerosis who were enrolled in an exercise trial took part in semi-structured interviews regarding personal interpretations of physical activity, exercise, and sedentary behaviours. Forty three percent of participants indicated a consistent understanding of physical activity, 42% of participants indicated a consistent understanding of exercise, and 83% of participants indicated a consistent understanding of sedentary behaviour with the standard definitions. There was evidence of definitional ambiguity (i.e., 57, 58, and 11% of the sample for physical activity, exercise, and sedentary behaviour, respectively); 6% of the sample inconsistently defined sedentary behaviour with standard definitions. Some participants described physical activity in a manner that more closely aligned with exercise and confused sedentary behaviour with exercise or sleeping/napping. Results highlight the need to provide and utilise consistent definitions for accurate understanding, proper evaluation and communication of physical activity, exercise, and sedentary behaviours among persons with multiple sclerosis. The application of consistent definitions may minimise ambiguity, alleviate the equivocality of findings in the literature, and translate into improved communication about these behaviours in multiple sclerosis. Implications for Rehabilitation The symptoms of multiple sclerosis can be managed through participation in physical activity and exercise. Persons with multiple sclerosis are not engaging in sufficient levels of physical activity and exercise for health benefits. Rehabilitation professionals should use established definitions of physical activity, exercise, and sedentary behaviours when communicating about these behaviours among persons with multiple sclerosis.

Magnetic resonance imaging correlates of bee sting induced multiple organ dysfunction syndrome: A case report.

PubMed

Das, Sushant K; Zeng, Li-Chuan; Li, Bing; Niu, Xiang-Ke; Wang, Jing-Liang; Bhetuwal, Anup; Yang, Han-Feng

2014-09-28

Occasionally systemic complications with high risk of death, such as multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS), can occur following multiple bee stings. This case study reports a patient who presented with MODS, i.e., acute kidney injury, hepatic and cardiac dysfunction, after multiple bee stings. The standard clinical findings were then correlated with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings, which demonstrates that MRI may be utilized as a simpler tool to use than other multiple diagnostics.

CMOS imager for pointing and tracking applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sun, Chao (Inventor); Pain, Bedabrata (Inventor); Yang, Guang (Inventor); Heynssens, Julie B. (Inventor)

2006-01-01

Systems and techniques to realize pointing and tracking applications with CMOS imaging devices. In general, in one implementation, the technique includes: sampling multiple rows and multiple columns of an active pixel sensor array into a memory array (e.g., an on-chip memory array), and reading out the multiple rows and multiple columns sampled in the memory array to provide image data with reduced motion artifact. Various operation modes may be provided, including TDS, CDS, CQS, a tracking mode to read out multiple windows, and/or a mode employing a sample-first-read-later readout scheme. The tracking mode can take advantage of a diagonal switch array. The diagonal switch array, the active pixel sensor array and the memory array can be integrated onto a single imager chip with a controller. This imager device can be part of a larger imaging system for both space-based applications and terrestrial applications.

Exogenous application of hydrogen sulfide donor sodium hydrosulfide enhanced multiple abiotic stress tolerance in bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon (L). Pers.).

PubMed

Shi, Haitao; Ye, Tiantian; Chan, Zhulong

2013-10-01

As a gaseous molecule, hydrogen sulfide (H2S) has been recently found to be involved in plant responses to multiple abiotic stress. In this study, salt (150 and 300 mM NaCl), osmotic (15% and 30% PEG6000) and cold (4 °C) stress treatments induced accumulation of endogenous H2S level, indicating that H2S might play a role in bermudagrass responses to salt, osmotic and cold stresses. Exogenous application of H2S donor (sodium hydrosulfide, NaHS) conferred improved salt, osmotic and freezing stress tolerances in bermudagrass, which were evidenced by decreased electrolyte leakage and increased survival rate under stress conditions. Additionally, NaHS treatment alleviated the reactive oxygen species (ROS) burst and cell damage induced by abiotic stress, via modulating metabolisms of several antioxidant enzymes [catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD) and GR (glutathione reductase)] and non-enzymatic glutathione antioxidant pool and redox state. Moreover, exogenous NaHS treatment led to accumulation of osmolytes (proline, sucrose and soluble total sugars) in stressed bermudagrass plants. Taken together, all these data indicated the protective roles of H2S in bermudagrass responses to salt, osmotic and freezing stresses, via activation of the antioxidant response and osmolyte accumulation. These findings might be applicable to grass and crop engineering to improve abiotic stress tolerance. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

What Scientific Applications can Benefit from Hardware Transactional Memory?

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Schindewolf, M; Bihari, B; Gyllenhaal, J

2012-06-04

Achieving efficient and correct synchronization of multiple threads is a difficult and error-prone task at small scale and, as we march towards extreme scale computing, will be even more challenging when the resulting application is supposed to utilize millions of cores efficiently. Transactional Memory (TM) is a promising technique to ease the burden on the programmer, but only recently has become available on commercial hardware in the new Blue Gene/Q system and hence the real benefit for realistic applications has not been studied, yet. This paper presents the first performance results of TM embedded into OpenMP on a prototype systemmore » of BG/Q and characterizes code properties that will likely lead to benefits when augmented with TM primitives. We first, study the influence of thread count, environment variables and memory layout on TM performance and identify code properties that will yield performance gains with TM. Second, we evaluate the combination of OpenMP with multiple synchronization primitives on top of MPI to determine suitable task to thread ratios per node. Finally, we condense our findings into a set of best practices. These are applied to a Monte Carlo Benchmark and a Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics method. In both cases an optimized TM version, executed with 64 threads on one node, outperforms a simple TM implementation. MCB with optimized TM yields a speedup of 27.45 over baseline.« less

Relationships of Exclusion and Cohesion with Health: The Case of Bangladesh

PubMed Central

2009-01-01

The concept of social exclusion, applied widely in the European Union, has in recent years been gaining use in Bangladesh, mostly by international development agencies. Does this discourse of deprivation, developed in the welfare states of northern Europe, have salience in its application to deprivation in countries like Bangladesh where, for example, 31% of the rural population lives in chronic poverty? The concept of social exclusion has three principal components: a dynamic and relational perspective which requires the identification of who or what causes exclusion; an explicit recognition of multiple dimensions of deprivation; and a longitudinal perspective, recognizing that individuals and groups are dynamic intra- and intergenerationally. The Social Exclusion Knowledge Network of the World Health Organization Commission on Social Determinants of Health expanded the concept to include health status as a contributor to and an outcome of exclusion and to show that actors beyond the state or public sector can critically impact exclusionary processes. In the Bangladesh application, the relevance of the modified model was explored to find that while there are negative associations between social exclusion and health status, much stronger documentation is needed of the relationship. The modification of including multiple sectors, such as private enterprise and civil society, in addition to the state, as having potential to impact exclusionary processes is fundamental to the application of the social exclusion model in Bangladesh. PMID:19761078

The FAA's Approach to Quality Assurance in the Flight Safety Analysis of Launch and Reentry Vehicles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Murray, Daniel P.; Weil, Andre

2010-09-01

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration(FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation’s safety mission is to ensure protection of the public, property, and the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States during commercial launch and reentry activities. As part of this mission, the FAA issues licenses to the operators of launch and reentry vehicles who successfully demonstrate compliance with FAA regulations. To meet these regulations, vehicle operators submit an application that contains, among other things, flight safety analyses of their proposed missions. In the process of evaluating these submitted analyses, the FAA often conducts its own independent analyses, using input data from the submitted license application. These analyses are conducted according to approved procedures using industry developed tools. To assist in achieving the highest levels of quality in these independent analyses, the FAA has developed a quality assurance program that consists of multiple levels of review. These reviews rely on the work of multiple teams, as well as additional, independently performed work of support contractors. This paper describes the FAA’s quality assurance process for flight safety analyses. Members of the commercial space industry may find that elements of this process can be easily applied to their own analyses, improving the quality of the material they submit to the FAA in their license applications.

Two-state theory of binned photon statistics for a large class of waiting time distributions and its application to quantum dot blinking

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Volkán-Kacsó, Sándor

2014-06-14

A theoretical method is proposed for the calculation of the photon counting probability distribution during a bin time. Two-state fluorescence and steady excitation are assumed. A key feature is a kinetic scheme that allows for an extensive class of stochastic waiting time distribution functions, including power laws, expanded as a sum of weighted decaying exponentials. The solution is analytic in certain conditions, and an exact and simple expression is found for the integral contribution of “bright” and “dark” states. As an application for power law kinetics, theoretical results are compared with experimental intensity histograms from a number of blinking CdSe/ZnSmore » quantum dots. The histograms are consistent with distributions of intensity states around a “bright” and a “dark” maximum. A gap of states is also revealed in the more-or-less flat inter-peak region. The slope and to some extent the flatness of the inter-peak feature are found to be sensitive to the power-law exponents. Possible models consistent with these findings are discussed, such as the combination of multiple charging and fluctuating non-radiative channels or the multiple recombination center model. A fitting of the latter to experiment provides constraints on the interaction parameter between the recombination centers. Further extensions and applications of the photon counting theory are also discussed.« less

General solutions to multiple testing problems. Translation of "Sonnemann, E. (1982). Allgemeine Lösungen multipler Test probleme. EDV in Medizin und Biologie 13(4), 120-128".

PubMed

Sonnemann, Eckart

2008-10-01

The introduction of sequentially rejective multiple test procedures (Einot and Gabriel, 1975; Naik, 1975; Holm, 1977; Holm, 1979) has caused considerable progress in the theory of multiple comparisons. Emphasizing the closure of multiple tests we give a survey of the general theory and its recent results in applications. Some new applications are given including a discussion of the connection with the theory of confidence regions.

Fault Tolerance in ZigBee Wireless Sensor Networks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Alena, Richard; Gilstrap, Ray; Baldwin, Jarren; Stone, Thom; Wilson, Pete

2011-01-01

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) based on the IEEE 802.15.4 Personal Area Network standard are finding increasing use in the home automation and emerging smart energy markets. The network and application layers, based on the ZigBee 2007 PRO Standard, provide a convenient framework for component-based software that supports customer solutions from multiple vendors. This technology is supported by System-on-a-Chip solutions, resulting in extremely small and low-power nodes. The Wireless Connections in Space Project addresses the aerospace flight domain for both flight-critical and non-critical avionics. WSNs provide the inherent fault tolerance required for aerospace applications utilizing such technology. The team from Ames Research Center has developed techniques for assessing the fault tolerance of ZigBee WSNs challenged by radio frequency (RF) interference or WSN node failure.

Ultrastable, Zerodur-based optical benches for quantum gas experiments.

PubMed

Duncker, Hannes; Hellmig, Ortwin; Wenzlawski, André; Grote, Alexander; Rafipoor, Amir Jones; Rafipoor, Mona; Sengstock, Klaus; Windpassinger, Patrick

2014-07-10

Operating ultracold quantum gas experiments outside of a laboratory environment has so far been a challenging goal, largely due to the lack of sufficiently stable optical systems. In order to increase the thermal stability of free-space laser systems, the application of nonstandard materials such as glass ceramics is required. Here, we report on Zerodur-based optical systems which include single-mode fiber couplers consisting of multiple components jointed by light-curing adhesives. The thermal stability is thoroughly investigated, revealing excellent fiber-coupling efficiencies between 0.85 and 0.92 in the temperature range from 17°C to 36°C. In conjunction with successfully performed vibration tests, these findings qualify our highly compact systems for atom interferometry experiments aboard a sounding rocket as well as various other quantum information and sensing applications.

Validating Bayesian truth serum in large-scale online human experiments.

PubMed

Frank, Morgan R; Cebrian, Manuel; Pickard, Galen; Rahwan, Iyad

2017-01-01

Bayesian truth serum (BTS) is an exciting new method for improving honesty and information quality in multiple-choice survey, but, despite the method's mathematical reliance on large sample sizes, existing literature about BTS only focuses on small experiments. Combined with the prevalence of online survey platforms, such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk, which facilitate surveys with hundreds or thousands of participants, BTS must be effective in large-scale experiments for BTS to become a readily accepted tool in real-world applications. We demonstrate that BTS quantifiably improves honesty in large-scale online surveys where the "honest" distribution of answers is known in expectation on aggregate. Furthermore, we explore a marketing application where "honest" answers cannot be known, but find that BTS treatment impacts the resulting distributions of answers.

Experiences Using Lightweight Formal Methods for Requirements Modeling

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Easterbrook, Steve; Lutz, Robyn; Covington, Rick; Kelly, John; Ampo, Yoko; Hamilton, David

1997-01-01

This paper describes three case studies in the lightweight application of formal methods to requirements modeling for spacecraft fault protection systems. The case studies differ from previously reported applications of formal methods in that formal methods were applied very early in the requirements engineering process, to validate the evolving requirements. The results were fed back into the projects, to improve the informal specifications. For each case study, we describe what methods were applied, how they were applied, how much effort was involved, and what the findings were. In all three cases, formal methods enhanced the existing verification and validation processes, by testing key properties of the evolving requirements, and helping to identify weaknesses. We conclude that the benefits gained from early modeling of unstable requirements more than outweigh the effort needed to maintain multiple representations.

Validating Bayesian truth serum in large-scale online human experiments

PubMed Central

Frank, Morgan R.; Cebrian, Manuel; Pickard, Galen; Rahwan, Iyad

2017-01-01

Bayesian truth serum (BTS) is an exciting new method for improving honesty and information quality in multiple-choice survey, but, despite the method’s mathematical reliance on large sample sizes, existing literature about BTS only focuses on small experiments. Combined with the prevalence of online survey platforms, such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, which facilitate surveys with hundreds or thousands of participants, BTS must be effective in large-scale experiments for BTS to become a readily accepted tool in real-world applications. We demonstrate that BTS quantifiably improves honesty in large-scale online surveys where the “honest” distribution of answers is known in expectation on aggregate. Furthermore, we explore a marketing application where “honest” answers cannot be known, but find that BTS treatment impacts the resulting distributions of answers. PMID:28494000

Robust EM Continual Reassessment Method in Oncology Dose Finding

PubMed Central

Yuan, Ying; Yin, Guosheng

2012-01-01

The continual reassessment method (CRM) is a commonly used dose-finding design for phase I clinical trials. Practical applications of this method have been restricted by two limitations: (1) the requirement that the toxicity outcome needs to be observed shortly after the initiation of the treatment; and (2) the potential sensitivity to the prespecified toxicity probability at each dose. To overcome these limitations, we naturally treat the unobserved toxicity outcomes as missing data, and use the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm to estimate the dose toxicity probabilities based on the incomplete data to direct dose assignment. To enhance the robustness of the design, we propose prespecifying multiple sets of toxicity probabilities, each set corresponding to an individual CRM model. We carry out these multiple CRMs in parallel, across which model selection and model averaging procedures are used to make more robust inference. We evaluate the operating characteristics of the proposed robust EM-CRM designs through simulation studies and show that the proposed methods satisfactorily resolve both limitations of the CRM. Besides improving the MTD selection percentage, the new designs dramatically shorten the duration of the trial, and are robust to the prespecification of the toxicity probabilities. PMID:22375092

Modified social learning theory re-examined: correlates of self-management behaviors of persons with Type 2 diabetes.

PubMed

Nugent, Linda E; Wallston, Kenneth A

2016-12-01

Modified social learning theory (MSLT) applied to health predicts that health behavior is a multiplicative function of health value and perceptions of control over health. The self-management behaviors of persons with Type 2 diabetes mellitus, internal diabetes locus of control (IDLC), diabetes self-efficacy (DSE), and health value (HV) were assessed with an index of diabetes self-care activities in 107 patients receiving insulin. Multiple regression analysis showed DSE as the only MSLT construct that correlated with the index of diabetes self-care behaviors (β = .21, p < .05). While the predicted three-way interaction of IDLC × DSE × HV was significant (∆R 2  = 4.5 %, p < .05) in the final step of the hierarchical model, the pattern of the findings only partially supported MSLT. Instead of finding that patients who were simultaneously high on all three predictors scored highest on the behavioral index, we found that patients who were low on all three constructs reported the least amount of diabetes self-care behavior. Implications for further modification of MSLT and its applications to clinical practice are discussed.

Controlled levels of protein modification through a chromatography-mediated bioconjugation

DOE PAGES

Kwant, Richard L.; Jaffe, Jake; Palmere, Peter J.; ...

2015-02-27

Synthetically modified proteins are increasingly finding applications as well-defined scaffolds for materials. In practice it remains difficult to construct bioconjugates with precise levels of modification because of the limited number of repeated functional groups on proteins. This article describes a method to control the level of protein modification in cases where there exist multiple potential modification sites. A protein is first tagged with a handle using any of a variety of modification chemistries. This handle is used to isolate proteins with a particular number of modifications via affinity chromatography, and then the handle is elaborated with a desired moiety usingmore » an oxidative coupling reaction. This method results in a sample of protein with a well-defined number of modifications, and we find it particularly applicable to systems like protein homomultimers in which there is no way to discern between chemically identical subunits. We demonstrate the use of this method in the construction of a protein-templated light-harvesting mimic, a type of system which has historically been difficult to make in a well-defined manner.« less

Enhanced quality and quantity of retrieval of Critically Appraised Topics using the CAT Crawler.

PubMed

Dong, P; Mondry, A

2004-03-01

As healthcare moves towards the implementation of Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM), Critically Appraised Topics (CATs) become useful in helping physicians to make clinical decisions. A number of academic and healthcare organizations have set up web-based CAT libraries. The primary objective of the presented work is to provide a one-stop search and download site that allows access to multiple CAT libraries. A web-based application, namely the CAT Crawler, was developed to serve physicians with an adequate access to available appraised topics on the Internet. Important information is extracted automatically and regularly from CAT websites, and consolidated by checking the uniqueness and availability. The principle of meta-search is incorporated into the implementation of the search engine, which finds relevant topics following keyword input. The retrieved result directs the physician to the original resource page. A full-text article of a particular topic can be converted into a proper format for downloading to Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) devices. In summary, the application provides physicians with a common interface to retrieve relevant CATs on particular clinical topics from multiple resources, and thus speeds up the decision making process.

Moist Adiabats with Multiple Condensing Species: A New Theory with Application to Giant-Planet Atmospheres

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Cheng; Ingersoll, Andrew P.; Oyafuso, Fabiano

2018-04-01

We derived a new formula for calculating the moist adiabatic temperature profile of an atmosphere consisting of ideal gases with multiple condensing species. This expression unifies various formulas published in the literature and can be generalized to account for chemical reactions. Unlike previous methods, it converges to machine precision independent of mesh size. It accounts for any ratio of condensable vapors to dry gas, from zero to infinity, and for variable heat capacities as a function of temperature. Because the derivation is generic, the new formula is not only applicable to planetary atmosphere in the solar system, but also to hot Jupiters and brown dwarfs in which a variety of alkali metals, silicates and exotic materials condense. We demonstrate that even though the vapors are ideal gases, they interact in their effects on the moist adiabatic lapse rate. Finally, we apply the new thermodynamic model to study the effects of downdrafts on the distribution of minor constituents and thermal profile in the Galileo probe hotspot. We find that the Galileo Probe measurements can be interpreted as a strong downdraft that displaces an air parcel from 1 bar to the 4 bar level.

Proxy-assisted multicasting of video streams over mobile wireless networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nguyen, Maggie; Pezeshkmehr, Layla; Moh, Melody

2005-03-01

This work addresses the challenge of providing seamless multimedia services to mobile users by proposing a proxy-assisted multicast architecture for delivery of video streams. We propose a hybrid system of streaming proxies, interconnected by an application-layer multicast tree, where each proxy acts as a cluster head to stream out content to its stationary and mobile users. The architecture is based on our previously proposed Enhanced-NICE protocol, which uses an application-layer multicast tree to deliver layered video streams to multiple heterogeneous receivers. We targeted the study on placements of streaming proxies to enable efficient delivery of live and on-demand video, supporting both stationary and mobile users. The simulation results are evaluated and compared with two other baseline scenarios: one with a centralized proxy system serving the entire population and one with mini-proxies each to serve its local users. The simulations are implemented using the J-SIM simulator. The results show that even though proxies in the hybrid scenario experienced a slightly longer delay, they had the lowest drop rate of video content. This finding illustrates the significance of task sharing in multiple proxies. The resulted load balancing among proxies has provided a better video quality delivered to a larger audience.

Fluoroscopic-guided radiofrequency ablation of the basivertebral nerve: application and analysis with multiple imaging modalities in an ovine model (Invited Paper)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bergeron, Jeffrey A.; Eskey, Cliff J.; Attawia, Mohammed; Patel, Samit J.; Ryan, Thomas P.; Pellegrino, Richard; Sutton, Jeffrey; Crombie, John; Paul, B. T.; Hoopes, P. J.

2005-04-01

Pathologic involvement of the basivertebral nerve, an intraosseous vertebral nerve found in humans and most mammalian species, may play a role in some forms of back pain. This study was designed to assess the feasibility and effects of the percutaneous delivery of radiofrequency (RF) energy to thermally ablate the basivertebral nerve in the lumbar vertebrae of mature sheep. Using fluoroscopic guidance, a RF bipolar device was placed and a thermal dose delivered to lumbar vertebral bodies in sheep. Post-treatment assessment included multiple magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques and computed tomography (CT). These data were analyzed and correlated to histopathology and morphometry findings to describe the cellular and boney structural changes resulting from the treatment. Imaging modalities MRI and CT can be implemented to non-invasively describe treatment region and volume, marrow cellular effects, and bone density alterations immediately following RF treatment and during convalescence. Such imaging can be utilized to assess treatment effects and refine the thermal dose to vertebral body volume ratio used in treatment planning. This information will be used to improve the therapeutic ratio and develop a treatment protocol for human applications.

Multiband and Broadband Absorption Enhancement of Monolayer Graphene at Optical Frequencies from Multiple Magnetic Dipole Resonances in Metamaterials

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Bo; Tang, Chaojun; Chen, Jing; Xie, Ningyan; Tang, Huang; Zhu, Xiaoqin; Park, Gun-sik

2018-05-01

It is well known that a suspended monolayer graphene has a weak light absorption efficiency of about 2.3% at normal incidence, which is disadvantageous to some applications in optoelectronic devices. In this work, we will numerically study multiband and broadband absorption enhancement of monolayer graphene over the whole visible spectrum, due to multiple magnetic dipole resonances in metamaterials. The unit cell of the metamaterials is composed of a graphene monolayer sandwiched between four Ag nanodisks with different diameters and a SiO2 spacer on an Ag substrate. The near-field plasmon hybridizations between individual Ag nanodisks and the Ag substrate form four independent magnetic dipole modes, which result into multiband absorption enhancement of monolayer graphene at optical frequencies. When the resonance wavelengths of the magnetic dipole modes are tuned to approach one another by changing the diameters of the Ag nanodisks, a broadband absorption enhancement can be achieved. The position of the absorption band in monolayer graphene can be also controlled by varying the thickness of the SiO2 spacer or the distance between the Ag nanodisks. Our designed graphene light absorber may find some potential applications in optoelectronic devices, such as photodetectors.

Gene discovery by chemical mutagenesis and whole-genome sequencing in Dictyostelium.

PubMed

Li, Cheng-Lin Frank; Santhanam, Balaji; Webb, Amanda Nicole; Zupan, Blaž; Shaulsky, Gad

2016-09-01

Whole-genome sequencing is a useful approach for identification of chemical-induced lesions, but previous applications involved tedious genetic mapping to pinpoint the causative mutations. We propose that saturation mutagenesis under low mutagenic loads, followed by whole-genome sequencing, should allow direct implication of genes by identifying multiple independent alleles of each relevant gene. We tested the hypothesis by performing three genetic screens with chemical mutagenesis in the social soil amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum Through genome sequencing, we successfully identified mutant genes with multiple alleles in near-saturation screens, including resistance to intense illumination and strong suppressors of defects in an allorecognition pathway. We tested the causality of the mutations by comparison to published data and by direct complementation tests, finding both dominant and recessive causative mutations. Therefore, our strategy provides a cost- and time-efficient approach to gene discovery by integrating chemical mutagenesis and whole-genome sequencing. The method should be applicable to many microbial systems, and it is expected to revolutionize the field of functional genomics in Dictyostelium by greatly expanding the mutation spectrum relative to other common mutagenesis methods. © 2016 Li et al.; Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

A virtual microscope for academic medical education: the pate project.

PubMed

Brochhausen, Christoph; Winther, Hinrich B; Hundt, Christian; Schmitt, Volker H; Schömer, Elmar; Kirkpatrick, C James

2015-05-11

Whole-slide imaging (WSI) has become more prominent and continues to gain in importance in student teaching. Applications with different scope have been developed. Many of these applications have either technical or design shortcomings. To design a survey to determine student expectations of WSI applications for teaching histological and pathological diagnosis. To develop a new WSI application based on the findings of the survey. A total of 216 students were questioned about their experiences and expectations of WSI applications, as well as favorable and undesired features. The survey included 14 multiple choice and two essay questions. Based on the survey, we developed a new WSI application called Pate utilizing open source technologies. The survey sample included 216 students-62.0% (134) women and 36.1% (78) men. Out of 216 students, 4 (1.9%) did not disclose their gender. The best-known preexisting WSI applications included Mainzer Histo Maps (199/216, 92.1%), Histoweb Tübingen (16/216, 7.4%), and Histonet Ulm (8/216, 3.7%). Desired features for the students were latitude in the slides (190/216, 88.0%), histological (191/216, 88.4%) and pathological (186/216, 86.1%) annotations, points of interest (181/216, 83.8%), background information (146/216, 67.6%), and auxiliary informational texts (113/216, 52.3%). By contrast, a discussion forum was far less important (9/216, 4.2%) for the students. The survey revealed that the students appreciate a rich feature set, including WSI functionality, points of interest, auxiliary informational texts, and annotations. The development of Pate was significantly influenced by the findings of the survey. Although Pate currently has some issues with the Zoomify file format, it could be shown that Web technologies are capable of providing a high-performance WSI experience, as well as a rich feature set.

Probabilistic Downscaling of Remote Sensing Data with Applications for Multi-Scale Biogeochemical Flux Modeling.

PubMed

Stoy, Paul C; Quaife, Tristan

2015-01-01

Upscaling ecological information to larger scales in space and downscaling remote sensing observations or model simulations to finer scales remain grand challenges in Earth system science. Downscaling often involves inferring subgrid information from coarse-scale data, and such ill-posed problems are classically addressed using regularization. Here, we apply two-dimensional Tikhonov Regularization (2DTR) to simulate subgrid surface patterns for ecological applications. Specifically, we test the ability of 2DTR to simulate the spatial statistics of high-resolution (4 m) remote sensing observations of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in a tundra landscape. We find that the 2DTR approach as applied here can capture the major mode of spatial variability of the high-resolution information, but not multiple modes of spatial variability, and that the Lagrange multiplier (γ) used to impose the condition of smoothness across space is related to the range of the experimental semivariogram. We used observed and 2DTR-simulated maps of NDVI to estimate landscape-level leaf area index (LAI) and gross primary productivity (GPP). NDVI maps simulated using a γ value that approximates the range of observed NDVI result in a landscape-level GPP estimate that differs by ca 2% from those created using observed NDVI. Following findings that GPP per unit LAI is lower near vegetation patch edges, we simulated vegetation patch edges using multiple approaches and found that simulated GPP declined by up to 12% as a result. 2DTR can generate random landscapes rapidly and can be applied to disaggregate ecological information and compare of spatial observations against simulated landscapes.

Probabilistic Downscaling of Remote Sensing Data with Applications for Multi-Scale Biogeochemical Flux Modeling

PubMed Central

Stoy, Paul C.; Quaife, Tristan

2015-01-01

Upscaling ecological information to larger scales in space and downscaling remote sensing observations or model simulations to finer scales remain grand challenges in Earth system science. Downscaling often involves inferring subgrid information from coarse-scale data, and such ill-posed problems are classically addressed using regularization. Here, we apply two-dimensional Tikhonov Regularization (2DTR) to simulate subgrid surface patterns for ecological applications. Specifically, we test the ability of 2DTR to simulate the spatial statistics of high-resolution (4 m) remote sensing observations of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in a tundra landscape. We find that the 2DTR approach as applied here can capture the major mode of spatial variability of the high-resolution information, but not multiple modes of spatial variability, and that the Lagrange multiplier (γ) used to impose the condition of smoothness across space is related to the range of the experimental semivariogram. We used observed and 2DTR-simulated maps of NDVI to estimate landscape-level leaf area index (LAI) and gross primary productivity (GPP). NDVI maps simulated using a γ value that approximates the range of observed NDVI result in a landscape-level GPP estimate that differs by ca 2% from those created using observed NDVI. Following findings that GPP per unit LAI is lower near vegetation patch edges, we simulated vegetation patch edges using multiple approaches and found that simulated GPP declined by up to 12% as a result. 2DTR can generate random landscapes rapidly and can be applied to disaggregate ecological information and compare of spatial observations against simulated landscapes. PMID:26067835

Detecting and visualizing weak signatures in hyperspectral data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

MacPherson, Duncan James

This thesis evaluates existing techniques for detecting weak spectral signatures from remotely sensed hyperspectral data. Algorithms are presented that successfully detect hard-to-find 'mystery' signatures in unknown cluttered backgrounds. The term 'mystery' is used to describe a scenario where the spectral target and background endmembers are unknown. Sub-Pixel analysis and background suppression are used to find deeply embedded signatures which can be less than 10% of the total signal strength. Existing 'mystery target' detection algorithms are derived and compared. Several techniques are shown to be superior both visually and quantitatively. Detection performance is evaluated using confidence metrics that are developed. A multiple algorithm approach is shown to improve detection confidence significantly. Although the research focuses on remote sensing applications, the algorithms presented can be applied to a wide variety of diverse fields such as medicine, law enforcement, manufacturing, earth science, food production, and astrophysics. The algorithms are shown to be general and can be applied to both the reflective and emissive parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. The application scope is a broad one and the final results open new opportunities for many specific applications including: land mine detection, pollution and hazardous waste detection, crop abundance calculations, volcanic activity monitoring, detecting diseases in food, automobile or airplane target recognition, cancer detection, mining operations, extracting galactic gas emissions, etc.

Is My Network Module Preserved and Reproducible?

PubMed Central

Langfelder, Peter; Luo, Rui; Oldham, Michael C.; Horvath, Steve

2011-01-01

In many applications, one is interested in determining which of the properties of a network module change across conditions. For example, to validate the existence of a module, it is desirable to show that it is reproducible (or preserved) in an independent test network. Here we study several types of network preservation statistics that do not require a module assignment in the test network. We distinguish network preservation statistics by the type of the underlying network. Some preservation statistics are defined for a general network (defined by an adjacency matrix) while others are only defined for a correlation network (constructed on the basis of pairwise correlations between numeric variables). Our applications show that the correlation structure facilitates the definition of particularly powerful module preservation statistics. We illustrate that evaluating module preservation is in general different from evaluating cluster preservation. We find that it is advantageous to aggregate multiple preservation statistics into summary preservation statistics. We illustrate the use of these methods in six gene co-expression network applications including 1) preservation of cholesterol biosynthesis pathway in mouse tissues, 2) comparison of human and chimpanzee brain networks, 3) preservation of selected KEGG pathways between human and chimpanzee brain networks, 4) sex differences in human cortical networks, 5) sex differences in mouse liver networks. While we find no evidence for sex specific modules in human cortical networks, we find that several human cortical modules are less preserved in chimpanzees. In particular, apoptosis genes are differentially co-expressed between humans and chimpanzees. Our simulation studies and applications show that module preservation statistics are useful for studying differences between the modular structure of networks. Data, R software and accompanying tutorials can be downloaded from the following webpage: http://www.genetics.ucla.edu/labs/horvath/CoexpressionNetwork/ModulePreservation. PMID:21283776

Volta-Based Cells Materials Chemical Multiple Representation to Improve Ability of Student Representation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Helsy, I.; Maryamah; Farida, I.; Ramdhani, M. A.

2017-09-01

This study aimed to describe the application of teaching materials, analyze the increase in the ability of students to connect the three levels of representation and student responses after application of multiple representations based teaching materials chemistry. The method used quasi one-group pretest-posttest design to 71 students. The results showed the application of teaching materials carried 88% with very good category. A significant increase ability to connect the three levels of representation of students after the application of multiple representations based teaching materials chemistry with t-value > t-crit (11.402 > 1.991). Recapitulation N-gain pretest and posttest showed relatively similar for all groups is 0.6 criterion being achievement. Students gave a positive response to the application of multiple representations based teaching materials chemistry. Students agree teaching materials used in teaching chemistry (88%), and agrees teaching materials to provide convenience in connecting the three levels of representation (95%).

Multiple Sparse Representations Classification

PubMed Central

Plenge, Esben; Klein, Stefan S.; Niessen, Wiro J.; Meijering, Erik

2015-01-01

Sparse representations classification (SRC) is a powerful technique for pixelwise classification of images and it is increasingly being used for a wide variety of image analysis tasks. The method uses sparse representation and learned redundant dictionaries to classify image pixels. In this empirical study we propose to further leverage the redundancy of the learned dictionaries to achieve a more accurate classifier. In conventional SRC, each image pixel is associated with a small patch surrounding it. Using these patches, a dictionary is trained for each class in a supervised fashion. Commonly, redundant/overcomplete dictionaries are trained and image patches are sparsely represented by a linear combination of only a few of the dictionary elements. Given a set of trained dictionaries, a new patch is sparse coded using each of them, and subsequently assigned to the class whose dictionary yields the minimum residual energy. We propose a generalization of this scheme. The method, which we call multiple sparse representations classification (mSRC), is based on the observation that an overcomplete, class specific dictionary is capable of generating multiple accurate and independent estimates of a patch belonging to the class. So instead of finding a single sparse representation of a patch for each dictionary, we find multiple, and the corresponding residual energies provides an enhanced statistic which is used to improve classification. We demonstrate the efficacy of mSRC for three example applications: pixelwise classification of texture images, lumen segmentation in carotid artery magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and bifurcation point detection in carotid artery MRI. We compare our method with conventional SRC, K-nearest neighbor, and support vector machine classifiers. The results show that mSRC outperforms SRC and the other reference methods. In addition, we present an extensive evaluation of the effect of the main mSRC parameters: patch size, dictionary size, and sparsity level. PMID:26177106

Deformable microparticles with multiple functions for drug delivery and device testing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thula, Taili T.

Since the HIV epidemic of the 1990s, researchers have attempted to develop a red blood cell analog. Even though some of these substitutes are now in Phase III of clinical trials, their use is limited by side effects and short half-life in the human body. As a result, there is still a need for an effective erythrocyte analog with minimum immunogenic and side effects, so that it can be used for multiple applications. Finding new approaches to develop more efficient blood substitutes will not only bring valuable advances in the clinical approach, but also in the area of in vitro testing of medical devices. We examined the feasibility of creating a deformable multi-functional, biodegradable, biocompatible particle for applications in drug delivery and device testing. As a preliminary evaluation, we synthesized different types of microcapsules using natural and synthetic polymers, various cross-linking agents, and diverse manufacturing techniques. After fully characterizing of each system, we determined the most promising red blood cell analog in terms of deformability, stability and toxicity. We also examined the encapsulation and release of bovine serum albumin (BSA) within these deformable particles. After removal of cross-linkers, zinc- and copper-alginate microparticles surrounded by multiple polyelectrolyte layers of chitosan oligosaccharide and alginate were deformable and remained stable under physiological pressures applied by the micropipette technique. In addition, multiple coatings decreased toxicity of heavy-metal crosslinked particles. BSA encapsulation and release from chitosan-alginate microspheres were contingent on the crosslinker and number of polyelectrolyte coatings, respectively. Further rheological studies are needed to determine how closely these particles simulate the behavior of erythrocytes. Also, studies on the encapsulation and release of different proteins, including hemoglobin, are needed to establish the desired controlled release of bioactive agents for the proposed delivery system.

Model selection with multiple regression on distance matrices leads to incorrect inferences.

PubMed

Franckowiak, Ryan P; Panasci, Michael; Jarvis, Karl J; Acuña-Rodriguez, Ian S; Landguth, Erin L; Fortin, Marie-Josée; Wagner, Helene H

2017-01-01

In landscape genetics, model selection procedures based on Information Theoretic and Bayesian principles have been used with multiple regression on distance matrices (MRM) to test the relationship between multiple vectors of pairwise genetic, geographic, and environmental distance. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we examined the ability of model selection criteria based on Akaike's information criterion (AIC), its small-sample correction (AICc), and the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) to reliably rank candidate models when applied with MRM while varying the sample size. The results showed a serious problem: all three criteria exhibit a systematic bias toward selecting unnecessarily complex models containing spurious random variables and erroneously suggest a high level of support for the incorrectly ranked best model. These problems effectively increased with increasing sample size. The failure of AIC, AICc, and BIC was likely driven by the inflated sample size and different sum-of-squares partitioned by MRM, and the resulting effect on delta values. Based on these findings, we strongly discourage the continued application of AIC, AICc, and BIC for model selection with MRM.

Strontium 89 in the treatment of pain due to diffuse osseous metastases: a university hospital experience.

PubMed Central

Ashayeri, Ebrahim; Omogbehin, Adedamola; Sridhar, Rajagopalan; Shankar, Ravi A.

2002-01-01

More than two-thirds of the patients with osseous metastases experience debilitating bone pain, requiring some form of pain relief. Analgesics are limited in their efficacy. Palliative application of hemi-body external beam radiation therapy in the treatment of multiple osseous metastases also is limited due to toxicity associated with large treatment ports. Intravenous injections of bone seeking radioisotopes are effective in the palliation of pain with fewer side effects. Forty-one patients with multiple osseous metastases due to prostate and breast cancer were treated with strontium chloride 89 (89Sr) at the department of radiation oncology, in a university hospital. A retrospective analysis of these patients indicated that all subjects had severe pain that diminished their quality of life. Most of these patients had multiple co-morbid factors. Many were on opioids leading to adverse effects such as nausea, constipation, and drowsiness that required additional medication. Objective findings and evaluation of the responses were not always available for all patients. Following treatmentwith 89Sr, over two-thirds of the patients responded favorably and required lower doses of opioids. PMID:12152927

Building an organic computing device with multiple interconnected brains

PubMed Central

Pais-Vieira, Miguel; Chiuffa, Gabriela; Lebedev, Mikhail; Yadav, Amol; Nicolelis, Miguel A. L.

2015-01-01

Recently, we proposed that Brainets, i.e. networks formed by multiple animal brains, cooperating and exchanging information in real time through direct brain-to-brain interfaces, could provide the core of a new type of computing device: an organic computer. Here, we describe the first experimental demonstration of such a Brainet, built by interconnecting four adult rat brains. Brainets worked by concurrently recording the extracellular electrical activity generated by populations of cortical neurons distributed across multiple rats chronically implanted with multi-electrode arrays. Cortical neuronal activity was recorded and analyzed in real time, and then delivered to the somatosensory cortices of other animals that participated in the Brainet using intracortical microstimulation (ICMS). Using this approach, different Brainet architectures solved a number of useful computational problems, such as discrete classification, image processing, storage and retrieval of tactile information, and even weather forecasting. Brainets consistently performed at the same or higher levels than single rats in these tasks. Based on these findings, we propose that Brainets could be used to investigate animal social behaviors as well as a test bed for exploring the properties and potential applications of organic computers. PMID:26158615

Challenges in Wireless System Integration as Enablers for Indoor Context Aware Environments

PubMed Central

Aguirre, Erik

2017-01-01

The advent of fully interactive environments within Smart Cities and Smart Regions requires the use of multiple wireless systems. In the case of user-device interaction, which finds multiple applications such as Ambient Assisted Living, Intelligent Transportation Systems or Smart Grids, among others, large amount of transceivers are employed in order to achieve anytime, anyplace and any device connectivity. The resulting combination of heterogeneous wireless network exhibits fundamental limitations derived from Coverage/Capacity relations, as a function of required Quality of Service parameters, required bit rate, energy restrictions and adaptive modulation and coding schemes. In this context, inherent transceiver density poses challenges in overall system operation, given by multiple node operation which increases overall interference levels. In this work, a deterministic based analysis applied to variable density wireless sensor network operation within complex indoor scenarios is presented, as a function of topological node distribution. The extensive analysis derives interference characterizations, both for conventional transceivers as well as wearables, which provide relevant information in terms of individual node configuration as well as complete network layout. PMID:28704963

Multiple Perpetrator Rape: Naming an Offence and Initial Research Findings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Horvath, Miranda Angel Helena; Kelly, Liz

2009-01-01

Multiple perpetrator rape presents a significant problem nationally and internationally. However, previous research is limited and findings are often contradictory. The details of 101 rape allegations recorded in a six-month period in a large police force in England were analysed. Findings are presented about case classification, victim and…

Analytical group decision making in natural resources: methodology and application

Treesearch

Daniel L. Schmoldt; David L. Peterson

2000-01-01

Group decision making is becoming increasingly important in natural resource management and associated scientific applications, because multiple values are treated coincidentally in time and space, multiple resource specialists are needed, and multiple stakeholders must be included in the decision process. Decades of social science research on decision making in groups...

24 CFR 17.158 - Application of offset funds: Multiple debts.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

...: Multiple debts. 17.158 Section 17.158 Housing and Urban Development Office of the Secretary, Department of... Government Irs Tax Refund and Federal Payment Offset Provisions and Administrative Wage Garnishment § 17.158 Application of offset funds: Multiple debts. The Secretary will use the procedures set out in § 17.157 for the...

Contemporary issues in HIM. The application layer--III.

PubMed

Wear, L L; Pinkert, J R

1993-07-01

We have seen document preparation systems evolve from basic line editors through powerful, sophisticated desktop publishing programs. This component of the application layer is probably one of the most used, and most readily identifiable. Ask grade school children nowadays, and many will tell you that they have written a paper on a computer. Next month will be a "fun" tour through a number of other application programs we find useful. They will range from a simple notebook reminder to a sophisticated photograph processor. Application layer: Software targeted for the end user, focusing on a specific application area, and typically residing in the computer system as distinct components on top of the OS. Desktop publishing: A document preparation program that begins with the text features of a word processor, then adds the ability for a user to incorporate outputs from a variety of graphic programs, spreadsheets, and other applications. Line editor: A document preparation program that manipulates text in a file on the basis of numbered lines. Word processor: A document preparation program that can, among other things, reformat sections of documents, move and replace blocks of text, use multiple character fonts, automatically create a table of contents and index, create complex tables, and combine text and graphics.

Direction Finding Using Multiple MEMS Acoustic Sensors

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-09-01

ADDRESS(ES) Naval Postgraduate School Monterey, CA 93943-5000 8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER 9. SPONSORING /MONITORING AGENCY NAME...6 B. OBJECTIVE AND THESIS ORGANIZATION ..................................10 II. DIRECTION FINDING USING MULTIPLE

Smart Energy Management of Multiple Full Cell Powered Applications

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

MOhammad S. Alam

2007-04-23

In this research project the University of South Alabama research team has been investigating smart energy management and control of multiple fuel cell power sources when subjected to varying demands of electrical and thermal loads together with demands of hydrogen production. This research has focused on finding the optimal schedule of the multiple fuel cell power plants in terms of electric, thermal and hydrogen energy. The optimal schedule is expected to yield the lowest operating cost. Our team is also investigating the possibility of generating hydrogen using photoelectrochemical (PEC) solar cells through finding materials for efficient light harvesting photoanodes. Themore » goal is to develop an efficient and cost effective PEC solar cell system for direct electrolysis of water. In addition, models for hydrogen production, purification, and storage will be developed. The results obtained and the data collected will be then used to develop a smart energy management algorithm whose function is to maximize energy conservation within a managed set of appliances, thereby lowering O/M costs of the Fuel Cell power plant (FCPP), and allowing more hydrogen generation opportunities. The Smart Energy Management and Control (SEMaC) software, developed earlier, controls electrical loads in an individual home to achieve load management objectives such that the total power consumption of a typical residential home remains below the available power generated from a fuel cell. In this project, the research team will leverage the SEMaC algorithm developed earlier to create a neighborhood level control system.« less

Improved Statistical Methods Enable Greater Sensitivity in Rhythm Detection for Genome-Wide Data

PubMed Central

Hutchison, Alan L.; Maienschein-Cline, Mark; Chiang, Andrew H.; Tabei, S. M. Ali; Gudjonson, Herman; Bahroos, Neil; Allada, Ravi; Dinner, Aaron R.

2015-01-01

Robust methods for identifying patterns of expression in genome-wide data are important for generating hypotheses regarding gene function. To this end, several analytic methods have been developed for detecting periodic patterns. We improve one such method, JTK_CYCLE, by explicitly calculating the null distribution such that it accounts for multiple hypothesis testing and by including non-sinusoidal reference waveforms. We term this method empirical JTK_CYCLE with asymmetry search, and we compare its performance to JTK_CYCLE with Bonferroni and Benjamini-Hochberg multiple hypothesis testing correction, as well as to five other methods: cyclohedron test, address reduction, stable persistence, ANOVA, and F24. We find that ANOVA, F24, and JTK_CYCLE consistently outperform the other three methods when data are limited and noisy; empirical JTK_CYCLE with asymmetry search gives the greatest sensitivity while controlling for the false discovery rate. Our analysis also provides insight into experimental design and we find that, for a fixed number of samples, better sensitivity and specificity are achieved with higher numbers of replicates than with higher sampling density. Application of the methods to detecting circadian rhythms in a metadataset of microarrays that quantify time-dependent gene expression in whole heads of Drosophila melanogaster reveals annotations that are enriched among genes with highly asymmetric waveforms. These include a wide range of oxidation reduction and metabolic genes, as well as genes with transcripts that have multiple splice forms. PMID:25793520

Multiple plasmonically induced transparency for chip-scale bandpass filters in metallic nanowaveguides

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lu, Hua; Yue, Zengqi; Zhao, Jianlin

2018-05-01

We propose and investigate a new kind of bandpass filters based on the plasmonically induced transparency (PIT) effect in a special metal-insulator-metal (MIM) waveguide system. The finite element method (FEM) simulations illustrate that the obvious PIT response can be generated in the metallic nanostructure with the stub and coupled cavities. The lineshape and position of the PIT peak are particularly dependent on the lengths of the stub and coupled cavities, the waveguide width, as well as the coupling distance between the stub and coupled cavities. The numerical simulations are in accordance with the results obtained by the temporal coupled-mode theory. The multi-peak PIT effect can be achieved by integrating multiple coupled cavities into the plasmonic waveguide. This PIT response contributes to the flexible realization of chip-scale multi-channel bandpass filters, which could find crucial applications in highly integrated optical circuits for signal processing.

Research education: findings of a study of teaching-learning research using multiple analytical perspectives.

PubMed

Vandermause, Roxanne; Barbosa-Leiker, Celestina; Fritz, Roschelle

2014-12-01

This multimethod, qualitative study provides results for educators of nursing doctoral students to consider. Combining the expertise of an empirical analytical researcher (who uses statistical methods) and an interpretive phenomenological researcher (who uses hermeneutic methods), a course was designed that would place doctoral students in the midst of multiparadigmatic discussions while learning fundamental research methods. Field notes and iterative analytical discussions led to patterns and themes that highlight the value of this innovative pedagogical application. Using content analysis and interpretive phenomenological approaches, together with one of the students, data were analyzed from field notes recorded in real time over the period the course was offered. This article describes the course and the study analysis, and offers the pedagogical experience as transformative. A link to a sample syllabus is included in the article. The results encourage nurse educators of doctoral nursing students to focus educational practice on multiple methodological perspectives. Copyright 2014, SLACK Incorporated.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Zeylikovich, I.; Xu, M., E-mail: mxu@fairfield.edu

The phase of multiply scattered light has recently attracted considerable interest. Coherent backscattering is a striking phenomenon of multiple scattered light in which the coherence of light survives multiple scattering in a random medium and is observable in the direction space as an enhancement of the intensity of backscattered light within a cone around the retroreflection direction. Reciprocity also leads to enhancement of backscattering light in the spatial space. The random medium behaves as a reciprocity mirror which robustly converts a diverging incident beam into a converging backscattering one focusing at a conjugate spot in space. Here we first analyzemore » theoretically this coherent backscattering mirror (CBM) phenomenon and then demonstrate the capability of CBM compensating and correcting both static and dynamic phase distortions occurring along the optical path. CBM may offer novel approaches for high speed dynamic phase corrections in optical systems and find applications in sensing and navigation.« less

Accuracy and Numerical Stabilty Analysis of Lattice Boltzmann Method with Multiple Relaxation Time for Incompressible Flows

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pradipto; Purqon, Acep

2017-07-01

Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) is the novel method for simulating fluid dynamics. Nowadays, the application of LBM ranges from the incompressible flow, flow in the porous medium, until microflows. The common collision model of LBM is the BGK with a constant single relaxation time τ. However, BGK suffers from numerical instabilities. These instabilities could be eliminated by implementing LBM with multiple relaxation time. Both of those scheme have implemented for incompressible 2 dimensions lid-driven cavity. The stability analysis has done by finding the maximum Reynolds number and velocity for converged simulations. The accuracy analysis is done by comparing the velocity profile with the benchmark results from Ghia, et al and calculating the net velocity flux. The tests concluded that LBM with MRT are more stable than BGK, and have a similar accuracy. The maximum Reynolds number that converges for BGK is 3200 and 7500 for MRT respectively.

Optical Processing of Speckle Images with Bacteriorhodopsin for Pattern Recognition

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Downie, John D.; Tucker, Deanne (Technical Monitor)

1994-01-01

Logarithmic processing of images with multiplicative noise characteristics can be utilized to transform the image into one with an additive noise distribution. This simplifies subsequent image processing steps for applications such as image restoration or correlation for pattern recognition. One particularly common form of multiplicative noise is speckle, for which the logarithmic operation not only produces additive noise, but also makes it of constant variance (signal-independent). We examine the optical transmission properties of some bacteriorhodopsin films here and find them well suited to implement such a pointwise logarithmic transformation optically in a parallel fashion. We present experimental results of the optical conversion of speckle images into transformed images with additive, signal-independent noise statistics using the real-time photochromic properties of bacteriorhodopsin. We provide an example of improved correlation performance in terms of correlation peak signal-to-noise for such a transformed speckle image.

Dynamic coherent backscattering mirror

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zeylikovich, I.; Xu, M.

2016-02-01

The phase of multiply scattered light has recently attracted considerable interest. Coherent backscattering is a striking phenomenon of multiple scattered light in which the coherence of light survives multiple scattering in a random medium and is observable in the direction space as an enhancement of the intensity of backscattered light within a cone around the retroreflection direction. Reciprocity also leads to enhancement of backscattering light in the spatial space. The random medium behaves as a reciprocity mirror which robustly converts a diverging incident beam into a converging backscattering one focusing at a conjugate spot in space. Here we first analyze theoretically this coherent backscattering mirror (CBM) phenomenon and then demonstrate the capability of CBM compensating and correcting both static and dynamic phase distortions occurring along the optical path. CBM may offer novel approaches for high speed dynamic phase corrections in optical systems and find applications in sensing and navigation.

Simultaneous multicolor imaging of wide-field epi-fluorescence microscopy with four-bucket detection

PubMed Central

Park, Kwan Seob; Kim, Dong Uk; Lee, Jooran; Kim, Geon Hee; Chang, Ki Soo

2016-01-01

We demonstrate simultaneous imaging of multiple fluorophores using wide-field epi-fluorescence microscopy with a monochrome camera. The intensities of the three lasers are modulated by a sinusoidal waveform in order to excite each fluorophore with the same modulation frequency and a different time-delay. Then, the modulated fluorescence emissions are simultaneously detected by a camera operating at four times the excitation frequency. We show that two different fluorescence beads having crosstalk can be clearly separated using digital processing based on the phase information. In addition, multiple organelles within multi-stained single cells are shown with the phase mapping method, demonstrating an improved dynamic range and contrast compared to the conventional fluorescence image. These findings suggest that wide-field epi-fluorescence microscopy with four-bucket detection could be utilized for high-contrast multicolor imaging applications such as drug delivery and fluorescence in situ hybridization. PMID:27375944

SIFT optimization and automation for matching images from multiple temporal sources

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Castillo-Carrión, Sebastián; Guerrero-Ginel, José-Emilio

2017-05-01

Scale Invariant Feature Transformation (SIFT) was applied to extract tie-points from multiple source images. Although SIFT is reported to perform reliably under widely different radiometric and geometric conditions, using the default input parameters resulted in too few points being found. We found that the best solution was to focus on large features as these are more robust and not prone to scene changes over time, which constitutes a first approach to the automation of processes using mapping applications such as geometric correction, creation of orthophotos and 3D models generation. The optimization of five key SIFT parameters is proposed as a way of increasing the number of correct matches; the performance of SIFT is explored in different images and parameter values, finding optimization values which are corroborated using different validation imagery. The results show that the optimization model improves the performance of SIFT in correlating multitemporal images captured from different sources.

Quantitative multimodality imaging in cancer research and therapy.

PubMed

Yankeelov, Thomas E; Abramson, Richard G; Quarles, C Chad

2014-11-01

Advances in hardware and software have enabled the realization of clinically feasible, quantitative multimodality imaging of tissue pathophysiology. Earlier efforts relating to multimodality imaging of cancer have focused on the integration of anatomical and functional characteristics, such as PET-CT and single-photon emission CT (SPECT-CT), whereas more-recent advances and applications have involved the integration of multiple quantitative, functional measurements (for example, multiple PET tracers, varied MRI contrast mechanisms, and PET-MRI), thereby providing a more-comprehensive characterization of the tumour phenotype. The enormous amount of complementary quantitative data generated by such studies is beginning to offer unique insights into opportunities to optimize care for individual patients. Although important technical optimization and improved biological interpretation of multimodality imaging findings are needed, this approach can already be applied informatively in clinical trials of cancer therapeutics using existing tools. These concepts are discussed herein.

Application of mixed-methods design in community-engaged research: Lessons learned from an evidence-based intervention for Latinos with chronic illness and minor depression.

PubMed

Aguado Loi, Claudia X; Alfonso, Moya L; Chan, Isabella; Anderson, Kelsey; Tyson, Dinorah Dina Martinez; Gonzales, Junius; Corvin, Jaime

2017-08-01

The purpose of this paper is to share lessons learned from a collaborative, community-informed mixed-methods approach to adapting an evidence-based intervention to meet the needs of Latinos with chronic disease and minor depression and their family members. Mixed-methods informed by community-based participatory research (CBPR) were employed to triangulate multiple stakeholders' perceptions of facilitators and barriers of implementing the adapted intervention in community settings. Community partners provided an insider perspective to overcome methodological challenges. The study's community informed mixed-methods: research approach offered advantages to a single research methodology by expanding or confirming research findings and engaging multiple stakeholders in data collection. This approach also allowed community partners to collaborate with academic partners in key research decisions. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Regulation of Ubiquitination-Mediated Protein Degradation by Survival Kinases in Cancer

PubMed Central

Yamaguchi, Hirohito; Hsu, Jennifer L.; Hung, Mien-Chie

2011-01-01

The ubiquitin–proteasome system is essential for multiple physiological processes via selective degradation of target proteins and has been shown to plays a critical role in human cancer. Activation of oncogenic factors and inhibition of tumor suppressors have been shown to be essential for cancer development, and protein ubiquitination has been linked to the regulation of oncogenic factors and tumor suppressors. Three kinases, AKT, extracellular signal-regulated kinase, and IκB kinase, we refer to as oncokinases, are activated in multiple human cancers. We and others have identified several key downstream targets that are commonly regulated by these oncokinases, some of which are regulated directly or indirectly via ubiquitin-mediated proteasome degradation, including FOXO3, β-catenin, myeloid cell leukemia-1, and Snail. In this review, we summarize these findings from our and other groups and discuss potential future studies and applications in the clinic. PMID:22649777

Incorporating Aptamers in the Multiple Analyte Profiling Assays (xMAP): Detection of C-Reactive Protein.

PubMed

Bernard, Elyse D; Nguyen, Kathy C; DeRosa, Maria C; Tayabali, Azam F; Aranda-Rodriguez, Rocio

2017-01-01

Aptamers are short oligonucleotide sequences used in detection systems because of their high affinity binding to a variety of macromolecules. With the introduction of aptamers over 25 years ago came the exploration of their use in many different applications as a substitute for antibodies. Aptamers have several advantages; they are easy to synthesize, can bind to analytes for which it is difficult to obtain antibodies, and in some cases bind better than antibodies. As such, aptamer applications have significantly expanded as an adjunct to a variety of different immunoassay designs. The Multiple-Analyte Profiling (xMAP) technology developed by Luminex Corporation commonly uses antibodies for the detection of analytes in small sample volumes through the use of fluorescently coded microbeads. This technology permits the simultaneous detection of multiple analytes in each sample tested and hence could be applied in many research fields. Although little work has been performed adapting this technology for use with apatmers, optimizing aptamer-based xMAP assays would dramatically increase the versatility of analyte detection. We report herein on the development of an xMAP bead-based aptamer/antibody sandwich assay for a biomarker of inflammation (C-reactive protein or CRP). Protocols for the coupling of aptamers to xMAP beads, validation of coupling, and for an aptamer/antibody sandwich-type assay for CRP are detailed. The optimized conditions, protocols and findings described in this research could serve as a starting point for the development of new aptamer-based xMAP assays.

A cross-sectional study of the number and frequency of terms used to refer to knowledge translation in a body of health literature in 2006: a Tower of Babel?

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background The study of implementing research findings into practice is rapidly growing and has acquired many competing names (e.g., dissemination, uptake, utilization, translation) and contributing disciplines. The use of multiple terms across disciplines pose barriers to communication and progress for applying research findings. We sought to establish an inventory of terms describing this field and how often authors use them in a collection of health literature published in 2006. Methods We refer to this field as knowledge translation (KT). Terms describing aspects of KT and their definitions were collected from literature, the internet, reports, textbooks, and contact with experts. We compiled a database of KT and other articles by reading 12 healthcare journals representing multiple disciplines. All articles published in these journals in 2006 were categorized as being KT or not. The KT articles (all KT) were further categorized, if possible, for whether they described KT projects or implementations (KT application articles), or presented the theoretical basis, models, tools, methods, or techniques of KT (KT theory articles). Accuracy was checked using duplicate reading. Custom designed software determined how often KT terms were used in the titles and abstracts of articles categorized as being KT. Results A total of 2,603 articles were assessed, and 581 were identified as KT articles. Of these, 201 described KT applications, and 153 included KT theory. Of the 100 KT terms collected, 46 were used by the authors in the titles or abstracts of articles categorized as being KT. For all 581 KT articles, eight terms or term variations used by authors were highly discriminating for separating KT and non-KT articles (p < 0.001): implementation, adoption, quality improvement, dissemination, complex intervention (with multiple endings), implementation (within three words of) research, and complex intervention. More KT terms were associated with KT application articles (n = 13) and KT theory articles (n = 18). Conclusions We collected 100 terms describing KT research. Authors used 46 of them in titles and abstracts of KT articles. Of these, approximately half discriminated between KT and non-KT articles. Thus, the need for consolidation and consistent use of fewer terms related to KT research is evident. PMID:21080976

Pair distribution function analysis applied to decahedral gold nanoparticles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nakotte, H.; Silkwood, C.; Page, K.; Wang, H.-W.; Olds, D.; Kiefer, B.; Manna, S.; Karpov, D.; Fohtung, E.; Fullerton, E. E.

2017-11-01

The five-fold symmetry of face-centered cubic (fcc) derived nanoparticles is inconsistent with the translational symmetry of a Bravais lattice and generally explained by multiple twinning of a tetrahedral subunit about a (joint) symmetry axis, with or without structural modification to the fcc motif. Unlike in bulk materials, five-fold twinning in cubic nanoparticles is common and strongly affects their structural, chemical, and electronic properties. To test and verify theoretical approaches, it is therefore pertinent that the local structural features of such materials can be fully characterized. The small size of nanoparticles severely limits the application of traditional analysis techniques, such as Bragg diffraction. A complete description of the atomic arrangement in nanoparticles therefore requires a departure from the concept of translational symmetry, and prevents fully evaluating all the structural features experimentally. We describe how recent advances in instrumentation, together with the increasing power of computing, are shaping the development of alternative analysis methods of scattering data for nanostructures. We present the application of Debye scattering and pair distribution function (PDF) analysis towards modeling of the total scattering data for the example of decahedral gold nanoparticles. PDF measurements provide a statistical description of the pair correlations of atoms within a material, allowing one to evaluate the probability of finding two atoms within a given distance. We explored the sensitivity of existing synchrotron x-ray PDF instruments for distinguishing four different simple models for our gold nanoparticles: a multiply twinned fcc decahedron with either a single gap or multiple distributed gaps, a relaxed body-centered orthorhombic (bco) decahedron, and a hybrid decahedron. The data simulations of the models were then compared with experimental data from synchrotron x-ray total scattering. We present our experimentally derived atomistic models of the gold nanoparticles, with surprising results and a perspective on remaining challenges. Our findings provide evidence for the suitability of PDF analysis in the characterization of other nanosized particles that may have commercial applications.

A robust approach towards unknown transformation, regional adjacency graphs, multigraph matching, segmentation video frames from unnamed aerial vehicles (UAV)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gohatre, Umakant Bhaskar; Patil, Venkat P.

2018-04-01

In computer vision application, the multiple object detection and tracking, in real-time operation is one of the important research field, that have gained a lot of attentions, in last few years for finding non stationary entities in the field of image sequence. The detection of object is advance towards following the moving object in video and then representation of object is step to track. The multiple object recognition proof is one of the testing assignment from detection multiple objects from video sequence. The picture enrollment has been for quite some time utilized as a reason for the location the detection of moving multiple objects. The technique of registration to discover correspondence between back to back casing sets in view of picture appearance under inflexible and relative change. The picture enrollment is not appropriate to deal with event occasion that can be result in potential missed objects. In this paper, for address such problems, designs propose novel approach. The divided video outlines utilizing area adjancy diagram of visual appearance and geometric properties. Then it performed between graph sequences by using multi graph matching, then getting matching region labeling by a proposed graph coloring algorithms which assign foreground label to respective region. The plan design is robust to unknown transformation with significant improvement in overall existing work which is related to moving multiple objects detection in real time parameters.

Using Amplitude Ratios from Seismic Arrays for Crustal Structure, Great Earthquakes, and in Icy Environments (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsai, V. C.; Lin, F.; Duputel, Z.; Zhan, Z.

2013-12-01

Seismic amplitudes, which were previously often deemed too unreliable to use, are now more and more dependable due to advances in instrumentation, quality control measures, and improved installation procedures. With the growing availability of such reliable amplitude information, new methods can now be applied that make use of this amplitude data. Here, we discuss a number of ways we have recently applied such methods. In particular, we describe three very different situations in which we find seismic amplitude ratios to be extremely useful in constraining information that would otherwise be poorly determined. In the first application, we compute Rayleigh-wave horizontal-to-vertical (H/V) ratios for earthquakes observed across USArray, and find that imaging of upper crustal structure is improved significantly over using phase velocities alone. In addition to obtaining better constraints on shallow velocity structure, the complimentary sensitivities of H/V ratios also provide new constraints on density structure and make shallow density tomography possible. In a second application, we find that Rayleigh- and Love-wave amplitude ratios from the Mw 8.6 11 April 2012 Sumatra earthquake observed across the Global Seismographic Network provide excellent long-period constraints on the extended nature of the earthquake source. In particular, we find that the data are robustly fit by a model with two sub-events at nearly 30-km depth and with significant directivity. This multiple-point-source solution is consistent with other observations like high-frequency back projections. In a third and final application, we observe ambient-noise H/V ratios in an unusual environment on the Amery Ice Shelf, Antarctica. Unlike in most crustal settings, we find the dominant features in the H/V ratios to be unrelated to Rayleigh-wave propagation and to be instead determined by P-wave resonances in the low-velocity water layer beneath the ice. All three applications underscore the fact that seismic amplitude ratios are incredibly useful observables and can now be used routinely to help make key inferences about Earth structure and earthquake processes.

Evaluation of Swift Start TCP in Long-Delay Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lawas-Grodek, Frances J.; Tran, Diepchi T.

2004-01-01

This report presents the test results of the Swift Start algorithm in single-flow and multiple-flow testbeds under the effects of high propagation delays, various slow bottlenecks, and small queue sizes. Although this algorithm estimates capacity and implements packet pacing, the findings were that in a heavily congested link, the Swift Start algorithm will not be applicable. The reason is that the bottleneck estimation is falsely influenced by timeouts induced by retransmissions and the expiration of delayed acknowledgment (ACK) timers, thus causing the modified Swift Start code to fall back to regular transmission control protocol (TCP).

Fluid limit of nonintegrable continuous-time random walks in terms of fractional differential equations.

PubMed

Sánchez, R; Carreras, B A; van Milligen, B Ph

2005-01-01

The fluid limit of a recently introduced family of nonintegrable (nonlinear) continuous-time random walks is derived in terms of fractional differential equations. In this limit, it is shown that the formalism allows for the modeling of the interaction between multiple transport mechanisms with not only disparate spatial scales but also different temporal scales. For this reason, the resulting fluid equations may find application in the study of a large number of nonlinear multiscale transport problems, ranging from the study of self-organized criticality to the modeling of turbulent transport in fluids and plasmas.

Cellular response of pulp fibroblast to single or multiple photobiomodulation applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fernandes, Amanda; Lourenço Neto, Natalino; Teixeira Marques, Nadia Carolina; Lourenço Ribeiro Vitor, Luciana; Tavares Oliveira Prado, Mariel; Cardoso Oliveira, Rodrigo; Moreira Machado, Maria Aparecida Andrade; Marchini Oliveira, Thais

2018-06-01

This study aimed to evaluate in vitro the effects of single or multiple photobiomodulation (PBM) applications on the viability and proliferation of pulp fibroblasts. Pulp fibroblasts from human deciduous teeth were obtained from a biorepository, plated into 96-well plates, and irradiated according to the experimental groups. At 24 h, 48 h, and 72 h after irradiation, cell viability and proliferation were assessed through MTT and Crystal Violet assays, respectively. The intragroup comparison revealed statistically significant differences for 2.5 J cm‑2 (3×) with increasing viability at 72 h over 48 h (p  =  0.027). The intergroup analysis showed a greater viability of the multiple PBM applications 2.5 J cm‑2 (3×) over the single application 7.5 J cm‑2 (1×) at 72 h. The application of 5 J cm‑2 (1×) exhibited greater proliferation than the application of 7.5 J cm‑2 (1×), 2.5 J cm‑2 (2×) and 2.5 J cm‑2 (3×). Single or multiple PBM applications demonstration different stimulatory effects on pulp fibroblast. The results show that the group submitted to multiple irradiation presented significantly higher cell viability than the groups with single irradiation at 72 h. However, the photobiomodulation therapy with single irradiations was more effective on cell proliferation at 24 h.

Computed tomographic findings of cerebral fat embolism following multiple bone fractures.

PubMed

Law, Huong Ling; Wong, Siong Lung; Tan, Suzet

2013-02-01

Fat embolism to the lungs and brain is an uncommon complication following fractures. Few reports with descriptions of computed tomographic (CT) findings of emboli to the brain or cerebral fat embolism are available. We report a case of cerebral fat embolism following multiple skeletal fractures and present its CT findings here.

PTSD's factor structure and measurement invariance across subgroups with differing count of trauma types.

PubMed

Contractor, Ateka A; Caldas, Stephanie V; Dolan, Megan; Lagdon, Susan; Armour, Chérie

2018-06-01

To investigate the effect of the count of traumatizing event (TE) types on post-trauma mental health, several studies have compared posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) severity between individuals experiencing one versus multiple TE types. However, the validity of these studies depends on the establishment of measurement invariance of the construct(s) of interest. The current study examined the stability of the most optimal PTSD Model symptom cluster constructs (assessed by the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 [PCL-5]) across subgroups experiencing one versus multiple TE types. The sample included university students (n = 556) endorsing at least one TE (Stressful Life Events Screening Questionnaire). Using data from the entire sample, results suggest that the PCL-5-assessed Hybrid Model provided a significantly better fit compared to other models. Results also indicated invariance of factor loadings (metric), and intercepts (scalar) for the PCL-5-assessed Hybrid Model factors across subgroups endorsing one (n = 191) versus multiple TE types (n = 365). Our findings thus support the stability, applicability, and meaningful comparison of the PCL-assessed Hybrid Model factor structure (including subscale severity scores) across subgroups experiencing one versus multiple TE types. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effects of 60 Hz sinusoidal magnetic field on in vitro establishment, multiplication, and acclimatization phases of Coffea arabica seedlings.

PubMed

Isaac Alemán, Elizabeth; Oliveira Moreira, Rafael; Almeida Lima, Andre; Chaves Silva, Samuel; González-Olmedo, Justo Lorenzo; Chalfun-Junior, Antonio

2014-09-01

The influence of extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields on net photosynthesis, transpiration, photosynthetic pigment concentration, and gene expression of ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase small subunit (RBCS1), during in vitro establishment, in vitro multiplication and acclimatization phases of coffee seedlings were investigated. Untreated coffee plants were considered as control, whereas treated plants were exposed to a 60 Hz sinusoidal magnetic field of 2 mT of magnetic induction during 3 min. This magnetic field was generated by an electromagnet, connected to a wave generator. The results revealed that magnetically treated plants showed a significant increase in net photosynthesis (85.4% and 117.9%, in multiplication and acclimatization phases, respectively), and in photosynthetic pigment concentration (66.6% for establishment phase, 79.9% for multiplication phase, and 43.8% for acclimatization phase). They also showed a differential RBCS1 gene expression (approximately twofold) and a decrease of transpiration rates in regard to their control plants. In conclusion, the findings suggest that the application of 60 Hz magnetic field to in vitro coffee plants may improve the seedlings quality by modifying some photosynthetic physiological and molecular processes, increasing their vigor, and ensuring better plant development in later stages. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Accounting for linkage disequilibrium in association analysis of diverse populations.

PubMed

Charles, Bashira A; Shriner, Daniel; Rotimi, Charles N

2014-04-01

The National Human Genome Research Institute's catalog of published genome-wide association studies (GWAS) lists over 10,000 genetic variants collectively associated with over 800 human diseases or traits. Most of these GWAS have been conducted in European-ancestry populations. Findings gleaned from these studies have led to identification of disease-associated loci and biologic pathways involved in disease etiology. In multiple instances, these genomic findings have led to the development of novel medical therapies or evidence for prescribing a given drug as the appropriate treatment for a given individual beyond phenotypic appearances or socially defined constructs of race or ethnicity. Such findings have implications for populations throughout the globe and GWAS are increasingly being conducted in more diverse populations. A major challenge for investigators seeking to follow up genomic findings between diverse populations is discordant patterns of linkage disequilibrium (LD). We provide an overview of common measures of LD and opportunities for their use in novel methods designed to address challenges associated with following up GWAS conducted in European-ancestry populations in African-ancestry populations or, more generally, between populations with discordant LD patterns. We detail the strengths and weaknesses associated with different approaches. We also describe application of these strategies in follow-up studies of populations with concordant LD patterns (replication) or discordant LD patterns (transferability) as well as fine-mapping studies. We review application of these methods to a variety of traits and diseases. © 2014 WILEY PERIODICALS, INC.

Application-Level Interoperability Across Grids and Clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jha, Shantenu; Luckow, Andre; Merzky, Andre; Erdely, Miklos; Sehgal, Saurabh

Application-level interoperability is defined as the ability of an application to utilize multiple distributed heterogeneous resources. Such interoperability is becoming increasingly important with increasing volumes of data, multiple sources of data as well as resource types. The primary aim of this chapter is to understand different ways in which application-level interoperability can be provided across distributed infrastructure. We achieve this by (i) using the canonical wordcount application, based on an enhanced version of MapReduce that scales-out across clusters, clouds, and HPC resources, (ii) establishing how SAGA enables the execution of wordcount application using MapReduce and other programming models such as Sphere concurrently, and (iii) demonstrating the scale-out of ensemble-based biomolecular simulations across multiple resources. We show user-level control of the relative placement of compute and data and also provide simple performance measures and analysis of SAGA-MapReduce when using multiple, different, heterogeneous infrastructures concurrently for the same problem instance. Finally, we discuss Azure and some of the system-level abstractions that it provides and show how it is used to support ensemble-based biomolecular simulations.

Efficient hash tables for network applications.

PubMed

Zink, Thomas; Waldvogel, Marcel

2015-01-01

Hashing has yet to be widely accepted as a component of hard real-time systems and hardware implementations, due to still existing prejudices concerning the unpredictability of space and time requirements resulting from collisions. While in theory perfect hashing can provide optimal mapping, in practice, finding a perfect hash function is too expensive, especially in the context of high-speed applications. The introduction of hashing with multiple choices, d-left hashing and probabilistic table summaries, has caused a shift towards deterministic DRAM access. However, high amounts of rare and expensive high-speed SRAM need to be traded off for predictability, which is infeasible for many applications. In this paper we show that previous suggestions suffer from the false precondition of full generality. Our approach exploits four individual degrees of freedom available in many practical applications, especially hardware and high-speed lookups. This reduces the requirement of on-chip memory up to an order of magnitude and guarantees constant lookup and update time at the cost of only minute amounts of additional hardware. Our design makes efficient hash table implementations cheaper, more predictable, and more practical.

Application Site and Mosquito Age Influences Malathion- and Permethrin-Induced Mortality in Culex quinquefasciatus (Diptera: Culicidae).

PubMed

Aldridge, Robert L; Kaufman, Phillip E; Bloomquist, Jeffrey R; Gezan, Salvador A; Linthicum, Kenneth J

2017-11-07

Concentrations of malathion and permethrin typical in droplets generated from ultra-low-volume and low-volume applications used to control mosquito populations were evaluated for efficacy against multiple-aged Culex quinquefasciatus Say (Diptera: Culicidae), using a topical bioassay. Although insecticide droplets will impinge on many exoskeletal body regions and a range of ages of mosquitoes in a population, traditional mosquito topical bioassays focus pesticide application to the mesothoracic pleural or dorsal regions across an average mosquito age (e.g., 3-7 d). Our results document nonuniform insecticide sensitivity across body regions at ages not previously assessed in mosquitoes (teneral and 14-d old). We expect our findings to influence the topical bioassay process, illustrating the difference in mosquito body regions and ages that ultimately may explain insecticide effectiveness wherever droplets impinge upon the mosquito body during field control applications. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America 2017. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.

Analysis and optimization of machining parameters of laser cutting for polypropylene composite

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Deepa, A.; Padmanabhan, K.; Kuppan, P.

2017-11-01

Present works explains about machining of self-reinforced Polypropylene composite fabricated using hot compaction method. The objective of the experiment is to find optimum machining parameters for Polypropylene (PP). Laser power and Machining speed were the parameters considered in response to tensile test and Flexure test. Taguchi method is used for experimentation. Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) is used for multiple process parameter optimization. ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) is used to find impact for process parameter. Polypropylene has got the great application in various fields like, it is used in the form of foam in model aircraft and other radio-controlled vehicles, thin sheets (∼2-20μm) used as a dielectric, PP is also used in piping system, it is also been used in hernia and pelvic organ repair or protect new herrnis in the same location.

Improving the evaluation of therapeutic interventions in multiple sclerosis: the role of new psychometric methods.

PubMed

Hobart, J; Cano, S

2009-02-01

In this monograph we examine the added value of new psychometric methods (Rasch measurement and Item Response Theory) over traditional psychometric approaches by comparing and contrasting their psychometric evaluations of existing sets of rating scale data. We have concentrated on Rasch measurement rather than Item Response Theory because we believe that it is the more advantageous method for health measurement from a conceptual, theoretical and practical perspective. Our intention is to provide an authoritative document that describes the principles of Rasch measurement and the practice of Rasch analysis in a clear, detailed, non-technical form that is accurate and accessible to clinicians and researchers in health measurement. A comparison was undertaken of traditional and new psychometric methods in five large sets of rating scale data: (1) evaluation of the Rivermead Mobility Index (RMI) in data from 666 participants in the Cannabis in Multiple Sclerosis (CAMS) study; (2) evaluation of the Multiple Sclerosis Impact Scale (MSIS-29) in data from 1725 people with multiple sclerosis; (3) evaluation of test-retest reliability of MSIS-29 in data from 150 people with multiple sclerosis; (4) examination of the use of Rasch analysis to equate scales purporting to measure the same health construct in 585 people with multiple sclerosis; and (5) comparison of relative responsiveness of the Barthel Index and Functional Independence Measure in data from 1400 people undergoing neurorehabilitation. Both Rasch measurement and Item Response Theory are conceptually and theoretically superior to traditional psychometric methods. Findings from each of the five studies show that Rasch analysis is empirically superior to traditional psychometric methods for evaluating rating scales, developing rating scales, analysing rating scale data, understanding and measuring stability and change, and understanding the health constructs we seek to quantify. There is considerable added value in using Rasch analysis rather than traditional psychometric methods in health measurement. Future research directions include the need to reproduce our findings in a range of clinical populations, detailed head-to-head comparisons of Rasch analysis and Item Response Theory, and the application of Rasch analysis to clinical practice.

Application of basic principles of physics to head and neck MR angiography: troubleshooting for artifacts.

PubMed

Pandey, Shilpa; Hakky, Michael; Kwak, Ellie; Jara, Hernan; Geyer, Carl A; Erbay, Sami H

2013-05-01

Neurovascular imaging studies are routinely used for the assessment of headaches and changes in mental status, stroke workup, and evaluation of the arteriovenous structures of the head and neck. These imaging studies are being performed with greater frequency as the aging population continues to increase. Magnetic resonance (MR) angiographic imaging techniques are helpful in this setting. However, mastering these techniques requires an in-depth understanding of the basic principles of physics, complex flow patterns, and the correlation of MR angiographic findings with conventional MR imaging findings. More than one imaging technique may be used to solve difficult cases, with each technique contributing unique information. Unfortunately, incorporating findings obtained with multiple imaging modalities may add to the diagnostic challenge. To ensure diagnostic accuracy, it is essential that the radiologist carefully evaluate the details provided by these modalities in light of basic physics principles, the fundamentals of various imaging techniques, and common neurovascular imaging pitfalls. ©RSNA, 2013.

Multiple Object Based RFID System Using Security Level

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Jiyeon; Jung, Jongjin; Ryu, Ukjae; Ko, Hoon; Joe, Susan; Lee, Yongjun; Kim, Boyeon; Chang, Yunseok; Lee, Kyoonha

2007-12-01

RFID systems are increasingly applied for operational convenience in wide range of industries and individual life. However, it is uneasy for a person to control many tags because common RFID systems have the restriction that a tag used to identify just a single object. In addition, RFID systems can make some serious problems in violation of privacy and security because of their radio frequency communication. In this paper, we propose a multiple object RFID tag which can keep multiple object identifiers for different applications in a same tag. The proposed tag allows simultaneous access for their pair applications. We also propose an authentication protocol for multiple object tag to prevent serious problems of security and privacy in RFID applications. Especially, we focus on efficiency of the authentication protocol by considering security levels of applications. In the proposed protocol, the applications go through different authentication procedures according to security level of the object identifier stored in the tag. We implemented the proposed RFID scheme and made experimental results about efficiency and stability for the scheme.

Bit-Table Based Biclustering and Frequent Closed Itemset Mining in High-Dimensional Binary Data

PubMed Central

Király, András; Abonyi, János

2014-01-01

During the last decade various algorithms have been developed and proposed for discovering overlapping clusters in high-dimensional data. The two most prominent application fields in this research, proposed independently, are frequent itemset mining (developed for market basket data) and biclustering (applied to gene expression data analysis). The common limitation of both methodologies is the limited applicability for very large binary data sets. In this paper we propose a novel and efficient method to find both frequent closed itemsets and biclusters in high-dimensional binary data. The method is based on simple but very powerful matrix and vector multiplication approaches that ensure that all patterns can be discovered in a fast manner. The proposed algorithm has been implemented in the commonly used MATLAB environment and freely available for researchers. PMID:24616651

Acoustophoretic contactless transport and handling of matter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Foresti, Daniele; Nabavi, Majid; Klingauf, Mirko; Ferrari, Aldo; Poulikakos, Dimos

2013-11-01

Levitation and controlled motion of matter in air, has a wealth of potential applications ranging from materials processing to biochemistry and pharmaceuticals. We present a novel acoustophoretic concept, for the contactless transport and handling of matter in air. Spatiotemporal modulation of the levitation acoustic field allows continuous planar transport and processing of multiple objects (volume 0.1-10 μl) . The independence of the handling principle from special material properties (magnetic, optical or electrical) is illustrated with a wide palette of application experiments, such as contactless droplet coalescence and mixing, solid-liquid encapsulation, absorption, dissolution, and DNA transfection. The dynamics of droplets and particles collision is studied numerically and experimentally. The findings show that the secondary acoustic force gives a significant contribution to the samples impact velocity. We thank the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant 144397) for financial support.

Visual mining business service using pixel bar charts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hao, Ming C.; Dayal, Umeshwar; Casati, Fabio

2004-06-01

Basic bar charts have been commonly available, but they only show highly aggregated data. Finding the valuable information hidden in the data is essential to the success of business. We describe a new visualization technique called pixel bar charts, which are derived from regular bar charts. The basic idea of a pixel bar chart is to present all data values directly instead of aggregating them into a few data values. Pixel bar charts provide data distribution and exceptions besides aggregated data. The approach is to represent each data item (e.g. a business transaction) by a single pixel in the bar chart. The attribute of each data item is encoded into the pixel color and can be accessed and drilled down to the detail information as needed. Different color mappings are used to represent multiple attributes. This technique has been prototyped in three business service applications-Business Operation Analysis, Sales Analysis, and Service Level Agreement Analysis at Hewlett Packard Laboratories. Our applications show the wide applicability and usefulness of this new idea.

Consistency in decision making by research ethics committees: a controlled comparison.

PubMed

Angell, E; Sutton, A J; Windridge, K; Dixon-Woods, M

2006-11-01

There has been longstanding interest in the consistency of decisions made by research ethics committees (RECs) in the UK, but most of the evidence has come from single studies submitted to multiple committees. A systematic comparison was carried out of the decisions made on 18 purposively selected applications, each of which was reviewed independently by three different RECs in a single strategic health authority. Decisions on 11 applications were consistent, but disparities were found among RECs on decisions on seven applications. An analysis of the agreement between decisions of RECs yielded an overall measure of agreement of kappa = 0.286 (95% confidence interval -0.06 to 0.73), indicating a level of agreement that, although probably better than chance, may be described as "slight". The small sample size limits the robustness of these findings. Further research on reasons for inconsistencies in decision making between RECs, and on the importance of such inconsistencies for a range of arguments, is needed.

Application of seminal plasma to female genital tract prior to embryo transfer in assisted reproductive technology cycles (IVF, ICSI and frozen embryo transfer).

PubMed

Ata, Baris; Abou-Setta, Ahmed M; Seyhan, Ayse; Buckett, William

2018-02-28

The female genital tract is not exposed to seminal plasma during standard assisted reproductive technology (ART) cycles. However, it is thought that the inflammatory reaction triggered by seminal plasma may be beneficial by inducing maternal tolerance to paternal antigens expressed by the products of conception, and may increase the chance of successful implantation and live birth. To assess the effectiveness and safety of application of seminal plasma to the female genital tract prior to embryo transfer in ART cycles. We searched the following databases from inception to October 2017: Cochrane Gynaecology and Fertility Group Specialised Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Central Register of Studies Online (CRSO), MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL and PsycINFO. We also searched trial registers for ongoing trials, including International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) Search Portal and ClinicalTrials.gov. Other sources searched were; Web of Knowledge, OpenGrey, LILACS, PubMed, Google Scholar and the reference lists of relevant articles. We included randomised controlled trials (RCTs) conducted among women undergoing ART, comparing any procedure that would expose the female genital tract to seminal plasma during the period starting five days before embryo transfer and ending two days after it versus no seminal plasma application. Two review authors independently selected trials, assessed risk of bias, and extracted data. We pooled data to calculate relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). We assessed statistical heterogeneity using the I 2 statistic. We assessed the overall quality of the evidence for the main outcomes using GRADE methods. Our primary outcomes were live birth rate and miscarriage rate. Secondary outcomes were live birth/ongoing pregnancy rate, clinical pregnancy rate, multiple pregnancy rate, ectopic pregnancy rate and the incidence of other adverse events. We included 11 RCTs (3215 women). The quality of the evidence ranged from very low to low. The main limitations were risk of bias (associated with poor reporting of allocation concealment and other methods) and imprecision for the primary outcome of live birth rate.Live birth rates: There was insufficient evidence to determine whether there was a difference between the groups with respect to live birth rates (RR 1.10, 95% CI 0.86 to 1.43; participants = 948; studies = 3; I 2 = 0%). Low quality evidence suggests that if the live birth rate following standard ART is 19% it will be between 16% and 27% with seminal plasma application.Miscarriage rate: There was insufficient evidence to determine whether there was a difference between the groups (RR 1.01, 95% CI 0.57 to 1.79; participants = 1209; studies = 4; I 2 = 0%). Low quality evidence suggests that if the miscarriage rate following standard ART is 3.7%, the miscarriage rate following seminal plasma application will be between 2.1% and 6.6%.Live birth or ongoing pregnancy rates: Seminal plasma application makes little or no difference in live birth or ongoing pregnancy rates (RR 1.19, 95% CI 0.95 to 1.49; participants = 1178; studies = 4; I 2 = 4%, low quality evidence). The evidence suggests that if the live birth or ongoing pregnancy rate following standard ART is 19.5% it will be between 18.5% and 29% with seminal plasma application.Clinical pregnancy rates: Seminal plasma application may increase clinical pregnancy rates (RR 1.15, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.31; participants = 2768; studies = 10; I 2 = 0%). Very low quality evidence suggests that if the clinical pregnancy rate following standard ART is 22.0% it will be between 22.2% and 28.8% with seminal plasma application. This finding should be regarded with caution, as a post-hoc sensitivity analysis restricted to studies at overall low risk of bias did not find a significant difference between the groups (RR 1.06, 95% CI 0.81 to 1.39; participants = 547; studies = 3; I 2 = 0%).Multiple pregnancy rate: Seminal plasma application may make little or no difference to multiple pregnancy rates (RR 1.11, 95% CI 0.76 to 1.64; participants = 1642; studies = 5; I 2 = 9%). Low quality evidence suggests that if the multiple pregnancy rate following standard ART is 7%, the multiple pregnancy rate following seminal plasma application will be between 5% and 11.4%.Ectopic pregnancy: There was insufficient evidence to determine whether seminal plasma application influences the risk of ectopic pregnancy (RR 1.59, 95% CI 0.20 to 12.78, participants =1521; studies = 5; I 2 = 0%) .Infectious complications or other adverse events: No data were available on these outcomes AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: In women undergoing ART, there was insufficient evidence to determine whether there was a difference between the seminal plasma and the standard ART group in rates of live birth (low-quality evidence) or miscarriage (low quality evidence). There was low quality evidence suggesting little or no difference between the groups in rates of live birth or ongoing pregnancy (composite outcome). We found low quality evidence that seminal plasma application may be associated with more clinical pregnancies than standard ART. There was low quality evidence suggesting little or no difference between the groups in rates of multiple pregnancy. There was insufficient evidence to reach any conclusions about the risk of ectopic pregnancy, and no data were available on infectious complications or other adverse events.We conclude that seminal plasma application is worth further investigation, focusing on live birth and miscarriage rates.

Statistical Power in Evaluations That Investigate Effects on Multiple Outcomes: A Guide for Researchers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Porter, Kristin E.

2018-01-01

Researchers are often interested in testing the effectiveness of an intervention on multiple outcomes, for multiple subgroups, at multiple points in time, or across multiple treatment groups. The resulting multiplicity of statistical hypothesis tests can lead to spurious findings of effects. Multiple testing procedures (MTPs) are statistical…

Abnormal neuronal activity in Tourette syndrome and its modulation using deep brain stimulation

PubMed Central

Israelashvili, Michal; Loewenstern, Yocheved

2015-01-01

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a common childhood-onset disorder characterized by motor and vocal tics that are typically accompanied by a multitude of comorbid symptoms. Pharmacological treatment options are limited, which has led to the exploration of deep brain stimulation (DBS) as a possible treatment for severe cases. Multiple lines of evidence have linked TS with abnormalities in the motor and limbic cortico-basal ganglia (CBG) pathways. Neurophysiological data have only recently started to slowly accumulate from multiple sources: noninvasive imaging and electrophysiological techniques, invasive electrophysiological recordings in TS patients undergoing DBS implantation surgery, and animal models of the disorder. These converging sources point to system-level physiological changes throughout the CBG pathway, including both general altered baseline neuronal activity patterns and specific tic-related activity. DBS has been applied to different regions along the motor and limbic pathways, primarily to the globus pallidus internus, thalamic nuclei, and nucleus accumbens. In line with the findings that also draw on the more abundant application of DBS to Parkinson's disease, this stimulation is assumed to result in changes in the neuronal firing patterns and the passage of information through the stimulated nuclei. We present an overview of recent experimental findings on abnormal neuronal activity associated with TS and the changes in this activity following DBS. These findings are then discussed in the context of current models of CBG function in the normal state, during TS, and finally in the wider context of DBS in CBG-related disorders. PMID:25925326

Case of possible multiple system atrophy with a characteristic imaging finding of open bladder neck during storage phase as an initial sign.

PubMed

Zhang, Lu; Haga, Nobuhiro; Ogawa, Soichiro; Matsuoka, Kanako; Koguchi, Tomoyuki; Akaihata, Hidenori; Hata, Junya; Kataoka, Masao; Ishibashi, Kei; Kojima, Yoshiyuki

2017-11-01

Multiple system atrophy is a neurodegenerative disease that affects autonomic and motor systems. Patients with multiple system atrophy usually experience lower urinary tract symptoms, which sometimes appear as an initial symptom before the emergence of the generalized symptoms. An open bladder neck during the filling phase on video urodynamic study is one characteristic imaging finding after the diagnosis of multiple system atrophy, but has not previously been reported at an early phase of the disease. We report a case in which an open bladder neck was observed on several imaging modalities before generalized symptoms emerged. Because occult neurogenic bladder might exist in patients whose lower urinary tract symptoms are resistant to pharmacotherapy, we report this case to raise awareness of the importance of sufficient imaging evaluations. An open bladder neck might be an important imaging finding for diagnosing multiple system atrophy, irrespective of the presence of generalized symptoms. This finding could help avoid false diagnosis and unnecessary treatment. © 2017 The Japanese Urological Association.

Optical Multiple Access Network (OMAN) for advanced processing satellite applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mendez, Antonio J.; Gagliardi, Robert M.; Park, Eugene; Ivancic, William D.; Sherman, Bradley D.

1991-01-01

An OMAN breadboard for exploring advanced processing satellite circuit switch applications is introduced. Network architecture, hardware trade offs, and multiple user interference issues are presented. The breadboard test set up and experimental results are discussed.

Topical Anti-Inflammatory and Analgesic Effects of Multiple Applications of S(+)-Flurbiprofen Plaster (SFPP) in a Rat Adjuvant-Induced Arthritis Model.

PubMed

Sugimoto, Masanori; Toda, Yoshihisa; Hori, Miyuki; Mitani, Akiko; Ichihara, Takahiro; Sekine, Shingo; Kaku, Shinsuke; Otsuka, Noboru; Matsumoto, Hideo

2016-06-01

Preclinical Research The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of multiple applications of S(+)-flurbiprofen plaster (SFPP), a novel Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) patch, for the alleviation of inflammatory pain and edema in rat adjuvant-induced arthritis (AIA) model as compared to other NSAID patches. The AIA model was induced by the injection of Mycobacterium butyricum and rats were treated with a patch (1.0 cm × 0.88 cm) containing each NSAID (SFP, ketoprofen, loxoprofen, diclofenac, felbinac, flurbiprofen, or indomethacin) applied to the paw for 6 h per day for 5 days. The pain threshold was evaluated using a flexion test of the ankle joint, and the inflamed paw edema was evaluated using a plethysmometer. cyclooxygenase (COX)-1 and COX-2 inhibition was evaluated using human recombinant proteins. Multiple applications of SFPP exerted a significant analgesic effect from the first day of application as compared to the other NSAID patches. In terms of paw edema, SFPP decreased edema from the second day after application, Multiple applications of SFPP were superior to those of other NSAID patches, in terms of the analgesic effect with multiple applications. These results suggest that SFPP may be a beneficial patch for providing analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects clinically. Drug Dev Res 77 : 206-211, 2016. © 2016 The Authors Drug Development Research Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 The Authors Drug Development Research Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Topical Anti‐Inflammatory and Analgesic Effects of Multiple Applications of S(+)‐Flurbiprofen Plaster (SFPP) in a Rat Adjuvant‐Induced Arthritis Model

PubMed Central

Toda, Yoshihisa; Hori, Miyuki; Mitani, Akiko; Ichihara, Takahiro; Sekine, Shingo; Kaku, Shinsuke; Otsuka, Noboru; Matsumoto, Hideo

2016-01-01

Abstract Preclinical Research The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of multiple applications of S(+)‐flurbiprofen plaster (SFPP), a novel Nonsteroidal anti‐inflammatory drug (NSAID) patch, for the alleviation of inflammatory pain and edema in rat adjuvant‐induced arthritis (AIA) model as compared to other NSAID patches. The AIA model was induced by the injection of Mycobacterium butyricum and rats were treated with a patch (1.0 cm × 0.88 cm) containing each NSAID (SFP, ketoprofen, loxoprofen, diclofenac, felbinac, flurbiprofen, or indomethacin) applied to the paw for 6 h per day for 5 days. The pain threshold was evaluated using a flexion test of the ankle joint, and the inflamed paw edema was evaluated using a plethysmometer. cyclooxygenase (COX)−1 and COX‐2 inhibition was evaluated using human recombinant proteins. Multiple applications of SFPP exerted a significant analgesic effect from the first day of application as compared to the other NSAID patches. In terms of paw edema, SFPP decreased edema from the second day after application, Multiple applications of SFPP were superior to those of other NSAID patches, in terms of the analgesic effect with multiple applications. These results suggest that SFPP may be a beneficial patch for providing analgesic and anti‐inflammatory effects clinically. Drug Dev Res 77 : 206–211, 2016. © 2016 The Authors Drug Development Research Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. PMID:27241582

Multiple-Barrier Resonant Tunneling Structures for Application in a Microwave Generator Stabilized by Microstrip Resonator

DTIC Science & Technology

2000-06-23

conductivity ( NDC ) effects in double barrier resonant tunneling structures (DBRTS) prove the extremely fast frequency response of charge transport (less...UNCLASSIFIED Defense Technical Information Center Compilation Part Notice ADP013131 TITLE: Multiple-Barrier Resonant Tunneling Structures for...Institute Multiple-barrier resonant tunneling structures for application in a microwave generator stabilized by microstrip resonator S. V. Evstigneev, A. L

Throughput and latency programmable optical transceiver by using DSP and FEC control.

PubMed

Tanimura, Takahito; Hoshida, Takeshi; Kato, Tomoyuki; Watanabe, Shigeki; Suzuki, Makoto; Morikawa, Hiroyuki

2017-05-15

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a proof-of-concept of a programmable optical transceiver that enables simultaneous optimization of multiple programmable parameters (modulation format, symbol rate, power allocation, and FEC) for satisfying throughput, signal quality, and latency requirements. The proposed optical transceiver also accommodates multiple sub-channels that can transport different optical signals with different requirements. Multi-degree-of-freedom of the parameters often leads to difficulty in finding the optimum combination among the parameters due to an explosion of the number of combinations. The proposed optical transceiver reduces the number of combinations and finds feasible sets of programmable parameters by using constraints of the parameters combined with a precise analytical model. For precise BER prediction with the specified set of parameters, we model the sub-channel BER as a function of OSNR, modulation formats, symbol rates, and power difference between sub-channels. Next, we formulate simple constraints of the parameters and combine the constraints with the analytical model to seek feasible sets of programmable parameters. Finally, we experimentally demonstrate the end-to-end operation of the proposed optical transceiver with offline manner including low-density parity-check (LDPC) FEC encoding and decoding under a specific use case with latency-sensitive application and 40-km transmission.

New paradigm in ankyrin repeats: Beyond protein-protein interaction module.

PubMed

Islam, Zeyaul; Nagampalli, Raghavendra Sashi Krishna; Fatima, Munazza Tamkeen; Ashraf, Ghulam Md

2018-04-01

Classically, ankyrin repeat (ANK) proteins are built from tandems of two or more repeats and form curved solenoid structures that are associated with protein-protein interactions. These are short, widespread structural motif of around 33 amino acids repeats in tandem, having a canonical helix-loop-helix fold, found individually or in combination with other domains. The multiplicity of structural pattern enables it to form assemblies of diverse sizes, required for their abilities to confer multiple binding and structural roles of proteins. Three-dimensional structures of these repeats determined to date reveal a degree of structural variability that translates into the considerable functional versatility of this protein superfamily. Recent work on the ANK has proposed novel structural information, especially protein-lipid, protein-sugar and protein-protein interaction. Self-assembly of these repeats was also shown to prevent the associated protein in forming filaments. In this review, we summarize the latest findings and how the new structural information has increased our understanding of the structural determinants of ANK proteins. We discussed latest findings on how these proteins participate in various interactions to diversify the ANK roles in numerous biological processes, and explored the emerging and evolving field of designer ankyrins and its framework for protein engineering emphasizing on biotechnological applications. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Proteochemometric Modeling of the Interaction Space of Carbonic Anhydrase and its Inhibitors: An Assessment of Structure-based and Sequence-based Descriptors.

PubMed

Rasti, Behnam; Namazi, Mohsen; Karimi-Jafari, M H; Ghasemi, Jahan B

2017-04-01

Due to its physiological and clinical roles, carbonic anhydrase (CA) is one of the most interesting case studies. There are different classes of CAinhibitors including sulfonamides, polyamines, coumarins and dithiocarbamates (DTCs). However, many of them hardly act as a selective inhibitor against a specific isoform. Therefore, finding highly selective inhibitors for different isoforms of CA is still an ongoing project. Proteochemometrics modeling (PCM) is able to model the bioactivity of multiple compounds against different isoforms of a protein. Therefore, it would be extremely applicable when investigating the selectivity of different ligands towards different receptors. Given the facts, we applied PCM to investigate the interaction space and structural properties that lead to the selective inhibition of CA isoforms by some dithiocarbamates. Our models have provided interesting structural information that can be considered to design compounds capable of inhibiting different isoforms of CA in an improved selective manner. Validity and predictivity of the models were confirmed by both internal and external validation methods; while Y-scrambling approach was applied to assess the robustness of the models. To prove the reliability and the applicability of our findings, we showed how ligands-receptors selectivity can be affected by removing any of these critical findings from the modeling process. © 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Cultural Heritage in Smart City Environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Angelidou, M.; Karachaliou, E.; Angelidou, T.; Stylianidis, E.

2017-08-01

This paper investigates how the historical and cultural heritage of cities is and can be underpinned by means of smart city tools, solutions and applications. Smart cities stand for a conceptual technology-and-innovation driven urban development model. By becoming `smart', cities seek to achieve prosperity, effectiveness and competitiveness on multiple socio-economic levels. Although cultural heritage is one of the many issues addressed by existing smart city strategies, and despite the documented bilateral benefits, our research about the positioning of urban cultural heritage within three smart city strategies (Barcelona, Amsterdam, and London) reveals fragmented approaches. Our findings suggest that the objective of cultural heritage promotion is not substantially addressed in the investigated smart city strategies. Nevertheless, we observe that cultural heritage management can be incorporated in several different strategic areas of the smart city, reflecting different lines of thinking and serving an array of goals, depending on the case. We conclude that although potential applications and approaches abound, cultural heritage currently stands for a mostly unexploited asset, presenting multiple integration opportunities within smart city contexts. We prompt for further research into bridging the two disciplines and exploiting a variety of use cases with the purpose of enriching the current knowledge base at the intersection of cultural heritage and smart cities.

Integrative Analysis of Transcription Factor Combinatorial Interactions Using a Bayesian Tensor Factorization Approach

PubMed Central

Ye, Yusen; Gao, Lin; Zhang, Shihua

2017-01-01

Transcription factors play a key role in transcriptional regulation of genes and determination of cellular identity through combinatorial interactions. However, current studies about combinatorial regulation is deficient due to lack of experimental data in the same cellular environment and extensive existence of data noise. Here, we adopt a Bayesian CANDECOMP/PARAFAC (CP) factorization approach (BCPF) to integrate multiple datasets in a network paradigm for determining precise TF interaction landscapes. In our first application, we apply BCPF to integrate three networks built based on diverse datasets of multiple cell lines from ENCODE respectively to predict a global and precise TF interaction network. This network gives 38 novel TF interactions with distinct biological functions. In our second application, we apply BCPF to seven types of cell type TF regulatory networks and predict seven cell lineage TF interaction networks, respectively. By further exploring the dynamics and modularity of them, we find cell lineage-specific hub TFs participate in cell type or lineage-specific regulation by interacting with non-specific TFs. Furthermore, we illustrate the biological function of hub TFs by taking those of cancer lineage and blood lineage as examples. Taken together, our integrative analysis can reveal more precise and extensive description about human TF combinatorial interactions. PMID:29033978

Integrative Analysis of Transcription Factor Combinatorial Interactions Using a Bayesian Tensor Factorization Approach.

PubMed

Ye, Yusen; Gao, Lin; Zhang, Shihua

2017-01-01

Transcription factors play a key role in transcriptional regulation of genes and determination of cellular identity through combinatorial interactions. However, current studies about combinatorial regulation is deficient due to lack of experimental data in the same cellular environment and extensive existence of data noise. Here, we adopt a Bayesian CANDECOMP/PARAFAC (CP) factorization approach (BCPF) to integrate multiple datasets in a network paradigm for determining precise TF interaction landscapes. In our first application, we apply BCPF to integrate three networks built based on diverse datasets of multiple cell lines from ENCODE respectively to predict a global and precise TF interaction network. This network gives 38 novel TF interactions with distinct biological functions. In our second application, we apply BCPF to seven types of cell type TF regulatory networks and predict seven cell lineage TF interaction networks, respectively. By further exploring the dynamics and modularity of them, we find cell lineage-specific hub TFs participate in cell type or lineage-specific regulation by interacting with non-specific TFs. Furthermore, we illustrate the biological function of hub TFs by taking those of cancer lineage and blood lineage as examples. Taken together, our integrative analysis can reveal more precise and extensive description about human TF combinatorial interactions.

Conflicting Epistemologies and Inference in Coupled Human and Natural Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Garcia, M. E.

2017-12-01

Last year, I presented a model that projects per capita water consumption based on changes in price, population, building codes, and water stress salience. This model applied methods from hydrological science and engineering to relationships both within and beyond their traditional scope. Epistemologically, the development of mathematical models of natural or engineered systems is objectivist while research examining relationships between observations, perceptions and action is commonly constructivist or subjectivist. Drawing on multiple epistemologies is common in, and perhaps central to, the growing fields of coupled human and natural systems, and socio-hydrology. Critically, these philosophical perspectives vary in their view of the nature of the system as mechanistic, adaptive or constructed, and the split between aleatory and epistemic uncertainty. Interdisciplinary research is commonly cited as a way to address the critical and domain crossing challenge of sustainability as synthesis across perspectives can offer a more comprehensive view of system dynamics. However, combining methods and concepts from multiple ontologies and epistemologies can introduce contradictions into the logic of inference. These contractions challenge the evaluation of research products and the implications for practical application of research findings are not fully understood. Reflections on the evaluation, application, and generalization of the water consumption model described above are used to ground these broader questions and offer thoughts on the way forward.

ODMSummary: A Tool for Automatic Structured Comparison of Multiple Medical Forms Based on Semantic Annotation with the Unified Medical Language System.

PubMed

Storck, Michael; Krumm, Rainer; Dugas, Martin

2016-01-01

Medical documentation is applied in various settings including patient care and clinical research. Since procedures of medical documentation are heterogeneous and developed further, secondary use of medical data is complicated. Development of medical forms, merging of data from different sources and meta-analyses of different data sets are currently a predominantly manual process and therefore difficult and cumbersome. Available applications to automate these processes are limited. In particular, tools to compare multiple documentation forms are missing. The objective of this work is to design, implement and evaluate the new system ODMSummary for comparison of multiple forms with a high number of semantically annotated data elements and a high level of usability. System requirements are the capability to summarize and compare a set of forms, enable to estimate the documentation effort, track changes in different versions of forms and find comparable items in different forms. Forms are provided in Operational Data Model format with semantic annotations from the Unified Medical Language System. 12 medical experts were invited to participate in a 3-phase evaluation of the tool regarding usability. ODMSummary (available at https://odmtoolbox.uni-muenster.de/summary/summary.html) provides a structured overview of multiple forms and their documentation fields. This comparison enables medical experts to assess multiple forms or whole datasets for secondary use. System usability was optimized based on expert feedback. The evaluation demonstrates that feedback from domain experts is needed to identify usability issues. In conclusion, this work shows that automatic comparison of multiple forms is feasible and the results are usable for medical experts.

Predicting Intention Perform Breast Self-Examination: Application of the Theory of Reasoned Action

PubMed Central

Dewi, Triana Kesuma; Zein, Rizqy Amelia

2017-01-01

Objective: The present study aimed to examine the applicability of the theory of reasoned action to explain intention to perform breast self-examination (BSE). Methods: A questionnaire was constructed to collect data. The hypothesis was tested in two steps. First, to assess the strength of the correlation among the constructs of theory of reasoned action (TRA), Pearson’s product moment correlations were applied. Second, multivariate relationships among the constructs were examined by performing hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis. Result: The findings supported the TRA model, explaining 45.8% of the variance in the students’ BSE intention, which was significantly correlated with attitude (r = 0.609, p = 0.000) and subjective norms (r = 0.420, p =0 .000). Conclusion: TRA could be a suitable model to predict BSE intentions. Participants who believed that doing BSE regularly is beneficial for early diagnosis of breast cancer and also believed that their significant referents think that doing BSE would significantly detect breast cancer earlier, were more likely to intend to perform BSE regularly. Therefore, the research findings supported the conclusion that promoting the importance of BSE at the community/social level would enhance individuals to perform BSE routinely. PMID:29172263

Predicting Intention Perform Breast Self-Examination: Application of the Theory of Reasoned Action

PubMed

Dewi, Triana Kesuma; Zein, Rizqy Amelia

2017-11-26

Objective: The present study aimed to examine the applicability of the theory of reasoned action to explain intention to perform breast self-examination (BSE). Methods: A questionnaire was constructed to collect data. The hypothesis was tested in two steps. First, to assess the strength of the correlation among the constructs of theory of reasoned action (TRA), Pearson’s product moment correlations were applied. Second, multivariate relationships among the constructs were examined by performing hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis. Result: The findings supported the TRA model, explaining 45.8% of the variance in the students’ BSE intention, which was significantly correlated with attitude (r = 0.609, p = 0.000) and subjective norms (r = 0.420, p =0 .000). Conclusion: TRA could be a suitable model to predict BSE intentions . Participants who believed that doing BSE regularly is beneficial for early diagnosis of breast cancer and also believed that their significant referents think that doing BSE would significantly detect breast cancer earlier, were more likely to intend to perform BSE regularly. Therefore, the research findings supported the conclusion that promoting the importance of BSE at the community/social level would enhance individuals to perform BSE routinely. Creative Commons Attribution License

Acceptance of health information technology in health professionals: an application of the revised technology acceptance model.

PubMed

Ketikidis, Panayiotis; Dimitrovski, Tomislav; Lazuras, Lambros; Bath, Peter A

2012-06-01

The response of health professionals to the use of health information technology (HIT) is an important research topic that can partly explain the success or failure of any HIT application. The present study applied a modified version of the revised technology acceptance model (TAM) to assess the relevant beliefs and acceptance of HIT systems in a sample of health professionals (n = 133). Structured anonymous questionnaires were used and a cross-sectional design was employed. The main outcome measure was the intention to use HIT systems. ANOVA was employed to examine differences in TAM-related variables between nurses and medical doctors, and no significant differences were found. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to assess the predictors of HIT usage intentions. The findings showed that perceived ease of use, but not usefulness, relevance and subjective norms directly predicted HIT usage intentions. The present findings suggest that a modification of the original TAM approach is needed to better understand health professionals' support and endorsement of HIT. Perceived ease of use, relevance of HIT to the medical and nursing professions, as well as social influences, should be tapped by information campaigns aiming to enhance support for HIT in healthcare settings.

Normal uniform mixture differential gene expression detection for cDNA microarrays

PubMed Central

Dean, Nema; Raftery, Adrian E

2005-01-01

Background One of the primary tasks in analysing gene expression data is finding genes that are differentially expressed in different samples. Multiple testing issues due to the thousands of tests run make some of the more popular methods for doing this problematic. Results We propose a simple method, Normal Uniform Differential Gene Expression (NUDGE) detection for finding differentially expressed genes in cDNA microarrays. The method uses a simple univariate normal-uniform mixture model, in combination with new normalization methods for spread as well as mean that extend the lowess normalization of Dudoit, Yang, Callow and Speed (2002) [1]. It takes account of multiple testing, and gives probabilities of differential expression as part of its output. It can be applied to either single-slide or replicated experiments, and it is very fast. Three datasets are analyzed using NUDGE, and the results are compared to those given by other popular methods: unadjusted and Bonferroni-adjusted t tests, Significance Analysis of Microarrays (SAM), and Empirical Bayes for microarrays (EBarrays) with both Gamma-Gamma and Lognormal-Normal models. Conclusion The method gives a high probability of differential expression to genes known/suspected a priori to be differentially expressed and a low probability to the others. In terms of known false positives and false negatives, the method outperforms all multiple-replicate methods except for the Gamma-Gamma EBarrays method to which it offers comparable results with the added advantages of greater simplicity, speed, fewer assumptions and applicability to the single replicate case. An R package called nudge to implement the methods in this paper will be made available soon at . PMID:16011807

Evidence flowers: An innovative, visual method of presenting "best evidence" summaries to health professional and lay audiences.

PubMed

Babatunde, O O; Tan, V; Jordan, J L; Dziedzic, K; Chew-Graham, C A; Jinks, C; Protheroe, J; van der Windt, D A

2018-06-01

Barriers to dissemination and engagement with evidence pose a threat to implementing evidence-based medicine. Understanding, retention, and recall can be enhanced by visual presentation of information. The aim of this exploratory research was to develop and evaluate the accessibility and acceptability of visual summaries for presenting evidence syntheses with multiple exposures or outcomes to professional and lay audiences. "Evidence flowers" were developed as a visual method of presenting data from 4 case scenarios: 2 complex evidence syntheses with multiple outcomes, Cochrane reviews, and clinical guidelines. Petals of evidence flowers were coloured according to the GRADE evidence rating system to display key findings and recommendations from the evidence summaries. Application of evidence flowers was observed during stakeholder workshops. Evaluation and feedback were conducted via questionnaires and informal interviews. Feedback from stakeholders on the evidence flowers collected from workshops, questionnaires, and interviews was encouraging and helpful for refining the design of the flowers. Comments were made on the content and design of the flowers, as well as the usability and potential for displaying different types of evidence. Evidence flowers are a novel and visually stimulating method for presenting research evidence from evidence syntheses with multiple exposures or outcomes, Cochrane reviews, and clinical guidelines. To promote access and engagement with research evidence, evidence flowers may be used in conjunction with other evidence synthesis products, such as (lay) summaries, evidence inventories, rapid reviews, and clinical guidelines. Additional research on potential adaptations and applications of the evidence flowers may further bridge the gap between research evidence and clinical practice. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Application of the McDonald MRI criteria in multiple sclerosis.

PubMed

Chan, Ling Ling; Sitoh, Yih Yian; Chong, June; See, Siew Ju; Umapathi, Thirugnanam N; Lim, Shih Hui; Ong, Benjamin

2007-08-01

The aim of this study was to assess the sensitivity of McDonald's magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) criteria for the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS) in a group of Asian patients diagnosed with clinically definite MS, based on lesion characterisation on MRI scans. Forty-nine patients from 3 major neurological institutions were classified as having Asian- or Western-type MS based on clinical assessment. Each MRI scan was reviewed by 2 neuroradiologists for the presence and characteristics of brain and spinal lesions. The McDonald's MRI criteria were then applied and its sensitivity evaluated. Nine patients were excluded, leaving 34 females and 6 males who were dominantly Chinese (90%), with a mean age of 36.2 years. The MRI brain and spinal findings were detailed and tabulated. Statistically significant differences (P <0.01) in MRI brain findings and sensitivity of McDonald's MRI criteria were found between our Asian- and Western-type MS patients. The diagnostic yield of McDonald's MRI criteria increased by 20% when we substituted a cord for a brain lesion, and applied the substitution for enhancing cord lesions as well. The diagnosis is more likely to be made when using McDonald MRI criteria based on brain findings, in a patient who presents clinically with Western-type MS. The provision for substitution of "one brain for a spinal lesion" is helpful in Asian-type MS, where there is preponderance of spinal lesion load. Our findings suggest that minor modifications in the interpretation of McDonald's MRI criteria have significant impact on the diagnosis in patients clinically presenting as Asian-type MS, with potential bearing on their subsequent management.

Delayed efficacy of Beauveria bassiana foliar spray applications against Colorado potato beetle: impacts of number and timing of applications on larval and next-generation adult populations

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Spray programs comprising multiple or single foliar applications of the fungal pathogen Beauveria bassiana strain GHA (Bb) made during morning (AM) vs. evening (PM) hours were tested against Colorado potato beetle Leptinotarsa decemlineata (CPB) in small research plots of potatoes over multiple fiel...

Writing and applications of fiber Bragg grating arrays

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

LaRochelle, Sophie; Cortes, Pierre-Yves; Fathallah, H.; Rusch, Leslie A.; Jaafar, H. B.

2000-12-01

Multiple Bragg gratings are written in a single fibre strand with accurate positioning to achieve predetermined time delays between optical channels. Applications of fibre Bragg grating arrays include encoders/decoders with series of identical gratings for optical code-division multiple access.

A multiple p-n junction structure obtained from as-grown Czochralski silicon crystals by heat treatment - Application to solar cells

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chi, J. Y.; Gatos, H. C.; Mao, B. Y.

1980-01-01

Multiple p-n junctions have been prepared in as-grown Czochralski p-type silicon through overcompensation near the oxygen periodic concentration maxima by oxygen thermal donors generated during heat treatment at 450 C. Application of the multiple p-n-junction configuration to photovoltaic energy conversion has been investigated. A new solar-cell structure based on multiple p-n-junctions was developed. Theoretical analysis showed that a significant increase in collection efficiency over the conventional solar cells can be achieved.

Multifunctional gold nanoparticles for diagnosis and therapy of disease

PubMed Central

Mieszawska, Aneta J.; Mulder, Willem J. M.; Fayad, Zahi A.

2013-01-01

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have a number of physical properties that make them appealing for medical applications. For example, the attenuation of X-rays by gold nanoparticles has led to their use in computed tomography imaging and as adjuvants for radiotherapy. AuNPs have numerous other applications in imaging, therapy and diagnostic systems. The advanced state of synthetic chemistry of gold nanoparticles offers precise control over physicochemical and optical properties. Furthermore gold cores are inert and are considered to be biocompatible and non-toxic. The surface of gold nanoparticles can easily be modified for a specific application and ligands for targeting, drugs or biocompatible coatings can be introduced. AuNPs can be incorporated into larger structures such as polymeric nanoparticles or liposomes that deliver large payloads for enhanced diagnostic applications, efficiently encapsulate drugs for concurrent therapy or add additional imaging labels. This array of features has led to the afore-mentioned applications in biomedical fields, but more recently in approaches where multifunctional gold nanoparticles are used for multiple methods, such as concurrent diagnosis and therapy, so called theranostics. The following review covers basic principles and recent findings in gold nanoparticle applications for imaging, therapy and diagnostics, with a focus on reports of multifunctional AuNPs. PMID:23360440

Global Search Capabilities of Indirect Methods for Impulsive Transfers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shen, Hong-Xin; Casalino, Lorenzo; Luo, Ya-Zhong

2015-09-01

An optimization method which combines an indirect method with homotopic approach is proposed and applied to impulsive trajectories. Minimum-fuel, multiple-impulse solutions, with either fixed or open time are obtained. The homotopic approach at hand is relatively straightforward to implement and does not require an initial guess of adjoints, unlike previous adjoints estimation methods. A multiple-revolution Lambert solver is used to find multiple starting solutions for the homotopic procedure; this approach can guarantee to obtain multiple local solutions without relying on the user's intuition, thus efficiently exploring the solution space to find the global optimum. The indirect/homotopic approach proves to be quite effective and efficient in finding optimal solutions, and outperforms the joint use of evolutionary algorithms and deterministic methods in the test cases.

NOTES performed using multiple ports of entry: Current experience and potential implications for urologic applications.

PubMed

Lima, Estevao; Rolanda, Carla; Correia-Pinto, Jorge

2009-05-01

An isolated transgastric port raises serious limitations in performing natural orifice translumenal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) complex procedures in the urology field. In an attempt to overcome these limitations, several solutions has been advanced, such as the hybrid approach (adding a single abdominal port access) or the pure NOTES combined approach (joining multiple natural orifice ports). To review the current state of experimental and clinical results of multiple ports in NOTES, a literature search of PubMed was performed, seeking publications from January 2002 to 2008 on NOTES. In addition, we looked at pertinent abstracts of annual meetings of the American Urological Association, the European Association of Urology, and the World Congress of Endourology from 2007. Multiple ports of entry seem to be necessary, mainly for moderately complex procedures. Thus, we could find studies using the hybrid approach (combination of transgastric or transvaginal access with a single transabdominal port), or using the pure NOTES combined approach (transgastric and transvesical, transvaginal and transcolonic, or transgastric and transvaginal). There is still limited experience in humans using these approaches, and no comparative studies exist to date. It is predictable that for moderately complex procedures, we will need multiple ports, so the transvaginal-transabdominal (hybrid) approach is the most appealing, whereas in a pure NOTES perspective, the transgastric-transvesical approach seems to be the preferred approach. We are waiting for new equipment and instruments that are more appropriate for these novel techniques.

Development and application of an algorithm to compute weighted multiple glycan alignments.

PubMed

Hosoda, Masae; Akune, Yukie; Aoki-Kinoshita, Kiyoko F

2017-05-01

A glycan consists of monosaccharides linked by glycosidic bonds, has branches and forms complex molecular structures. Databases have been developed to store large amounts of glycan-binding experiments, including glycan arrays with glycan-binding proteins. However, there are few bioinformatics techniques to analyze large amounts of data for glycans because there are few tools that can handle the complexity of glycan structures. Thus, we have developed the MCAW (Multiple Carbohydrate Alignment with Weights) tool that can align multiple glycan structures, to aid in the understanding of their function as binding recognition molecules. We have described in detail the first algorithm to perform multiple glycan alignments by modeling glycans as trees. To test our tool, we prepared several data sets, and as a result, we found that the glycan motif could be successfully aligned without any prior knowledge applied to the tool, and the known recognition binding sites of glycans could be aligned at a high rate amongst all our datasets tested. We thus claim that our tool is able to find meaningful glycan recognition and binding patterns using data obtained by glycan-binding experiments. The development and availability of an effective multiple glycan alignment tool opens possibilities for many other glycoinformatics analysis, making this work a big step towards furthering glycomics analysis. http://www.rings.t.soka.ac.jp. kkiyoko@soka.ac.jp. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

Patient and cycle characteristics predicting high pregnancy rates with single-embryo transfer: an analysis of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology outcomes between 2004 and 2013.

PubMed

Mersereau, Jennifer; Stanhiser, Jamie; Coddington, Charles; Jones, Tiffany; Luke, Barbara; Brown, Morton B

2017-11-01

To analyze factors associated with high live birth rate and low multiple birth rate in fresh and frozen-thawed assisted reproductive technology (ART) cycles. Retrospective cohort analysis. Not applicable. The study population included 181,523 women undergoing in vitro fertilization with autologous fresh first cycles, 27,033 with fresh first oocyte donor cycles, 37,658 with fresh second cycles, and 35,446 with frozen-thawed second cycles. None. Live birth rate and multiple birth rate after single-embryo transfer (SET) and double embryo transfer (DET) were measured, in addition to cycle characteristics. In patients with favorable prognostic factors, including younger maternal age, transfer of a blastocyst, and additional embryos cryopreserved, the gain in the live birth rate from SET to DET was approximately 10%-15%; however, the multiple birth rate increased from approximately 2% to greater than 49% in both autologous and donor fresh and frozen-thawed transfer cycles. This study reports a 10%-15% reduction in live birth rate and a 47% decrement in multiple birth rate with SET compared with DET in the setting of favorable patient prognostic factors. Our findings present an opportunity to increase the rate of SET across the United States and thereby reduce the multiple birth rate and its associated poor perinatal outcomes with assisted reproductive technology pregnancies. Copyright © 2017 American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Do Multiple Mini-Interview and Traditional Interview Scores Differ in Their Associations With Acceptance Offers Within and Across Five California Medical Schools?

PubMed

Jerant, Anthony; Henderson, Mark C; Griffin, Erin; Hall, Theodore R; Kelly, Carolyn J; Peterson, Ellena M; Wofsy, David; Franks, Peter

2018-03-20

In single-school studies, multiple mini-interview (MMI) and traditional interview (TI) scores are associated with acceptance offers. Unexamined is whether scores at one school are associated with acceptance at other schools; such analyses would mitigate single-school design biases and better estimate how well interviews capture desired applicant attributes. Using data from the five California Longitudinal Evaluation of Admissions Practices (CA-LEAP) public medical schools, the authors examined associations of MMI and TI scores with acceptance offers within and across schools. The analyses included applicants who interviewed at ≥1 CA-LEAP school during the 2011-2013 admissions cycles, when three CA-LEAP schools employed TIs and two employed MMIs. Interview scores were standardized (z-scores: mean = 0, SD = 1) and associations with acceptance offers were examined within and across schools in analyses stratified by school, adjusting for applicant sociodemographics, academic metrics, year, and total number of interviews. Of 4,993 applicants interviewed, 428 (8.6%) interviewed at both MMI schools, 681 (13.6%) at ≥2 TI schools, and 1,327 (26.6%) at ≥1 MMI and ≥1 TI school. For each school, acceptance was associated with interview score at that school and also with interview scores at the other four schools. Cross-school associations of MMI versus TI scores with acceptance did not differ statistically. Interview score at a given CA-LEAP school was associated with acceptance at the other four schools, with no significant differences in associations for MMIs versus TIs. The findings suggest both MMIs and TIs captured attributes valued by admissions teams across CA-LEAP schools.

Vinpocetine inhibits oligodendroglial precursor cell differentiation.

PubMed

Torres, Klintsy Julieta; Göttle, Peter; Kremer, David; Rivera, Jose Flores; Aguirre-Cruz, Lucinda; Corona, Teresa; Hartung, Hans-Peter; Küry, Patrick

2012-01-01

In multiple sclerosis during periods of remission a limited degree of myelin repair can be observed mediated by oligodendroglial precursor cells. Phosphodiesterase inhibitors act as anti-inflammatory agents and might hold promise for future multiple sclerosis treatment. To investigate whether phosphodiesterase inhibitors could also influence myelin repair. We stimulated primary oligodendroglial precursor cells with cilostazol, rolipram and vinpocetine and assessed their effects on repair related cellular processes. We found that vinpocetine exerted a strong negative effect on myelin expression while cilostazol and rolipram did not show such effects. In addition, vinpocetine decreased morphological complexities suggesting an overall negative impact on oligodendroglial cell maturation. We provide evidence that this is not mediated via a blockade of phosphodiesterase-1 but rather by inhibition of IĸB kinase. These findings suggest that vinpocetine via IĸB inhibition exerts a strong negative impact on oligodendroglial cell maturation and may therefore provide the rationale to restrict its application during periods of remission in multiple sclerosis patients. This is of particular interest since vinpocetine is widely used as a health supplement thought to act as a cognitive and memory enhancer for healthy people and patients with neurological or muscle diseases. Copyright © 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Multiple health behaviours: overview and implications

PubMed Central

Spring, Bonnie; Moller, Arlen C.; Coons, Michael J.

2012-01-01

Background More remains unknown than known about how to optimize multiple health behaviour change. Methods After reviewing the prevalence and comorbidities among major chronic disease risk behaviours for adults and youth, we consider the origins and applicability of high-risk and population strategies to foster multiple health behaviour change. Results Findings indicate that health risk behaviours are prevalent, increase with age and co-occur as risk behaviour clusters or bundles. Conclusions We conclude that both population and high-risk strategies for health behaviour intervention are warranted, potentially synergistic and need intervention design that accounts for substitute and complementary relationships among bundled health behaviours. To maximize positive public health impact, a pressing need exists for bodies of basic and translational science that explain health behaviour bundling. Also needed is applied science that elucidates the following: (1) the optimal number of behaviours to intervene upon; (2) how target behaviours are best selected (e.g. greatest health impact; patient preference or positive effect on bundled behaviours); (3) whether to increase healthy or decrease unhealthy behaviours; (4) whether to intervene on health behaviours simultaneously or sequentially and (5) how to achieve positive synergies across individual-, group- and population-level intervention approaches. PMID:22363028

Joint Optimization of Distribution Network Design and Two-Echelon Inventory Control with Stochastic Demand and CO2 Emission Tax Charges.

PubMed

Li, Shuangyan; Li, Xialian; Zhang, Dezhi; Zhou, Lingyun

2017-01-01

This study develops an optimization model to integrate facility location and inventory control for a three-level distribution network consisting of a supplier, multiple distribution centers (DCs), and multiple retailers. The integrated model addressed in this study simultaneously determines three types of decisions: (1) facility location (optimal number, location, and size of DCs); (2) allocation (assignment of suppliers to located DCs and retailers to located DCs, and corresponding optimal transport mode choices); and (3) inventory control decisions on order quantities, reorder points, and amount of safety stock at each retailer and opened DC. A mixed-integer programming model is presented, which considers the carbon emission taxes, multiple transport modes, stochastic demand, and replenishment lead time. The goal is to minimize the total cost, which covers the fixed costs of logistics facilities, inventory, transportation, and CO2 emission tax charges. The aforementioned optimal model was solved using commercial software LINGO 11. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the applications of the proposed model. The findings show that carbon emission taxes can significantly affect the supply chain structure, inventory level, and carbon emission reduction levels. The delay rate directly affects the replenishment decision of a retailer.

Stimulatory versus suppressive effects of GM-CSF on tumor progression in multiple cancer types

PubMed Central

Hong, In-Sun

2016-01-01

Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF, also called CSF-2) is best known for its critical role in immune modulation and hematopoiesis. A large body of experimental evidence indicates that GM-CSF, which is frequently upregulated in multiple types of human cancers, effectively marks cancer cells with a ‘danger flag' for the immune system. In this context, most studies have focused on its function as an immunomodulator, namely its ability to stimulate dendritic cell (DC) maturation and monocyte/macrophage activity. However, recent studies have suggested that GM-CSF also promotes immune-independent tumor progression by supporting tumor microenvironments and stimulating tumor growth and metastasis. Although some studies have suggested that GM-CSF has inhibitory effects on tumor growth and metastasis, an even greater number of studies show that GM-CSF exerts stimulatory effects on tumor progression. In this review, we summarize a number of findings to provide the currently available information regarding the anticancer immune response of GM-CSG. We then discuss the potential roles of GM-CSF in the progression of multiple types of cancer to provide insights into some of the complexities of its clinical applications. PMID:27364892

On the Mathematical Modeling of Single and Multiple Scattering of Ultrasonic Guided Waves by Small Scatterers: A Structural Health Monitoring Measurement Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Strom, Brandon William

In an effort to assist in the paradigm shift from schedule based maintenance to conditioned based maintenance, we derive measurement models to be used within structural health monitoring algorithms. Our models are physics based, and use scattered Lamb waves to detect and quantify pitting corrosion. After covering the basics of Lamb waves and the reciprocity theorem, we develop a technique for the scattered wave solution. The first application is two-dimensional, and is employed in two different ways. The first approach integrates a traction distribution and replaces it by an equivalent force. The second approach is higher order and uses the actual traction distribution. We find that the equivalent force version of the solution technique holds well for small pits at low frequencies. The second application is three-dimensional. The equivalent force caused by the scattered wave of an arbitrary equivalent force is calculated. We obtain functions for the scattered wave displacements as a function of equivalent forces, equivalent forces as a function of incident wave, and scattered wave amplitudes as a function of incident amplitude. The third application uses self-consistency to derive governing equations for the scattered waves due to multiple corrosion pits. We decouple the implicit set of equations and solve explicitly by using a recursive series solution. Alternatively, we solve via an undetermined coefficient method which results in an interaction operator and solution via matrix inversion. The general solution is given for N pits including mode conversion. We show that the two approaches are equivalent, and give a solution for three pits. Various approximations are advanced to simplify the problem while retaining the leading order physics. As a final application, we use the multiple scattering model to investigate resonance of Lamb waves. We begin with a one-dimensional problem and progress to a three-dimensional problem. A directed graph enables interpretation of the interaction operator, and we show that a series solution converges due to loss of energy in the system. We see that there are four causes of resonance and plot the modulation depth as a function of spacing between the pits.

Single-Trial Analysis of V1 Responses Suggests Two Transmission States

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shah, A. S.; Knuth, K. H.; Truccolo, W. A.; Mehta, A. D.; McGinnis, T.; OConnell, N.; Ding, M.; Bressler, S. L.; Schroeder, C. E.

2002-01-01

Sensory processing in the visual, auditory, and somatosensory systems is often studied by recording electrical activity in response to a stimulus of interest. Typically, multiple trial responses to the stimulus are averaged to isolate the stereotypic response from noise. However, averaging ignores dynamic variability in the neuronal response, which is potentially critical to understanding stimulus-processing schemes. Thus, we developed the multiple component, Event-Related Potential (mcERP) model. This model asserts that multiple components, defined as stereotypic waveforms, comprise the stimulus-evoked response and that these components may vary in amplitude and latency from trial to trial. Application of this model to data recorded simultaneously from all six laminae of V1 in an awake, behaving monkey performing a visual discrimination yielded three components. The first component localized to granular V1, the second was located in supragranular V1, and the final component displayed a multi-laminar distribution. These modeling results, which take into account single-trial response dynamics, illustrated that the initial activation of VI occurs in the granular layer followed by activation in the supragranular layers. This finding is expected because the average response in those layers demonstrates the same progression and because anatomical evidence suggests that the feedforward input in V1 enters the granular layer and progresses to supragranular layers. In addition to these findings, the granular component of the model displayed several interesting trial-to-trial characteristics including (1) a bimodal latency distribution, (2) a latency-related variation in response amplitude, (3) a latency correlation with the supragranular component, and (4) an amplitude and latency association with the multi-laminar component. Direct analyses of the single-trial data were consistent with these model predictions. These findings suggest that V1 has at least 2 transmission states, which may be modulated by various effects such as attention, dynamics in local EEG rhythm, or variation in sensory inputs.

Common pitfalls in statistical analysis: The perils of multiple testing

PubMed Central

Ranganathan, Priya; Pramesh, C. S.; Buyse, Marc

2016-01-01

Multiple testing refers to situations where a dataset is subjected to statistical testing multiple times - either at multiple time-points or through multiple subgroups or for multiple end-points. This amplifies the probability of a false-positive finding. In this article, we look at the consequences of multiple testing and explore various methods to deal with this issue. PMID:27141478

Session management for web-based healthcare applications.

PubMed Central

Wei, L.; Sengupta, S.

1999-01-01

In health care systems, users may access multiple applications during one session of interaction with the system. However, users must sign on to each application individually, and it is difficult to maintain a common context among these applications. We are developing a session management system for web-based applications using LDAP directory service, which will allow single sign-on to multiple web-based applications, and maintain a common context among those applications for the user. This paper discusses the motivations for building this system, the system architecture, and the challenges of our approach, such as the session objects management for the user, and session security. PMID:10566511

State Politics and Education: An Examination of Selected Multiple-State Case Studies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Burlingame, Martin; Geske, Terry G.

1979-01-01

Reviews the multiple-state case study literature, highlights some findings, discusses several methodological issues, and concludes with suggestions for possible research agendas. Urges students and researchers to be more actively critical of the assumptions and findings of these studies. (Author/IRT)

Cascaded Brillouin lasing in monolithic barium fluoride whispering gallery mode resonators

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lin, Guoping, E-mail: guoping.lin@femto-st.fr; Diallo, Souleymane; Saleh, Khaldoun

2014-12-08

We report the observation of stimulated Brillouin scattering and lasing at 1550 nm in barium fluoride (BaF{sub 2}) crystal. Brillouin lasing was achieved with ultra-high quality (Q) factor monolithic whispering gallery mode mm-size disk resonators. Overmoded resonators were specifically used to provide cavity resonances for both the pump and all Brillouin Stokes waves. Single and multiple Brillouin Stokes radiations with frequency shift ranging from 8.2 GHz up to 49 GHz have been generated through cascaded Brillouin lasing. BaF{sub 2} resonator-based Brillouin lasing can find potential applications for high-coherence lasers and microwave photonics.

[French astronomical journals an interactivity of the scientific world].

PubMed

Vassilieff, Catherine

2014-01-01

Astronomical data issued from observatories find multiple uses on land, as well as on sea. Due to their structure and periodicity, scientific reviews are particularly adapted to peer review and sharing of data between astronomers as well as between astronomers and hobbyists. During the 19(th) century regional observatories first gather together professionals interested in the practical applications of the observations and later, under the influence of personalities such as Camille Flammarion, they bring together a larger non-professional audience. Being the epicentre of scientific exchange, the reviews have in the 20(th) century found their place on the websites of academic institutions as well as users forums.

Tests of cosmic ray radiography for power industry applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Durham, J. M.; Guardincerri, E.; Morris, C. L.; Bacon, J.; Fabritius, J.; Fellows, S.; Poulson, D.; Plaud-Ramos, K.; Renshaw, J.

2015-06-01

In this report, we assess muon multiple scattering tomography as a non-destructive inspection technique in several typical areas of interest to the nuclear power industry, including monitoring concrete degradation, gate valve conditions, and pipe wall thickness. This work is motivated by the need for imaging methods that do not require the licensing, training, and safety controls of x-rays, and by the need to be able to penetrate considerable overburden to examine internal details of components that are otherwise inaccessible, with minimum impact on industrial operations. In some scenarios, we find that muon tomography may be an attractive alternative to more typical measurements.

Lighting market alchemy: Will we find a pot of gold at the end of the III-V rainbow?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Conway, Kathryn M.

2004-12-01

With a focus on visible spectrum light emitting diodes (LEDs), three questions frame this update. First, what are the market and financial outlooks for light-producing compound semiconductor materials and devices? Second, which applications offer the greatest growth potential for the next five to ten years and with which technologies will they likely compete for market share? Third, how can photonics experts contribute to accelerated successes for LEDs and other solid-state lighting technologies such as quantum dots? Using the rainbow as a metaphor for the market, the author examines developments in single color, multiple color and "white light" products.

Differential spatial activity patterns of acupuncture by a machine learning based analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

You, Youbo; Bai, Lijun; Xue, Ting; Zhong, Chongguang; Liu, Zhenyu; Tian, Jie

2011-03-01

Acupoint specificity, lying at the core of the Traditional Chinese Medicine, underlies the theoretical basis of acupuncture application. However, recent studies have reported that acupuncture stimulation at nonacupoint and acupoint can both evoke similar signal intensity decreases in multiple regions. And these regions were spatially overlapped. We used a machine learning based Support Vector Machine (SVM) approach to elucidate the specific neural response pattern induced by acupuncture stimulation. Group analysis demonstrated that stimulation at two different acupoints (belong to the same nerve segment but different meridians) could elicit distinct neural response patterns. Our findings may provide evidence for acupoint specificity.

Tests of cosmic ray radiography for power industry applications

DOE PAGES

Durham, J. M.; Guardincerri, E.; Morris, C. L.; ...

2015-06-30

In this report, we assess muon multiple scattering tomography as a non-destructive inspection technique in several typical areas of interest to the nuclear power industry, including monitoring concrete degradation, gate valve conditions, and pipe wall thickness. This work is motivated by the need for imaging methods that do not require the licensing, training, and safety controls of x-rays, and by the need to be able to penetrate considerable overburden to examine internal details of components that are otherwise inaccessible, with minimum impact on industrial operations. In some instances, we find that muon tomography may be an attractive alternative to moremore » typical measurements.« less

Transverse-structure electrostatic charged particle beam lens

DOEpatents

Moran, M.J.

1998-10-13

Electrostatic particle-beam lenses using a concentric co-planar array of independently biased rings can be advantageous for some applications. Traditional electrostatic lenses often consist of axial series of biased rings, apertures, or tubes. The science of lens design has devoted much attention to finding axial arrangements that compensate for the substantial optical aberrations of the individual elements. Thus, as with multi-element lenses for light, a multi-element charged-particle lens can have optical behavior that is far superior to that of the individual elements. Transverse multiple-concentric-ring lenses achieve high performance, while also having advantages in terms of compactness and optical versatility. 7 figs.

Transverse-structure electrostatic charged particle beam lens

DOEpatents

Moran, Michael J.

1998-01-01

Electrostatic particle-beam lenses using a concentric co-planar array of independently biased rings can be advantageous for some applications. Traditional electrostatic lenses often consist of axial series of biased rings, apertures, or tubes. The science of lens design has devoted much attention to finding axial arrangements that compensate for the substantial optical aberrations of the individual elements. Thus, as with multi-element lenses for light, a multi-element charged-particle lens can have optical behavior that is far superior to that of the individual elements. Transverse multiple-concentric-ring lenses achieve high performance, while also having advantages in terms of compactness and optical versatility.

Video auto stitching in multicamera surveillance system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

He, Bin; Zhao, Gang; Liu, Qifang; Li, Yangyang

2012-01-01

This paper concerns the problem of video stitching automatically in a multi-camera surveillance system. Previous approaches have used multiple calibrated cameras for video mosaic in large scale monitoring application. In this work, we formulate video stitching as a multi-image registration and blending problem, and not all cameras are needed to be calibrated except a few selected master cameras. SURF is used to find matched pairs of image key points from different cameras, and then camera pose is estimated and refined. Homography matrix is employed to calculate overlapping pixels and finally implement boundary resample algorithm to blend images. The result of simulation demonstrates the efficiency of our method.

Video auto stitching in multicamera surveillance system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

He, Bin; Zhao, Gang; Liu, Qifang; Li, Yangyang

2011-12-01

This paper concerns the problem of video stitching automatically in a multi-camera surveillance system. Previous approaches have used multiple calibrated cameras for video mosaic in large scale monitoring application. In this work, we formulate video stitching as a multi-image registration and blending problem, and not all cameras are needed to be calibrated except a few selected master cameras. SURF is used to find matched pairs of image key points from different cameras, and then camera pose is estimated and refined. Homography matrix is employed to calculate overlapping pixels and finally implement boundary resample algorithm to blend images. The result of simulation demonstrates the efficiency of our method.

Translating cognitive neuroscience to the driver’s operational environment: a neuroergonomics approach

PubMed Central

Lees, Monica N.; Cosman, Joshua D.; Lee, John D.; Rizzo, Matthew; Fricke, Nicola

2012-01-01

Neuroergonomics provides a multidisciplinary translational approach that merges elements of neuroscience, human factors, cognitive psychology, and ergonomics to study brain structure and function in everyday environments. Driving safety, particularly that of older drivers with cognitive impairments, is a fruitful application domain for neuroergonomics. Driving makes demands on multiple cognitive processes that are often studied in isolation and so presents a useful challenge in generalizing findings from controlled laboratory tasks to predict safety outcomes. Neurology and the cognitive sciences help explain the mechanisms of cognitive breakdowns that undermine driving safety. Ergonomics complements this explanation with the tools for systematically exploring the various layers of complexity that define the activity of driving. A variety of tools, such as part task simulators, driving simulators, and instrumented vehicles provide a window into cognition in the natural settings needed to assess the generalizability of laboratory findings and can provide an array of potential interventions to increase safety. PMID:21291157

Reed Solomon codes for error control in byte organized computer memory systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lin, S.; Costello, D. J., Jr.

1984-01-01

A problem in designing semiconductor memories is to provide some measure of error control without requiring excessive coding overhead or decoding time. In LSI and VLSI technology, memories are often organized on a multiple bit (or byte) per chip basis. For example, some 256K-bit DRAM's are organized in 32Kx8 bit-bytes. Byte oriented codes such as Reed Solomon (RS) codes can provide efficient low overhead error control for such memories. However, the standard iterative algorithm for decoding RS codes is too slow for these applications. Some special decoding techniques for extended single-and-double-error-correcting RS codes which are capable of high speed operation are presented. These techniques are designed to find the error locations and the error values directly from the syndrome without having to use the iterative algorithm to find the error locator polynomial.

The Complexity of Folding Self-Folding Origami

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stern, Menachem; Pinson, Matthew B.; Murugan, Arvind

2017-10-01

Why is it difficult to refold a previously folded sheet of paper? We show that even crease patterns with only one designed folding motion inevitably contain an exponential number of "distractor" folding branches accessible from a bifurcation at the flat state. Consequently, refolding a sheet requires finding the ground state in a glassy energy landscape with an exponential number of other attractors of higher energy, much like in models of protein folding (Levinthal's paradox) and other NP-hard satisfiability (SAT) problems. As in these problems, we find that refolding a sheet requires actuation at multiple carefully chosen creases. We show that seeding successful folding in this way can be understood in terms of subpatterns that fold when cut out ("folding islands"). Besides providing guidelines for the placement of active hinges in origami applications, our results point to fundamental limits on the programmability of energy landscapes in sheets.

Influence of family communication structure and vanity trait on consumption behavior: a case study of adolescent students in Taiwan.

PubMed

Chang, Wei-Lung; Liu, Hsiang-Te; Lin, Tai-An; Wen, Yung-Sung

2008-01-01

The purpose of this research was to study the relationship between family communication structure, vanity trait, and related consumption behavior. The study used an empirical method with adolescent students from the northern part of Taiwan as the subjects. Multiple statistical methods and the SEM model were used for testing the hypotheses. The major findings were: (1) Socio-orientation has a significant effect on how physical appearance is viewed, and concept-orientation has a significant positive effect on achievement vanity. (2) how physical appearance is viewed has a significant positive effect on all dimensions of materialism, concerns about clothing, and use of cosmetics. (3) Achievement vanity has a significant positive relationship with price-based prestige sensitivity and concerns regarding clothing. The findings have implications for marketing theory as well as for practical applications in marketing.

Decoding of DBEC-TBED Reed-Solomon codes. [Double-Byte-Error-Correcting, Triple-Byte-Error-Detecting

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Deng, Robert H.; Costello, Daniel J., Jr.

1987-01-01

A problem in designing semiconductor memories is to provide some measure of error control without requiring excessive coding overhead or decoding time. In LSI and VLSI technology, memories are often organized on a multiple bit (or byte) per chip basis. For example, some 256 K bit DRAM's are organized in 32 K x 8 bit-bytes. Byte-oriented codes such as Reed-Solomon (RS) codes can provide efficient low overhead error control for such memories. However, the standard iterative algorithm for decoding RS codes is too slow for these applications. The paper presents a special decoding technique for double-byte-error-correcting, triple-byte-error-detecting RS codes which is capable of high-speed operation. This technique is designed to find the error locations and the error values directly from the syndrome without having to use the iterative algorithm to find the error locator polynomial.

Orderly recruitment of motor units under optical control in vivo.

PubMed

Llewellyn, Michael E; Thompson, Kimberly R; Deisseroth, Karl; Delp, Scott L

2010-10-01

A drawback of electrical stimulation for muscle control is that large, fatigable motor units are preferentially recruited before smaller motor units by the lowest-intensity electrical cuff stimulation. This phenomenon limits therapeutic applications because it is precisely the opposite of the normal physiological (orderly) recruitment pattern; therefore, a mechanism to achieve orderly recruitment has been a long-sought goal in physiology, medicine and engineering. Here we demonstrate a technology for reliable orderly recruitment in vivo. We find that under optical control with microbial opsins, recruitment of motor units proceeds in the physiological recruitment sequence, as indicated by multiple independent measures of motor unit recruitment including conduction latency, contraction and relaxation times, stimulation threshold and fatigue. As a result, we observed enhanced performance and reduced fatigue in vivo. These findings point to an unanticipated new modality of neural control with broad implications for nervous system and neuromuscular physiology, disease research and therapeutic innovation.

Accommodating student learning styles and preferences in an online occupational therapy course.

PubMed

Doyle, Nancy Wolcott; Jacobs, Karen

2013-01-01

Occupational therapy's online education must be research-based and inclusive. One way to provide a more inclusive online learning experience is to attend to individual learning styles and preferences. This study uses the best available evidence on learning styles and online education to develop, implement, and study occupational therapy students' experiences with an online learning module and related assignment. Eight students consented to take an online survey after completing a learning module and related assignment in an online post-professional graduate course in occupational therapy. The survey explored their learning experience and its applicability to clinical work. Data gathered from multiple-choice, Likert-scale, and open-ended questions were descriptively analyzed. Results from this study suggest that students find the study of learning styles and preferences enjoyable and applicable to their clinical work, but are often motivated by factors such as time and technology when selecting the format of a course assignment.

Distributed fiber-optic laser-ultrasound generation based on ghost-mode of tilted fiber Bragg gratings.

PubMed

Tian, Jiajun; Zhang, Qi; Han, Ming

2013-03-11

Active ultrasonic testing is widely used for medical diagnosis, material characterization and structural health monitoring. Ultrasonic transducer is a key component in active ultrasonic testing. Due to their many advantages such as small size, light weight, and immunity to electromagnetic interference, fiber-optic ultrasonic transducers are particularly attractive for permanent, embedded applications in active ultrasonic testing for structural health monitoring. However, current fiber-optic transducers only allow effective ultrasound generation at a single location of the fiber end. Here we demonstrate a fiber-optic device that can effectively generate ultrasound at multiple, selected locations along a fiber in a controllable manner based on a smart light tapping scheme that only taps out the light of a particular wavelength for laser-ultrasound generation and allow light of longer wavelengths pass by without loss. Such a scheme may also find applications in remote fiber-optic device tuning and quasi-distributed biochemical fiber-optic sensing.

Logic models to predict continuous outputs based on binary inputs with an application to personalized cancer therapy

PubMed Central

Knijnenburg, Theo A.; Klau, Gunnar W.; Iorio, Francesco; Garnett, Mathew J.; McDermott, Ultan; Shmulevich, Ilya; Wessels, Lodewyk F. A.

2016-01-01

Mining large datasets using machine learning approaches often leads to models that are hard to interpret and not amenable to the generation of hypotheses that can be experimentally tested. We present ‘Logic Optimization for Binary Input to Continuous Output’ (LOBICO), a computational approach that infers small and easily interpretable logic models of binary input features that explain a continuous output variable. Applying LOBICO to a large cancer cell line panel, we find that logic combinations of multiple mutations are more predictive of drug response than single gene predictors. Importantly, we show that the use of the continuous information leads to robust and more accurate logic models. LOBICO implements the ability to uncover logic models around predefined operating points in terms of sensitivity and specificity. As such, it represents an important step towards practical application of interpretable logic models. PMID:27876821

Three dimensional de novo micro bone marrow and its versatile application in drug screening and regenerative medicine.

PubMed

Li, Guanqun; Liu, Xujun; Du, Qian; Gao, Mei; An, Jing

2015-08-01

The finding that bone marrow hosts several types of multipotent stem cell has prompted extensive research aimed at regenerating organs and building models to elucidate the mechanisms of diseases. Conventional research depends on the use of two-dimensional (2D) bone marrow systems, which imposes several obstacles. The development of 3D bone marrow systems with appropriate molecules and materials however, is now showing promising results. In this review, we discuss the advantages of 3D bone marrow systems over 2D systems and then point out various factors that can enhance the 3D systems. The intensive research on 3D bone marrow systems has revealed multiple important clinical applications including disease modeling, drug screening, regenerative medicine, etc. We also discuss some possible future directions in the 3D bone marrow research field. © 2015 by the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine.

Logic models to predict continuous outputs based on binary inputs with an application to personalized cancer therapy.

PubMed

Knijnenburg, Theo A; Klau, Gunnar W; Iorio, Francesco; Garnett, Mathew J; McDermott, Ultan; Shmulevich, Ilya; Wessels, Lodewyk F A

2016-11-23

Mining large datasets using machine learning approaches often leads to models that are hard to interpret and not amenable to the generation of hypotheses that can be experimentally tested. We present 'Logic Optimization for Binary Input to Continuous Output' (LOBICO), a computational approach that infers small and easily interpretable logic models of binary input features that explain a continuous output variable. Applying LOBICO to a large cancer cell line panel, we find that logic combinations of multiple mutations are more predictive of drug response than single gene predictors. Importantly, we show that the use of the continuous information leads to robust and more accurate logic models. LOBICO implements the ability to uncover logic models around predefined operating points in terms of sensitivity and specificity. As such, it represents an important step towards practical application of interpretable logic models.

Security implications and governance of cognitive neuroscience.

PubMed

Kosal, Margaret E; Huang, Jonathan Y

2015-01-01

In recent years, significant efforts have been made toward elucidating the potential of the human brain. Spanning fields as disparate as psychology, biomedicine, computer science, mathematics, electrical engineering, and chemistry, research venturing into the growing domains of cognitive neuroscience and brain research has become fundamentally interdisciplinary. Among the most interesting and consequential applications to international security are the military and defense community's interests in the potential of cognitive neuroscience findings and technologies. In the United States, multiple governmental agencies are actively pursuing such endeavors, including the Department of Defense, which has invested over $3 billion in the last decade to conduct research on defense-related innovations. This study explores governance and security issues surrounding cognitive neuroscience research with regard to potential security-related applications and reports scientists' views on the role of researchers in these areas through a survey of over 200 active cognitive neuroscientists.

Recent application of quantification II in Japanese medical research.

PubMed Central

Suzuki, T; Kudo, A

1979-01-01

Hayashi's Quantification II is a method of multivariate discrimination analysis to manipulate attribute data as predictor variables. It is very useful in the medical research field for estimation, diagnosis, prognosis, evaluation of epidemiological factors, and other problems based on multiplicity of attribute data. In Japan, this method is so well known that most of the computer program packages include the Hayashi Quantification, but it seems to be yet unfamiliar with the method for researchers outside Japan. In view of this situation, we introduced 19 selected articles of recent applications of the Quantification II in Japanese medical research. In reviewing these papers, special mention is made to clarify how the researchers were satisfied with findings provided by the method. At the same time, some recommendations are made about terminology and program packages. Also a brief discussion of the background of the quantification methods is given with special reference to the Behaviormetric Society of Japan. PMID:540587

Cell death induced by ozone and various non-thermal plasmas: therapeutic perspectives and limitations

PubMed Central

Lunov, Oleg; Zablotskii, Vitalii; Churpita, Olexander; Chánová, Eliška; Syková, Eva; Dejneka, Alexandr; Kubinová, Šárka

2014-01-01

Non-thermal plasma has been recognized as a promising tool across a vast variety of biomedical applications, with the potential to create novel therapeutic methods. However, the understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind non-thermal plasma cellular effects remains a significant challenge. In this study, we show how two types of different non-thermal plasmas induce cell death in mammalian cell cultures via the formation of multiple intracellular reactive oxygen/nitrogen species. Our results showed a discrepancy in the superoxide accumulation and lysosomal activity in response to air and helium plasma, suggesting that triggered signalling cascades might be grossly different between different plasmas. In addition, the effects of ozone, a considerable component of non-thermal plasma, have been simultaneously evaluated and have revealed much faster and higher cytotoxic effects. Our findings offer novel insight into plasma-induced cellular responses, and provide a basis for better controlled biomedical applications. PMID:25410636

Combinatorial microfluidic droplet engineering for biomimetic material synthesis

PubMed Central

Bawazer, Lukmaan A.; McNally, Ciara S.; Empson, Christopher J.; Marchant, William J.; Comyn, Tim P.; Niu, Xize; Cho, Soongwon; McPherson, Michael J.; Binks, Bernard P.; deMello, Andrew; Meldrum, Fiona C.

2016-01-01

Although droplet-based systems are used in a wide range of technologies, opportunities for systematically customizing their interface chemistries remain relatively unexplored. This article describes a new microfluidic strategy for rapidly tailoring emulsion droplet compositions and properties. The approach uses a simple platform for screening arrays of droplet-based microfluidic devices and couples this with combinatorial selection of the droplet compositions. Through the application of genetic algorithms over multiple screening rounds, droplets with target properties can be rapidly generated. The potential of this method is demonstrated by creating droplets with enhanced stability, where this is achieved by selecting carrier fluid chemistries that promote titanium dioxide formation at the droplet interfaces. The interface is a mixture of amorphous and crystalline phases, and the resulting composite droplets are biocompatible, supporting in vitro protein expression in their interiors. This general strategy will find widespread application in advancing emulsion properties for use in chemistry, biology, materials, and medicine. PMID:27730209

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Crowder, Jeff; Cornish, Neil J.; Reddinger, J. Lucas

This work presents the first application of the method of genetic algorithms (GAs) to data analysis for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). In the low frequency regime of the LISA band there are expected to be tens of thousands of galactic binary systems that will be emitting gravitational waves detectable by LISA. The challenge of parameter extraction of such a large number of sources in the LISA data stream requires a search method that can efficiently explore the large parameter spaces involved. As signals of many of these sources will overlap, a global search method is desired. GAs representmore » such a global search method for parameter extraction of multiple overlapping sources in the LISA data stream. We find that GAs are able to correctly extract source parameters for overlapping sources. Several optimizations of a basic GA are presented with results derived from applications of the GA searches to simulated LISA data.« less

Indispensable role of biochar-inherent mineral constituents in its environmental applications: A review.

PubMed

Xu, Xiaoyun; Zhao, Yinghao; Sima, Jingke; Zhao, Ling; Mašek, Ondřej; Cao, Xinde

2017-10-01

Biochar typically consists of both carbon and mineral fractions, and the carbon fraction has been generally considered to determine its properties and applications. Recently, an increasing body of research has demonstrated that mineral components inherent in biochar, such as alkali or alkaline earth metals in the form of carbonates, phosphates, or oxides, could also influence the properties and thus the applications. The review articles published thus far have mainly focused on multiple environmental and agronomic applications of biochar, including carbon sequestration, soil improvement, environmental remediation, etc. This review aims to highlight the indispensable role of the mineral fraction of biochar in these different applications, especially in environmental applications. Specifically, it provides a critical review of current research findings related to the mineral composition of biochar and the effect of the mineral fraction on the physicochemical properties, contaminant sorption, carbon retention and stability, and nutrient bioavailability of biochar. Furthermore, the role of minerals in the emerging applications of biochar, as a precursor for fuel cells, supercapacitors, and photoactive components, is also summarized. Overall, inherent minerals should be fully considered while determining the most appropriate application for any given biochar. A thorough understanding of the role of biochar-bound minerals in different applications will also allow the design or selection of the most suitable biochar for specific applications based on the consideration of feedstock composition, production parameters, and post-treatment. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

On Certain Wronskians of Multiple Orthogonal Polynomials

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Lun; Filipuk, Galina

2014-11-01

We consider determinants of Wronskian type whose entries are multiple orthogonal polynomials associated with a path connecting two multi-indices. By assuming that the weight functions form an algebraic Chebyshev (AT) system, we show that the polynomials represented by the Wronskians keep a constant sign in some cases, while in some other cases oscillatory behavior appears, which generalizes classical results for orthogonal polynomials due to Karlin and Szegő. There are two applications of our results. The first application arises from the observation that the m-th moment of the average characteristic polynomials for multiple orthogonal polynomial ensembles can be expressed as a Wronskian of the type II multiple orthogonal polynomials. Hence, it is straightforward to obtain the distinct behavior of the moments for odd and even m in a special multiple orthogonal ensemble - the AT ensemble. As the second application, we derive some Turán type inequalities for m! ultiple Hermite and multiple Laguerre polynomials (of two kinds). Finally, we study numerically the geometric configuration of zeros for the Wronskians of these multiple orthogonal polynomials. We observe that the zeros have regular configurations in the complex plane, which might be of independent interest.

Completion of Multiple Fellowships by Orthopedic Surgeons: Analysis of the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery Certification Database.

PubMed

DePasse, J Mason; Daniels, Alan H; Durand, Wesley; Kingrey, Brandon; Prodromo, John; Mulcahey, Mary K

2018-01-01

Orthopedic surgeons have become increasingly subspecialized, and recent studies have shown that American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery (ABOS) Step II applicants are performing a higher percentage of their cases within their chosen subspecialties. However, these studies focused exclusively on surgeons who have completed a single fellowship; little data exist on those who pursue a second fellowship. All applicants to the ABOS Part II examination from 2004 to 2016 were classified by their self-reported fellowship training history using the ABOS Part II examination database. Trends in the number of applicants completing multiple fellowships and the types of fellowships combined were analyzed. In addition, cases performed by applicants who had performed multiple fellowships were analyzed to determine what percentage were within their chosen subspecialties. A total of 9776 applicants to ABOS Part II were included in the database from 2004 to 2016, including 444 (4.5%) applicants who completed more than one fellowship. There were 43 different combinations of fellowships; the most common additional fellowships were trauma (40.1%), sports medicine (38.7%), and joints (30.4%). The most common combinations were joints and sports medicine (10.6%) and foot and ankle and sports medicine (10.1%). A significant increase occurred in physicians training in both pediatric orthopedics and sports medicine (P=.02). The percentage of cases within the applicants' chosen specialties ranged from 91.4% in sports to 73.6% in tumor. Multiple fellowship applicants represent a small percentage of all applicants, and although subspecialization in orthopedics is increasing, no increasing trend toward multiple fellowships within this dataset was observed. However, the significant increase in applicants who combined pediatric orthopedic and sports medicine fellowships suggests an increasing interest in treating this increasing patient population in addition to social and economic factors. [Orthopedics. 2018; 41(1):e33-e37.]. Copyright 2017, SLACK Incorporated.

Statistical Power in Evaluations That Investigate Effects on Multiple Outcomes: A Guide for Researchers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Porter, Kristin E.

2016-01-01

In education research and in many other fields, researchers are often interested in testing the effectiveness of an intervention on multiple outcomes, for multiple subgroups, at multiple points in time, or across multiple treatment groups. The resulting multiplicity of statistical hypothesis tests can lead to spurious findings of effects. Multiple…

A Virtual Microscope for Academic Medical Education: The Pate Project

PubMed Central

Hundt, Christian; Schmitt, Volker H; Schömer, Elmar; Kirkpatrick, C James

2015-01-01

Background Whole-slide imaging (WSI) has become more prominent and continues to gain in importance in student teaching. Applications with different scope have been developed. Many of these applications have either technical or design shortcomings. Objective To design a survey to determine student expectations of WSI applications for teaching histological and pathological diagnosis. To develop a new WSI application based on the findings of the survey. Methods A total of 216 students were questioned about their experiences and expectations of WSI applications, as well as favorable and undesired features. The survey included 14 multiple choice and two essay questions. Based on the survey, we developed a new WSI application called Pate utilizing open source technologies. Results The survey sample included 216 students—62.0% (134) women and 36.1% (78) men. Out of 216 students, 4 (1.9%) did not disclose their gender. The best-known preexisting WSI applications included Mainzer Histo Maps (199/216, 92.1%), Histoweb Tübingen (16/216, 7.4%), and Histonet Ulm (8/216, 3.7%). Desired features for the students were latitude in the slides (190/216, 88.0%), histological (191/216, 88.4%) and pathological (186/216, 86.1%) annotations, points of interest (181/216, 83.8%), background information (146/216, 67.6%), and auxiliary informational texts (113/216, 52.3%). By contrast, a discussion forum was far less important (9/216, 4.2%) for the students. Conclusions The survey revealed that the students appreciate a rich feature set, including WSI functionality, points of interest, auxiliary informational texts, and annotations. The development of Pate was significantly influenced by the findings of the survey. Although Pate currently has some issues with the Zoomify file format, it could be shown that Web technologies are capable of providing a high-performance WSI experience, as well as a rich feature set. PMID:25963527

Characterization of normal feline renal vascular anatomy with dual-phase CT angiography.

PubMed

Cáceres, Ana V; Zwingenberger, Allison L; Aronson, Lillian R; Mai, Wilfried

2008-01-01

Helical computed tomography angiography was used to evaluate the renal vascular anatomy of potential feline renal donors. One hundred and fourteen computed tomography angiograms were reviewed. The vessels were characterized as single without bifurcation, single with bifurcation, double, or triple. Multiplicity was most commonly seen for the right renal vein (45/114 vs. 3/114 multiple left renal veins, 0/114 multiple right renal arteries, and 8/114 multiple left renal arteries). The right kidney was 13.3 times more likely than the left to have multiple renal veins. Additional vascular variants included double caudal vena cava and an accessory renal artery. For the left kidney, surgery and computed tomography angiography findings were in agreement in 92% of 74 cats. For the right kidney, surgery and computed tomography angiography findings were in agreement in 6/6 cats. Our findings of renal vascular anatomy variations in cats were similar to previous reports in humans. Identifying and recognizing the pattern of distribution of these vessels is important when performing renal transplantation.

The application of multiple biophysical cues to engineer functional neocartilage for treatment of osteoarthritis. Part I: cellular response.

PubMed

Brady, Mariea A; Waldman, Stephen D; Ethier, C Ross

2015-02-01

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a complex disease of the joint for which current treatments are unsatisfactory, thus motivating development of tissue engineering (TE)-based therapies. To date, TE strategies have had some success, developing replacement tissue constructs with biochemical properties approaching that of native cartilage. However, poor biomechanical properties and limited postimplantation integration with surrounding tissue are major shortcomings that need to be addressed. Functional tissue engineering strategies that apply physiologically relevant biophysical cues provide a platform to improve TE constructs before implantation. In the previous decade, new experimental and theoretical findings in cartilage biomechanics and electromechanics have emerged, resulting in an increased understanding of the complex interplay of multiple biophysical cues in the extracellular matrix of the tissue. The effect of biophysical stimulation on cartilage, and the resulting chondrocyte-mediated biosynthesis, remodeling, degradation, and repair, has, therefore, been extensively explored by the TE community. This article compares and contrasts the cellular response of chondrocytes to multiple biophysical stimuli, and may be read in conjunction with its companion paper that compares and contrasts the subsequent intracellular signal transduction cascades. Mechanical, magnetic, and electrical stimuli promote proliferation, differentiation, and maturation of chondrocytes within established dose parameters or "biological windows." This knowledge will provide a framework for ongoing studies incorporating multiple biophysical cues in TE functional neocartilage for treatment of OA.

Score distributions of gapped multiple sequence alignments down to the low-probability tail

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fieth, Pascal; Hartmann, Alexander K.

2016-08-01

Assessing the significance of alignment scores of optimally aligned DNA or amino acid sequences can be achieved via the knowledge of the score distribution of random sequences. But this requires obtaining the distribution in the biologically relevant high-scoring region, where the probabilities are exponentially small. For gapless local alignments of infinitely long sequences this distribution is known analytically to follow a Gumbel distribution. Distributions for gapped local alignments and global alignments of finite lengths can only be obtained numerically. To obtain result for the small-probability region, specific statistical mechanics-based rare-event algorithms can be applied. In previous studies, this was achieved for pairwise alignments. They showed that, contrary to results from previous simple sampling studies, strong deviations from the Gumbel distribution occur in case of finite sequence lengths. Here we extend the studies to multiple sequence alignments with gaps, which are much more relevant for practical applications in molecular biology. We study the distributions of scores over a large range of the support, reaching probabilities as small as 10-160, for global and local (sum-of-pair scores) multiple alignments. We find that even after suitable rescaling, eliminating the sequence-length dependence, the distributions for multiple alignment differ from the pairwise alignment case. Furthermore, we also show that the previously discussed Gaussian correction to the Gumbel distribution needs to be refined, also for the case of pairwise alignments.

Multiple orthokeratinized odontogenic cysts: a case report.

PubMed

Cheng, Yi-Shing Lisa; Liang, Hui; Wright, John; Teenier, Tom

2015-03-01

The purpose of this report is to document the clinical, radiographic, pathological and molecular findings of the first case of multiple orthokeratinized odontogenic cysts (OOCs). Multiple odontogenic keratocysts are one of the major features of nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome (NBCCS), and loss of heterozygosity in the PTCH gene, the culprit gene for NBCCS, has recently been found in sporadic OOC cases. Therefore, in this presenting case, we also investigated the possibility that this patient might also have NBCCS, by comparing the available clinical information and the molecular findings of this case to the diagnostic criteria for NBCCS (as proposed by the First International Colloquium on NBCCS in 2011). However, this patient with multiple OOCs showed no evidence of having NBCCS. This conclusion supports the findings from previous case series based on sporadic cases that OOC does not appear to be associated with NBCCS.

Plant metabolic clusters - from genetics to genomics.

PubMed

Nützmann, Hans-Wilhelm; Huang, Ancheng; Osbourn, Anne

2016-08-01

Contents 771 I. 771 II. 772 III. 780 IV. 781 V. 786 786 References 786 SUMMARY: Plant natural products are of great value for agriculture, medicine and a wide range of other industrial applications. The discovery of new plant natural product pathways is currently being revolutionized by two key developments. First, breakthroughs in sequencing technology and reduced cost of sequencing are accelerating the ability to find enzymes and pathways for the biosynthesis of new natural products by identifying the underlying genes. Second, there are now multiple examples in which the genes encoding certain natural product pathways have been found to be grouped together in biosynthetic gene clusters within plant genomes. These advances are now making it possible to develop strategies for systematically mining multiple plant genomes for the discovery of new enzymes, pathways and chemistries. Increased knowledge of the features of plant metabolic gene clusters - architecture, regulation and assembly - will be instrumental in expediting natural product discovery. This review summarizes progress in this area. © 2016 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2016 New Phytologist Trust.

Medical School Performance of Socioeconomically Disadvantaged and Underrepresented Minority Students Matriculating after a Multiple Mini-Interview.

PubMed

Jerant, Anthony; Henderson, Mark C; Griffin, Erin; Talamantes, Efrain; Fancher, Tonya; Sousa, Francis; Franks, Peter

2018-01-01

Multiple Mini-Interviews (MMIs) are increasingly used in medical school admissions. We previously reported that while under-represented minority (URM) status was not associated with MMI scores, self-designated disadvantaged applicants had lower MMI scores, possibly affecting their matriculation prospects. No studies have examined how URM status or socioeconomic disadvantage (SED) are associated with academic performance following admission through an MMI. We examined the adjusted associations of MMI scores, SED, and URM status with U.S. Medical Licensing Examination Steps 1 and 2 performance and third-year clerkship Honors, measures affecting residency matching. While URM status was not associated with the measures, students with greater SED had lower Step 1 scores and fewer Honors. Students with higher MMI scores had more Step 1 failures, but more Honors. The findings identify areas to address in medical school admissions, student support, and evaluation processes, which is important given the need for a more representative physician workforce.

Brain tissues atrophy is not always the best structural biomarker of physiological aging: A multimodal cross-sectional study.

PubMed

Cherubini, Andrea; Caligiuri, Maria Eugenia; Péran, Patrice; Sabatini, Umberto; Cosentino, Carlo; Amato, Francesco

2015-01-01

This study presents a voxel-based multiple regression analysis of different magnetic resonance image modalities, including anatomical T1-weighted, T2* relaxometry, and diffusion tensor imaging. Quantitative parameters sensitive to complementary brain tissue alterations, including morphometric atrophy, mineralization, microstructural damage, and anisotropy loss, were compared in a linear physiological aging model in 140 healthy subjects (range 20-74 years). The performance of different predictors and the identification of the best biomarker of age-induced structural variation were compared without a priori anatomical knowledge. The best quantitative predictors in several brain regions were iron deposition and microstructural damage, rather than macroscopic tissue atrophy. Age variations were best resolved with a combination of markers, suggesting that multiple predictors better capture age-induced tissue alterations. These findings highlight the importance of a combined evaluation of multimodal biomarkers for the study of aging and point to a number of novel applications for the method described.

Mercury and methylmercury stream concentrations in a Coastal Plain watershed: A multi-scale simulation analysis

USGS Publications Warehouse

Knightes, Christopher D.; Golden, Heather E.; Journey, Celeste A.; Davis, Gary M.; Conrads, Paul; Marvin-DiPasquale, Mark; Brigham, Mark E.; Bradley, Paul M.

2014-01-01

Mercury is a ubiquitous global environmental toxicant responsible for most US fish advisories. Processes governing mercury concentrations in rivers and streams are not well understood, particularly at multiple spatial scales. We investigate how insights gained from reach-scale mercury data and model simulations can be applied at broader watershed scales using a spatially and temporally explicit watershed hydrology and biogeochemical cycling model, VELMA. We simulate fate and transport using reach-scale (0.1 km2) study data and evaluate applications to multiple watershed scales. Reach-scale VELMA parameterization was applied to two nested sub-watersheds (28 km2 and 25 km2) and the encompassing watershed (79 km2). Results demonstrate that simulated flow and total mercury concentrations compare reasonably to observations at different scales, but simulated methylmercury concentrations are out-of-phase with observations. These findings suggest that intricacies of methylmercury biogeochemical cycling and transport are under-represented in VELMA and underscore the complexity of simulating mercury fate and transport.

MRI CRITERIA FOR THE DIAGNOSIS OF MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS: MAGNIMS CONSENSUS GUIDELINES

PubMed Central

Filippi, M.; Rocca, M.A.; Ciccarelli, O.; De Stefano, N.; Evangelou, N.; Kappos, L.; Rovira, A.; Sastre-Garriga, J.; Tintorè, M.; Frederiksen, J.L.; Gasperini, C.; Palace, J.; Reich, D.S.; Banwell, B.; Montalban, X.; Barkhof, F.

2016-01-01

Summary In patients presenting with a clinically isolated syndrome (CIS), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can support and substitute clinical information for multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis demonstrating disease dissemination in space (DIS) and time (DIT) and helping to rule out other conditions that can mimic MS. From their inclusion in the diagnostic work-up for MS in 2001, several modifications of MRI diagnostic criteria have been proposed, in the attempt to simplify lesion-count models for demonstrating DIS, change the timing of MRI scanning for demonstrating DIT, and increase the value of spinal cord imaging. Since the last update of these criteria, new data regarding the application of MRI for demonstrating DIS and DIT have become available and improvement in MRI technology has occurred. State-of-the-art MRI findings in these patients were discussed in a MAGNIMS workshop, the goal of which was to provide an evidence-based and expert-opinion consensus on diagnostic MRI criteria modifications. PMID:26822746

A Virtual Radial Arm Maze for the Study of Multiple Memory Systems in a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Environment

PubMed Central

Xu, Dongrong; Hao, Xuejun; Wang, Zhishun; Duan, Yunsuo; Liu, Feng; Marsh, Rachel; Yu, Shan; Peterson, Bradley S.

2015-01-01

An increasing number of functional brain imaging studies are employing computer-based virtual reality (VR) to study changes in brain activity during the performance of high-level psychological and cognitive tasks. We report the development of a VR radial arm maze that adapts for human use in a scanning environment with the same general experimental design of behavioral tasks as that has been used with remarkable effectiveness for the study of multiple memory systems in rodents. The software platform is independent of specific computer hardware and operating systems, as we aim to provide shared access to this technology by the research community. We hope that doing so will provide greater standardization of software platform and study paradigm that will reduce variability and improve the comparability of findings across studies. We report the details of the design and implementation of this platform and provide information for downloading of the system for demonstration and research applications. PMID:26366052

Collaboration and co-production of climate knowledge: lessons from a network on the front-line

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kettle, N.

2016-12-01

The science-practice gap is broadly considered a major barrier to the production and application of decision-relevant science. This study uses a social network analysis, based on 126 interviews, to analyze the roles and network ties among climate scientists, service providers, and decision makers in Alaska. Our research highlights the importance of key actors and significant differences in bonding and bridging ties across roles - structural characteristics that provide a basis for informing recommendations to build adaptive capacity and support the co-production of knowledge. Our findings also illustrate that some individuals in the network engage in multiple roles, suggesting that conceptualizing the science-practice interface as consisting of "producers" and "consumers" oversimplifies how individuals engage in climate science, services, and decision making. This research supports the notion that the development and use of climate information is a networked phenomenon. It also emphasizes the importance of centralized individuals who are capable of engaging in multiple roles for the transition of knowledge action.

Smartphone gaming and frequent use pattern associated with smartphone addiction

PubMed Central

Liu, Chun-Hao; Lin, Sheng-Hsuan; Pan, Yuan-Chien; Lin, Yu-Hsuan

2016-01-01

Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate the risk factors of smartphone addiction in high school students. A total of 880 adolescents were recruited from a vocational high school in Taiwan in January 2014 to complete a set of questionnaires, including the 10-item Smartphone Addiction Inventory, Chen Internet Addiction Scale, and a survey of content and patterns of personal smartphone use. Of those recruited, 689 students (646 male) aged 14 to 21 and who owned a smartphone completed the questionnaire. Multiple linear regression models were used to determine the variables associated with smartphone addiction. Smartphone gaming and frequent smartphone use were associated with smartphone addiction. Furthermore, both the smartphone gaming-predominant and gaming with multiple-applications groups showed a similar association with smartphone addiction. Gender, duration of owning a smartphone, and substance use were not associated with smartphone addiction. Our findings suggest that smartphone use patterns should be part of specific measures to prevent and intervene in cases of excessive smartphone use. PMID:27428191

Smartphone gaming and frequent use pattern associated with smartphone addiction.

PubMed

Liu, Chun-Hao; Lin, Sheng-Hsuan; Pan, Yuan-Chien; Lin, Yu-Hsuan

2016-07-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the risk factors of smartphone addiction in high school students.A total of 880 adolescents were recruited from a vocational high school in Taiwan in January 2014 to complete a set of questionnaires, including the 10-item Smartphone Addiction Inventory, Chen Internet Addiction Scale, and a survey of content and patterns of personal smartphone use. Of those recruited, 689 students (646 male) aged 14 to 21 and who owned a smartphone completed the questionnaire. Multiple linear regression models were used to determine the variables associated with smartphone addiction.Smartphone gaming and frequent smartphone use were associated with smartphone addiction. Furthermore, both the smartphone gaming-predominant and gaming with multiple-applications groups showed a similar association with smartphone addiction. Gender, duration of owning a smartphone, and substance use were not associated with smartphone addiction.Our findings suggest that smartphone use patterns should be part of specific measures to prevent and intervene in cases of excessive smartphone use.

Biquaternion beamspace with its application to vector-sensor array direction findings and polarization estimations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Dan; Xu, Feng; Jiang, Jing Fei; Zhang, Jian Qiu

2017-12-01

In this paper, a biquaternion beamspace, constructed by projecting the original data of an electromagnetic vector-sensor array into a subspace of a lower dimension via a quaternion transformation matrix, is first proposed. To estimate the direction and polarization angles of sources, biquaternion beamspace multiple signal classification (BB-MUSIC) estimators are then formulated. The analytical results show that the biquaternion beamspaces offer us some additional degrees of freedom to simultaneously achieve three goals. One is to save the memory spaces for storing the data covariance matrix and reduce the computation efforts of the eigen-decomposition. Another is to decouple the estimations of the sources' polarization parameters from those of their direction angles. The other is to blindly whiten the coherent noise of the six constituent antennas in each vector-sensor. It is also shown that the existing biquaternion multiple signal classification (BQ-MUSIC) estimator is a specific case of our BB-MUSIC ones. The simulation results verify the correctness and effectiveness of the analytical ones.

Teaching strategies in the learning of highest common factor and lowest common multiple

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Halim, N. L. A.; Li, H.-C.; Shahrill, M.; Prahmana, R. C. I.

2017-12-01

The main purpose of this study is to improve students’ understanding of Highest Common Factor (HCF) and Lowest Common Multiple (LCM). Several alternative teaching strategies were integrated in the Year 7 lessons involving 20 students from one secondary school in Brunei Darussalam. The categories identified in the teaching strategy were the application of group work, embedding real-life problems, using presentations and the traditional drilling practice method. An open-ended survey was disseminated to collate the students’ feedback, and among the questions posed was in relation to the different types of lesson activities utilised within each of the teaching strategies. Although 55% of the students preferred the traditional drilling practice on the calculation of HCF and LCM, mainly due to the ease of the task as opposed to activities involving real-life problems, the findings also indicated that most students favour sharing their ideas in a healthy competition learning style between each other or between the groups.

The roles of inoculants' carbon source use in the biocontrol of potato scab disease.

PubMed

Sun, Pingping; Zhao, Xinbei; Shangguan, Nini; Chang, Dongwei; Ma, Qing

2015-04-01

Despite the application of multiple strains in the biocontrol of plant diseases, multistrain inoculation is still constrained by its inconsistency in the field. Nutrients, especially carbons, play an important role in the biocontrol processes. However, little work has been done on the systematic estimation of inoculants' carbon source use on biocontrol efficacies in vivo. In the present study, 7 nonpathogenic Streptomyces strains alone and in different combinations were inoculated as biocontrol agents against the potato scab disease, under field conditions and greenhouse treatments. The influence of the inoculants' carbon source use properties on biocontrol efficacies was investigated. The results showed that increasing the number of inoculated strains did not necessarily result in greater biocontrol efficacy in vivo. However, single strains with higher growth rates or multiple strains with less carbon source competition had positive effects on the biocontrol efficacies. These findings may shed light on optimizing the consistent biocontrol of plant disease with the consideration of inoculants' carbon source use properties.

Transient well flow in leaky multiple-aquifer systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hemker, C. J.

1985-10-01

A previously developed eigenvalue analysis approach to groundwater flow in leaky multiple aquifers is used to derive exact solutions for transient well flow problems in leaky and confined systems comprising any number of aquifers. Equations are presented for the drawdown distribution in systems of infinite extent, caused by wells penetrating one or more of the aquifers completely and discharging each layer at a constant rate. Since the solution obtained may be regarded as a combined analytical-numerical technique, a type of one-dimensional modelling can be applied to find approximate solutions for several complicating conditions. Numerical evaluations are presented as time-drawdown curves and include effects of storage in the aquitard, unconfined conditions, partially penetrating wells and stratified aquifers. The outcome of calculations for relatively simple systems compares very well with published corresponding results. The proposed multilayer solution can be a valuable tool in aquifer test evaluation, as it provides the analytical expression required to enable the application of existing computer methods to the determination of aquifer characteristics.

Log-normal distribution from a process that is not multiplicative but is additive.

PubMed

Mouri, Hideaki

2013-10-01

The central limit theorem ensures that a sum of random variables tends to a Gaussian distribution as their total number tends to infinity. However, for a class of positive random variables, we find that the sum tends faster to a log-normal distribution. Although the sum tends eventually to a Gaussian distribution, the distribution of the sum is always close to a log-normal distribution rather than to any Gaussian distribution if the summands are numerous enough. This is in contrast to the current consensus that any log-normal distribution is due to a product of random variables, i.e., a multiplicative process, or equivalently to nonlinearity of the system. In fact, the log-normal distribution is also observable for a sum, i.e., an additive process that is typical of linear systems. We show conditions for such a sum, an analytical example, and an application to random scalar fields such as those of turbulence.

Twin-Mirrored-Galvanometer Laser-Light-Sheet Generator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rhodes, David B.; Franke, John M.; Jones, Stephen B.; Leighty, Bradley D.

1991-01-01

Multiple, rotating laser-light sheets generated to illuminate flows in wind tunnels. Designed and developed to provide flexibility and adaptability to wide range of applications. Design includes capability to control size and location of laser-light sheet in real time, to generate horizontal or vertical sheets, to sweep sheet repeatedly through volume, to generate multiple sheets with controllable separation, and to rotate single or multiple laser-light sheets. Includes electronic equipment and laser mounted on adjustable-height platform. Twin-mirrored galvanometer unit supported by tripod to reduce vibration. Other possible applications include use in construction industry to align beams of building. Artistic or display applications also possible.

Lung Segmentation Refinement based on Optimal Surface Finding Utilizing a Hybrid Desktop/Virtual Reality User Interface

PubMed Central

Sun, Shanhui; Sonka, Milan; Beichel, Reinhard R.

2013-01-01

Recently, the optimal surface finding (OSF) and layered optimal graph image segmentation of multiple objects and surfaces (LOGISMOS) approaches have been reported with applications to medical image segmentation tasks. While providing high levels of performance, these approaches may locally fail in the presence of pathology or other local challenges. Due to the image data variability, finding a suitable cost function that would be applicable to all image locations may not be feasible. This paper presents a new interactive refinement approach for correcting local segmentation errors in the automated OSF-based segmentation. A hybrid desktop/virtual reality user interface was developed for efficient interaction with the segmentations utilizing state-of-the-art stereoscopic visualization technology and advanced interaction techniques. The user interface allows a natural and interactive manipulation on 3-D surfaces. The approach was evaluated on 30 test cases from 18 CT lung datasets, which showed local segmentation errors after employing an automated OSF-based lung segmentation. The performed experiments exhibited significant increase in performance in terms of mean absolute surface distance errors (2.54 ± 0.75 mm prior to refinement vs. 1.11 ± 0.43 mm post-refinement, p ≪ 0.001). Speed of the interactions is one of the most important aspects leading to the acceptance or rejection of the approach by users expecting real-time interaction experience. The average algorithm computing time per refinement iteration was 150 ms, and the average total user interaction time required for reaching complete operator satisfaction per case was about 2 min. This time was mostly spent on human-controlled manipulation of the object to identify whether additional refinement was necessary and to approve the final segmentation result. The reported principle is generally applicable to segmentation problems beyond lung segmentation in CT scans as long as the underlying segmentation utilizes the OSF framework. The two reported segmentation refinement tools were optimized for lung segmentation and might need some adaptation for other application domains. PMID:23415254

DISCO-SCA and Properly Applied GSVD as Swinging Methods to Find Common and Distinctive Processes

PubMed Central

Van Deun, Katrijn; Van Mechelen, Iven; Thorrez, Lieven; Schouteden, Martijn; De Moor, Bart; van der Werf, Mariët J.; De Lathauwer, Lieven; Smilde, Age K.; Kiers, Henk A. L.

2012-01-01

Background In systems biology it is common to obtain for the same set of biological entities information from multiple sources. Examples include expression data for the same set of orthologous genes screened in different organisms and data on the same set of culture samples obtained with different high-throughput techniques. A major challenge is to find the important biological processes underlying the data and to disentangle therein processes common to all data sources and processes distinctive for a specific source. Recently, two promising simultaneous data integration methods have been proposed to attain this goal, namely generalized singular value decomposition (GSVD) and simultaneous component analysis with rotation to common and distinctive components (DISCO-SCA). Results Both theoretical analyses and applications to biologically relevant data show that: (1) straightforward applications of GSVD yield unsatisfactory results, (2) DISCO-SCA performs well, (3) provided proper pre-processing and algorithmic adaptations, GSVD reaches a performance level similar to that of DISCO-SCA, and (4) DISCO-SCA is directly generalizable to more than two data sources. The biological relevance of DISCO-SCA is illustrated with two applications. First, in a setting of comparative genomics, it is shown that DISCO-SCA recovers a common theme of cell cycle progression and a yeast-specific response to pheromones. The biological annotation was obtained by applying Gene Set Enrichment Analysis in an appropriate way. Second, in an application of DISCO-SCA to metabolomics data for Escherichia coli obtained with two different chemical analysis platforms, it is illustrated that the metabolites involved in some of the biological processes underlying the data are detected by one of the two platforms only; therefore, platforms for microbial metabolomics should be tailored to the biological question. Conclusions Both DISCO-SCA and properly applied GSVD are promising integrative methods for finding common and distinctive processes in multisource data. Open source code for both methods is provided. PMID:22693578

47 CFR 73.3555 - Multiple ownership.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... vertical ownership chain and application of the relevant attribution benchmark to the resulting product, except that wherever the ownership percentage for any link in the chain exceeds 50%, it shall not be... multiplication of the ownership percentages for each link in the vertical ownership chain and application of the...

47 CFR 73.3555 - Multiple ownership.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... vertical ownership chain and application of the relevant attribution benchmark to the resulting product, except that wherever the ownership percentage for any link in the chain exceeds 50%, it shall not be... multiplication of the ownership percentages for each link in the vertical ownership chain and application of the...

47 CFR 73.3555 - Multiple ownership.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... vertical ownership chain and application of the relevant attribution benchmark to the resulting product, except that wherever the ownership percentage for any link in the chain exceeds 50%, it shall not be... multiplication of the ownership percentages for each link in the vertical ownership chain and application of the...

47 CFR 73.3555 - Multiple ownership.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... vertical ownership chain and application of the relevant attribution benchmark to the resulting product, except that wherever the ownership percentage for any link in the chain exceeds 50%, it shall not be... multiplication of the ownership percentages for each link in the vertical ownership chain and application of the...

47 CFR 73.3555 - Multiple ownership.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... vertical ownership chain and application of the relevant attribution benchmark to the resulting product, except that wherever the ownership percentage for any link in the chain exceeds 50%, it shall not be... multiplication of the ownership percentages for each link in the vertical ownership chain and application of the...

Analysis and Interpretation of Findings Using Multiple Regression Techniques

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hoyt, William T.; Leierer, Stephen; Millington, Michael J.

2006-01-01

Multiple regression and correlation (MRC) methods form a flexible family of statistical techniques that can address a wide variety of different types of research questions of interest to rehabilitation professionals. In this article, we review basic concepts and terms, with an emphasis on interpretation of findings relevant to research questions…

The genomic applications in practice and prevention network.

PubMed

Khoury, Muin J; Feero, W Gregory; Reyes, Michele; Citrin, Toby; Freedman, Andrew; Leonard, Debra; Burke, Wylie; Coates, Ralph; Croyle, Robert T; Edwards, Karen; Kardia, Sharon; McBride, Colleen; Manolio, Teri; Randhawa, Gurvaneet; Rasooly, Rebekah; St Pierre, Jeannette; Terry, Sharon

2009-07-01

The authors describe the rationale and initial development of a new collaborative initiative, the Genomic Applications in Practice and Prevention Network. The network convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health includes multiple stakeholders from academia, government, health care, public health, industry and consumers. The premise of Genomic Applications in Practice and Prevention Network is that there is an unaddressed chasm between gene discoveries and demonstration of their clinical validity and utility. This chasm is due to the lack of readily accessible information about the utility of most genomic applications and the lack of necessary knowledge by consumers and providers to implement what is known. The mission of Genomic Applications in Practice and Prevention Network is to accelerate and streamline the effective integration of validated genomic knowledge into the practice of medicine and public health, by empowering and sponsoring research, evaluating research findings, and disseminating high quality information on candidate genomic applications in practice and prevention. Genomic Applications in Practice and Prevention Network will develop a process that links ongoing collection of information on candidate genomic applications to four crucial domains: (1) knowledge synthesis and dissemination for new and existing technologies, and the identification of knowledge gaps, (2) a robust evidence-based recommendation development process, (3) translation research to evaluate validity, utility and impact in the real world and how to disseminate and implement recommended genomic applications, and (4) programs to enhance practice, education, and surveillance.

Dinucleotide controlled null models for comparative RNA gene prediction.

PubMed

Gesell, Tanja; Washietl, Stefan

2008-05-27

Comparative prediction of RNA structures can be used to identify functional noncoding RNAs in genomic screens. It was shown recently by Babak et al. [BMC Bioinformatics. 8:33] that RNA gene prediction programs can be biased by the genomic dinucleotide content, in particular those programs using a thermodynamic folding model including stacking energies. As a consequence, there is need for dinucleotide-preserving control strategies to assess the significance of such predictions. While there have been randomization algorithms for single sequences for many years, the problem has remained challenging for multiple alignments and there is currently no algorithm available. We present a program called SISSIz that simulates multiple alignments of a given average dinucleotide content. Meeting additional requirements of an accurate null model, the randomized alignments are on average of the same sequence diversity and preserve local conservation and gap patterns. We make use of a phylogenetic substitution model that includes overlapping dependencies and site-specific rates. Using fast heuristics and a distance based approach, a tree is estimated under this model which is used to guide the simulations. The new algorithm is tested on vertebrate genomic alignments and the effect on RNA structure predictions is studied. In addition, we directly combined the new null model with the RNAalifold consensus folding algorithm giving a new variant of a thermodynamic structure based RNA gene finding program that is not biased by the dinucleotide content. SISSIz implements an efficient algorithm to randomize multiple alignments preserving dinucleotide content. It can be used to get more accurate estimates of false positive rates of existing programs, to produce negative controls for the training of machine learning based programs, or as standalone RNA gene finding program. Other applications in comparative genomics that require randomization of multiple alignments can be considered. SISSIz is available as open source C code that can be compiled for every major platform and downloaded here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/sissiz.

Regional Management Units for Marine Turtles: A Novel Framework for Prioritizing Conservation and Research across Multiple Scales

PubMed Central

Wallace, Bryan P.; DiMatteo, Andrew D.; Hurley, Brendan J.; Finkbeiner, Elena M.; Bolten, Alan B.; Chaloupka, Milani Y.; Hutchinson, Brian J.; Abreu-Grobois, F. Alberto; Amorocho, Diego; Bjorndal, Karen A.; Bourjea, Jerome; Bowen, Brian W.; Dueñas, Raquel Briseño; Casale, Paolo; Choudhury, B. C.; Costa, Alice; Dutton, Peter H.; Fallabrino, Alejandro; Girard, Alexandre; Girondot, Marc; Godfrey, Matthew H.; Hamann, Mark; López-Mendilaharsu, Milagros; Marcovaldi, Maria Angela; Mortimer, Jeanne A.; Musick, John A.; Nel, Ronel; Pilcher, Nicolas J.; Seminoff, Jeffrey A.; Troëng, Sebastian; Witherington, Blair; Mast, Roderic B.

2010-01-01

Background Resolving threats to widely distributed marine megafauna requires definition of the geographic distributions of both the threats as well as the population unit(s) of interest. In turn, because individual threats can operate on varying spatial scales, their impacts can affect different segments of a population of the same species. Therefore, integration of multiple tools and techniques — including site-based monitoring, genetic analyses, mark-recapture studies and telemetry — can facilitate robust definitions of population segments at multiple biological and spatial scales to address different management and research challenges. Methodology/Principal Findings To address these issues for marine turtles, we collated all available studies on marine turtle biogeography, including nesting sites, population abundances and trends, population genetics, and satellite telemetry. We georeferenced this information to generate separate layers for nesting sites, genetic stocks, and core distributions of population segments of all marine turtle species. We then spatially integrated this information from fine- to coarse-spatial scales to develop nested envelope models, or Regional Management Units (RMUs), for marine turtles globally. Conclusions/Significance The RMU framework is a solution to the challenge of how to organize marine turtles into units of protection above the level of nesting populations, but below the level of species, within regional entities that might be on independent evolutionary trajectories. Among many potential applications, RMUs provide a framework for identifying data gaps, assessing high diversity areas for multiple species and genetic stocks, and evaluating conservation status of marine turtles. Furthermore, RMUs allow for identification of geographic barriers to gene flow, and can provide valuable guidance to marine spatial planning initiatives that integrate spatial distributions of protected species and human activities. In addition, the RMU framework — including maps and supporting metadata — will be an iterative, user-driven tool made publicly available in an online application for comments, improvements, download and analysis. PMID:21253007

Application-Driven No-Reference Quality Assessment for Dermoscopy Images With Multiple Distortions.

PubMed

Xie, Fengying; Lu, Yanan; Bovik, Alan C; Jiang, Zhiguo; Meng, Rusong

2016-06-01

Dermoscopy images often suffer from blur and uneven illumination distortions that occur during acquisition, which can adversely influence consequent automatic image analysis results on potential lesion objects. The purpose of this paper is to deploy an algorithm that can automatically assess the quality of dermoscopy images. Such an algorithm could be used to direct image recapture or correction. We describe an application-driven no-reference image quality assessment (IQA) model for dermoscopy images affected by possibly multiple distortions. For this purpose, we created a multiple distortion dataset of dermoscopy images impaired by varying degrees of blur and uneven illumination. The basis of this model is two single distortion IQA metrics that are sensitive to blur and uneven illumination, respectively. The outputs of these two metrics are combined to predict the quality of multiply distorted dermoscopy images using a fuzzy neural network. Unlike traditional IQA algorithms, which use human subjective score as ground truth, here ground truth is driven by the application, and generated according to the degree of influence of the distortions on lesion analysis. The experimental results reveal that the proposed model delivers accurate and stable quality prediction results for dermoscopy images impaired by multiple distortions. The proposed model is effective for quality assessment of multiple distorted dermoscopy images. An application-driven concept for IQA is introduced, and at the same time, a solution framework for the IQA of multiple distortions is proposed.

A Review of Hybrid Fiber-Optic Distributed Simultaneous Vibration and Temperature Sensing Technology and Its Geophysical Applications

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Distributed sensing systems can transform an optical fiber cable into an array of sensors, allowing users to detect and monitor multiple physical parameters such as temperature, vibration and strain with fine spatial and temporal resolution over a long distance. Fiber-optic distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) and distributed temperature sensing (DTS) systems have been developed for various applications with varied spatial resolution, and spectral and sensing range. Rayleigh scattering-based phase optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR) for vibration and Raman/Brillouin scattering-based OTDR for temperature and strain measurements have been developed over the past two decades. The key challenge has been to find a methodology that would enable the physical parameters to be determined at any point along the sensing fiber with high sensitivity and spatial resolution, yet within acceptable frequency range for dynamic vibration, and temperature detection. There are many applications, especially in geophysical and mining engineering where simultaneous measurements of vibration and temperature are essential. In this article, recent developments of different hybrid systems for simultaneous vibration, temperature and strain measurements are analyzed based on their operation principles and performance. Then, challenges and limitations of the systems are highlighted for geophysical applications. PMID:29104259

A Review of Hybrid Fiber-Optic Distributed Simultaneous Vibration and Temperature Sensing Technology and Its Geophysical Applications.

PubMed

Miah, Khalid; Potter, David K

2017-11-01

Distributed sensing systems can transform an optical fiber cable into an array of sensors, allowing users to detect and monitor multiple physical parameters such as temperature, vibration and strain with fine spatial and temporal resolution over a long distance. Fiber-optic distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) and distributed temperature sensing (DTS) systems have been developed for various applications with varied spatial resolution, and spectral and sensing range. Rayleigh scattering-based phase optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR) for vibration and Raman/Brillouin scattering-based OTDR for temperature and strain measurements have been developed over the past two decades. The key challenge has been to find a methodology that would enable the physical parameters to be determined at any point along the sensing fiber with high sensitivity and spatial resolution, yet within acceptable frequency range for dynamic vibration, and temperature detection. There are many applications, especially in geophysical and mining engineering where simultaneous measurements of vibration and temperature are essential. In this article, recent developments of different hybrid systems for simultaneous vibration, temperature and strain measurements are analyzed based on their operation principles and performance. Then, challenges and limitations of the systems are highlighted for geophysical applications.

Fast discovery and visualization of conserved regions in DNA sequences using quasi-alignment

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Next Generation Sequencing techniques are producing enormous amounts of biological sequence data and analysis becomes a major computational problem. Currently, most analysis, especially the identification of conserved regions, relies heavily on Multiple Sequence Alignment and its various heuristics such as progressive alignment, whose run time grows with the square of the number and the length of the aligned sequences and requires significant computational resources. In this work, we present a method to efficiently discover regions of high similarity across multiple sequences without performing expensive sequence alignment. The method is based on approximating edit distance between segments of sequences using p-mer frequency counts. Then, efficient high-throughput data stream clustering is used to group highly similar segments into so called quasi-alignments. Quasi-alignments have numerous applications such as identifying species and their taxonomic class from sequences, comparing sequences for similarities, and, as in this paper, discovering conserved regions across related sequences. Results In this paper, we show that quasi-alignments can be used to discover highly similar segments across multiple sequences from related or different genomes efficiently and accurately. Experiments on a large number of unaligned 16S rRNA sequences obtained from the Greengenes database show that the method is able to identify conserved regions which agree with known hypervariable regions in 16S rRNA. Furthermore, the experiments show that the proposed method scales well for large data sets with a run time that grows only linearly with the number and length of sequences, whereas for existing multiple sequence alignment heuristics the run time grows super-linearly. Conclusion Quasi-alignment-based algorithms can detect highly similar regions and conserved areas across multiple sequences. Since the run time is linear and the sequences are converted into a compact clustering model, we are able to identify conserved regions fast or even interactively using a standard PC. Our method has many potential applications such as finding characteristic signature sequences for families of organisms and studying conserved and variable regions in, for example, 16S rRNA. PMID:24564200

Fast discovery and visualization of conserved regions in DNA sequences using quasi-alignment.

PubMed

Nagar, Anurag; Hahsler, Michael

2013-01-01

Next Generation Sequencing techniques are producing enormous amounts of biological sequence data and analysis becomes a major computational problem. Currently, most analysis, especially the identification of conserved regions, relies heavily on Multiple Sequence Alignment and its various heuristics such as progressive alignment, whose run time grows with the square of the number and the length of the aligned sequences and requires significant computational resources. In this work, we present a method to efficiently discover regions of high similarity across multiple sequences without performing expensive sequence alignment. The method is based on approximating edit distance between segments of sequences using p-mer frequency counts. Then, efficient high-throughput data stream clustering is used to group highly similar segments into so called quasi-alignments. Quasi-alignments have numerous applications such as identifying species and their taxonomic class from sequences, comparing sequences for similarities, and, as in this paper, discovering conserved regions across related sequences. In this paper, we show that quasi-alignments can be used to discover highly similar segments across multiple sequences from related or different genomes efficiently and accurately. Experiments on a large number of unaligned 16S rRNA sequences obtained from the Greengenes database show that the method is able to identify conserved regions which agree with known hypervariable regions in 16S rRNA. Furthermore, the experiments show that the proposed method scales well for large data sets with a run time that grows only linearly with the number and length of sequences, whereas for existing multiple sequence alignment heuristics the run time grows super-linearly. Quasi-alignment-based algorithms can detect highly similar regions and conserved areas across multiple sequences. Since the run time is linear and the sequences are converted into a compact clustering model, we are able to identify conserved regions fast or even interactively using a standard PC. Our method has many potential applications such as finding characteristic signature sequences for families of organisms and studying conserved and variable regions in, for example, 16S rRNA.

PARALLEL HOP: A SCALABLE HALO FINDER FOR MASSIVE COSMOLOGICAL DATA SETS

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Skory, Stephen; Turk, Matthew J.; Norman, Michael L.

2010-11-15

Modern N-body cosmological simulations contain billions (10{sup 9}) of dark matter particles. These simulations require hundreds to thousands of gigabytes of memory and employ hundreds to tens of thousands of processing cores on many compute nodes. In order to study the distribution of dark matter in a cosmological simulation, the dark matter halos must be identified using a halo finder, which establishes the halo membership of every particle in the simulation. The resources required for halo finding are similar to the requirements for the simulation itself. In particular, simulations have become too extensive to use commonly employed halo finders, suchmore » that the computational requirements to identify halos must now be spread across multiple nodes and cores. Here, we present a scalable-parallel halo finding method called Parallel HOP for large-scale cosmological simulation data. Based on the halo finder HOP, it utilizes message passing interface and domain decomposition to distribute the halo finding workload across multiple compute nodes, enabling analysis of much larger data sets than is possible with the strictly serial or previous parallel implementations of HOP. We provide a reference implementation of this method as a part of the toolkit {sup yt}, an analysis toolkit for adaptive mesh refinement data that include complementary analysis modules. Additionally, we discuss a suite of benchmarks that demonstrate that this method scales well up to several hundred tasks and data sets in excess of 2000{sup 3} particles. The Parallel HOP method and our implementation can be readily applied to any kind of N-body simulation data and is therefore widely applicable.« less

Magnetic resonance appearance of monoclonal gammopathies of unknown significance and multiple myeloma. The GRI Study Group.

PubMed

Bellaïche, L; Laredo, J D; Lioté, F; Koeger, A C; Hamze, B; Ziza, J M; Pertuiset, E; Bardin, T; Tubiana, J M

1997-11-01

A prospective multicenter study. To evaluate the use of magnetic resonance imaging, in the differentiation between monoclonal gammopathies of unknown significance and multiple myeloma. Although multiple myeloma has been studied extensively with magnetic resonance imaging, to the authors' knowledge, no study has evaluated the clinical interest of magnetic resonance imaging in the differentiation between monoclonal gammopathies of unknown significance and multiple myeloma. The magnetic resonance examinations of the thoracolumbar spine in 24 patients with newly diagnosed monoclonal gammopathies of unknown significance were compared with those performed in 44 patients with newly diagnosed nontreated multiple myeloma. All findings on magnetic resonance examination performed in patients with monoclonal gammopathies of unknown significance were normal, whereas findings on 38 (86%) of the 44 magnetic resonance examinations performed in patients with multiple myeloma were abnormal. Magnetic resonance imaging can be considered as an additional diagnostic tool in differentiating between monoclonal gammopathies of unknown significance and multiple myeloma, which may be helpful when routine criteria are not sufficient. An abnormal finding on magnetic resonance examination in a patient with monoclonal gammopathies of unknown significance should suggest the diagnosis of multiple myeloma after other causes of marrow signal abnormalities are excluded. Magnetic resonance imaging also may be proposed in the long-term follow-up of monoclonal gammopathies of unknown significance when a new biologic or clinical event suggests the diagnosis of malignant monoclonal gammopathy.

Salient features of MACA and CMACA systems and their applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ratnam, C.; Goud, S. L.; Rao, V. Lakshmana

2007-09-01

The Fourier Analytical Investigation results of the Performance of the Multiple Annuli Coded Aperture (MACA) and Complementary Multiple Annuli Coded Aperture Systems (CMACA) are summarised and the probable application of these systems in Astronomy, High energy radiation Imaging, optical filters, and in the field of metallurgy, are suggested.

Mixed Membership Distributions with Applications to Modeling Multiple Strategy Usage

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galyardt, April

2012-01-01

This dissertation examines two related questions. "How do mixed membership models work?" and "Can mixed membership be used to model how students use multiple strategies to solve problems?". Mixed membership models have been used in thousands of applications from text and image processing to genetic microarray analysis. Yet…

Systems and methods to control multiple peripherals with a single-peripheral application code

DOEpatents

Ransom, Ray M.

2013-06-11

Methods and apparatus are provided for enhancing the BIOS of a hardware peripheral device to manage multiple peripheral devices simultaneously without modifying the application software of the peripheral device. The apparatus comprises a logic control unit and a memory in communication with the logic control unit. The memory is partitioned into a plurality of ranges, each range comprising one or more blocks of memory, one range being associated with each instance of the peripheral application and one range being reserved for storage of a data pointer related to each peripheral application of the plurality. The logic control unit is configured to operate multiple instances of the control application by duplicating one instance of the peripheral application for each peripheral device of the plurality and partitioning a memory device into partitions comprising one or more blocks of memory, one partition being associated with each instance of the peripheral application. The method then reserves a range of memory addresses for storage of a data pointer related to each peripheral device of the plurality, and initializes each of the plurality of peripheral devices.

Quantitative Comparison of Protein Adsorption and Conformational Changes on Dielectric-Coated Nanoplasmonic Sensing Arrays.

PubMed

Ferhan, Abdul Rahim; Jackman, Joshua A; Sut, Tun Naw; Cho, Nam-Joon

2018-04-22

Nanoplasmonic sensors are a popular, surface-sensitive measurement tool to investigate biomacromolecular interactions at solid-liquid interfaces, opening the door to a wide range of applications. In addition to high surface sensitivity, nanoplasmonic sensors have versatile surface chemistry options as plasmonic metal nanoparticles can be coated with thin dielectric layers. Within this scope, nanoplasmonic sensors have demonstrated promise for tracking protein adsorption and substrate-induced conformational changes on oxide film-coated arrays, although existing studies have been limited to single substrates. Herein, we investigated human serum albumin (HSA) adsorption onto silica- and titania-coated arrays of plasmonic gold nanodisks by localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) measurements and established an analytical framework to compare responses across multiple substrates with different sensitivities. While similar responses were recorded on the two substrates for HSA adsorption under physiologically-relevant ionic strength conditions, distinct substrate-specific behavior was observed at lower ionic strength conditions. With decreasing ionic strength, larger measurement responses occurred for HSA adsorption onto silica surfaces, whereas HSA adsorption onto titania surfaces occurred independently of ionic strength condition. Complementary quartz crystal microbalance-dissipation (QCM-D) measurements were also performed, and the trend in adsorption behavior was similar. Of note, the magnitudes of the ionic strength-dependent LSPR and QCM-D measurement responses varied, and are discussed with respect to the measurement principle and surface sensitivity of each technique. Taken together, our findings demonstrate how the high surface sensitivity of nanoplasmonic sensors can be applied to quantitatively characterize protein adsorption across multiple surfaces, and outline broadly-applicable measurement strategies for biointerfacial science applications.

Augmented Reality Technology Using Microsoft HoloLens in Anatomic Pathology.

PubMed

Hanna, Matthew G; Ahmed, Ishtiaque; Nine, Jeffrey; Prajapati, Shyam; Pantanowitz, Liron

2018-05-01

Context Augmented reality (AR) devices such as the Microsoft HoloLens have not been well used in the medical field. Objective To test the HoloLens for clinical and nonclinical applications in pathology. Design A Microsoft HoloLens was tested for virtual annotation during autopsy, viewing 3D gross and microscopic pathology specimens, navigating whole slide images, telepathology, as well as real-time pathology-radiology correlation. Results Pathology residents performing an autopsy wearing the HoloLens were remotely instructed with real-time diagrams, annotations, and voice instruction. 3D-scanned gross pathology specimens could be viewed as holograms and easily manipulated. Telepathology was supported during gross examination and at the time of intraoperative consultation, allowing users to remotely access a pathologist for guidance and to virtually annotate areas of interest on specimens in real-time. The HoloLens permitted radiographs to be coregistered on gross specimens and thereby enhanced locating important pathologic findings. The HoloLens also allowed easy viewing and navigation of whole slide images, using an AR workstation, including multiple coregistered tissue sections facilitating volumetric pathology evaluation. Conclusions The HoloLens is a novel AR tool with multiple clinical and nonclinical applications in pathology. The device was comfortable to wear, easy to use, provided sufficient computing power, and supported high-resolution imaging. It was useful for autopsy, gross and microscopic examination, and ideally suited for digital pathology. Unique applications include remote supervision and annotation, 3D image viewing and manipulation, telepathology in a mixed-reality environment, and real-time pathology-radiology correlation.

Electronic Submissions of Pesticide Applications

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Applications for pesticide registration can be submitted electronically, including forms, studies, and draft product labeling. Applicants need not submit multiple electronic copies of any pieces of their applications.

ODMSummary: A Tool for Automatic Structured Comparison of Multiple Medical Forms Based on Semantic Annotation with the Unified Medical Language System

PubMed Central

Krumm, Rainer; Dugas, Martin

2016-01-01

Introduction Medical documentation is applied in various settings including patient care and clinical research. Since procedures of medical documentation are heterogeneous and developed further, secondary use of medical data is complicated. Development of medical forms, merging of data from different sources and meta-analyses of different data sets are currently a predominantly manual process and therefore difficult and cumbersome. Available applications to automate these processes are limited. In particular, tools to compare multiple documentation forms are missing. The objective of this work is to design, implement and evaluate the new system ODMSummary for comparison of multiple forms with a high number of semantically annotated data elements and a high level of usability. Methods System requirements are the capability to summarize and compare a set of forms, enable to estimate the documentation effort, track changes in different versions of forms and find comparable items in different forms. Forms are provided in Operational Data Model format with semantic annotations from the Unified Medical Language System. 12 medical experts were invited to participate in a 3-phase evaluation of the tool regarding usability. Results ODMSummary (available at https://odmtoolbox.uni-muenster.de/summary/summary.html) provides a structured overview of multiple forms and their documentation fields. This comparison enables medical experts to assess multiple forms or whole datasets for secondary use. System usability was optimized based on expert feedback. Discussion The evaluation demonstrates that feedback from domain experts is needed to identify usability issues. In conclusion, this work shows that automatic comparison of multiple forms is feasible and the results are usable for medical experts. PMID:27736972

Vision-Based Target Finding and Inspection of a Ground Target Using a Multirotor UAV System.

PubMed

Hinas, Ajmal; Roberts, Jonathan M; Gonzalez, Felipe

2017-12-17

In this paper, a system that uses an algorithm for target detection and navigation and a multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for finding a ground target and inspecting it closely is presented. The system can also be used for accurate and safe delivery of payloads or spot spraying applications in site-specific crop management. A downward-looking camera attached to a multirotor is used to find the target on the ground. The UAV descends to the target and hovers above the target for a few seconds to inspect the target. A high-level decision algorithm based on an OODA (observe, orient, decide, and act) loop was developed as a solution to address the problem. Navigation of the UAV was achieved by continuously sending local position messages to the autopilot via Mavros. The proposed system performed hovering above the target in three different stages: locate, descend, and hover. The system was tested in multiple trials, in simulations and outdoor tests, from heights of 10 m to 40 m. Results show that the system is highly reliable and robust to sensor errors, drift, and external disturbance.

Review of natural fiber composites

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rohan, T.; Tushar, B.; T, Mahesha G.

2018-02-01

Development of new alternative materials to the existing traditional metals, alloys and synthetic materials is the new buzz in recent research activities at the academic and industrial level taking place all over the world. Earning carbon credits by minimizing the atmospheric pollution is getting an increase in attention by industries. One small step to conserve the atmosphere around us is to use natural resources in making fully bio degradable or partially bio degradable composite materials. Such prepared alternative materials can find applications in interior housing, automotive, marine, domestic, and other applications. Composites made by using appropriate natural fibers as reinforcements is a possibility that ensures such a reality as they can be well received in multiple disciplines of engineering. Results published from various research activities illustrates that natural fiber composites can successfully be adapted for non-structural, moderate load bearing indoor applications. Further, the few deficiencies in the natural fibers can be overcome by subjecting them to morphological changes by various physical or chemical treatment methods. The overall objective of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of the property profiles of Natural Fiber Composites.

The epigenetics of prostate cancer diagnosis and prognosis: update on clinical applications.

PubMed

Blute, Michael L; Damaschke, Nathan A; Jarrard, David F

2015-01-01

There is a major deficit in our ability to detect and predict the clinical behavior of prostate cancer (PCa). Epigenetic changes are associated with PCa development and progression. This review will focus on recent results in the clinical application of diagnostic and prognostic epigenetic markers. The development of high throughput technology has seen an enormous increase in the discovery of new markers that encompass epigenetic changes including those in DNA methylation and histone modifications. Application of these findings to urine and other biofluids, but also cancer and noncancerous prostate tissue, has resulted in new biomarkers. There has been a recent commercial development of a DNA methylation-based assay for identifying PCa risk from normal biopsy tissue. Other biomarkers are currently in the validation phase and encompass combinations of multiple genes. Epigenetic changes improve the specificity and sensitivity of PCa diagnosis and have the potential to help determine clinical prognosis. Additional studies will not only provide new and better biomarker candidates, but also have the potential to inform new therapeutic strategies given the reversibility of these processes.

Dielectric properties of novel polyurethane-PZT-graphite foam composites

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tolvanen, Jarkko; Hannu, Jari; Nelo, Mikko; Juuti, Jari; Jantunen, Heli

2016-09-01

Flexible foam composite materials offer multiple benefits to future electronic applications as the rapid development of the electronics industry requires smaller, more efficient, and lighter materials to further develop foldable and wearable applications. The aims of this work were to examine the electrical properties of three- and four-phase novel foam composites in different conditions, find the optimal mixture for four-phase foam composites, and study the combined effects of lead zirconate titanate (PZT) and graphite fillers. The flexible and highly compressible foams were prepared in a room-temperature mixing process using polyurethane, PZT, and graphite components as well as their combinations, in which air acted as one phase. In three-phase foams the amount of PZT varied between 20 and 80 wt% and the amount of graphite, between 1 and 15 wt%. The four-phase foams were formed by adding 40 wt% of PZT while the amount of graphite ranged between 1 and 15 wt%. The presented results and materials could be utilized to develop new flexible and soft sensor applications by means of material technology.

The Impacts of Communication and Multiple Identifications on Intent to Leave: A Multimethodological Exploration.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scott, Craig R.; Connaughton, Stacey L.; Diaz-Saenz, Hector R.; Maguire, Katheryn; Ramirez, Ruben; Richardson, Brian; Shaw, Sandra Pride; Morgan, Dianne

1999-01-01

Contributes to scholarship on voluntary turnover by examining the impact of several communication variables and multiple targets of identification on intent to leave. Finds that supervisor/coworker relationships have the strongest association (among communication variables) with intent to leave. Finds a complex relationship between three different…

Case Report: "Purely" Psychiatric Presentation of Multiple Sclerosis in an Adolescent Boy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Treadwell-Deering, Diane; Evankovich, Karen; Lotze, Tim

2007-01-01

We present the case of a 14-year-old Hispanic boy with a 6-month history of a psychotic disorder necessitating several hospitalizations who was incidentally found to have multiple sclerosis with no physical findings. Neuropsychological assessment has revealed impairments in word-finding, bilateral fine motor skills, and attention. Imaging and…

Products of multiple Fourier series with application to the multiblade transformation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kunz, D. L.

1981-01-01

A relatively simple and systematic method for forming the products of multiple Fourier series using tensor like operations is demonstrated. This symbolic multiplication can be performed for any arbitrary number of series, and the coefficients of a set of linear differential equations with periodic coefficients from a rotating coordinate system to a nonrotating system is also demonstrated. It is shown that using Fourier operations to perform this transformation make it easily understood, simple to apply, and generally applicable.

Quadratures with multiple nodes, power orthogonality, and moment-preserving spline approximation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Milovanovic, Gradimir V.

2001-01-01

Quadrature formulas with multiple nodes, power orthogonality, and some applications of such quadratures to moment-preserving approximation by defective splines are considered. An account on power orthogonality (s- and [sigma]-orthogonal polynomials) and generalized Gaussian quadratures with multiple nodes, including stable algorithms for numerical construction of the corresponding polynomials and Cotes numbers, are given. In particular, the important case of Chebyshev weight is analyzed. Finally, some applications in moment-preserving approximation of functions by defective splines are discussed.

SHERMAN - A shape-based thermophysical model II. Application to 8567 (1996 HW1)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Howell, E. S.; Magri, C.; Vervack, R. J.; Nolan, M. C.; Taylor, P. A.; Fernández, Y. R.; Hicks, M. D.; Somers, J. M.; Lawrence, K. J.; Rivkin, A. S.; Marshall, S. E.; Crowell, J. L.

2018-03-01

We apply a new shape-based thermophysical model, SHERMAN, to the near-Earth asteroid (NEA) 8567 (1996 HW1) to derive surface properties. We use the detailed shape model of Magri et al. (2011) for this contact binary NEA to analyze spectral observations (2-4.1 microns) obtained at the NASA IRTF on several different dates to find thermal parameters that match all the data. Visible and near-infrared (0.8-2.5 microns) spectral observations are also utilized in a self-consistent way. We find that an average visible albedo of 0.33, thermal inertia of 70 (SI units) and surface roughness of 50% closely match the observations. The shape and orientation of the asteroid is very important to constrain the thermal parameters to be consistent with all the observations. Multiple viewing geometries are equally important to achieve a robust solution for small, non-spherical NEAs. We separate the infrared beaming effects of shape, viewing geometry and surface roughness for this asteroid and show how their effects combine. We compare the diameter and albedo that would be derived from the thermal observations assuming a spherical shape with those from the shape-based model. We also discuss how observations from limited viewing geometries compare to the solution from multiple observations. The size that would be derived from the individual observation dates varies by 20% from the best-fit solution, and can be either larger or smaller. If the surface properties are not homogeneous, many solutions are possible, but the average properties derived here are very tightly constrained by the multiple observations, and give important insights into the nature of small NEAs.

Applications of multiple-constraint matrix updates to the optimal control of large structures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Smith, S. W.; Walcott, B. L.

1992-01-01

Low-authority control or vibration suppression in large, flexible space structures can be formulated as a linear feedback control problem requiring computation of displacement and velocity feedback gain matrices. To ensure stability in the uncontrolled modes, these gain matrices must be symmetric and positive definite. In this paper, efficient computation of symmetric, positive-definite feedback gain matrices is accomplished through the use of multiple-constraint matrix update techniques originally developed for structural identification applications. Two systems were used to illustrate the application: a simple spring-mass system and a planar truss. From these demonstrations, use of this multiple-constraint technique is seen to provide a straightforward approach for computing the low-authority gains.

A Semantic Web Management Model for Integrative Biomedical Informatics

PubMed Central

Deus, Helena F.; Stanislaus, Romesh; Veiga, Diogo F.; Behrens, Carmen; Wistuba, Ignacio I.; Minna, John D.; Garner, Harold R.; Swisher, Stephen G.; Roth, Jack A.; Correa, Arlene M.; Broom, Bradley; Coombes, Kevin; Chang, Allen; Vogel, Lynn H.; Almeida, Jonas S.

2008-01-01

Background Data, data everywhere. The diversity and magnitude of the data generated in the Life Sciences defies automated articulation among complementary efforts. The additional need in this field for managing property and access permissions compounds the difficulty very significantly. This is particularly the case when the integration involves multiple domains and disciplines, even more so when it includes clinical and high throughput molecular data. Methodology/Principal Findings The emergence of Semantic Web technologies brings the promise of meaningful interoperation between data and analysis resources. In this report we identify a core model for biomedical Knowledge Engineering applications and demonstrate how this new technology can be used to weave a management model where multiple intertwined data structures can be hosted and managed by multiple authorities in a distributed management infrastructure. Specifically, the demonstration is performed by linking data sources associated with the Lung Cancer SPORE awarded to The University of Texas MDAnderson Cancer Center at Houston and the Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. A software prototype, available with open source at www.s3db.org, was developed and its proposed design has been made publicly available as an open source instrument for shared, distributed data management. Conclusions/Significance The Semantic Web technologies have the potential to addresses the need for distributed and evolvable representations that are critical for systems Biology and translational biomedical research. As this technology is incorporated into application development we can expect that both general purpose productivity software and domain specific software installed on our personal computers will become increasingly integrated with the relevant remote resources. In this scenario, the acquisition of a new dataset should automatically trigger the delegation of its analysis. PMID:18698353

Stochastic parameterization for light absorption by internally mixed BC/dust in snow grains for application to climate models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liou, K. N.; Takano, Y.; He, C.; Yang, P.; Leung, L. R.; Gu, Y.; Lee, W. L.

2014-06-01

A stochastic approach has been developed to model the positions of BC (black carbon)/dust internally mixed with two snow grain types: hexagonal plate/column (convex) and Koch snowflake (concave). Subsequently, light absorption and scattering analysis can be followed by means of an improved geometric-optics approach coupled with Monte Carlo photon tracing to determine BC/dust single-scattering properties. For a given shape (plate, Koch snowflake, spheroid, or sphere), the action of internal mixing absorbs substantially more light than external mixing. The snow grain shape effect on absorption is relatively small, but its effect on asymmetry factor is substantial. Due to a greater probability of intercepting photons, multiple inclusions of BC/dust exhibit a larger absorption than an equal-volume single inclusion. The spectral absorption (0.2-5 µm) for snow grains internally mixed with BC/dust is confined to wavelengths shorter than about 1.4 µm, beyond which ice absorption predominates. Based on the single-scattering properties determined from stochastic and light absorption parameterizations and using the adding/doubling method for spectral radiative transfer, we find that internal mixing reduces snow albedo substantially more than external mixing and that the snow grain shape plays a critical role in snow albedo calculations through its forward scattering strength. Also, multiple inclusion of BC/dust significantly reduces snow albedo as compared to an equal-volume single sphere. For application to land/snow models, we propose a two-layer spectral snow parameterization involving contaminated fresh snow on top of old snow for investigating and understanding the climatic impact of multiple BC/dust internal mixing associated with snow grain metamorphism, particularly over mountain/snow topography.

Stepped MS(All) Relied Transition (SMART): An approach to rapidly determine optimal multiple reaction monitoring mass spectrometry parameters for small molecules.

PubMed

Ye, Hui; Zhu, Lin; Wang, Lin; Liu, Huiying; Zhang, Jun; Wu, Mengqiu; Wang, Guangji; Hao, Haiping

2016-02-11

Multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) is a universal approach for quantitative analysis because of its high specificity and sensitivity. Nevertheless, optimization of MRM parameters remains as a time and labor-intensive task particularly in multiplexed quantitative analysis of small molecules in complex mixtures. In this study, we have developed an approach named Stepped MS(All) Relied Transition (SMART) to predict the optimal MRM parameters of small molecules. SMART requires firstly a rapid and high-throughput analysis of samples using a Stepped MS(All) technique (sMS(All)) on a Q-TOF, which consists of serial MS(All) events acquired from low CE to gradually stepped-up CE values in a cycle. The optimal CE values can then be determined by comparing the extracted ion chromatograms for the ion pairs of interest among serial scans. The SMART-predicted parameters were found to agree well with the parameters optimized on a triple quadrupole from the same vendor using a mixture of standards. The parameters optimized on a triple quadrupole from a different vendor was also employed for comparison, and found to be linearly correlated with the SMART-predicted parameters, suggesting the potential applications of the SMART approach among different instrumental platforms. This approach was further validated by applying to simultaneous quantification of 31 herbal components in the plasma of rats treated with a herbal prescription. Because the sMS(All) acquisition can be accomplished in a single run for multiple components independent of standards, the SMART approach are expected to find its wide application in the multiplexed quantitative analysis of complex mixtures. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Stochastic Parameterization for Light Absorption by Internally Mixed BC/dust in Snow Grains for Application to Climate Models

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Liou, K. N.; Takano, Y.; He, Cenlin

2014-06-27

A stochastic approach to model the positions of BC/dust internally mixed with two snow-grain types has been developed, including hexagonal plate/column (convex) and Koch snowflake (concave). Subsequently, light absorption and scattering analysis can be followed by means of an improved geometric-optics approach coupled with Monte Carlo photon tracing to determine their single-scattering properties. For a given shape (plate, Koch snowflake, spheroid, or sphere), internal mixing absorbs more light than external mixing. The snow-grain shape effect on absorption is relatively small, but its effect on the asymmetry factor is substantial. Due to a greater probability of intercepting photons, multiple inclusions ofmore » BC/dust exhibit a larger absorption than an equal-volume single inclusion. The spectral absorption (0.2 – 5 um) for snow grains internally mixed with BC/dust is confined to wavelengths shorter than about 1.4 um, beyond which ice absorption predominates. Based on the single-scattering properties determined from stochastic and light absorption parameterizations and using the adding/doubling method for spectral radiative transfer, we find that internal mixing reduces snow albedo more than external mixing and that the snow-grain shape plays a critical role in snow albedo calculations through the asymmetry factor. Also, snow albedo reduces more in the case of multiple inclusion of BC/dust compared to that of an equal-volume single sphere. For application to land/snow models, we propose a two-layer spectral snow parameterization containing contaminated fresh snow on top of old snow for investigating and understanding the climatic impact of multiple BC/dust internal mixing associated with snow grain metamorphism, particularly over mountains/snow topography.« less

Pharmacokinetics, safety, and tolerability of rotigotine transdermal system in healthy Japanese and Caucasian subjects following multiple-dose administration.

PubMed

Cawello, Willi; Kim, Seong Ryul; Braun, Marina; Elshoff, Jan-Peer; Masahiro, Takeuchi; Ikeda, Junji; Funaki, Tomoo

2016-08-01

Rotigotine is a dopamine receptor agonist indicated for the treatment of Parkinson's disease and moderate-to-severe restless legs syndrome. Continuous transdermal delivery of rotigotine via a silicon-based patch maintains stable plasma concentrations over 24 h. The objective of the study was to evaluate the pharmacokinetics, safety, and tolerability of a multiple-dose schedule of rotigotine transdermal patch in Japanese and Caucasian subjects. In this open-label, repeated-dose, parallel-group study (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01854216), healthy male and female subjects of Japanese or Caucasian ethnic origin were matched by gender, body mass index, and age. Subjects underwent a 9-day patch application period. 12 Japanese and 12 Caucasian subjects were included in the pharmacokinetic analyses. Mean apparent doses (actual amount of drug delivered) increased proportionally with rotigotine nominal dosages (1, 2, and 4 mg/24 h) and were similar for both ethnic groups, with large inter-individual variability. Mean plasma concentration-time profiles for unconjugated rotigotine were similar in both ethnic groups at day 3 for each dosage. Peak concentrations (C max,ss) and area under the concentration-time curves from pre-dose to the concentration measured 24 h after administration of patch (AUC(0-24,ss)) showed similar exposure in both groups; higher values in Japanese subjects were explained by differences in body weight. For total rotigotine, C max,ss and AUC(0-24,ss) values were higher in Caucasian subjects and could be explained by small differences in apparent dose. Rotigotine was generally well tolerated following multiple applications up to 4 mg/24 h. These findings suggest similar dosage requirements for rotigotine transdermal system in Japanese and Caucasian populations.

[Sentinel node biopsy in patients with multifocal and multicentric breast cancer: A 5-year follow-up].

PubMed

Blanco Saiz, I; López Carballo, M T; Martínez Fernández, J; Carrión Maldonado, J; Cabrera Pereira, A; Moral Alvarez, S; Santamaría Girón, L; Cantero Cerquella, F; López Secades, A; Díaz González, D; Llaneza Folgueras, A; Aira Delgado, F J

2014-01-01

Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) as a staging procedure in multiple breast cancer is a controversial issue. We have aimed to evaluate the efficacy of sentinel node (SN) detection in patients with multifocal or multicentric breast cancer as well as the safety of its clinical application after a long follow-up. A prospective descriptive study was performed. Eighty-nine patients diagnosed of multiple breast cancer (73 multifocal; 16 multicentric) underwent SLNB. These patients were compared to those with unifocal neoplasia. Periareolar radiocolloid administration was performed in most of the patients. Evaluation was made at an average of 67.2 months of follow-up (32-126 months). Scintigraphic and surgical SN localization in patients with multiple breast cancer were 95.5% and 92.1%, respectively. A higher percentage of extra-axillary nodes was observed than in the unifocal group (11.7% vs 5.4%) as well as a significantly higher number of SN per patient (1.70 vs 1.38). The rate of SN localization in multicentric cancer was slightly lower than in multifocal cancer (87.5% vs 93.1%), and the finding of extra-axillary drainages was higher (20% vs 10%). Number of SN per patient was significantly higher in multicentric breast cancer (2.33 vs 1.57). No axillary relapses have been demonstrated in the follow-up in multiple breast cancer patients group. SLNB performed by periareolar injection is a reliable and accurate staging procedure of patients with multiple breast cancer, including those with multicentric processes. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier España, S.L. and SEMNIM. All rights reserved.

Anomaly manifestation of Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorem and topological phases

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cho, Gil Young; Hsieh, Chang-Tse; Ryu, Shinsei

2017-11-01

The Lieb-Schultz-Mattis (LSM) theorem dictates that emergent low-energy states from a lattice model cannot be a trivial symmetric insulator if the filling per unit cell is not integral and if the lattice translation symmetry and particle number conservation are strictly imposed. In this paper, we compare the one-dimensional gapless states enforced by the LSM theorem and the boundaries of one-higher dimensional strong symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases from the perspective of quantum anomalies. We first note that they can both be described by the same low-energy effective field theory with the same effective symmetry realizations on low-energy modes, wherein non-on-site lattice translation symmetry is encoded as if it were an internal symmetry. In spite of the identical form of the low-energy effective field theories, we show that the quantum anomalies of the theories play different roles in the two systems. In particular, we find that the chiral anomaly is equivalent to the LSM theorem, whereas there is another anomaly that is not related to the LSM theorem but is intrinsic to the SPT states. As an application, we extend the conventional LSM theorem to multiple-charge multiple-species problems and construct several exotic symmetric insulators. We also find that the (3+1)d chiral anomaly provides only the perturbative stability of the gaplessness local in the parameter space.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yan, Yiying, E-mail: yiyingyan@sjtu.edu.cn; Lü, Zhiguo, E-mail: zglv@sjtu.edu.cn; Zheng, Hang, E-mail: hzheng@sjtu.edu.cn

We present a theoretical formalism for resonance fluorescence radiating from a two-level system (TLS) driven by any periodic driving and coupled to multiple reservoirs. The formalism is derived analytically based on the combination of Floquet theory and Born–Markov master equation. The formalism allows us to calculate the spectrum when the Floquet states and quasienergies are analytically or numerically solved for simple or complicated driving fields. We can systematically explore the spectral features by implementing the present formalism. To exemplify this theory, we apply the unified formalism to comprehensively study a generic model that a harmonically driven TLS is simultaneously coupledmore » to a radiative reservoir and a dephasing reservoir. We demonstrate that the significant features of the fluorescence spectra, the driving-induced asymmetry and the dephasing-induced asymmetry, can be attributed to the violation of detailed balance condition, and explained in terms of the driving-related transition quantities between Floquet-states and their steady populations. In addition, we find the distinguished features of the fluorescence spectra under the biharmonic and multiharmonic driving fields in contrast with that of the harmonic driving case. In the case of the biharmonic driving, we find that the spectra are significantly different from the result of the RWA under the multiple resonance conditions. By the three concrete applications, we illustrate that the present formalism provides a routine tool for comprehensively exploring the fluorescence spectrum of periodically strongly driven TLSs.« less

Dilatation by Soehendra stent retriever is feasible and effective in multiple deployment of metallic stents to malignant hilar biliary strictures.

PubMed

Kato, Hironari; Kawamoto, Hirofumi; Noma, Yasuhiro; Sonoyama, Takayuki; Tsutsumi, Koichiro; Fujii, Masakuni; Okada, Hiroyuki; Yamamoto, Kazuhide

2013-01-01

The endoscopic management of malignant hilar biliary strictures using multiple metallic stents (MS) is technically demanding, in the initial deployment of MS and the recovery from MS occlusion with deployment of multiple plastic stents (PS). We evaluated the outcomes of the application of a Soehendra stent retriever (SSR) as a dilator of intractable strictures. Fifty-nine patients with malignant hilar biliary strictures had multiple MS inserted using a partial stent-in-stent procedure. When we encountered intractable strictures, we adopted SSR to dilate the stricture and the interstice of the MS. We evaluated the success rate of MS or PS deployment after SSR application and procedural complications. Five of 59 patients (8%) were subjected to SSR application for the initial MS deployment. MS were successfully deployed in all of these patients (100%). MS occlusion was noted in 27 patients. We applied SSR to seven patients (26%) for the deployment of multiple PS after MS occlusion. In five patients (71%), successful PS deployment was achieved after the SSR application. No complications related to dilatation using SSR occurred in any patient. SSR proved to be a potent dilator of difficult strictures in the management of malignant hilar biliary strictures.

40 CFR 437.46 - Pretreatment standards for existing sources (PSES)

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... from subparts A, B, or C of this part may be subject to Multiple Wastestream Subcategory pretreatment standards representing the application of PSES set forth in paragraphs (b), (c), (d), or (e) of this section... applicable Multiple Wastestream Subcategory standards set forth in paragraphs (b), (c), (d) or (e) of this...

Addictive Potential of Internet Applications and Differential Correlates of Problematic Use in Internet Gamers versus Generalized Internet Users in a Representative Sample of Adolescents.

PubMed

Rosenkranz, Tabea; Müller, Kai W; Dreier, Michael; Beutel, Manfred E; Wölfling, Klaus

2017-01-01

This paper examines the addictive potential of 8 different Internet applications, distinguishing male and female users. Moreover, differential correlates of problematic use are investigated in Internet gamers (IG) and generalized Internet users (GIU). In a representative sample of 5,667 adolescents aged 12-19 years, use of Internet applications, problematic Internet use, psychopathologic symptoms (emotional problems, hyperactivity/inattention, and psychosomatic complaints), personality (conscientiousness and extraversion), psychosocial correlates (perceived stress and self-efficacy), and coping strategies were assessed. The addictive potential of Internet applications was examined in boys and girls using regression analysis. MANOVAs were conducted to examine differential correlates of problematic Internet use between IG and GIU. Chatting and social networking most strongly predicted problematic Internet use in girls, while gaming was the strongest predictor in boys. Problematic IG exhibited multiple psychosocial problems compared to non-problematic IG. In problematic Internet users, GIU reported even higher psychosocial burden and displayed dysfunctional coping strategies more frequently than gamers. The results extend previous findings on the addictive potential of Internet applications and validate the proposed distinction between specific and generalized problematic Internet use. In addition to Internet gaming disorder, future studies should also focus on other highly addictive Internet applications, that is, chatting or social networking, regarding differential correlates of problematic use. © 2017 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Comparative Clinical Efficacy between Electrodesiccation with Curettage and Application of 80% Phenol Solution in Treatment of Common Warts

PubMed Central

Dalimunthe, Dina Arwina; Siregar, Remenda; Tanjung, Chairiyah

2018-01-01

BACKGROUND: Common warts are skin diseases caused by human papillomavirus. Several treatment modalities available for common warts, two of them are electrodesiccation with curettage and application of 80% phenol solution. AIM: This study aims to compare clinical efficacy between these two modalities. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Open clinical trial was conducted at Dr Pirngadi General Hospital Medan and H. Adam Malik General Hospital Medan from February to June 2013 on 17 patients with multiple common warts. Both treatments began and applied simultaneously on the same day on each patient. RESULTS: Cure rate was higher in electrodesiccation with curettage (76.5%, 100%) compared to the application of 80% phenol solution (11.8%, 64.7%) on three weeks and six weeks of follow up. Statistical analysis showed a significant difference of common warts cure rate between electrodesiccation with curettage and application of 80% phenol solution after three weeks (p < 0.001) and six weeks (p = 0.018) of treatment. CONCLUSION: As a conclusion, electrodesiccation with curettage has higher cure rate than the application of 80% phenol solution on the treatment of common warts. Further study is needed to find out the best concentration and time interval for application of phenol solution to improve its clinical efficacy as an alternative treatment of choice for common warts. PMID:29531597

Comparative proteomic and physiological analyses reveal the protective effect of exogenous polyamines in the bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) response to salt and drought stresses.

PubMed

Shi, Haitao; Ye, Tiantian; Chan, Zhulong

2013-11-01

Polyamines conferred enhanced abiotic stress tolerance in multiple plant species. However, the effect of polyamines on abiotic stress and physiological change in bermudagrass, the most widely used warm-season turfgrasses, are unknown. In this study, pretreatment of exogenous polyamine conferred increased salt and drought tolerances in bermudagrass. Comparative proteomic analysis was performed to further investigate polyamines mediated responses, and 36 commonly regulated proteins by at least two types of polyamines in bermudagrass were successfully identified, including 12 proteins with increased level, 20 proteins with decreased level and other 4 specifically expressed proteins. Among them, proteins involved in electron transport and energy pathways were largely enriched, and nucleoside diphosphate kinase (NDPK) and three antioxidant enzymes were extensively regulated by polyamines. Dissection of reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels indicated that polyamine-derived H2O2 production might play dual roles under abiotic stress conditions. Moreover, accumulation of osmolytes was also observed after application of exogenous polyamines, which is consistent with proteomics results that several proteins involved in carbon fixation pathway were mediated commonly by polyamines pretreatment. Taken together, we proposed that polyamines could activate multiple pathways that enhance bermudagrass adaption to salt and drought stresses. These findings might be applicable for genetically engineering of grasses and crops to improve stress tolerance.

Sphingosine 1-Phosphate Receptor Modulators and Drug Discovery

PubMed Central

Park, Soo-Jin; Im, Dong-Soon

2017-01-01

Initial discovery on sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) as an intracellular second messenger was faced unexpectedly with roles of S1P as a first messenger, which subsequently resulted in cloning of its G protein-coupled receptors, S1P1–5. The molecular identification of S1P receptors opened up a new avenue for pathophysiological research on this lipid mediator. Cellular and molecular in vitro studies and in vivo studies on gene deficient mice have elucidated cellular signaling pathways and the pathophysiological meanings of S1P receptors. Another unexpected finding that fingolimod (FTY720) modulates S1P receptors accelerated drug discovery in this field. Fingolimod was approved as a first-in-class, orally active drug for relapsing multiple sclerosis in 2010, and its applications in other disease conditions are currently under clinical trials. In addition, more selective S1P receptor modulators with better pharmacokinetic profiles and fewer side effects are under development. Some of them are being clinically tested in the contexts of multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune and inflammatory disorders, such as, psoriasis, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, polymyositis, dermatomyositis, liver failure, renal failure, acute stroke, and transplant rejection. In this review, the authors discuss the state of the art regarding the status of drug discovery efforts targeting S1P receptors and place emphasis on potential clinical applications. PMID:28035084

Development and application of a hybrid transport methodology for active interrogation systems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Royston, K.; Walters, W.; Haghighat, A.

A hybrid Monte Carlo and deterministic methodology has been developed for application to active interrogation systems. The methodology consists of four steps: i) neutron flux distribution due to neutron source transport and subcritical multiplication; ii) generation of gamma source distribution from (n, 7) interactions; iii) determination of gamma current at a detector window; iv) detection of gammas by the detector. This paper discusses the theory and results of the first three steps for the case of a cargo container with a sphere of HEU in third-density water cargo. To complete the first step, a response-function formulation has been developed tomore » calculate the subcritical multiplication and neutron flux distribution. Response coefficients are pre-calculated using the MCNP5 Monte Carlo code. The second step uses the calculated neutron flux distribution and Bugle-96 (n, 7) cross sections to find the resulting gamma source distribution. In the third step the gamma source distribution is coupled with a pre-calculated adjoint function to determine the gamma current at a detector window. The AIMS (Active Interrogation for Monitoring Special-Nuclear-Materials) software has been written to output the gamma current for a source-detector assembly scanning across a cargo container using the pre-calculated values and taking significantly less time than a reference MCNP5 calculation. (authors)« less

Distance error correction for time-of-flight cameras

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fuersattel, Peter; Schaller, Christian; Maier, Andreas; Riess, Christian

2017-06-01

The measurement accuracy of time-of-flight cameras is limited due to properties of the scene and systematic errors. These errors can accumulate to multiple centimeters which may limit the applicability of these range sensors. In the past, different approaches have been proposed for improving the accuracy of these cameras. In this work, we propose a new method that improves two important aspects of the range calibration. First, we propose a new checkerboard which is augmented by a gray-level gradient. With this addition it becomes possible to capture the calibration features for intrinsic and distance calibration at the same time. The gradient strip allows to acquire a large amount of distance measurements for different surface reflectivities, which results in more meaningful training data. Second, we present multiple new features which are used as input to a random forest regressor. By using random regression forests, we circumvent the problem of finding an accurate model for the measurement error. During application, a correction value for each individual pixel is estimated with the trained forest based on a specifically tailored feature vector. With our approach the measurement error can be reduced by more than 40% for the Mesa SR4000 and by more than 30% for the Microsoft Kinect V2. In our evaluation we also investigate the impact of the individual forest parameters and illustrate the importance of the individual features.

Dual-acting of Hybrid Compounds - A New Dawn in the Discovery of Multi-target Drugs: Lead Generation Approaches.

PubMed

Abdolmaleki, Azizeh; Ghasemi, Jahan B

2017-01-01

Finding high quality beginning compounds is a critical job at the start of the lead generation stage for multi-target drug discovery (MTDD). Designing hybrid compounds as selective multitarget chemical entity is a challenge, opportunity, and new idea to better act against specific multiple targets. One hybrid molecule is formed by two (or more) pharmacophore group's participation. So, these new compounds often exhibit two or more activities going about as multi-target drugs (mtdrugs) and may have superior safety or efficacy. Application of integrating a range of information and sophisticated new in silico, bioinformatics, structural biology, pharmacogenomics methods may be useful to discover/design, and synthesis of the new hybrid molecules. In this regard, many rational and screening approaches have followed by medicinal chemists for the lead generation in MTDD. Here, we review some popular lead generation approaches that have been used for designing multiple ligands (DMLs). This paper focuses on dual- acting chemical entities that incorporate a part of two drugs or bioactive compounds to compose hybrid molecules. Also, it presents some of key concepts and limitations/strengths of lead generation methods by comparing combination framework method with screening approaches. Besides, a number of examples to represent applications of hybrid molecules in the drug discovery are included. Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.org.

Characteristics of individuals screening positive for substance use in a welfare setting: implications for welfare and substance-use disorders treatment systems.

PubMed

Morgenstern, Jon; Hogue, Aaron; Dasaro, Christopher; Kuerbis, Alexis; Dauber, Sarah

2008-07-01

This study examined barriers to employability, motivation to abstain from substances and to work, and involvement in multiple service systems among male and female welfare applicants with alcohol- and drug-use problems. A representative sample (N= 1,431) of all persons applying for public assistance who screened positive for substance involvement over a 2-year period in a large urban county were recruited in welfare offices. Legal, education, general health, mental health, employment, housing, and child welfare barriers to employability were assessed, as were readiness to abstain from substance use and readiness to work. Only 1 in 20 participants reported no barrier other than substance use, whereas 70% reported at least two other barriers and 40% reported three or more. Moreover, 70% of participants experienced at least one additional barrier classified as "severe" and 30% experienced two or more. The number and type of barriers differed by gender. Latent class analysis revealed four main barriers-plus-readiness profiles among participants: (1) multiple barriers, (2) work experienced, (3) criminal justice, and (4) unstable housing. Findings suggest that comprehensive coordination among social service systems is needed to address the complex problems of low-income Americans with substance-use disorders. Classifying applicants based on barriers and readiness is a promising approach to developing innovative welfare programs to serve the diverse needs of men and women with substance-related problems.

Novel treatment strategies for smooth muscle disorders: Targeting Kv7 potassium channels.

PubMed

Haick, Jennifer M; Byron, Kenneth L

2016-09-01

Smooth muscle cells provide crucial contractile functions in visceral, vascular, and lung tissues. The contractile state of smooth muscle is largely determined by their electrical excitability, which is in turn influenced by the activity of potassium channels. The activity of potassium channels sustains smooth muscle cell membrane hyperpolarization, reducing cellular excitability and thereby promoting smooth muscle relaxation. Research over the past decade has indicated an important role for Kv7 (KCNQ) voltage-gated potassium channels in the regulation of the excitability of smooth muscle cells. Expression of multiple Kv7 channel subtypes has been demonstrated in smooth muscle cells from viscera (gastrointestinal, bladder, myometrial), from the systemic and pulmonary vasculature, and from the airways of the lung, from multiple species, including humans. A number of clinically used drugs, some of which were developed to target Kv7 channels in other tissues, have been found to exert robust effects on smooth muscle Kv7 channels. Functional studies have indicated that Kv7 channel activators and inhibitors have the ability to relax and contact smooth muscle preparations, respectively, suggesting a wide range of novel applications for the pharmacological tool set. This review summarizes recent findings regarding the physiological functions of Kv7 channels in smooth muscle, and highlights potential therapeutic applications based on pharmacological targeting of smooth muscle Kv7 channels throughout the body. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Coinheritance of biallelic SLURP1 and SLC39A4 mutations cause a severe genodermatosis with skin peeling and hair loss all over the body.

PubMed

Harms, F L; Nampoothiri, S; Kortüm, F; Thomas, J; Panicker, V V; Alawi, M; Altmüller, J; Yesodharan, D; Kutsche, K

2018-06-27

Next-generation sequencing (NGS), especially multi-gene panels and whole-exome sequencing (WES), is a tool for identifying the cause of monogenic disorders and has played a role in uncovering the genetic cause of previously uncharacterized genodermatoses. 1 By the application of NGS, the concept of apparently novel or atypical clinical presentations has been challenged by the finding of two or more genetic diagnoses in affected individuals. Approximately 5% of cases in which WES was informative had dual or multiple molecular diagnoses. 2 This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gilbert, Jack A.; Quinn, Robert A.; Debelius, Justine

Rapid advances in DNA sequencing, metabolomics, proteomics and computational tools are dramatically increasing access to the microbiome and identification of its links with disease. In particular, time-series studies and multiple molecular perspectives are facilitating microbiome-wide association studies, which are analogous to genome-wide association studies. Early findings point to actionable outcomes of microbiome-wide association studies, although their clinical application has yet to be approved. An appreciation of the complexity of interactions among the microbiome and the host's diet, chemistry and health, as well as determining the frequency of observations that are needed to capture and integrate this dynamic interface, is paramountmore » for developing precision diagnostics and therapies that are based on the microbiome.« less

Comparative evaluation of transmembrane ion transport due to monopolar and bipolar nanosecond, high-intensity electroporation pulses based on full three-dimensional analyses

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hu, Q.; Joshi, R. P.

2017-07-01

Electric pulse driven membrane poration finds applications in the fields of biomedical engineering and drug/gene delivery. Here we focus on nanosecond, high-intensity electroporation and probe the role of pulse shape (e.g., monopolar-vs-bipolar), multiple electrode scenarios, and serial-versus-simultaneous pulsing, based on a three-dimensional time-dependent continuum model in a systematic fashion. Our results indicate that monopolar pulsing always leads to higher and stronger cellular uptake. This prediction is in agreement with experimental reports and observations. It is also demonstrated that multi-pronged electrode configurations influence and increase the degree of cellular uptake.

Coupled resonator optical waveguides based on silicon-on-insulator photonic wires

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xia, Fengnian; Sekaric, Lidija; O'Boyle, Martin; Vlasov, Yurii

2006-07-01

Coupled resonator optical waveguides (CROWs) comprised of up to 16 racetrack resonators based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) photonic wires were fabricated and characterized. The optical properties of the CROWs were simulated using measured single resonator parameters based on a matrix approach. The group delay property of CROWs was also analyzed. The SOI based CROWs consisting of multiple resonators have extremely small footprints and can find applications in optical filtering, dispersion compensation, and optical buffering. Moreover, such CROW structure is a promising candidate for exploration of low light level nonlinear optics due to its resonant nature and compact mode size (˜0.1μm2) in photonic wire.

Electrowetting retroreflectors: Scalable and wide-spectrum modulation between corner cube and scattering reflection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kilaru, M. K.; Cumby, B.; Heikenfeld, J.

2009-01-01

Corner cube and spherical retroreflectors are ubiquitous in conspicuity and range-finding applications since they reflect light back to the illumination source with unmatched efficiency. We report here a switchable electrowetting retroreflector platform that provides multiple novel features, including (a) using <0.5 μJ/cm2 electrical energy to switch from a light scattering state, (b) low loss and wide spectrum as limited only by the absorption spectrum of water, (c) use of ultrasimple self-assembly of 103-105 liquid lenslets/in.2 on a polymer/Al corner-cube substrate, and (d) change in retroreflected irradiance of >10:1 over a ±30° field of view.

Public health agenda setting in a global context: the International Labor Organization's decent work agenda.

PubMed

Di Ruggiero, Erica; Cohen, Joanna E; Cole, Donald C; Forman, Lisa

2015-04-01

We drew on two agenda-setting theories usually applied at the state or national level to assess their utility at the global level: Kingdon's multiple streams theory and Baumgartner and Jones's punctuated equilibrium theory. We illustrate our analysis with findings from a qualitative study of the International Labor Organization's Decent Work Agenda. We found that both theories help explain the agenda-setting mechanisms that operate in the global context, including how windows of opportunity open and what role institutions play as policy entrepreneurs. Future application of these theories could help characterize power struggles between global actors, whose voices are heard or silenced, and their impact on global policy agenda setting.

Plasticity and stability of visual field maps in adult primary visual cortex

PubMed Central

Wandell, Brian A.; Smirnakis, Stelios M.

2010-01-01

Preface It is important to understand the balance between cortical plasticity and stability in various systems and spatial scales in the adult brain. We review measurements of adult plasticity in primary visual cortex (V1), a structure that has a key role in distributing visual information. There are claims of plasticity at multiple spatial scales in adult V1, but many inconsistencies in the data raise questions about the extent and nature of such plasticity. Understanding is further limited by a lack of quantitative models to guide the interpretation of the data. These problems limit efforts to translate research findings about adult cortical plasticity into significant clinical, educational and policy applications. PMID:19904279

Quantum-enhanced multiparameter estimation in multiarm interferometers

PubMed Central

Ciampini, Mario A.; Spagnolo, Nicolò; Vitelli, Chiara; Pezzè, Luca; Smerzi, Augusto; Sciarrino, Fabio

2016-01-01

Quantum metrology is the state-of-the-art measurement technology. It uses quantum resources to enhance the sensitivity of phase estimation over that achievable by classical physics. While single parameter estimation theory has been widely investigated, much less is known about the simultaneous estimation of multiple phases, which finds key applications in imaging and sensing. In this manuscript we provide conditions of useful particle (qudit) entanglement for multiphase estimation and adapt them to multiarm Mach-Zehnder interferometry. We theoretically discuss benchmark multimode Fock states containing useful qudit entanglement and overcoming the sensitivity of separable qudit states in three and four arm Mach-Zehnder-like interferometers - currently within the reach of integrated photonics technology. PMID:27381743

Photonic crystal geometry for organic solar cells.

PubMed

Ko, Doo-Hyun; Tumbleston, John R; Zhang, Lei; Williams, Stuart; DeSimone, Joseph M; Lopez, Rene; Samulski, Edward T

2009-07-01

We report organic solar cells with a photonic crystal nanostructure embossed in the photoactive bulk heterojunction layer, a topography that exhibits a 3-fold enhancement of the absorption in specific regions of the solar spectrum in part through multiple excitation resonances. The photonic crystal geometry is fabricated using a materials-agnostic process called PRINT wherein highly ordered arrays of nanoscale features are readily made in a single processing step over wide areas (approximately 4 cm(2)) that is scalable. We show efficiency improvements of approximately 70% that result not only from greater absorption, but also from electrical enhancements. The methodology is generally applicable to organic solar cells and the experimental findings reported in our manuscript corroborate theoretical expectations.

Comparative data compression techniques and multi-compression results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hasan, M. R.; Ibrahimy, M. I.; Motakabber, S. M. A.; Ferdaus, M. M.; Khan, M. N. H.

2013-12-01

Data compression is very necessary in business data processing, because of the cost savings that it offers and the large volume of data manipulated in many business applications. It is a method or system for transmitting a digital image (i.e., an array of pixels) from a digital data source to a digital data receiver. More the size of the data be smaller, it provides better transmission speed and saves time. In this communication, we always want to transmit data efficiently and noise freely. This paper will provide some compression techniques for lossless text type data compression and comparative result of multiple and single compression, that will help to find out better compression output and to develop compression algorithms.

Application of artificial neural networks with backpropagation technique in the financial data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jaiswal, Jitendra Kumar; Das, Raja

2017-11-01

The propensity of applying neural networks has been proliferated in multiple disciplines for research activities since the past recent decades because of its powerful control with regulatory parameters for pattern recognition and classification. It is also being widely applied for forecasting in the numerous divisions. Since financial data have been readily available due to the involvement of computers and computing systems in the stock market premises throughout the world, researchers have also developed numerous techniques and algorithms to analyze the data from this sector. In this paper we have applied neural network with backpropagation technique to find the data pattern from finance section and prediction for stock values as well.

Applicability of Macroscopic Wear and Friction Laws on the Atomic Length Scale.

PubMed

Eder, S J; Feldbauer, G; Bianchi, D; Cihak-Bayr, U; Betz, G; Vernes, A

2015-07-10

Using molecular dynamics, we simulate the abrasion process of an atomically rough Fe surface with multiple hard abrasive particles. By quantifying the nanoscopic wear depth in a time-resolved fashion, we show that Barwell's macroscopic wear law can be applied at the atomic scale. We find that in this multiasperity contact system, the Bowden-Tabor term, which describes the friction force as a function of the real nanoscopic contact area, can predict the kinetic friction even when wear is involved. From this the Derjaguin-Amontons-Coulomb friction law can be recovered, since we observe a linear dependence of the contact area on the applied load in accordance with Greenwood-Williamson contact mechanics.

A Grammatical Approach to RNA-RNA Interaction Prediction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kato, Yuki; Akutsu, Tatsuya; Seki, Hiroyuki

2007-11-01

Much attention has been paid to two interacting RNA molecules involved in post-transcriptional control of gene expression. Although there have been a few studies on RNA-RNA interaction prediction based on dynamic programming algorithm, no grammar-based approach has been proposed. The purpose of this paper is to provide a new modeling for RNA-RNA interaction based on multiple context-free grammar (MCFG). We present a polynomial time parsing algorithm for finding the most likely derivation tree for the stochastic version of MCFG, which is applicable to RNA joint secondary structure prediction including kissing hairpin loops. Also, elementary tests on RNA-RNA interaction prediction have shown that the proposed method is comparable to Alkan et al.'s method.

Ice matrix in reconfigurable microfluidic systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bossi, A. M.; Vareijka, M.; Piletska, E. V.; Turner, A. P. F.; Meglinski, I.; Piletsky, S. A.

2013-07-01

Microfluidic devices find many applications in biotechnologies. Here, we introduce a flexible and biocompatible microfluidic ice-based platform with tunable parameters and configuration of microfluidic patterns that can be changed multiple times during experiments. Freezing and melting of cavities, channels and complex relief structures created and maintained in the bulk of ice by continuous scanning of an infrared laser beam are used as a valve action in microfluidic systems. We demonstrate that pre-concentration of samples and transport of ions and dyes through the open channels created can be achieved in ice microfluidic patterns by IR laser-assisted zone melting. The proposed approach can be useful for performing separation and sensing processes in flexible reconfigurable microfluidic devices.

Simple linear and multivariate regression models.

PubMed

Rodríguez del Águila, M M; Benítez-Parejo, N

2011-01-01

In biomedical research it is common to find problems in which we wish to relate a response variable to one or more variables capable of describing the behaviour of the former variable by means of mathematical models. Regression techniques are used to this effect, in which an equation is determined relating the two variables. While such equations can have different forms, linear equations are the most widely used form and are easy to interpret. The present article describes simple and multiple linear regression models, how they are calculated, and how their applicability assumptions are checked. Illustrative examples are provided, based on the use of the freely accessible R program. Copyright © 2011 SEICAP. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

Radial sets: interactive visual analysis of large overlapping sets.

PubMed

Alsallakh, Bilal; Aigner, Wolfgang; Miksch, Silvia; Hauser, Helwig

2013-12-01

In many applications, data tables contain multi-valued attributes that often store the memberships of the table entities to multiple sets such as which languages a person masters, which skills an applicant documents, or which features a product comes with. With a growing number of entities, the resulting element-set membership matrix becomes very rich of information about how these sets overlap. Many analysis tasks targeted at set-typed data are concerned with these overlaps as salient features of such data. This paper presents Radial Sets, a novel visual technique to analyze set memberships for a large number of elements. Our technique uses frequency-based representations to enable quickly finding and analyzing different kinds of overlaps between the sets, and relating these overlaps to other attributes of the table entities. Furthermore, it enables various interactions to select elements of interest, find out if they are over-represented in specific sets or overlaps, and if they exhibit a different distribution for a specific attribute compared to the rest of the elements. These interactions allow formulating highly-expressive visual queries on the elements in terms of their set memberships and attribute values. As we demonstrate via two usage scenarios, Radial Sets enable revealing and analyzing a multitude of overlapping patterns between large sets, beyond the limits of state-of-the-art techniques.

Methods and devices for determining quality of services of storage systems

DOEpatents

Seelam, Seetharami R [Yorktown Heights, NY; Teller, Patricia J [Las Cruces, NM

2012-01-17

Methods and systems for allowing access to computer storage systems. Multiple requests from multiple applications can be received and processed efficiently to allow traffic from multiple customers to access the storage system concurrently.

An efficient multiple exposure image fusion in JPEG domain

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hebbalaguppe, Ramya; Kakarala, Ramakrishna

2012-01-01

In this paper, we describe a method to fuse multiple images taken with varying exposure times in the JPEG domain. The proposed algorithm finds its application in HDR image acquisition and image stabilization for hand-held devices like mobile phones, music players with cameras, digital cameras etc. Image acquisition at low light typically results in blurry and noisy images for hand-held camera's. Altering camera settings like ISO sensitivity, exposure times and aperture for low light image capture results in noise amplification, motion blur and reduction of depth-of-field respectively. The purpose of fusing multiple exposures is to combine the sharp details of the shorter exposure images with high signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) of the longer exposure images. The algorithm requires only a single pass over all images, making it efficient. It comprises of - sigmoidal boosting of shorter exposed images, image fusion, artifact removal and saturation detection. Algorithm does not need more memory than a single JPEG macro block to be kept in memory making it feasible to be implemented as the part of a digital cameras hardware image processing engine. The Artifact removal step reuses the JPEGs built-in frequency analysis and hence benefits from the considerable optimization and design experience that is available for JPEG.

Scenario and multiple criteria decision analysis for energy and environmental security of military and industrial installations.

PubMed

Karvetski, Christopher W; Lambert, James H; Linkov, Igor

2011-04-01

Military and industrial facilities need secure and reliable power generation. Grid outages can result in cascading infrastructure failures as well as security breaches and should be avoided. Adding redundancy and increasing reliability can require additional environmental, financial, logistical, and other considerations and resources. Uncertain scenarios consisting of emergent environmental conditions, regulatory changes, growth of regional energy demands, and other concerns result in further complications. Decisions on selecting energy alternatives are made on an ad hoc basis. The present work integrates scenario analysis and multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to identify combinations of impactful emergent conditions and to perform a preliminary benefits analysis of energy and environmental security investments for industrial and military installations. Application of a traditional MCDA approach would require significant stakeholder elicitations under multiple uncertain scenarios. The approach proposed in this study develops and iteratively adjusts a scoring function for investment alternatives to find the scenarios with the most significant impacts on installation security. A robust prioritization of investment alternatives can be achieved by integrating stakeholder preferences and focusing modeling and decision-analytical tools on a few key emergent conditions and scenarios. The approach is described and demonstrated for a campus of several dozen interconnected industrial buildings within a major installation. Copyright © 2010 SETAC.

Joint Optimization of Distribution Network Design and Two-Echelon Inventory Control with Stochastic Demand and CO2 Emission Tax Charges

PubMed Central

Li, Shuangyan; Li, Xialian; Zhang, Dezhi; Zhou, Lingyun

2017-01-01

This study develops an optimization model to integrate facility location and inventory control for a three-level distribution network consisting of a supplier, multiple distribution centers (DCs), and multiple retailers. The integrated model addressed in this study simultaneously determines three types of decisions: (1) facility location (optimal number, location, and size of DCs); (2) allocation (assignment of suppliers to located DCs and retailers to located DCs, and corresponding optimal transport mode choices); and (3) inventory control decisions on order quantities, reorder points, and amount of safety stock at each retailer and opened DC. A mixed-integer programming model is presented, which considers the carbon emission taxes, multiple transport modes, stochastic demand, and replenishment lead time. The goal is to minimize the total cost, which covers the fixed costs of logistics facilities, inventory, transportation, and CO2 emission tax charges. The aforementioned optimal model was solved using commercial software LINGO 11. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the applications of the proposed model. The findings show that carbon emission taxes can significantly affect the supply chain structure, inventory level, and carbon emission reduction levels. The delay rate directly affects the replenishment decision of a retailer. PMID:28103246

Nonlinear Predictive Models for Multiple Mediation Analysis: With an Application to Explore Ethnic Disparities in Anxiety and Depression Among Cancer Survivors.

PubMed

Yu, Qingzhao; Medeiros, Kaelen L; Wu, Xiaocheng; Jensen, Roxanne E

2018-04-02

Mediation analysis allows the examination of effects of a third variable (mediator/confounder) in the causal pathway between an exposure and an outcome. The general multiple mediation analysis method (MMA), proposed by Yu et al., improves traditional methods (e.g., estimation of natural and controlled direct effects) to enable consideration of multiple mediators/confounders simultaneously and the use of linear and nonlinear predictive models for estimating mediation/confounding effects. Previous studies find that compared with non-Hispanic cancer survivors, Hispanic survivors are more likely to endure anxiety and depression after cancer diagnoses. In this paper, we applied MMA on MY-Health study to identify mediators/confounders and quantify the indirect effect of each identified mediator/confounder in explaining ethnic disparities in anxiety and depression among cancer survivors who enrolled in the study. We considered a number of socio-demographic variables, tumor characteristics, and treatment factors as potential mediators/confounders and found that most of the ethnic differences in anxiety or depression between Hispanic and non-Hispanic white cancer survivors were explained by younger diagnosis age, lower education level, lower proportions of employment, less likely of being born in the USA, less insurance, and less social support among Hispanic patients.

Combinatorial Fusion Analysis for Meta Search Information Retrieval

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hsu, D. Frank; Taksa, Isak

Leading commercial search engines are built as single event systems. In response to a particular search query, the search engine returns a single list of ranked search results. To find more relevant results the user must frequently try several other search engines. A meta search engine was developed to enhance the process of multi-engine querying. The meta search engine queries several engines at the same time and fuses individual engine results into a single search results list. The fusion of multiple search results has been shown (mostly experimentally) to be highly effective. However, the question of why and how the fusion should be done still remains largely unanswered. In this chapter, we utilize the combinatorial fusion analysis proposed by Hsu et al. to analyze combination and fusion of multiple sources of information. A rank/score function is used in the design and analysis of our framework. The framework provides a better understanding of the fusion phenomenon in information retrieval. For example, to improve the performance of the combined multiple scoring systems, it is necessary that each of the individual scoring systems has relatively high performance and the individual scoring systems are diverse. Additionally, we illustrate various applications of the framework using two examples from the information retrieval domain.

Multiple Intelligence and Digital Learning Awareness of Prospective B.Ed Teachers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gracious, F. L. Antony; Shyla, F. L. Jasmine Anne

2012-01-01

The present study Multiple Intelligence and Digital Learning Awareness of prospective B.Ed teachers was probed to find the relationship between Multiple Intelligence and Digital Learning Awareness of Prospective B.Ed Teachers. Data for the study were collected using self made Multiple Intelligence Inventory and Digital Learning Awareness Scale.…

Automated Transition State Search and Its Application to Diverse Types of Organic Reactions.

PubMed

Jacobson, Leif D; Bochevarov, Art D; Watson, Mark A; Hughes, Thomas F; Rinaldo, David; Ehrlich, Stephan; Steinbrecher, Thomas B; Vaitheeswaran, S; Philipp, Dean M; Halls, Mathew D; Friesner, Richard A

2017-11-14

Transition state search is at the center of multiple types of computational chemical predictions related to mechanistic investigations, reactivity and regioselectivity predictions, and catalyst design. The process of finding transition states in practice is, however, a laborious multistep operation that requires significant user involvement. Here, we report a highly automated workflow designed to locate transition states for a given elementary reaction with minimal setup overhead. The only essential inputs required from the user are the structures of the separated reactants and products. The seamless workflow combining computational technologies from the fields of cheminformatics, molecular mechanics, and quantum chemistry automatically finds the most probable correspondence between the atoms in the reactants and the products, generates a transition state guess, launches a transition state search through a combined approach involving the relaxing string method and the quadratic synchronous transit, and finally validates the transition state via the analysis of the reactive chemical bonds and imaginary vibrational frequencies as well as by the intrinsic reaction coordinate method. Our approach does not target any specific reaction type, nor does it depend on training data; instead, it is meant to be of general applicability for a wide variety of reaction types. The workflow is highly flexible, permitting modifications such as a choice of accuracy, level of theory, basis set, or solvation treatment. Successfully located transition states can be used for setting up transition state guesses in related reactions, saving computational time and increasing the probability of success. The utility and performance of the method are demonstrated in applications to transition state searches in reactions typical for organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, and homogeneous catalysis research. In particular, applications of our code to Michael additions, hydrogen abstractions, Diels-Alder cycloadditions, carbene insertions, and an enzyme reaction model involving a molybdenum complex are shown and discussed.

The selected reaction monitoring/multiple reaction monitoring-based mass spectrometry approach for the accurate quantitation of proteins: clinical applications in the cardiovascular diseases.

PubMed

Gianazza, Erica; Tremoli, Elena; Banfi, Cristina

2014-12-01

Selected reaction monitoring, also known as multiple reaction monitoring, is a powerful targeted mass spectrometry approach for a confident quantitation of proteins/peptides in complex biological samples. In recent years, its optimization and application have become pivotal and of great interest in clinical research to derive useful outcomes for patient care. Thus, selected reaction monitoring/multiple reaction monitoring is now used as a highly sensitive and selective method for the evaluation of protein abundances and biomarker verification with potential applications in medical screening. This review describes technical aspects for the development of a robust multiplex assay and discussing its recent applications in cardiovascular proteomics: verification of promising disease candidates to select only the highest quality peptides/proteins for a preclinical validation, as well as quantitation of protein isoforms and post-translational modifications.

shinyGISPA: A web application for characterizing phenotype by gene sets using multiple omics data combinations.

PubMed

Dwivedi, Bhakti; Kowalski, Jeanne

2018-01-01

While many methods exist for integrating multi-omics data or defining gene sets, there is no one single tool that defines gene sets based on merging of multiple omics data sets. We present shinyGISPA, an open-source application with a user-friendly web-based interface to define genes according to their similarity in several molecular changes that are driving a disease phenotype. This tool was developed to help facilitate the usability of a previously published method, Gene Integrated Set Profile Analysis (GISPA), among researchers with limited computer-programming skills. The GISPA method allows the identification of multiple gene sets that may play a role in the characterization, clinical application, or functional relevance of a disease phenotype. The tool provides an automated workflow that is highly scalable and adaptable to applications that go beyond genomic data merging analysis. It is available at http://shinygispa.winship.emory.edu/shinyGISPA/.

shinyGISPA: A web application for characterizing phenotype by gene sets using multiple omics data combinations

PubMed Central

Dwivedi, Bhakti

2018-01-01

While many methods exist for integrating multi-omics data or defining gene sets, there is no one single tool that defines gene sets based on merging of multiple omics data sets. We present shinyGISPA, an open-source application with a user-friendly web-based interface to define genes according to their similarity in several molecular changes that are driving a disease phenotype. This tool was developed to help facilitate the usability of a previously published method, Gene Integrated Set Profile Analysis (GISPA), among researchers with limited computer-programming skills. The GISPA method allows the identification of multiple gene sets that may play a role in the characterization, clinical application, or functional relevance of a disease phenotype. The tool provides an automated workflow that is highly scalable and adaptable to applications that go beyond genomic data merging analysis. It is available at http://shinygispa.winship.emory.edu/shinyGISPA/. PMID:29415010

Exploring the Potential of Smartphones and Tablets for Performance Support in Food Chemistry Laboratory Classes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van der Kolk, Koos; Hartog, Rob; Beldman, Gerrit; Gruppen, Harry

2013-01-01

Increasingly, mobile applications appear on the market that can support students in chemistry laboratory classes. In a multiple app-supported laboratory, each of these applications covers one use-case. In practice, this leads to situations in which information is scattered over different screens and written materials. Such a multiple app-supported…

Method and system of integrating information from multiple sources

DOEpatents

Alford, Francine A [Livermore, CA; Brinkerhoff, David L [Antioch, CA

2006-08-15

A system and method of integrating information from multiple sources in a document centric application system. A plurality of application systems are connected through an object request broker to a central repository. The information may then be posted on a webpage. An example of an implementation of the method and system is an online procurement system.

Teachers' Approaches to Proportional Relationship Problems in Multiple Measure Spaces

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kazunga, Cathrine; Bansilal, Sarah

2016-01-01

Ratio and proportion have many daily life applications and hence form an important part of the Mathematical Literacy (ML) curriculum in South African schools. The purpose of this study was to explore ML teachers' application of ratio in an assessment task with multiple measure spaces set within the real-life context of the need to establish the…

Double-Pulsed 2-micron Laser Transmitter for Multiple Lidar Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Singh, Upendra N.; Yu, Jirong

2002-01-01

A high energy double-pulsed Ho:Tm:YLF 2-micron laser amplifier has been demonstrated. 600 mJ per pulse pair under Q-switch operation is achieved with the gain of 4.4. This solid-state laser source can be used as lidar transmitter for multiple lidar applications such as coherent wind and carbon dioxide measurements.

Improvement in HPC performance through HIPPI RAID storage

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Homan, Blake

1993-01-01

In 1986, RAID (redundant array of inexpensive (or independent) disks) technology was introduced as a viable solution to the I/O bottleneck. A number of different RAID levels were defined in 1987 by the Computer Science Division (EECS) University of California, Berkeley, each with specific advantages and disadvantages. With multiple RAID options available, taking advantage of RAID technology required matching particular RAID levels with specific applications. It was not possible to use one RAID device to address all applications. Maximum Strategy's Gen 4 Storage Server addresses this issue with a new capability called programmable RAID level partitioning. This capability enables users to have multiple RAID levels coexist on the same disks, thereby providing the versatility necessary for multiple concurrent applications.

Combining multiple imputation and meta-analysis with individual participant data

PubMed Central

Burgess, Stephen; White, Ian R; Resche-Rigon, Matthieu; Wood, Angela M

2013-01-01

Multiple imputation is a strategy for the analysis of incomplete data such that the impact of the missingness on the power and bias of estimates is mitigated. When data from multiple studies are collated, we can propose both within-study and multilevel imputation models to impute missing data on covariates. It is not clear how to choose between imputation models or how to combine imputation and inverse-variance weighted meta-analysis methods. This is especially important as often different studies measure data on different variables, meaning that we may need to impute data on a variable which is systematically missing in a particular study. In this paper, we consider a simulation analysis of sporadically missing data in a single covariate with a linear analysis model and discuss how the results would be applicable to the case of systematically missing data. We find in this context that ensuring the congeniality of the imputation and analysis models is important to give correct standard errors and confidence intervals. For example, if the analysis model allows between-study heterogeneity of a parameter, then we should incorporate this heterogeneity into the imputation model to maintain the congeniality of the two models. In an inverse-variance weighted meta-analysis, we should impute missing data and apply Rubin's rules at the study level prior to meta-analysis, rather than meta-analyzing each of the multiple imputations and then combining the meta-analysis estimates using Rubin's rules. We illustrate the results using data from the Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration. PMID:23703895

Time-dependent summary receiver operating characteristics for meta-analysis of prognostic studies.

PubMed

Hattori, Satoshi; Zhou, Xiao-Hua

2016-11-20

Prognostic studies are widely conducted to examine whether biomarkers are associated with patient's prognoses and play important roles in medical decisions. Because findings from one prognostic study may be very limited, meta-analyses may be useful to obtain sound evidence. However, prognostic studies are often analyzed by relying on a study-specific cut-off value, which can lead to difficulty in applying the standard meta-analysis techniques. In this paper, we propose two methods to estimate a time-dependent version of the summary receiver operating characteristics curve for meta-analyses of prognostic studies with a right-censored time-to-event outcome. We introduce a bivariate normal model for the pair of time-dependent sensitivity and specificity and propose a method to form inferences based on summary statistics reported in published papers. This method provides a valid inference asymptotically. In addition, we consider a bivariate binomial model. To draw inferences from this bivariate binomial model, we introduce a multiple imputation method. The multiple imputation is found to be approximately proper multiple imputation, and thus the standard Rubin's variance formula is justified from a Bayesian view point. Our simulation study and application to a real dataset revealed that both methods work well with a moderate or large number of studies and the bivariate binomial model coupled with the multiple imputation outperforms the bivariate normal model with a small number of studies. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Identifying College Students' Multiple Intelligences to Enhance Motivation and Language Proficiency

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Madkour, Magda; Mohamed, Rafik Ahmed Abdel Moati

2016-01-01

While most research studies on the theory of multiple intelligences focused on the application of the multiple intelligences domains as separate components, this quasi-experimental research targeted the effect of multiple intelligences as integrated abilities for teaching and learning English at higher education. The purpose of this study was to…

Limited common origins of multiple adult health-related behaviors: Evidence from U.S. twins.

PubMed

Sudharsanan, Nikkil; Behrman, Jere R; Kohler, Hans-Peter

2016-12-01

Health-related behaviors are significant contributors to morbidity and mortality in the United States, yet evidence on the underlying causes of the vast within-population variation in behaviors is mixed. While many potential causes of health-related behaviors have been identified-such as schooling, genetics, and environments-little is known on how much of the variation across multiple behaviors is due to a common set of causes. We use three separate datasets on U.S. twins to investigate the degree to which multiple health-related behaviors correlate and can be explained by a common set of factors. We find that aside from smoking and drinking, most behaviors are not strongly correlated among individuals. Based on the results of both within-identical-twins regressions and multivariate behavioral genetics models, we find some evidence that schooling may be related to smoking but not to the covariation between multiple behaviors. Similarly, we find that a large fraction of the variance in each of the behaviors is consistent with genetic factors; however, we do not find strong evidence that a single common set of genes explains variation in multiple behaviors. We find, however, that a large portion of the correlation between smoking and heavy drinking is consistent with common, mostly childhood, environments. This suggests that the initiation and patterns of these two behaviors might arise from a common childhood origin. Research and policy to identify and modify this source may provide a strong way to reduce the population health burden of smoking and heavy drinking. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

BASIC Matrix Operations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Digital Equipment Corp., Maynard, MA.

The curriculum materials and computer programs in this booklet introduce the idea of a matrix. They go on to discuss matrix operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication by a scalar, and matrix multiplication. The last section covers several contemporary applications of matrix multiplication, including problems of communication…

Open to Interpretation: Multiple Intelligences Theory in Adult Literacy Education. Findings from the Adult Multiple Intelligences Study. NCSALL Reports.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kallenbach, Silja; Viens, Julie

The Adult Multiple Intelligences (AMI) Study investigated how multiple intelligences (MI) theory can support instruction and assessment in adult literacy education across different adult learning contexts. Two interwoven qualitative research projects focused on applying MI theory in practice. One involved 10 teacher-conducted and AMI…

Centrality categorization for Rp (d)+A in high-energy collisions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Adare, A.; Aidala, C.; Ajitanand, N. N.; Akiba, Y.; Al-Bataineh, H.; Alexander, J.; Angerami, A.; Aoki, K.; Apadula, N.; Aramaki, Y.; Atomssa, E. T.; Averbeck, R.; Awes, T. C.; Azmoun, B.; Babintsev, V.; Bai, M.; Baksay, G.; Baksay, L.; Barish, K. N.; Bassalleck, B.; Basye, A. T.; Bathe, S.; Baublis, V.; Baumann, C.; Bazilevsky, A.; Belikov, S.; Belmont, R.; Bennett, R.; Bhom, J. H.; Blau, D. S.; Bok, J. S.; Boyle, K.; Brooks, M. L.; Buesching, H.; Bumazhnov, V.; Bunce, G.; Butsyk, S.; Campbell, S.; Caringi, A.; Chen, C.-H.; Chi, C. Y.; Chiu, M.; Choi, I. J.; Choi, J. B.; Choudhury, R. K.; Christiansen, P.; Chujo, T.; Chung, P.; Chvala, O.; Cianciolo, V.; Citron, Z.; Cole, B. A.; Conesa Del Valle, Z.; Connors, M.; Csanád, M.; Csörgő, T.; Dahms, T.; Dairaku, S.; Danchev, I.; Das, K.; Datta, A.; David, G.; Dayananda, M. K.; Denisov, A.; Deshpande, A.; Desmond, E. J.; Dharmawardane, K. V.; Dietzsch, O.; Dion, A.; Donadelli, M.; Drapier, O.; Drees, A.; Drees, K. A.; Durham, J. M.; Durum, A.; Dutta, D.; D'Orazio, L.; Edwards, S.; Efremenko, Y. V.; Ellinghaus, F.; Engelmore, T.; Enokizono, A.; En'yo, H.; Esumi, S.; Fadem, B.; Fields, D. E.; Finger, M.; Finger, M.; Fleuret, F.; Fokin, S. L.; Fraenkel, Z.; Frantz, J. E.; Franz, A.; Frawley, A. D.; Fujiwara, K.; Fukao, Y.; Fusayasu, T.; Garishvili, I.; Glenn, A.; Gong, H.; Gonin, M.; Goto, Y.; Granier de Cassagnac, R.; Grau, N.; Greene, S. V.; Grim, G.; Grosse Perdekamp, M.; Gunji, T.; Gustafsson, H.-Å.; Haggerty, J. S.; Hahn, K. I.; Hamagaki, H.; Hamblen, J.; Han, R.; Hanks, J.; Haslum, E.; Hayano, R.; He, X.; Heffner, M.; Hemmick, T. K.; Hester, T.; Hill, J. C.; Hohlmann, M.; Holzmann, W.; Homma, K.; Hong, B.; Horaguchi, T.; Hornback, D.; Huang, S.; Ichihara, T.; Ichimiya, R.; Ikeda, Y.; Imai, K.; Inaba, M.; Isenhower, D.; Ishihara, M.; Issah, M.; Ivanischev, D.; Iwanaga, Y.; Jacak, B. V.; Jia, J.; Jiang, X.; Jin, J.; Johnson, B. M.; Jones, T.; Joo, K. S.; Jouan, D.; Jumper, D. S.; Kajihara, F.; Kamin, J.; Kang, J. H.; Kapustinsky, J.; Karatsu, K.; Kasai, M.; Kawall, D.; Kawashima, M.; Kazantsev, A. V.; Kempel, T.; Khanzadeev, A.; Kijima, K. M.; Kikuchi, J.; Kim, A.; Kim, B. I.; Kim, D. J.; Kim, E.-J.; Kim, Y.-J.; Kinney, E.; Kiss, Á.; Kistenev, E.; Kleinjan, D.; Kochenda, L.; Komkov, B.; Konno, M.; Koster, J.; Král, A.; Kravitz, A.; Kunde, G. J.; Kurita, K.; Kurosawa, M.; Kwon, Y.; Kyle, G. S.; Lacey, R.; Lai, Y. S.; Lajoie, J. G.; Lebedev, A.; Lee, D. M.; Lee, J.; Lee, K. B.; Lee, K. S.; Leitch, M. J.; Leite, M. A. L.; Li, X.; Lichtenwalner, P.; Liebing, P.; Linden Levy, L. A.; Liška, T.; Liu, H.; Liu, M. X.; Love, B.; Lynch, D.; Maguire, C. F.; Makdisi, Y. I.; Malik, M. D.; Manko, V. I.; Mannel, E.; Mao, Y.; Masui, H.; Matathias, F.; McCumber, M.; McGaughey, P. L.; McGlinchey, D.; Means, N.; Meredith, B.; Miake, Y.; Mibe, T.; Mignerey, A. C.; Miki, K.; Milov, A.; Mitchell, J. T.; Mohanty, A. K.; Moon, H. J.; Morino, Y.; Morreale, A.; Morrison, D. P.; Moukhanova, T. V.; Murakami, T.; Murata, J.; Nagamiya, S.; Nagle, J. L.; Naglis, M.; Nagy, M. I.; Nakagawa, I.; Nakamiya, Y.; Nakamura, K. R.; Nakamura, T.; Nakano, K.; Nam, S.; Newby, J.; Nguyen, M.; Nihashi, M.; Nouicer, R.; Nyanin, A. S.; Oakley, C.; O'Brien, E.; Oda, S. X.; Ogilvie, C. A.; Oka, M.; Okada, K.; Onuki, Y.; Orjuela Koop, J. D.; Oskarsson, A.; Ouchida, M.; Ozawa, K.; Pak, R.; Pantuev, V.; Papavassiliou, V.; Park, I. H.; Park, S. K.; Park, W. J.; Pate, S. F.; Pei, H.; Peng, J.-C.; Pereira, H.; Perepelitsa, D.; Peressounko, D. Yu.; Petti, R.; Pinkenburg, C.; Pisani, R. P.; Proissl, M.; Purschke, M. L.; Qu, H.; Rak, J.; Ravinovich, I.; Read, K. F.; Rembeczki, S.; Reygers, K.; Riabov, V.; Riabov, Y.; Richardson, E.; Roach, D.; Roche, G.; Rolnick, S. D.; Rosati, M.; Rosen, C. A.; Rosendahl, S. S. E.; Ružička, P.; Sahlmueller, B.; Saito, N.; Sakaguchi, T.; Sakashita, K.; Samsonov, V.; Sano, S.; Sato, T.; Sawada, S.; Sedgwick, K.; Seele, J.; Seidl, R.; Seto, R.; Sharma, D.; Shein, I.; Shibata, T.-A.; Shigaki, K.; Shimomura, M.; Shoji, K.; Shukla, P.; Sickles, A.; Silva, C. L.; Silvermyr, D.; Silvestre, C.; Sim, K. S.; Singh, B. K.; Singh, C. P.; Singh, V.; Slunečka, M.; Soltz, R. A.; Sondheim, W. E.; Sorensen, S. P.; Sourikova, I. V.; Stankus, P. W.; Stenlund, E.; Stoll, S. P.; Sugitate, T.; Sukhanov, A.; Sziklai, J.; Takagui, E. M.; Taketani, A.; Tanabe, R.; Tanaka, Y.; Taneja, S.; Tanida, K.; Tannenbaum, M. J.; Tarafdar, S.; Taranenko, A.; Themann, H.; Thomas, D.; Thomas, T. L.; Togawa, M.; Toia, A.; Tomášek, L.; Torii, H.; Towell, R. S.; Tserruya, I.; Tsuchimoto, Y.; Vale, C.; Valle, H.; van Hecke, H. W.; Vazquez-Zambrano, E.; Veicht, A.; Velkovska, J.; Vértesi, R.; Virius, M.; Vrba, V.; Vznuzdaev, E.; Wang, X. R.; Watanabe, D.; Watanabe, K.; Watanabe, Y.; Wei, F.; Wei, R.; Wessels, J.; White, S. N.; Winter, D.; Woody, C. L.; Wright, R. M.; Wysocki, M.; Yamaguchi, Y. L.; Yamaura, K.; Yang, R.; Yanovich, A.; Ying, J.; Yokkaichi, S.; You, Z.; Young, G. R.; Younus, I.; Yushmanov, I. E.; Zajc, W. A.; Zhou, S.; Phenix Collaboration

2014-09-01

High-energy proton- and deuteron-nucleus collisions provide an excellent tool for studying a wide array of physics effects, including modifications of parton distribution functions in nuclei, gluon saturation, and color neutralization and hadronization in a nuclear environment, among others. All of these effects are expected to have a significant dependence on the size of the nuclear target and the impact parameter of the collision, also known as the collision centrality. In this article, we detail a method for determining centrality classes in p (d)+A collisions via cuts on the multiplicity at backward rapidity (i.e., the nucleus-going direction) and for determining systematic uncertainties in this procedure. For d +Au collisions at √sNN =200 GeV we find that the connection to geometry is confirmed by measuring the fraction of events in which a neutron from the deuteron does not interact with the nucleus. As an application, we consider the nuclear modification factors Rp (d)+A, for which there is a bias in the measured centrality-dependent yields owing to auto correlations between the process of interest and the backward-rapidity multiplicity. We determine the bias-correction factors within this framework. This method is further tested using the hijing Monte Carlo generator. We find that for d +Au collisions at √sNN =200 GeV, these bias corrections are small and vary by less than 5% (10%) up to pT=10 (20) GeV/c. In contrast, for p +Pb collisions at √sNN =5.02 TeV we find that these bias factors are an order of magnitude larger and strongly pT dependent, likely attributable to the larger effect of multiparton interactions.

77 FR 70457 - Endangered Species; Marine Mammals; Receipt of Applications for Permit

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-11-26

... (Cyclura lewisi) Multiple Applicants The following applicants each request a permit to import the sport... the Advancement of Marine Science, Alaska SeaLife Center, Seward, AK; PRT-73634A The applicant...

Dual Thermosensitive Hydrogels Assembled from the Conserved C-Terminal Domain of Spider Dragline Silk.

PubMed

Qian, Zhi-Gang; Zhou, Ming-Liang; Song, Wen-Wen; Xia, Xiao-Xia

2015-11-09

Stimuli-responsive hydrogels have great potentials in biomedical and biotechnological applications. Due to the advantages of precise control over molecular weight and being biodegradable, protein-based hydrogels and their applications have been extensively studied. However, protein hydrogels with dual thermosensitive properties are rarely reported. Here we present the first report of dual thermosensitive hydrogels assembled from the conserved C-terminal domain of spider dragline silk. First, we found that recombinant C-terminal domain of major ampullate spidroin 1 (MaSp1) of the spider Nephila clavipes formed hydrogels when cooled to approximately 2 °C or heated to 65 °C. The conformational changes and self-assembly of the recombinant protein were studied to understand the mechanism of the gelation processes using multiple methods. It was proposed that the gelation in the low-temperature regime was dominated by hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interaction between folded protein molecules, whereas the gelation in the high-temperature regime was due to cross-linking of the exposed hydrophobic patches resulting from partial unfolding of the protein upon heating. More interestingly, genetic fusion of the C-terminal domain to a short repetitive region of N. clavipes MaSp1 resulted in a chimeric protein that formed a hydrogel with significantly improved mechanical properties at low temperatures between 2 and 10 °C. Furthermore, the formation of similar hydrogels was observed for the recombinant C-terminal domains of dragline silk of different spider species, thus demonstrating the conserved ability to form dual thermosensitive hydrogels. These findings may be useful in the design and construction of novel protein hydrogels with tunable multiple thermosensitivity for applications in the future.

Quantitative Imaging with a Mobile Phone Microscope

PubMed Central

Skandarajah, Arunan; Reber, Clay D.; Switz, Neil A.; Fletcher, Daniel A.

2014-01-01

Use of optical imaging for medical and scientific applications requires accurate quantification of features such as object size, color, and brightness. High pixel density cameras available on modern mobile phones have made photography simple and convenient for consumer applications; however, the camera hardware and software that enables this simplicity can present a barrier to accurate quantification of image data. This issue is exacerbated by automated settings, proprietary image processing algorithms, rapid phone evolution, and the diversity of manufacturers. If mobile phone cameras are to live up to their potential to increase access to healthcare in low-resource settings, limitations of mobile phone–based imaging must be fully understood and addressed with procedures that minimize their effects on image quantification. Here we focus on microscopic optical imaging using a custom mobile phone microscope that is compatible with phones from multiple manufacturers. We demonstrate that quantitative microscopy with micron-scale spatial resolution can be carried out with multiple phones and that image linearity, distortion, and color can be corrected as needed. Using all versions of the iPhone and a selection of Android phones released between 2007 and 2012, we show that phones with greater than 5 MP are capable of nearly diffraction-limited resolution over a broad range of magnifications, including those relevant for single cell imaging. We find that automatic focus, exposure, and color gain standard on mobile phones can degrade image resolution and reduce accuracy of color capture if uncorrected, and we devise procedures to avoid these barriers to quantitative imaging. By accommodating the differences between mobile phone cameras and the scientific cameras, mobile phone microscopes can be reliably used to increase access to quantitative imaging for a variety of medical and scientific applications. PMID:24824072

Investigation of nanoscale voids in Sb-doped p-type ZnO nanowires.

PubMed

Pradel, Ken C; Uzuhashi, Jun; Takei, Toshiaki; Ohkubo, Tadakatsu; Hono, Kazuhiro; Fukata, Naoki

2018-08-17

While it has multiple advantageous optoelectronic and piezoelectric properties, the application of zinc oxide has been limited by the lack of a stable p-type dopant. Recently, it was discovered that antimony doping can lead to stable p-type doping in ZnO, but one curious side effect of the doping process is the formation of voids inside the nanowire. While previously used as a signifier of successful doping, up until now, little research has been performed on these structures themselves. In this work, the effect of annealing on the size and microstructure of the voids was investigated using TEM and XRD, finding that the voids form around a region of Zn 7 Sb 2 O 12 . Furthermore, using Raman spectroscopy, a new peak associated with successful doping was identified. The most surprising finding, however, was the presence of water trapped inside the nanowire, showing that this is actually a composite structure. Water was initially discovered in the nanowires using atom probe tomography, and verified using Raman spectroscopy.

Statistically Controlling for Confounding Constructs Is Harder than You Think

PubMed Central

Westfall, Jacob; Yarkoni, Tal

2016-01-01

Social scientists often seek to demonstrate that a construct has incremental validity over and above other related constructs. However, these claims are typically supported by measurement-level models that fail to consider the effects of measurement (un)reliability. We use intuitive examples, Monte Carlo simulations, and a novel analytical framework to demonstrate that common strategies for establishing incremental construct validity using multiple regression analysis exhibit extremely high Type I error rates under parameter regimes common in many psychological domains. Counterintuitively, we find that error rates are highest—in some cases approaching 100%—when sample sizes are large and reliability is moderate. Our findings suggest that a potentially large proportion of incremental validity claims made in the literature are spurious. We present a web application (http://jakewestfall.org/ivy/) that readers can use to explore the statistical properties of these and other incremental validity arguments. We conclude by reviewing SEM-based statistical approaches that appropriately control the Type I error rate when attempting to establish incremental validity. PMID:27031707

[The attitudes and behavior of the general primary-care physician towards the neurological patient].

PubMed

Casabella Abril, B; Pérez Sánchez, J

1995-04-15

1) To find the opinion of general practitioners working in primary care (GP in PC) regarding how they deal with neurological patients. 2) To find the effect on this question of intern training in family and community medicine (FCM). A survey filled out by a representative sample of GP in PC working at PC public clinics in 1991 in a health region in Catalonia. 56 GP in PC. A self-administered selection questionnaire (multiple choice and scale of 5 points). MEASUREMENTS, MAIN RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Less confidence handling neurological patients than patients with other common medical conditions. Greater need for recycling in neurology than in other basic areas of medicine. Positive impact of FCM intern training on doctors' approach to the examination of neurological patients and application of basic exploratory techniques (ophthalmoscope, reflex hammer, diapason and phonendoscope). The GP intern-trained in FCM lacks confidence in present out-patient specialised support (the area neuropsychiatrist).

Two-beam pumped cascaded four-wave-mixing process for producing multiple-beam quantum correlation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Shengshuai; Wang, Hailong; Jing, Jietai

2018-04-01

We propose a two-beam pumped cascaded four-wave-mixing (CFWM) scheme with a double-Λ energy-level configuration in 85Rb vapor cell and experimentally observe the emission of up to 10 quantum correlated beams from such CFWM scheme. During this process, the seed beam is amplified; four new signal beams and five idler beams are generated. The 10 beams show strong quantum correlation which is characterized by the intensity-difference squeezing of about -6.7 ±0.3 dB. Then, by altering the angle between the two pump beams, we observe the notable transition of the number of the output beams from 10 to eight, and even to six. We find that both the number of the output quantum correlated beams and their degree of quantum correlation from such two-beam pumped CFWM scheme increase with the decrease of the angle between the two pump beams. Such system may find potential applications in quantum information and quantum metrology.

Onshore and Offshore Outsourcing with Agility: Lessons Learned

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kussmaul, Clifton

This chapter reflects on case study based an agile distributed project that ran for approximately three years (from spring 2003 to spring 2006). The project involved (a) a customer organization with key personnel distributed across the US, developing an application with rapidly changing requirements; (b) onshore consultants with expertise in project management, development processes, offshoring, and relevant technologies; and (c) an external offsite development team in a CMM-5 organization in southern India. This chapter is based on surveys and discussions with multiple participants. The several years since the project was completed allow greater perspective on both the strengths and weaknesses, since the participants can reflect on the entire life of the project, and compare it to subsequent experiences. Our findings emphasize the potential for agile project management in distributed software development, and the importance of people and interactions, taking many small steps to find and correct errors, and matching the structures of the project and product to support implementation of agility.

No-threshold dose-response curves for nongenotoxic chemicals: Findings and applications for risk assessment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sheehan, Daniel M.

2006-01-15

We tested the hypothesis that no threshold exists when estradiol acts through the same mechanism as an active endogenous estrogen. A Michaelis-Menten (MM) equation accounting for response saturation, background effects, and endogenous estrogen level fit a turtle sex-reversal data set with no threshold and estimated the endogenous dose. Additionally, 31 diverse literature dose-response data sets were analyzed by adding a term for nonhormonal background; good fits were obtained but endogenous dose estimations were not significant due to low resolving power. No thresholds were observed. Data sets were plotted using a normalized MM equation; all 178 data points were accommodated onmore » a single graph. Response rates from {approx}1% to >95% were well fit. The findings contradict the threshold assumption and low-dose safety. Calculating risk and assuming additivity of effects from multiple chemicals acting through the same mechanism rather than assuming a safe dose for nonthresholded curves is appropriate.« less

Two-dimensional NMR spectroscopy reveals cation-triggered backbone degradation in polysulfone-based anion exchange membranes

PubMed Central

Arges, Christopher G.; Ramani, Vijay

2013-01-01

Anion exchange membranes (AEMs) find widespread applications as an electrolyte and/or electrode binder in fuel cells, electrodialysis stacks, flow and metal-air batteries, and electrolyzers. AEMs exhibit poor stability in alkaline media; their degradation is induced by the hydroxide ion, a potent nucleophile. We have used 2D NMR techniques to investigate polymer backbone stability (as opposed to cation stability) of the AEM in alkaline media. We report the mechanism behind a peculiar, often-observed phenomenon, wherein a demonstrably stable polysulfone backbone degrades rapidly in alkaline solutions upon derivatization with alkaline stable fixed cation groups. Using COSY and heteronuclear multiple quantum correlation spectroscopy (2D NMR), we unequivocally demonstrate that the added cation group triggers degradation of the polymer backbone in alkaline via quaternary carbon hydrolysis and ether hydrolysis, leading to rapid failure. This finding challenges the existing perception that having a stable cation moiety is sufficient to yield a stable AEM and emphasizes the importance of the often ignored issue of backbone stability. PMID:23335629

Modified kinetics of enzymes interacting with nanoparticles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Díaz, Sebastián. A.; Breger, Joyce C.; Malanoski, Anthony; Claussen, Jonathan C.; Walper, Scott A.; Ancona, Mario G.; Brown, Carl W.; Stewart, Michael H.; Oh, Eunkeu; Susumu, Kimihiro; Medintz, Igor L.

2015-08-01

Enzymes are important players in multiple applications, be it bioremediation, biosynthesis, or as reporters. The business of catalysis and inhibition of enzymes is a multibillion dollar industry and understanding the kinetics of commercial enzymes can have a large impact on how these systems are optimized. Recent advances in nanotechnology have opened up the field of nanoparticle (NP) and enzyme conjugates and two principal architectures for NP conjugate systems have been developed. In the first example the enzyme is bound to the NP in a persistent manner, here we find that key factors such as directed enzyme conjugation allow for enhanced kinetics. Through controlled comparative experiments we begin to tease out specific mechanisms that may account for the enhancement. The second system is based on dynamic interactions of the enzymes with the NP. The enzyme substrate is bound to the NP and the enzyme is free in solution. Here again we find that there are many variables , such as substrate positioning and NP selection, that modify the kinetics.

Information Retrieval Using Hadoop Big Data Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Motwani, Deepak; Madan, Madan Lal

This paper concern on big data analysis which is the cognitive operation of probing huge amounts of information in an attempt to get uncovers unseen patterns. Through Big Data Analytics Applications such as public and private organization sectors have formed a strategic determination to turn big data into cut throat benefit. The primary occupation of extracting value from big data give rise to a process applied to pull information from multiple different sources; this process is known as extract transforms and lode. This paper approach extract information from log files and Research Paper, awareness reduces the efforts for blueprint finding and summarization of document from several positions. The work is able to understand better Hadoop basic concept and increase the user experience for research. In this paper, we propose an approach for analysis log files for finding concise information which is useful and time saving by using Hadoop. Our proposed approach will be applied on different research papers on a specific domain and applied for getting summarized content for further improvement and make the new content.

Development and Application of a Two-Tier Multiple Choice Diagnostic Instrument To Assess High School Students' Understanding of Inorganic Chemistry Qualitative Analysis.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tan, Kim Chwee Daniel; Goh, Ngoh Khang; Chia, Lian Sai; Treagust, David F.

2002-01-01

Describes the development and application of a two-tier multiple choice diagnostic instrument to assess high school students' understanding of inorganic chemistry qualitative analysis. Shows that the Grade 10 students had difficulty understanding the reactions involved in the identification of cations and anions, for example, double decomposition…

Multiple-Year Application & Evaluation of Two-Way Coupled WRF-CMAQ with Aerosol Direct & Indirect Effects over the Continental U.S.

EPA Science Inventory

In this study, we present a multiple-year (2008-2010) application and evaluation of the two-way coupled WRFv3.4-CMAQv5.0.2 with both aerosol direct and indirect effects over the continental U.S. (CONUS) driven by chemical initial/boundary conditions derived from an advanced Earth...

Multiple Dimensions to the Application for the Effectiveness of Team Building in ROTC

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Yin-Che; Chen, Yun-Chi; Tsao, Ya-Lun

2009-01-01

Team building has been given increasing attention and applied in diverse disciplines in recent years. The purpose of this study was to determine the multiple dimensions to the application for the effectiveness of team building in the military units such as ROTC since not many existing literature has investigated this in such an expectedly high…

Designing a personal health application for older adults to manage medications: a comprehensive case study.

PubMed

Siek, Katie A; Khan, Danish U; Ross, Stephen E; Haverhals, Leah M; Meyers, Jane; Cali, Steven R

2011-10-01

Older adults with multiple chronic conditions often go through care transitions where they move between care facilities or providers during their treatment. These transitions are often uncoordinated and can imperil patients by omitted, duplicative, or contradictory care plans. Older adults sometimes feel overwhelmed with the new responsibility of coordinating the care plan with providers and changing their medication regimes. In response, we developed a Lesser General Public License (LGPL) open source, web-based Personal Health Application (PHA) using an iterative participatory design process that provided older adults and their caregivers the ability to manage their personal health information. In this paper, we document the PHA design process from low-fidelity prototypes to high-fidelity prototypes over the course of six user studies. Our findings establish the imperative need for interdisciplinary research and collaboration among all stakeholders to create effective PHAs. We conclude with design guidelines that encourage researchers to gradually increase functionality as users become more proficient.

Point-of-care sonographic detection of left endobronchial main stem intubation and obstruction versus endotracheal intubation.

PubMed

Blaivas, Michael; Tsung, James W

2008-05-01

Determining the correct position of endotracheal tubes in critically ill patients may be complicated by external factors such as noise, body habitus, and the need for ongoing resuscitation. Multiple detection techniques have been developed to determine the correct endotracheal tube position, recently including the use of sonography to evaluate lung expansion and diaphragmatic excursion. These techniques have also been applied to diagnosis of right endobronchial main stem intubation, which may be confused with a unilateral pneumothorax in some cases. We describe the sonographic findings in a case series of endobronchial main stem intubations and obstruction, highlighting the utility of this sonographic application. Previous literature and future applications are discussed. Sonographic detection of the sliding lung sign, the lung pulse, and diaphragmatic excursion can accurately detect main stem bronchial intubation as well as bronchial obstruction. Clinical use of lung sonography may decrease the need for chest radiography and may allow more rapid diagnosis of main stem intubation and bronchial obstruction.

Clinical applications of fundus autofluorescence in retinal disease.

PubMed

Yung, Madeline; Klufas, Michael A; Sarraf, David

2016-01-01

Fundus autofluorescence (FAF) is a non-invasive retinal imaging modality used in clinical practice to provide a density map of lipofuscin, the predominant ocular fluorophore, in the retinal pigment epithelium. Multiple commercially available imaging systems, including the fundus camera, the confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscope, and the ultra-widefield imaging device, are available to the clinician. Each offers unique advantages for evaluating various retinal diseases. The clinical applications of FAF continue to expand. It is now an essential tool for evaluating age related macular degeneration, macular dystrophies, retinitis pigmentosa, white dot syndromes, retinal drug toxicities, and various other retinal disorders. FAF may detect abnormalities beyond those detected on funduscopic exam, fluorescein angiography, or optical coherence tomography, and can be used to elucidate disease pathogenesis, form genotype-phenotype correlations, diagnose and monitor disease, and evaluate novel therapies. Given its ease of use, non-invasive nature, and value in characterizing retinal disease, FAF enjoys increasing clinical relevance. This review summarizes common ocular fluorophores, imaging modalities, and FAF findings for a wide spectrum of retinal disorders.

Preferred numbers and the distributions of trade sizes and trading volumes in the Chinese stock market

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mu, G.-H.; Chen, W.; Kertész, J.; Zhou, W.-X.

2009-03-01

The distributions of trade sizes and trading volumes are investigated based on the limit order book data of 22 liquid Chinese stocks listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in the whole year 2003. We observe that the size distribution of trades for individualstocks exhibits jumps, which is caused by the number preference of traders when placing orders. We analyze the applicability of the “q-Gamma” function for fitting the distribution by the Cramér-von Mises criterion. The empirical PDFs of tradingvolumes at different timescales Δt ranging from 1 min to 240 min can be well modeled. The applicability of the q-Gamma functions for multiple trades is restricted to the transaction numbers Δn≤ 8. We find that all the PDFs have power-law tails for large volumes. Using careful estimation of the average tail exponents α of the distributions of trade sizes and trading volumes, we get α> 2, well outside the Lévy regime.

Breast ultrasonography: state of the art.

PubMed

Hooley, Regina J; Scoutt, Leslie M; Philpotts, Liane E

2013-09-01

Ultrasonography (US) is an indispensable tool in breast imaging and is complementary to both mammography and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of the breast. Advances in US technology allow confident characterization of not only benign cysts but also benign and malignant solid masses. Knowledge and understanding of current and emerging US technology, along with the application of meticulous scanning technique, is imperative for image optimization and diagnosis. The ability to synthesize breast US findings with multiple imaging modalities and clinical information is also necessary to ensure the best patient care. US is routinely used to guide breast biopsies and is also emerging as a supplemental screening tool in women with dense breasts and a negative mammogram. This review provides a summary of current state-of-the-art US technology, including elastography, and applications of US in clinical practice as an adjuvant technique to mammography, MR imaging, and the clinical breast examination. The use of breast US for screening, preoperative staging for breast cancer, and breast intervention will also be discussed.

Effects of elasticity and geometry on the locomotion of a model bacterium

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nguyen, Frank; Graham, Michael

2017-11-01

The locomotion of flagellated bacteria in viscous fluid provides the blueprint for a number of micro-scale engineering applications. The elasticities of both the hook protein (connecting cell body and flagellum) and the flagella themselves play a key role in determining the stability of locomotion. We use a coarse-grained discretization of elastic flagella connected to a rigid cell body to examine trajectories and flow fields for free swimmers. We indeed find that hook and/or flagellar buckling occurs above a critical flexibility relative to the swimmer's torque input. This renders straight swimming ineffective, though not necessarily undesirable in practice. Simulations with multiple flagella show bundling may partially stabilize the buckling effect. For a single flagellum or single bundle, we define a parameter space of characteristic angles tracking the overall time-averaged shape of the swimmer while also delineating stability boundaries between different modes of buckling. Ultimately our results may provide insight on how swimmers move through complex environments and how to design microrobotic swimmers for specific applications. NHS, GERS.

Environmental performances of coproducts. Application of Claiming-Based Allocation models to straw and vetiver biorefineries in an Indian context.

PubMed

Gnansounou, Edgard; Raman, Jegannathan Kenthorai

2018-04-24

Among the renewables, non-food and wastelands based biofuels are essential for the transport sector to achieve country's climate mitigation targets. With the growing interest in biorefineries, setting policy requirements for other coproducts along with biofuels is necessary to improve the products portfolio of biorefinery, increase the bioproducts perception by the consumers and push the technology forward. Towards this context, Claiming-Based allocation models were used in comparative life cycle assessment of multiple products from wheat straw biorefinery and vetiver biorefinery. Vetiver biorefinery shows promising Greenhouse gas emission savings (181-213%) compared to the common crop based lignocellulose (wheat straw) biorefinery. Assistance of Claiming-Based Allocation models favors to find out the affordable allocation limit (0-80%) among the coproducts in order to achieve the individual prospective policy targets. Such models show promising application in multiproduct life cycle assessment studies where appropriate allocation is challenging to achieve the individual products emission subject to policy targets. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ions doped melanin nanoparticle as a multiple imaging agent.

PubMed

Ha, Shin-Woo; Cho, Hee-Sang; Yoon, Young Il; Jang, Moon-Sun; Hong, Kwan Soo; Hui, Emmanuel; Lee, Jung Hee; Yoon, Tae-Jong

2017-10-10

Multimodal nanomaterials are useful for providing enhanced diagnostic information simultaneously for a variety of in vivo imaging methods. According to our research findings, these multimodal nanomaterials offer promising applications for cancer therapy. Melanin nanoparticles can be used as a platform imaging material and they can be simply produced by complexation with various imaging active ions. They are capable of specifically targeting epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-expressing cancer cells by being anchored with a specific antibody. Ion-doped melanin nanoparticles were found to have high bioavailability with long-term stability in solution, without any cytotoxicity in both in vitro and in vivo systems. By combining different imaging modalities with melanin particles, we can use the complexes to obtain faster diagnoses by computed tomography deep-body imaging and greater detailed pathological diagnostic information by magnetic resonance imaging. The ion-doped melanin nanoparticles also have applications for radio-diagnostic treatment and radio imaging-guided surgery, warranting further proof of concept experimental.

Scaling laws and accurate small-amplitude stationary solution for the motion of a planar vortex filament in the Cartesian form of the local induction approximation.

PubMed

Van Gorder, Robert A

2013-04-01

We provide a formulation of the local induction approximation (LIA) for the motion of a vortex filament in the Cartesian reference frame (the extrinsic coordinate system) which allows for scaling of the reference coordinate. For general monotone scalings of the reference coordinate, we derive an equation for the planar solution to the derivative nonlinear Schrödinger equation governing the LIA. We proceed to solve this equation perturbatively in small amplitude through an application of multiple-scales analysis, which allows for accurate computation of the period of the planar vortex filament. The perturbation result is shown to agree strongly with numerical simulations, and we also relate this solution back to the solution obtained in the arclength reference frame (the intrinsic coordinate system). Finally, we discuss nonmonotone coordinate scalings and their application for finding self-intersections of vortex filaments. These self-intersecting vortex filaments are likely unstable and collapse into other structures or dissipate completely.

Threshold concepts in finance: conceptualizing the curriculum

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hoadley, Susan; Tickle, Leonie; Wood, Leigh N.; Kyng, Tim

2015-08-01

Graduates with well-developed capabilities in finance are invaluable to our society and in increasing demand. Universities face the challenge of designing finance programmes to develop these capabilities and the essential knowledge that underpins them. Our research responds to this challenge by identifying threshold concepts that are central to the mastery of finance and by exploring their potential for informing curriculum design and pedagogical practices to improve student outcomes. In this paper, we report the results of an online survey of finance academics at multiple institutions in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom. The outcomes of our research are recommendations for threshold concepts in finance endorsed by quantitative evidence, as well as a model of the finance curriculum incorporating finance, modelling and statistics threshold concepts. In addition, we draw conclusions about the application of threshold concept theory supported by both quantitative and qualitative evidence. Our methodology and findings have general relevance to the application of threshold concept theory as a means to investigate and inform curriculum design and delivery in higher education.

Cardiac T1 Imaging

PubMed Central

Jerosch-Herold, Michael; Kwong, Raymond Y.

2014-01-01

T1 mapping of the heart has evolved into a valuable tool to evaluate myocardial tissue properties, with or without contrast injection, including assessment of myocardial edema and free water content, extra-cellular volume (expansion), and most recently cardiomyocyte hypertrophy. The MRI pulse sequence techniques developed for these applications have had to address at least two important considerations for cardiac applications: measure magnetization inversion recoveries during cardiac motion with sufficient temporal resolution for the shortest expected T1 values, and, secondly, obtain these measurements within a time during which a patient can comfortably suspend breathing. So-called Look-Locker techniques, and variants thereof, which all sample multiple points of a magnetization recovery after each magnetization preparation have therefore become a mainstay in this field. The rapid pace of advances and new findings based on cardiac T1 mapping for assessment of diffuse fibrosis, or myocardial edema show that these techniques enrich the capabilities of MRI for myocardial tissue profiling, which is arguably unmatched by other cardiac imaging modalities. PMID:24509619

Do siblings always form and evolve simultaneously? Testing the coevality of multiple protostellar systems through SEDs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Murillo, N. M.; van Dishoeck, E. F.; Tobin, J. J.; Fedele, D.

2016-07-01

Context. Multiplicity is common in field stars and among protostellar systems. Models suggest two paths of formation: turbulent fragmentation and protostellar disk fragmentation. Aims: We attempt to find whether or not the coevality frequency of multiple protostellar systems can help to better understand their formation mechanism. The coevality frequency is determined by constraining the relative evolutionary stages of the components in a multiple system. Methods: Spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for known multiple protostars in Perseus were constructed from literature data. Herschel PACS photometric maps were used to sample the peak of the SED for systems with separations ≥7″, a crucial aspect in determining the evolutionary stage of a protostellar system. Inclination effects and the surrounding envelope and outflows were considered to decouple source geometry from evolution. This together with the shape and derived properties from the SED was used to determine each system's coevality as accurately as possible. SED models were used to examine the frequency of non-coevality that is due to geometry. Results: We find a non-coevality frequency of 33 ± 10% from the comparison of SED shapes of resolved multiple systems. Other source parameters suggest a somewhat lower frequency of non-coevality. The frequency of apparent non-coevality that is due to random inclination angle pairings of model SEDs is 17 ± 0.5%. Observations of the outflow of resolved multiple systems do not suggest significant misalignments within multiple systems. Effects of unresolved multiples on the SED shape are also investigated. Conclusions: We find that one-third of the multiple protostellar systems sampled here are non-coeval, which is more than expected from random geometric orientations. The other two-thirds are found to be coeval. Higher order multiples show a tendency to be non-coeval. The frequency of non-coevality found here is most likely due to formation and enhanced by dynamical evolution.

A realistic evaluation: the case of protocol-based care

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background 'Protocol based care' was envisioned by policy makers as a mechanism for delivering on the service improvement agenda in England. Realistic evaluation is an increasingly popular approach, but few published examples exist, particularly in implementation research. To fill this gap, within this paper we describe the application of a realistic evaluation approach to the study of protocol-based care, whilst sharing findings of relevance about standardising care through the use of protocols, guidelines, and pathways. Methods Situated between positivism and relativism, realistic evaluation is concerned with the identification of underlying causal mechanisms, how they work, and under what conditions. Fundamentally it focuses attention on finding out what works, for whom, how, and in what circumstances. Results In this research, we were interested in understanding the relationships between the type and nature of particular approaches to protocol-based care (mechanisms), within different clinical settings (context), and what impacts this resulted in (outcomes). An evidence review using the principles of realist synthesis resulted in a number of propositions, i.e., context, mechanism, and outcome threads (CMOs). These propositions were then 'tested' through multiple case studies, using multiple methods including non-participant observation, interviews, and document analysis through an iterative analysis process. The initial propositions (conjectured CMOs) only partially corresponded to the findings that emerged during analysis. From the iterative analysis process of scrutinising mechanisms, context, and outcomes we were able to draw out some theoretically generalisable features about what works, for whom, how, and what circumstances in relation to the use of standardised care approaches (refined CMOs). Conclusions As one of the first studies to apply realistic evaluation in implementation research, it was a good fit, particularly given the growing emphasis on understanding how context influences evidence-based practice. The strengths and limitations of the approach are considered, including how to operationalise it and some of the challenges. This approach provided a useful interpretive framework with which to make sense of the multiple factors that were simultaneously at play and being observed through various data sources, and for developing explanatory theory about using standardised care approaches in practice. PMID:20504293

Remote sensing and implications for variable-rate application using agricultural aircraft

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thomson, Steven J.; Smith, Lowrey A.; Ray, Jeffrey D.; Zimba, Paul V.

2004-01-01

Aircraft routinely used for agricultural spray application are finding utility for remote sensing. Data obtained from remote sensing can be used for prescription application of pesticides, fertilizers, cotton growth regulators, and water (the latter with the assistance of hyperspectral indices and thermal imaging). Digital video was used to detect weeds in early cotton, and preliminary data were obtained to see if nitrogen status could be detected in early soybeans. Weeds were differentiable from early cotton at very low altitudes (65-m), with the aid of supervised classification algorithms in the ENVI image analysis software. The camera was flown at very low altitude for acceptable pixel resolution. Nitrogen status was not detectable by statistical analysis of digital numbers (DNs) obtained from images, but soybean cultivar differences were statistically discernable (F=26, p=0.01). Spectroradiometer data are being analyzed to identify narrow spectral bands that might aid in selecting camera filters for determination of plant nitrogen status. Multiple camera configurations are proposed to allow vegetative indices to be developed more readily. Both remotely sensed field images and ground data are to be used for decision-making in a proposed variable-rate application system for agricultural aircraft. For this system, prescriptions generated from digital imagery and data will be coupled with GPS-based swath guidance and programmable flow control.

A single-sided representation for the homogeneous Green's function of a unified scalar wave equation.

PubMed

Wapenaar, Kees

2017-06-01

A unified scalar wave equation is formulated, which covers three-dimensional (3D) acoustic waves, 2D horizontally-polarised shear waves, 2D transverse-electric EM waves, 2D transverse-magnetic EM waves, 3D quantum-mechanical waves and 2D flexural waves. The homogeneous Green's function of this wave equation is a combination of the causal Green's function and its time-reversal, such that their singularities at the source position cancel each other. A classical representation expresses this homogeneous Green's function as a closed boundary integral. This representation finds applications in holographic imaging, time-reversed wave propagation and Green's function retrieval by cross correlation. The main drawback of the classical representation in those applications is that it requires access to a closed boundary around the medium of interest, whereas in many practical situations the medium can be accessed from one side only. Therefore, a single-sided representation is derived for the homogeneous Green's function of the unified scalar wave equation. Like the classical representation, this single-sided representation fully accounts for multiple scattering. The single-sided representation has the same applications as the classical representation, but unlike the classical representation it is applicable in situations where the medium of interest is accessible from one side only.

[Influence and correlation of attitude, availability and institutional support to research implementation in nursing practice – results from an exploratory, cross-sectional quantitative study].

PubMed

Haslinger-Baumann, Elisabeth; Lang, Gert; Müller, Gerhard

2015-06-01

The concrete application of research findings in nursing practice is a multidimensional process. In Austria, there are currently no results available that explain the impact of and association with the implementation of research in hospitals. The aim of the study was to investigate influences and relationships of individual attitudes towards research utilization, availability of research results and institutional support of nurses in Austrian hospitals with respect to research application. In a non-experimental quantitative cross-sectional design a multi-centre study (n = 10) was performed in 2011. The sample comprises 178 certified nurses who were interviewed with a survey questionnaire. The multiple regression analysis shows that a positive attitude towards research use (β = 0.388, p < 0.001), the availability of processed research results (β = 0.470, p < 0.001), and an adequate institutional support (β = 0.142, p < 0.050) has a significant influence on the application of research results. The path analysis proves that course attendance in evidence-based nursing has a strong positive influence towards research application (β = 0.464; p < 0.001). Health institutions are, according to legal instructions, called on to make use of the positive attitude and supply supporting measures in order to introduce research results into the daily nursing practice.

Counselor Education Doctoral Students' Experiences with Multiple Roles and Relationships

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dickens, Kristen N.; Ebrahim, Christine H.; Herlihy, Barbara

2016-01-01

Interpretive phenomenological analysis was used to explore 10 counselor education doctoral students' lived experiences with multiple roles and relationships. Four superordinate themes were found: power differential, need for education, transformation, and learning from experiences. Findings revealed that multiple roles and relationships offer…

A "reverse" Maffucci's syndrome: case report and short review of the literature.

PubMed

Matzaroglou, Charalampos; Megas, Panagiotis; Panagiotopoulos, Elias; Notopoulos, Athanasios; Saridis, Alkis; Sourgiadaki, Efrosini; Koumoundourou, Dimitra; Dimakopoulos, Panagiotis

2005-01-01

Maffucci's syndrome is a congenital, non-hereditary mesodermal dysplasia associated with multiple enchondromas and after some years accompanied by hemangiomas. We describe a rare case of "reverse" Maffucci's syndrome in a 42-year-old woman who has suffered from multiple hemangiomas for the last 24 years. The last two years she complained for heel pain. Bone scintigraphic examination showed abnormal findings in the left calcaneal bone. The scintigraphy, radiology and histology findings revealed multiple enchondromas, so the diagnosis was changed into Maffucci's syndrome. After one year, the left calcaneal bone showed sarcomatous transformation.

How Multiple Social Identities Are Related to Creativity.

PubMed

Steffens, Niklas K; Gocłowska, Małgorzata A; Cruwys, Tegan; Galinsky, Adam D

2016-02-01

The present research examined whether possessing multiple social identities (i.e., groups relevant to one's sense of self) is associated with creativity. In Study 1, the more identities individuals reported having, the more names they generated for a new commercial product (i.e., greater idea fluency). In Study 2, multiple identities were associated with greater fluency and originality (mediated by cognitive flexibility, but not by persistence). Study 3 validated these findings using a highly powered sample. We again found that multiple identities increase fluency and originality, and that flexibility (but not persistence) mediated the effect on originality. Study 3 also ruled out several alternative explanations (self-affirmation, novelty seeking, and generalized persistence). Across all studies, the findings were robust to controlling for personality, and there was no evidence of a curvilinear relationship between multiple identities and creativity. These results suggest that possessing multiple social identities is associated with enhanced creativity via cognitive flexibility. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

44 CFR 152.3 - Availability of funds.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... HOMELAND SECURITY FIRE PREVENTION AND CONTROL ASSISTANCE TO FIREFIGHTERS GRANT PROGRAM § 152.3 Availability... can submit more than one application per fiscal year. Applicants that submit multiple applications will have each of their applications deemed ineligible. (d) The scoring of the applications will...

Non-Financial Conflicts of Interest in Academic Grant Evaluation: A Qualitative Study of Multiple Stakeholders in France

PubMed Central

Abdoul, Hendy; Perrey, Christophe; Tubach, Florence; Amiel, Philippe; Durand-Zaleski, Isabelle; Alberti, Corinne

2012-01-01

Background Peer review is the most widely used method for evaluating grant applications in clinical research. Criticisms of peer review include lack of equity, suspicion of biases, and conflicts of interest (CoI). CoIs raise questions of fairness, transparency, and trust in grant allocation. Few observational studies have assessed these issues. We report the results of a qualitative study on reviewers’ and applicants’ perceptions and experiences of CoIs in reviews of French academic grant applications. Methodology and Principal Findings We designed a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews and direct observation. We asked members of assessment panels, external reviewers, and applicants to participate in semi-structured interviews. Two independent researchers conducted in-depth reviews and line-by-line coding of all transcribed interviews, which were also subjected to Tropes® software text analysis, to detect and qualify themes associated with CoIs. Most participants (73/98) spontaneously reported that non-financial CoIs predominated over financial CoIs. Non-financial CoIs mainly involved rivalry among disciplines, cronyism, and geographic and academic biases. However, none of the participants challenged the validity of peer review. Reviewers who felt they might be affected by CoIs said they reacted in a variety of ways: routine refusal to review, routine attempt to conduct an impartial review, or decision on a case-by-case basis. Multiple means of managing non-financial CoIs were suggested, including increased transparency throughout the review process, with public disclosure of non-financial CoIs, and careful selection of independent reviewers, including foreign experts and methodologists. Conclusions Our study underscores the importance of considering non-financial CoIs when reviewing research grant applications, in addition to financial CoIs. Specific measures are needed to prevent a negative impact of non-financial CoIs on the fairness of resource allocation. Whether and how public disclosure of non-financial CoIs should be accomplished remains debatable. PMID:22496913

[DIFFERENT APPROACHES FOR CHEMICAL RISK ASSESSMENT IN LABORATORIES].

PubMed

Caporossi, Lidia; Papaleo, Bruno; Capanna, Silvia; Calicchia, Sara; Marcellini, Laura; De Rosa, Mariangela; Castellano, Paola

2015-01-01

The aim of this study was to compare the different approaches used for chemical risk assessment, in relation to the perception of riskfor operators, in some research laboratories of a hospital in Rome. All information regarding the chemicals used for the application of three algorithmic models for chemical risk assessment ("Movarisch", "Inforisk", "Archimede") were collected. An environmental and biological monitoring and a study on the combined exposure to multiple chemicals using the World Health Organization proposed steps were carried out. A questionnaire was prepared for the identification of risk perception. An estimation of chemical risk with algorithms was compared with data from monitoring: findings showed that estimated risk was higher than those identified with airborne or urine concentrations, always under their limit values. The study of multiple exposure showed a possible cumulative risk, in some cases, but the conditions of use (volume and time) often bring to a reduced one. The perception of risk attributed to the monitored hazardous substances showed a correct perception in all laboratories and for all workers, with regard to the substances manipulated.

Hierarchical Feedback Modules and Reaction Hubs in Cell Signaling Networks

PubMed Central

Xu, Jianfeng; Lan, Yueheng

2015-01-01

Despite much effort, identification of modular structures and study of their organizing and functional roles remain a formidable challenge in molecular systems biology, which, however, is essential in reaching a systematic understanding of large-scale cell regulation networks and hence gaining capacity of exerting effective interference to cell activity. Combining graph theoretic methods with available dynamics information, we successfully retrieved multiple feedback modules of three important signaling networks. These feedbacks are structurally arranged in a hierarchical way and dynamically produce layered temporal profiles of output signals. We found that global and local feedbacks act in very different ways and on distinct features of the information flow conveyed by signal transduction but work highly coordinately to implement specific biological functions. The redundancy embodied with multiple signal-relaying channels and feedback controls bestow great robustness and the reaction hubs seated at junctions of different paths announce their paramount importance through exquisite parameter management. The current investigation reveals intriguing general features of the organization of cell signaling networks and their relevance to biological function, which may find interesting applications in analysis, design and control of bio-networks. PMID:25951347

Analysis of transmission through slit and multiple grooves structures for biosensors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Bong Ho; Nakarmi, Bikash; Won, Yong Hyub

2015-03-01

We analyze the transmission property of nanostructures made on silver and gold metal for the applications in optical biosensors. Various structures such as slit only, slit groove slit, and multiple slit and groove structures are taken into account to find the effect of various physical parameters such as number of grooves, number of slits and others on the transmission of different wavelength light sources through the structure. A broad wavelength of 400 nm to 900 nm is used to analyze the transmission through the structure. With these structures and broad light source, change in transmission intensity is analyzed with the change in the refractive index. The change in refractive index of the analyte varies transmission intensity and wavelength shift at the output beam which can be used for sensing the amount of analyte such as monitoring glucose amount on blood/saliva, hydrogen peroxide and others. The detection of these analytes can be used to detect the different disease. The analysis of the transmittance through the nanostructure can be used for the detection of several disease such as diabetes and others through the saliva, blood and others non-invasively.

Mercury and methylmercury stream concentrations in a Coastal Plain watershed: a multi-scale simulation analysis.

PubMed

Knightes, C D; Golden, H E; Journey, C A; Davis, G M; Conrads, P A; Marvin-DiPasquale, M; Brigham, M E; Bradley, P M

2014-04-01

Mercury is a ubiquitous global environmental toxicant responsible for most US fish advisories. Processes governing mercury concentrations in rivers and streams are not well understood, particularly at multiple spatial scales. We investigate how insights gained from reach-scale mercury data and model simulations can be applied at broader watershed scales using a spatially and temporally explicit watershed hydrology and biogeochemical cycling model, VELMA. We simulate fate and transport using reach-scale (0.1 km(2)) study data and evaluate applications to multiple watershed scales. Reach-scale VELMA parameterization was applied to two nested sub-watersheds (28 km(2) and 25 km(2)) and the encompassing watershed (79 km(2)). Results demonstrate that simulated flow and total mercury concentrations compare reasonably to observations at different scales, but simulated methylmercury concentrations are out-of-phase with observations. These findings suggest that intricacies of methylmercury biogeochemical cycling and transport are under-represented in VELMA and underscore the complexity of simulating mercury fate and transport. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Big Data Processing for a Central Texas Groundwater Case Study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cantu, A.; Rivera, O.; Martínez, A.; Lewis, D. H.; Gentle, J. N., Jr.; Fuentes, G.; Pierce, S. A.

2016-12-01

As computational methods improve, scientists are able to expand the level and scale of experimental simulation and testing that is completed for case studies. This study presents a comparative analysis of multiple models for the Barton Springs segment of the Edwards aquifer. Several numerical simulations using state-mandated MODFLOW models ran on Stampede, a High Performance Computing system housed at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, were performed for multiple scenario testing. One goal of this multidisciplinary project aims to visualize and compare the output data of the groundwater model using the statistical programming language R to find revealing data patterns produced by different pumping scenarios. Presenting data in a friendly post-processing format is covered in this paper. Visualization of the data and creating workflows applicable to the management of the data are tasks performed after data extraction. Resulting analyses provide an example of how supercomputing can be used to accelerate evaluation of scientific uncertainty and geological knowledge in relation to policy and management decisions. Understanding the aquifer behavior helps policy makers avoid negative impact on the endangered species, environmental services and aids in maximizing the aquifer yield.

Electron transport in graphene/graphene side-contact junction by plane-wave multiple-scattering method

DOE PAGES

Li, Xiang-Guo; Chu, Iek-Heng; Zhang, X. -G.; ...

2015-05-28

Electron transport in graphene is along the sheet but junction devices are often made by stacking different sheets together in a “side-contact” geometry which causes the current to flow perpendicular to the sheets within the device. Such geometry presents a challenge to first-principles transport methods. We solve this problem by implementing a plane-wave-based multiple-scattering theory for electron transport. In this study, this implementation improves the computational efficiency over the existing plane-wave transport code, scales better for parallelization over large number of nodes, and does not require the current direction to be along a lattice axis. As a first application, wemore » calculate the tunneling current through a side-contact graphene junction formed by two separate graphene sheets with the edges overlapping each other. We find that transport properties of this junction depend strongly on the AA or AB stacking within the overlapping region as well as the vacuum gap between two graphene sheets. Finally, such transport behaviors are explained in terms of carbon orbital orientation, hybridization, and delocalization as the geometry is varied.« less

Selective extraction and enrichment of multiphosphorylated peptides using polyarginine-coated diamond nanoparticles.

PubMed

Chang, Chia-Kai; Wu, Chih-Che; Wang, Yi-Sheng; Chang, Huan-Cheng

2008-05-15

Despite recent advances in phosphopeptide research, detection and characterization of multiply phosphorylated peptides have been a challenge. This work presents a new strategy that not only can effectively extract phosphorylated peptides from complex samples but also can selectively enrich multiphosphorylated peptides for direct matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometric analysis. Polyarginine-coated diamond nanoparticles are the solid-phase extraction supports used for this purpose. The supports show an exceptionally high affinity for multiphosphorylated peptides due to multiple arginine-phosphate interactions. The efficacy of this method was demonstrated by analyzing a small volume (50 microL) of tryptic digests of proteins such as beta-casein, alpha-casein, and nonfat milk at a concentration as low as 1 x 10 (-9) M. The concentration is markedly lower than that can be achieved by using other currently available technologies. We quantified the enhanced selectivity and detection sensitivity of the method using mixtures composed of mono- and tetraphosphorylated peptide standards. This new affinity-based protocol is expected to find useful applications in characterizing multiple phosphorylation sites on proteins of interest in complex and dilute analytes.

Fourier analysis of blazar variability

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Finke, Justin D.; Becker, Peter A., E-mail: justin.finke@nrl.navy.mil

Blazars display strong variability on multiple timescales and in multiple radiation bands. Their variability is often characterized by power spectral densities (PSDs) and time lags plotted as functions of the Fourier frequency. We develop a new theoretical model based on the analysis of the electron transport (continuity) equation, carried out in the Fourier domain. The continuity equation includes electron cooling and escape, and a derivation of the emission properties includes light travel time effects associated with a radiating blob in a relativistic jet. The model successfully reproduces the general shapes of the observed PSDs and predicts specific PSD and timemore » lag behaviors associated with variability in the synchrotron, synchrotron self-Compton, and external Compton emission components, from submillimeter to γ-rays. We discuss applications to BL Lacertae objects and to flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs), where there are hints that some of the predicted features have already been observed. We also find that FSRQs should have steeper γ-ray PSD power-law indices than BL Lac objects at Fourier frequencies ≲ 10{sup –4} Hz, in qualitative agreement with previously reported observations by the Fermi Large Area Telescope.« less

Differential Characteristics Based Iterative Multiuser Detection for Wireless Sensor Networks

PubMed Central

Chen, Xiaoguang; Jiang, Xu; Wu, Zhilu; Zhuang, Shufeng

2017-01-01

High throughput, low latency and reliable communication has always been a hot topic for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in various applications. Multiuser detection is widely used to suppress the bad effect of multiple access interference in WSNs. In this paper, a novel multiuser detection method based on differential characteristics is proposed to suppress multiple access interference. The proposed iterative receive method consists of three stages. Firstly, a differential characteristics function is presented based on the optimal multiuser detection decision function; then on the basis of differential characteristics, a preliminary threshold detection is utilized to find the potential wrongly received bits; after that an error bit corrector is employed to correct the wrong bits. In order to further lower the bit error ratio (BER), the differential characteristics calculation, threshold detection and error bit correction process described above are iteratively executed. Simulation results show that after only a few iterations the proposed multiuser detection method can achieve satisfactory BER performance. Besides, BER and near far resistance performance are much better than traditional suboptimal multiuser detection methods. Furthermore, the proposed iterative multiuser detection method also has a large system capacity. PMID:28212328

Network neighborhood analysis with the multi-node topological overlap measure.

PubMed

Li, Ai; Horvath, Steve

2007-01-15

The goal of neighborhood analysis is to find a set of genes (the neighborhood) that is similar to an initial 'seed' set of genes. Neighborhood analysis methods for network data are important in systems biology. If individual network connections are susceptible to noise, it can be advantageous to define neighborhoods on the basis of a robust interconnectedness measure, e.g. the topological overlap measure. Since the use of multiple nodes in the seed set may lead to more informative neighborhoods, it can be advantageous to define multi-node similarity measures. The pairwise topological overlap measure is generalized to multiple network nodes and subsequently used in a recursive neighborhood construction method. A local permutation scheme is used to determine the neighborhood size. Using four network applications and a simulated example, we provide empirical evidence that the resulting neighborhoods are biologically meaningful, e.g. we use neighborhood analysis to identify brain cancer related genes. An executable Windows program and tutorial for multi-node topological overlap measure (MTOM) based analysis can be downloaded from the webpage (http://www.genetics.ucla.edu/labs/horvath/MTOM/).

A multichannel model for the self-consistent analysis of coherent transport in graphene nanoribbons.

PubMed

Mencarelli, Davide; Pierantoni, Luca; Farina, Marco; Di Donato, Andrea; Rozzi, Tullio

2011-08-23

In this contribution, we analyze the multichannel coherent transport in graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) by a scattering matrix approach. We consider the transport properties of GNR devices of a very general form, involving multiple bands and multiple leads. The 2D quantum transport over the whole GNR surface, described by the Schrödinger equation, is strongly nonlinear as it implies calculation of self-generated and externally applied electrostatic potentials, solutions of the 3D Poisson equation. The surface charge density is computed as a balance of carriers traveling through the channel at all of the allowed energies. Moreover, formation of bound charges corresponding to a discrete modal spectrum is observed and included in the model. We provide simulation examples by considering GNR configurations typical for transistor devices and GNR protrusions that find an interesting application as cold cathodes for X-ray generation. With reference to the latter case, a unified model is required in order to couple charge transport and charge emission. However, to a first approximation, these could be considered as independent problems, as in the example. © 2011 American Chemical Society

Synthesis of multiple shaped beam antenna patterns

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stutzman, W. L.; Coffey, E. L.

1973-01-01

Results are presented of research into the problem of finding an excitation of a given antenna such that the desired radiation pattern is approximated to within acceptable limits. This is to be done in such a fashion that boundary conditions involving hardware limitations may be inserted into the problem. The intended application is synthesis of multiple shaped beam antennas. Since this is perhaps the most difficult synthesis problem an antenna engineer is likely to encounter, the approach taken was to include as a by-product capability for synthesizing simpler patterns. The synthesis technique has been almost totally computerized. The class of antennas which may be synthesized with the computer program are those which may be represented as planar (continuous or discrete) current distributions. The technique is not limited in this sense and could indeed by extended to include, for example, the synthesis of conformal arrays or current distributions on the surface of reflectors. The antenna types which the program is set up to synthesize are: line source, rectangular aperture, circular aperture, linear array, rectangular array, and arbitrary planar array.

The introduction and evaluation of mobile devices to improve access to patient records: a catalyst for innovation and collaboration at BCCA.

PubMed

Wu, Jonn; Waldron, John; Hood, Shaina; Kahnamelli, Adam; Khan, Mohamed; Barnett, Jeff; French, John; Slager, Stacey; Melhem, Shadi; Shabestari, Omid

2013-01-01

Prompt and efficient access to patient records is vital in providing optimal patient care. The Cancer Agency Information System (CAIS) is the primary patient record repository for the British Columbia Cancer Agency (BCCA) but is only accessible on traditional computer workstations. The BCCA clinics have significant space limitations resulting in multiple health care professionals sharing each workstation. Furthermore, workstations are not available in examination rooms. A novel and cost efficient solution is necessary to improve clinician access to CAIS. This prompted the BCCA and IMITS to embark on an innovative provincial collaboration to introduce and evaluate the impact of a mobile device to improve access to CAIS. The project consisted of 2 phases with over 50 participants from multiple clinical disciplines across BCCA sites. Phase I evaluated the adoptability, effectiveness and costs associated with providing access to CAIS using a generic viewer (Citrix). Phase II incorporated the feedback and findings from Phase I to make available a customized mobile device-specific application. Phase II also addressed privacy and security requirements.

Merging colloidal nanoplasmonics and surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy for enhanced profiling of multiple myeloma-derived exosomes.

PubMed

Di Noto, Giuseppe; Bugatti, Antonella; Zendrini, Andrea; Mazzoldi, Elena Laura; Montanelli, Alessandro; Caimi, Luigi; Rusnati, Marco; Ricotta, Doris; Bergese, Paolo

2016-03-15

A novel approach for sorting exosomes from multiple myeloma (MM), monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) and healthy individuals is presented. The method is based on the combination of colloidal gold nanoplasmonics and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensing and probes distinctive colloidal properties of MM-derived exosomes, such as molar concentration and cell membrane binding preferences. It allowed to discover that MM patients produce about four folds more exosomes than MGUS and healthy individuals. In addition, it showed that among the analyzed exosomes, only the MM-derived ones bind heparin - a structural analog of heparan sulfate proteoglycans known to mediate exosome endocytosis - with an apparent dissociation constant (Kd) equal to about 1 nM, indicating a high affinity binding. This plasmonic method complements the classical biochemical profiling approach to exosomes, expanding the MM biomarker panel and adding biosensors to the toolbox to diagnose MM. It may find applications for other diseases and has wider interest for fundamental and translational research involving exosomes. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Reinterpreting the Anomalous Mole Fraction Effect: The Ryanodine Receptor Case Study

PubMed Central

Gillespie, Dirk; Giri, Janhavi; Fill, Michael

2009-01-01

Abstract The origin of the anomalous mole fraction effect (AMFE) in calcium channels is explored with a model of the ryanodine receptor. This model predicted and experiments verified new AMFEs in the cardiac isoform. In mole fraction experiments, conductance is measured in mixtures of ion species X and Y as their relative amounts (mole fractions) vary. This curve can have a minimum (an AMFE). The traditional interpretation of the AMFE is that multiple interacting ions move through the pore in a single file. Mole fraction curves without minima (no AMFEs) are generally interpreted as X displacing Y from the pore in a proportion larger than its bath mole fraction (preferential selectivity). We find that the AMFE is also caused by preferential selectivity of X over Y, if X and Y have similar conductances. This is a prediction applicable to any channel and provides a fundamentally different explanation of the AMFE that does not require single filing or multiple occupancy: preferential selectivity causes the resistances to current flow in the baths, channel vestibules, and selectivity filter to change differently with mole fraction, and produce the AMFE. PMID:19843453

A standardized mean difference effect size for multiple baseline designs across individuals.

PubMed

Hedges, Larry V; Pustejovsky, James E; Shadish, William R

2013-12-01

Single-case designs are a class of research methods for evaluating treatment effects by measuring outcomes repeatedly over time while systematically introducing different condition (e.g., treatment and control) to the same individual. The designs are used across fields such as behavior analysis, clinical psychology, special education, and medicine. Emerging standards for single-case designs have focused attention on methods for summarizing and meta-analyzing findings and on the need for effect sizes indices that are comparable to those used in between-subjects designs. In the previous work, we discussed how to define and estimate an effect size that is directly comparable to the standardized mean difference often used in between-subjects research based on the data from a particular type of single-case design, the treatment reversal or (AB)(k) design. This paper extends the effect size measure to another type of single-case study, the multiple baseline design. We propose estimation methods for the effect size and its variance, study the estimators using simulation, and demonstrate the approach in two applications. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Using complexity science and negotiation theory to resolve boundary-crossing water issues

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Islam, Shafiqul; Susskind, Lawrence

2018-07-01

Many water governance and management issues are complex. The complexity of these issues is related to crossing of multiple boundaries: political, social and jurisdictional, as well as physical, ecological and biogeochemical. Resolution of these issues usually requires interactions of many parties with conflicting values and interests operating across multiple boundaries and scales to make decisions. The interdependence and feedback among interacting variables, processes, actors and institutions are hard to model and difficult to forecast. Thus, decision-making related to complex water problems needs be contingent and adaptive. This paper draws on a number of ideas from complexity science and negotiation theory that may make it easier to cope with the complexities and difficulties of managing boundary crossing water disputes. It begins with the Water Diplomacy Framework that was developed and tested over the past several years. Then, it uses three key ideas from complexity science (interdependence and interconnectedness; uncertainty and feedback; emergence and adaptation) and three from negotiation theory (stakeholder identification and engagement; joint fact finding; and value creation through option generation) to show how application of these ideas can help enhance effectiveness of water management.

Multiagent Work Practice Simulation: Progress and Challenges

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Clancey, William J.; Sierhuis, Maarten; Shaffe, Michael G. (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

Modeling and simulating complex human-system interactions requires going beyond formal procedures and information flows to analyze how people interact with each other. Such work practices include conversations, modes of communication, informal assistance, impromptu meetings, workarounds, and so on. To make these social processes visible, we have developed a multiagent simulation tool, called Brahms, for modeling the activities of people belonging to multiple groups, situated in a physical environment (geographic regions, buildings, transport vehicles, etc.) consisting of tools, documents, and a computer system. We are finding many useful applications of Brahms for system requirements analysis, instruction, implementing software agents, and as a workbench for relating cognitive and social theories of human behavior. Many challenges remain for representing work practices, including modeling: memory over multiple days, scheduled activities combining physical objects, groups, and locations on a timeline (such as a Space Shuttle mission), habitat vehicles with trajectories (such as the Shuttle), agent movement in 3D space (e.g., inside the International Space Station), agent posture and line of sight, coupled movements (such as carrying objects), and learning (mimicry, forming habits, detecting repetition, etc.).

Multiagent Work Practice Simulation: Progress and Challenges

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Clancey, William J.; Sierhuis, Maarten

2002-01-01

Modeling and simulating complex human-system interactions requires going beyond formal procedures and information flows to analyze how people interact with each other. Such work practices include conversations, modes of communication, informal assistance, impromptu meetings, workarounds, and so on. To make these social processes visible, we have developed a multiagent simulation tool, called Brahms, for modeling the activities of people belonging to multiple groups, situated in a physical environment (geographic regions, buildings, transport vehicles, etc.) consisting of tools, documents, and computer systems. We are finding many useful applications of Brahms for system requirements analysis, instruction, implementing software agents, and as a workbench for relating cognitive and social theories of human behavior. Many challenges remain for representing work practices, including modeling: memory over multiple days, scheduled activities combining physical objects, groups, and locations on a timeline (such as a Space Shuttle mission), habitat vehicles with trajectories (such as the Shuttle), agent movement in 3d space (e.g., inside the International Space Station), agent posture and line of sight, coupled movements (such as carrying objects), and learning (mimicry, forming habits, detecting repetition, etc.).

Marizomib, a potent second generation proteasome inhibitor from natural origin.

PubMed

Ma, Long; Diao, Aipo

2015-01-01

The malignance of cancers reinforces the need to find potent antineoplastic agents. In the past decades, proteasome has been witnessed as a potential target to fulfil this purpose, as evidenced by the fact that the first-in-class proteasome inhibitor Bortezomib was marketed in 2003. Marizomib (Salinosporamide A, NPI-0052), as a marine natural product, promises to be of high efficacy against multiple myeloma (MM), relapsed/refractory MM and other types of solid tumours. Compared with Bortezomib, it arguably has fewer severe side effects. Marizomib has been termed as orphan drug against multiple myeloma by US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2013 and by European Medicines Agency (EMA) in 2014. As one of the second generation proteasome inhibitors (PIs), Marizomib is expected to bring about a sustained and complete therapeutic to extend cancer patients' life span. In this article, we intended to briefly review the historical developments, mechanisms, pharmacology, biosynthesis and side effects of this agent, aiming to provide concise coverage for a broad readership. In the end, we proposed our perspective for its futuristic applications.

Multiple grid arrangement improves ligand docking with unknown binding sites: Application to the inverse docking problem.

PubMed

Ban, Tomohiro; Ohue, Masahito; Akiyama, Yutaka

2018-04-01

The identification of comprehensive drug-target interactions is important in drug discovery. Although numerous computational methods have been developed over the years, a gold standard technique has not been established. Computational ligand docking and structure-based drug design allow researchers to predict the binding affinity between a compound and a target protein, and thus, they are often used to virtually screen compound libraries. In addition, docking techniques have also been applied to the virtual screening of target proteins (inverse docking) to predict target proteins of a drug candidate. Nevertheless, a more accurate docking method is currently required. In this study, we proposed a method in which a predicted ligand-binding site is covered by multiple grids, termed multiple grid arrangement. Notably, multiple grid arrangement facilitates the conformational search for a grid-based ligand docking software and can be applied to the state-of-the-art commercial docking software Glide (Schrödinger, LLC). We validated the proposed method by re-docking with the Astex diverse benchmark dataset and blind binding site situations, which improved the correct prediction rate of the top scoring docking pose from 27.1% to 34.1%; however, only a slight improvement in target prediction accuracy was observed with inverse docking scenarios. These findings highlight the limitations and challenges of current scoring functions and the need for more accurate docking methods. The proposed multiple grid arrangement method was implemented in Glide by modifying a cross-docking script for Glide, xglide.py. The script of our method is freely available online at http://www.bi.cs.titech.ac.jp/mga_glide/. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

A group LASSO-based method for robustly inferring gene regulatory networks from multiple time-course datasets.

PubMed

Liu, Li-Zhi; Wu, Fang-Xiang; Zhang, Wen-Jun

2014-01-01

As an abstract mapping of the gene regulations in the cell, gene regulatory network is important to both biological research study and practical applications. The reverse engineering of gene regulatory networks from microarray gene expression data is a challenging research problem in systems biology. With the development of biological technologies, multiple time-course gene expression datasets might be collected for a specific gene network under different circumstances. The inference of a gene regulatory network can be improved by integrating these multiple datasets. It is also known that gene expression data may be contaminated with large errors or outliers, which may affect the inference results. A novel method, Huber group LASSO, is proposed to infer the same underlying network topology from multiple time-course gene expression datasets as well as to take the robustness to large error or outliers into account. To solve the optimization problem involved in the proposed method, an efficient algorithm which combines the ideas of auxiliary function minimization and block descent is developed. A stability selection method is adapted to our method to find a network topology consisting of edges with scores. The proposed method is applied to both simulation datasets and real experimental datasets. It shows that Huber group LASSO outperforms the group LASSO in terms of both areas under receiver operating characteristic curves and areas under the precision-recall curves. The convergence analysis of the algorithm theoretically shows that the sequence generated from the algorithm converges to the optimal solution of the problem. The simulation and real data examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the Huber group LASSO in integrating multiple time-course gene expression datasets and improving the resistance to large errors or outliers.

Enlisting User Community Perspectives to Inform Development of a Semantic Web Application for Discovery of Cross-Institutional Research Information and Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Johns, E. M.; Mayernik, M. S.; Boler, F. M.; Corson-Rikert, J.; Daniels, M. D.; Gross, M. B.; Khan, H.; Maull, K. E.; Rowan, L. R.; Stott, D.; Williams, S.; Krafft, D. B.

2015-12-01

Researchers seek information and data through a variety of avenues: published literature, search engines, repositories, colleagues, etc. In order to build a web application that leverages linked open data to enable multiple paths for information discovery, the EarthCollab project has surveyed two geoscience user communities to consider how researchers find and share scholarly output. EarthCollab, a cross-institutional, EarthCube funded project partnering UCAR, Cornell University, and UNAVCO, is employing the open-source semantic web software, VIVO, as the underlying technology to connect the people and resources of virtual research communities. This study will present an analysis of survey responses from members of the two case study communities: (1) the Bering Sea Project, an interdisciplinary field program whose data archive is hosted by NCAR's Earth Observing Laboratory (EOL), and (2) UNAVCO, a geodetic facility and consortium that supports diverse research projects informed by geodesy. The survey results illustrate the types of research products that respondents indicate should be discoverable within a digital platform and the current methods used to find publications, data, personnel, tools, and instrumentation. The responses showed that scientists rely heavily on general purpose search engines, such as Google, to find information, but that data center websites and the published literature were also critical sources for finding collaborators, data, and research tools.The survey participants also identify additional features of interest for an information platform such as search engine indexing, connection to institutional web pages, generation of bibliographies and CVs, and outward linking to social media. Through the survey, the user communities prioritized the type of information that is most important to display and describe their work within a research profile. The analysis of this survey will inform our further development of a platform that will facilitate different types of information discovery strategies, and help researchers to find and use the associated resources of a research project.

Simulated bi-SQUID Arrays Performing Direction Finding

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-09-01

First, we applied the multiple signal classification ( MUSIC ) algorithm on linearly polarized signals. We included multiple signals in the output...both of the same frequency and different fre- quencies. Next, we explored a modified MUSIC algorithm called dimensionality reduction MUSIC (DR- MUSIC ... MUSIC algorithm is able to determine the AoA from the simulated SQUID data for linearly polarized signals. The MUSIC algorithm could accurately find

Finding Multiple Internal Rates of Return for a Project with Non-Conventional Cash Flows: Utilizing Popular Financial/Graphing Calculators and Spreadsheet Software

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chen, Jeng-Hong

2008-01-01

This study demonstrates that a popular graphing calculator among students, TI-83 Plus, has a powerful function to draw the NPV profile and find the accurate multiple IRRs for a project with non-conventional cash flows. However, finance textbooks or related supplementary materials do not provide students instructions for this part. The detailed…

Identifying multiple influential spreaders based on generalized closeness centrality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Huan-Li; Ma, Chuang; Xiang, Bing-Bing; Tang, Ming; Zhang, Hai-Feng

2018-02-01

To maximize the spreading influence of multiple spreaders in complex networks, one important fact cannot be ignored: the multiple spreaders should be dispersively distributed in networks, which can effectively reduce the redundance of information spreading. For this purpose, we define a generalized closeness centrality (GCC) index by generalizing the closeness centrality index to a set of nodes. The problem converts to how to identify multiple spreaders such that an objective function has the minimal value. By comparing with the K-means clustering algorithm, we find that the optimization problem is very similar to the problem of minimizing the objective function in the K-means method. Therefore, how to find multiple nodes with the highest GCC value can be approximately solved by the K-means method. Two typical transmission dynamics-epidemic spreading process and rumor spreading process are implemented in real networks to verify the good performance of our proposed method.

Resampling probability values for weighted kappa with multiple raters.

PubMed

Mielke, Paul W; Berry, Kenneth J; Johnston, Janis E

2008-04-01

A new procedure to compute weighted kappa with multiple raters is described. A resampling procedure to compute approximate probability values for weighted kappa with multiple raters is presented. Applications of weighted kappa are illustrated with an example analysis of classifications by three independent raters.

Student certainty answering misconception question: study of Three-Tier Multiple-Choice Diagnostic Test in Acid-Base and Solubility Equilibrium

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ardiansah; Masykuri, M.; Rahardjo, S. B.

2018-04-01

Students’ concept comprehension in three-tier multiple-choice diagnostic test related to student confidence level. The confidence level related to certainty and student’s self-efficacy. The purpose of this research was to find out students’ certainty in misconception test. This research was quantitative-qualitative research method counting students’ confidence level. The research participants were 484 students that were studying acid-base and equilibrium solubility subject. Data was collected using three-tier multiple-choice (3TMC) with thirty questions and students’ questionnaire. The findings showed that #6 item gives the highest misconception percentage and high student confidence about the counting of ultra-dilute solution’s pH. Other findings were that 1) the student tendency chosen the misconception answer is to increase over item number, 2) student certainty decreased in terms of answering the 3TMC, and 3) student self-efficacy and achievement were related each other in the research. The findings suggest some implications and limitations for further research.

Towards first principle medical diagnostics: on the importance of disease-disease and sign-sign interactions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ramezanpour, Abolfazl; Mashaghi, Alireza

2017-07-01

A fundamental problem in medicine and biology is to assign states, e.g. healthy or diseased, to cells, organs or individuals. State assignment or making a diagnosis is often a nontrivial and challenging process and, with the advent of omics technologies, the diagnostic challenge is becoming more and more serious. The challenge lies not only in the increasing number of measured properties and dynamics of the system (e.g. cell or human body) but also in the co-evolution of multiple states and overlapping properties, and degeneracy of states. We develop, from first principles, a generic rational framework for state assignment in cell biology and medicine, and demonstrate its applicability with a few simple theoretical case studies from medical diagnostics. We show how disease-related statistical information can be used to build a comprehensive model that includes the relevant dependencies between clinical and laboratory findings (signs) and diseases. In particular, we include disease-disease and sign-sign interactions and study how one can infer the probability of a disease in a patient with given signs. We perform comparative analysis with simple benchmark models to check the performances of our models. We find that including interactions can significantly change the statistical importance of the signs and diseases. This first principles approach, as we show, facilitates the early diagnosis of disease by taking interactions into accounts, and enables the construction of consensus diagnostic flow charts. Additionally, we envision that our approach will find applications in systems biology, and in particular, in characterizing the phenome via the metabolome, the proteome, the transcriptome, and the genome.

Inferring the mode of origin of polyploid species from next-generation sequence data.

PubMed

Roux, Camille; Pannell, John R

2015-03-01

Many eukaryote organisms are polyploid. However, despite their importance, evolutionary inference of polyploid origins and modes of inheritance has been limited by a need for analyses of allele segregation at multiple loci using crosses. The increasing availability of sequence data for nonmodel species now allows the application of established approaches for the analysis of genomic data in polyploids. Here, we ask whether approximate Bayesian computation (ABC), applied to realistic traditional and next-generation sequence data, allows correct inference of the evolutionary and demographic history of polyploids. Using simulations, we evaluate the robustness of evolutionary inference by ABC for tetraploid species as a function of the number of individuals and loci sampled, and the presence or absence of an outgroup. We find that ABC adequately retrieves the recent evolutionary history of polyploid species on the basis of both old and new sequencing technologies. The application of ABC to sequence data from diploid and polyploid species of the plant genus Capsella confirms its utility. Our analysis strongly supports an allopolyploid origin of C. bursa-pastoris about 80 000 years ago. This conclusion runs contrary to previous findings based on the same data set but using an alternative approach and is in agreement with recent findings based on whole-genome sequencing. Our results indicate that ABC is a promising and powerful method for revealing the evolution of polyploid species, without the need to attribute alleles to a homeologous chromosome pair. The approach can readily be extended to more complex scenarios involving higher ploidy levels. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Heuristic query optimization for query multiple table and multiple clausa on mobile finance application

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Indrayana, I. N. E.; P, N. M. Wirasyanti D.; Sudiartha, I. KG

2018-01-01

Mobile application allow many users to access data from the application without being limited to space, space and time. Over time the data population of this application will increase. Data access time will cause problems if the data record has reached tens of thousands to millions of records.The objective of this research is to maintain the performance of data execution for large data records. One effort to maintain data access time performance is to apply query optimization method. The optimization used in this research is query heuristic optimization method. The built application is a mobile-based financial application using MySQL database with stored procedure therein. This application is used by more than one business entity in one database, thus enabling rapid data growth. In this stored procedure there is an optimized query using heuristic method. Query optimization is performed on a “Select” query that involves more than one table with multiple clausa. Evaluation is done by calculating the average access time using optimized and unoptimized queries. Access time calculation is also performed on the increase of population data in the database. The evaluation results shown the time of data execution with query heuristic optimization relatively faster than data execution time without using query optimization.

Extending multi-tenant architectures: a database model for a multi-target support in SaaS applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rico, Antonio; Noguera, Manuel; Garrido, José Luis; Benghazi, Kawtar; Barjis, Joseph

2016-05-01

Multi-tenant architectures (MTAs) are considered a cornerstone in the success of Software as a Service as a new application distribution formula. Multi-tenancy allows multiple customers (i.e. tenants) to be consolidated into the same operational system. This way, tenants run and share the same application instance as well as costs, which are significantly reduced. Functional needs vary from one tenant to another; either companies from different sectors run different types of applications or, although deploying the same functionality, they do differ in the extent of their complexity. In any case, MTA leaves one major concern regarding the companies' data, their privacy and security, which requires special attention to the data layer. In this article, we propose an extended data model that enhances traditional MTAs in respect of this concern. This extension - called multi-target - allows MT applications to host, manage and serve multiple functionalities within the same multi-tenant (MT) environment. The practical deployment of this approach will allow SaaS vendors to target multiple markets or address different levels of functional complexity and yet commercialise just one single MT application. The applicability of the approach is demonstrated via a case study of a real multi-tenancy multi-target (MT2) implementation, called Globalgest.

Swarm intelligence in bioinformatics: methods and implementations for discovering patterns of multiple sequences.

PubMed

Cui, Zhihua; Zhang, Yi

2014-02-01

As a promising and innovative research field, bioinformatics has attracted increasing attention recently. Beneath the enormous number of open problems in this field, one fundamental issue is about the accurate and efficient computational methodology that can deal with tremendous amounts of data. In this paper, we survey some applications of swarm intelligence to discover patterns of multiple sequences. To provide a deep insight, ant colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, artificial bee colony and artificial fish swarm algorithm are selected, and their applications to multiple sequence alignment and motif detecting problem are discussed.

Space Shuttle Avionics: a Redundant IMU On-Board Checkout and Redundancy Management System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mckern, R. A.; Brown, D. G.; Dove, D. W.; Gilmore, J. P.; Landey, M. E.; Musoff, H.; Amand, J. S.; Vincent, K. T., Jr.

1972-01-01

A failure detection and isolation philosophy applicable to multiple off-the-shelf gimbaled IMUs are discussed. The equations developed are implemented and evaluated with actual shuttle trajectory simulations. The results of these simulations are presented for both powered and unpowered flight phases and at operational levels of four, three, and two IMUs. A multiple system checkout philosophy is developed and simulation results presented. The final task develops a laboratory test plan and defines the hardware and software requirements to implement an actual multiple system and evaluate the interim study results for space shuttle application.

How Gamification Affects Physical Activity: Large-scale Analysis of Walking Challenges in a Mobile Application

PubMed Central

Shameli, Ali; Althoff, Tim; Saberi, Amin; Leskovec, Jure

2017-01-01

Gamification represents an effective way to incentivize user behavior across a number of computing applications. However, despite the fact that physical activity is essential for a healthy lifestyle, surprisingly little is known about how gamification and in particular competitions shape human physical activity. Here we study how competitions affect physical activity. We focus on walking challenges in a mobile activity tracking application where multiple users compete over who takes the most steps over a predefined number of days. We synthesize our findings in a series of game and app design implications. In particular, we analyze nearly 2,500 physical activity competitions over a period of one year capturing more than 800,000 person days of activity tracking. We observe that during walking competitions, the average user increases physical activity by 23%. Furthermore, there are large increases in activity for both men and women across all ages, and weight status, and even for users that were previously fairly inactive. We also find that the composition of participants greatly affects the dynamics of the game. In particular, if highly unequal participants get matched to each other, then competition suffers and the overall effect on the physical activity drops significantly. Furthermore, competitions with an equal mix of both men and women are more effective in increasing the level of activities. We leverage these insights to develop a statistical model to predict whether or not a competition will be particularly engaging with significant accuracy. Our models can serve as a guideline to help design more engaging competitions that lead to most beneficial behavioral changes. PMID:28990011

How Gamification Affects Physical Activity: Large-scale Analysis of Walking Challenges in a Mobile Application.

PubMed

Shameli, Ali; Althoff, Tim; Saberi, Amin; Leskovec, Jure

2017-04-01

Gamification represents an effective way to incentivize user behavior across a number of computing applications. However, despite the fact that physical activity is essential for a healthy lifestyle, surprisingly little is known about how gamification and in particular competitions shape human physical activity. Here we study how competitions affect physical activity. We focus on walking challenges in a mobile activity tracking application where multiple users compete over who takes the most steps over a predefined number of days. We synthesize our findings in a series of game and app design implications. In particular, we analyze nearly 2,500 physical activity competitions over a period of one year capturing more than 800,000 person days of activity tracking. We observe that during walking competitions, the average user increases physical activity by 23%. Furthermore, there are large increases in activity for both men and women across all ages, and weight status, and even for users that were previously fairly inactive. We also find that the composition of participants greatly affects the dynamics of the game. In particular, if highly unequal participants get matched to each other, then competition suffers and the overall effect on the physical activity drops significantly. Furthermore, competitions with an equal mix of both men and women are more effective in increasing the level of activities. We leverage these insights to develop a statistical model to predict whether or not a competition will be particularly engaging with significant accuracy. Our models can serve as a guideline to help design more engaging competitions that lead to most beneficial behavioral changes.

Plasma Cell Neoplasms (Including Multiple Myeloma)—Patient Version

Cancer.gov

Plasma cell neoplasms occur when abnormal plasma cells form cancerous tumors. When there is only one tumor, the disease is called a plasmacytoma. When there are multiple tumors, it is called multiple myeloma. Start here to find information on plasma cell neoplasms treatment, research, and statistics.

Novel genomic findings in multiple myeloma identified through routine diagnostic sequencing.

PubMed

Ryland, Georgina L; Jones, Kate; Chin, Melody; Markham, John; Aydogan, Elle; Kankanige, Yamuna; Caruso, Marisa; Guinto, Jerick; Dickinson, Michael; Prince, H Miles; Yong, Kwee; Blombery, Piers

2018-05-14

Multiple myeloma is a genomically complex haematological malignancy with many genomic alterations recognised as important in diagnosis, prognosis and therapeutic decision making. Here, we provide a summary of genomic findings identified through routine diagnostic next-generation sequencing at our centre. A cohort of 86 patients with multiple myeloma underwent diagnostic sequencing using a custom hybridisation-based panel targeting 104 genes. Sequence variants, genome-wide copy number changes and structural rearrangements were detected using an inhouse-developed bioinformatics pipeline. At least one mutation was found in 69 (80%) patients. Frequently mutated genes included TP53 (36%), KRAS (22.1%), NRAS (15.1%), FAM46C/DIS3 (8.1%) and TET2/FGFR3 (5.8%), including multiple mutations not previously described in myeloma. Importantly we observed TP53 mutations in the absence of a 17 p deletion in 8% of the cohort, highlighting the need for sequencing-based assessment in addition to cytogenetics to identify these high-risk patients. Multiple novel copy number changes and immunoglobulin heavy chain translocations are also discussed. Our results demonstrate that many clinically relevant genomic findings remain in multiple myeloma which have not yet been identified through large-scale sequencing efforts, and provide important mechanistic insights into plasma cell pathobiology. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

Sensor Compromise Detection in Multiple-Target Tracking Systems

PubMed Central

Doucette, Emily A.; Curtis, Jess W.

2018-01-01

Tracking multiple targets using a single estimator is a problem that is commonly approached within a trusted framework. There are many weaknesses that an adversary can exploit if it gains control over the sensors. Because the number of targets that the estimator has to track is not known with anticipation, an adversary could cause a loss of information or a degradation in the tracking precision. Other concerns include the introduction of false targets, which would result in a waste of computational and material resources, depending on the application. In this work, we study the problem of detecting compromised or faulty sensors in a multiple-target tracker, starting with the single-sensor case and then considering the multiple-sensor scenario. We propose an algorithm to detect a variety of attacks in the multiple-sensor case, via the application of finite set statistics (FISST), one-class classifiers and hypothesis testing using nonparametric techniques. PMID:29466314

Why Is an Application of Multiple Intelligences Theory Important for Language Learning and Teaching Speaking Ability?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boonma, Malai; Phaiboonnugulkij, Malinee

2014-01-01

This article calls for a strong need to propose the theoretical framework of the Multiple Intelligences theory (MI) and provide a suitable answer of the doubt in part of foreign language teaching. The article addresses the application of MI theory following various sources from Howard Gardner and the authors who revised this theory for use in the…

An Exploratory Study on the Application of Multiple Intelligences to MBA Andragogy with Particular Reference to ERP-Controlling Configuration Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gaikwad, Sophia S.; Bharathi, S. Vijayakumar

2018-01-01

The purpose of this study is to elicit the application of Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory to a course taught in the MBA Andragogy. Administered to a sample of 47 students of the first year MBA Information Technology Business Management (ITBM) program at a private university in India the study brought out certain interesting implications.…

76 FR 59456 - ASGI Agility Income Fund, et al.; Notice of Application

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-09-26

... Act of 1940 (the ``Act'') for an exemption from sections 18(c) and 18(i) of the Act and for an order.... Applicants' Legal Analysis: Multiple Classes of Shares 1. Section 18(c) of the Act provides, in relevant part... creation of multiple classes of Shares of the Funds may be prohibited by section 18(c). 2. Section 18(i) of...

Lithographic VCSEL array multimode and single mode sources for sensing and 3D imaging

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leshin, J.; Li, M.; Beadsworth, J.; Yang, X.; Zhang, Y.; Tucker, F.; Eifert, L.; Deppe, D. G.

2016-05-01

Sensing applications along with free space data links can benefit from advanced laser sources that produce novel radiation patterns and tight spectral control for optical filtering. Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) are being developed for these applications. While oxide VCSELs are being produced by most companies, a new type of oxide-free VCSEL is demonstrating many advantages in beam pattern, spectral control, and reliability. These lithographic VCSELs offer increased power density from a given aperture size, and enable dense integration of high efficiency and single mode elements that improve beam pattern. In this paper we present results for lithographic VCSELs and describes integration into military systems for very low cost pulsed applications, as well as continuouswave applications in novel sensing applications. The VCSELs are being developed for U.S. Army for soldier weapon engagement simulation training to improve beam pattern and spectral control. Wavelengths in the 904 nm to 990 nm ranges are being developed with the spectral control designed to eliminate unwanted water absorption bands from the data links. Multiple beams and radiation patterns based on highly compact packages are being investigated for improved target sensing and transmission fidelity in free space data links. These novel features based on the new VCSEL sources are also expected to find applications in 3-D imaging, proximity sensing and motion control, as well as single mode sensors such as atomic clocks and high speed data transmission.

Switching neuronal state: optimal stimuli revealed using a stochastically-seeded gradient algorithm.

PubMed

Chang, Joshua; Paydarfar, David

2014-12-01

Inducing a switch in neuronal state using energy optimal stimuli is relevant to a variety of problems in neuroscience. Analytical techniques from optimal control theory can identify such stimuli; however, solutions to the optimization problem using indirect variational approaches can be elusive in models that describe neuronal behavior. Here we develop and apply a direct gradient-based optimization algorithm to find stimulus waveforms that elicit a change in neuronal state while minimizing energy usage. We analyze standard models of neuronal behavior, the Hodgkin-Huxley and FitzHugh-Nagumo models, to show that the gradient-based algorithm: (1) enables automated exploration of a wide solution space, using stochastically generated initial waveforms that converge to multiple locally optimal solutions; and (2) finds optimal stimulus waveforms that achieve a physiological outcome condition, without a priori knowledge of the optimal terminal condition of all state variables. Analysis of biological systems using stochastically-seeded gradient methods can reveal salient dynamical mechanisms underlying the optimal control of system behavior. The gradient algorithm may also have practical applications in future work, for example, finding energy optimal waveforms for therapeutic neural stimulation that minimizes power usage and diminishes off-target effects and damage to neighboring tissue.

Interference correction by extracting the information of interference dominant regions: Application to near-infrared spectra

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bi, Yiming; Tang, Liang; Shan, Peng; Xie, Qiong; Hu, Yong; Peng, Silong; Tan, Jie; Li, Changwen

2014-08-01

Interference such as baseline drift and light scattering can degrade the model predictability in multivariate analysis of near-infrared (NIR) spectra. Usually interference can be represented by an additive and a multiplicative factor. In order to eliminate these interferences, correction parameters are needed to be estimated from spectra. However, the spectra are often mixed of physical light scattering effects and chemical light absorbance effects, making it difficult for parameter estimation. Herein, a novel algorithm was proposed to find a spectral region automatically that the interesting chemical absorbance and noise are low, that is, finding an interference dominant region (IDR). Based on the definition of IDR, a two-step method was proposed to find the optimal IDR and the corresponding correction parameters estimated from IDR. Finally, the correction was performed to the full spectral range using previously obtained parameters for the calibration set and test set, respectively. The method can be applied to multi target systems with one IDR suitable for all targeted analytes. Tested on two benchmark data sets of near-infrared spectra, the performance of the proposed method provided considerable improvement compared with full spectral estimation methods and comparable with other state-of-art methods.

Analysis and evaluation of the moral distress theory.

PubMed

Wilson, Melissa A

2018-04-01

Moral distress is a pervasive problem in nursing resulting in a detriment to patient care, providers, and organizations. Over a decade ago, the moral distress theory (MDT) was proposed and utilized in multiple research studies. This middle range theory explains and predicts the distress that occurs in a nurse because of moral conflict. The research findings born from this theory have been substantial. Since inception of this theory, moral distress has been extensively examined which has further elaborated its understanding. This paper provides an analysis and evaluation of the MDT according to applicable guidelines. Current understanding of the phenomenon indicates that a new theory may be warranted to better predict, treat, and manage moral distress. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Solution landscapes in nematic microfluidics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Crespo, M.; Majumdar, A.; Ramos, A. M.; Griffiths, I. M.

2017-08-01

We study the static equilibria of a simplified Leslie-Ericksen model for a unidirectional uniaxial nematic flow in a prototype microfluidic channel, as a function of the pressure gradient G and inverse anchoring strength, B. We numerically find multiple static equilibria for admissible pairs (G , B) and classify them according to their winding numbers and stability. The case G = 0 is analytically tractable and we numerically study how the solution landscape is transformed as G increases. We study the one-dimensional dynamical model, the sensitivity of the dynamic solutions to initial conditions and the rate of change of G and B. We provide a physically interesting example of how the time delay between the applications of G and B can determine the selection of the final steady state.

Augmented Virtual Reality Laboratory

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tully-Hanson, Benjamin

2015-01-01

Real time motion tracking hardware has for the most part been cost prohibitive for research to regularly take place until recently. With the release of the Microsoft Kinect in November 2010, researchers now have access to a device that for a few hundred dollars is capable of providing redgreenblue (RGB), depth, and skeleton data. It is also capable of tracking multiple people in real time. For its original intended purposes, i.e. gaming, being used with the Xbox 360 and eventually Xbox One, it performs quite well. However, researchers soon found that although the sensor is versatile, it has limitations in real world applications. I was brought aboard this summer by William Little in the Augmented Virtual Reality (AVR) Lab at Kennedy Space Center to find solutions to these limitations.

MRI correlates of general intelligence in neurotypical adults.

PubMed

Malpas, Charles B; Genc, Sila; Saling, Michael M; Velakoulis, Dennis; Desmond, Patricia M; O'Brien, Terence J

2016-02-01

There is growing interest in the neurobiological substrate of general intelligence. Psychometric estimates of general intelligence are reduced in a range of neurological disorders, leading to practical application as sensitive, but non-specific, markers of cerebral disorder. This study examined estimates of general intelligence in neurotypical adults using diffusion tensor imaging and resting-state functional connectivity analysis. General intelligence was related to white matter organisation across multiple brain regions, confirming previous work in older healthy adults. We also found that variation in general intelligence was related to a large functional sub-network involving all cortical lobes of the brain. These findings confirm that individual variance in general intelligence is related to diffusely represented brain networks. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Public Health Agenda Setting in a Global Context: The International Labor Organization’s Decent Work Agenda

PubMed Central

Cohen, Joanna E.; Cole, Donald C.; Forman, Lisa

2015-01-01

We drew on two agenda-setting theories usually applied at the state or national level to assess their utility at the global level: Kingdon’s multiple streams theory and Baumgartner and Jones’s punctuated equilibrium theory. We illustrate our analysis with findings from a qualitative study of the International Labor Organization’s Decent Work Agenda. We found that both theories help explain the agenda-setting mechanisms that operate in the global context, including how windows of opportunity open and what role institutions play as policy entrepreneurs. Future application of these theories could help characterize power struggles between global actors, whose voices are heard or silenced, and their impact on global policy agenda setting. PMID:25713966

Femtosecond laser structuring of titanium implants

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vorobyev, A. Y.; Guo, Chunlei

2007-06-01

In this study we perform the first femtosecond laser surface treatment of titanium in order to determine the potential of this technology for surface structuring of titanium implants. We find that the femtosecond laser produces a large variety of nanostructures (nanopores, nanoprotrusions) with a size down to 20 nm, multiple parallel grooved surface patterns with a period on the sub-micron level, microroughness in the range of 1-15 μm with various configurations, smooth surface with smooth micro-inhomogeneities, and smooth surface with sphere-like nanostructures down to 10 nm. Also, we have determined the optimal conditions for producing these surface structural modifications. Femtosecond laser treatment can produce a richer variety of surface structures on titanium for implants and other biomedical applications than long-pulse laser treatments.

System optimization on coded aperture spectrometer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Hua; Ding, Quanxin; Wang, Helong; Chen, Hongliang; Guo, Chunjie; Zhou, Liwei

2017-10-01

For aim to find a simple multiple configuration solution and achieve higher refractive efficiency, and based on to reduce the situation disturbed by FOV change, especially in a two-dimensional spatial expansion. Coded aperture system is designed by these special structure, which includes an objective a coded component a prism reflex system components, a compensatory plate and an imaging lens Correlative algorithms and perfect imaging methods are available to ensure this system can be corrected and optimized adequately. Simulation results show that the system can meet the application requirements in MTF, REA, RMS and other related criteria. Compared with the conventional design, the system has reduced in volume and weight significantly. Therefore, the determining factors are the prototype selection and the system configuration.

Comparative analysis of student self-reflections on course projects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pomales-García, Cristina; Cortés Barreto, Kenneth

2014-11-01

This study presents the skills, experiences, and values identified in project self-reflections of 161 undergraduate engineering students. Self-reflections from two different engineering design courses, which provide experiences in project-based learning (PBL), are analysed through the content analysis methodology. Results show that 'application', 'true life', 'satisfaction', and 'communication' are the common keywords shared in the reflections. Multiple hypothesis tests to identify differences between courses, project types, years, and gender suggest that there are no significant differences between experiences, skills, and values self-reported by students who completed either a case study or an industry project. Based on research findings, recommendations will be provided to enhance the engineering curriculum based on PBL experiences to support the development of relevant professional skills and experiences.

Performance of distributed multiscale simulations

PubMed Central

Borgdorff, J.; Ben Belgacem, M.; Bona-Casas, C.; Fazendeiro, L.; Groen, D.; Hoenen, O.; Mizeranschi, A.; Suter, J. L.; Coster, D.; Coveney, P. V.; Dubitzky, W.; Hoekstra, A. G.; Strand, P.; Chopard, B.

2014-01-01

Multiscale simulations model phenomena across natural scales using monolithic or component-based code, running on local or distributed resources. In this work, we investigate the performance of distributed multiscale computing of component-based models, guided by six multiscale applications with different characteristics and from several disciplines. Three modes of distributed multiscale computing are identified: supplementing local dependencies with large-scale resources, load distribution over multiple resources, and load balancing of small- and large-scale resources. We find that the first mode has the apparent benefit of increasing simulation speed, and the second mode can increase simulation speed if local resources are limited. Depending on resource reservation and model coupling topology, the third mode may result in a reduction of resource consumption. PMID:24982258