Why bad ideas are a good idea

What would happen if we wrote an Abstract that was the exact opposite of what the paper described? This is a bad idea, but it makes us think more carefully than usual about properties of Abstracts. This paper describes BadIdeas, a collection of techniques that uses ???bad??? or ???silly??? ideas to inspire creativity, explore design domains and teach critical thinking in interaction design. We describe the approach, some evidence, how it is performed in practice and experience in its use.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

On the motion of particles in covariant Horava-Lifshitz gravity and the meaning of the A-field

We studied the low energy motion of particles in the general covariant version of Horava-Lifshitz gravity proposed by Horava and Melby-Thompson. Using a scalar field coupled to gravity according to the minimal substitution recipe proposed by da Silva and taking the geometrical optics limit, we could write an effective relativistic metric for a general solution. As a result, we discovered that the equivalence principle is not in general recovered at low energies, unless the spatial Laplacian of A vanishes. Finally, we analyzed the motion on the spherical symmetric solution proposed by Horava and Melby-Thompson, where we could find its effective line element and compute spin-0 geodesics. Using standard methods we have shown that such an effective metric cannot reproduce Newton's gravity law even in the weak gravitational field approximation.Comment: New result about equivalence principle added, improved discussion and typos corrected. Version to appear in Phys. Lett.

Realistic fluids as source for dynamically accreting black holes in a cosmological background

We show that a single imperfect fluid can be used as a source to obtain the generalized McVittie metric as an exact solution to Einstein's equations. The mass parameter in this metric varies with time thanks to a mechanism based on the presence of a temperature gradient. This fully dynamical solution is interpreted as an accreting black hole in an expanding universe if the metric asymptotes to Schwarzschild-de Sitter at temporal infinity. We present a simple but instructive example for the mass function and briefly discuss the structure of the apparent horizons and the past singularity.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Updated references and minor changes to match the version accepted for publishing in PR

Initial Development toward Non-Invasive Drug Monitoring via Untargeted Mass Spectrometric Analysis of Human Skin.

Drug monitoring is crucial for providing accurate and effective care; however, current methods (e.g., blood draws) are inconvenient and unpleasant. We aim to develop a non-invasive method for the detection and monitoring of drugs via human skin. The initial development toward this aim required information about which drugs, taken orally, can be detected via the skin. Untargeted liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) was used as it was unclear if drugs, known drug metabolites, or other transformation products were detectable. In accomplishing our aim, we analyzed samples obtained by swabbing the skin of 15 kidney transplant recipients in five locations (forehead, nasolabial area, axillary, backhand, and palm), bilaterally, on two different clinical visits. Untargeted LC-MS data were processed using molecular networking via the Global Natural Products Social Molecular Networking platform. Herein, we report the qualitative detection and location of drugs and drug metabolites. For example, escitalopram/citalopram and diphenhydramine, taken orally, were detected in forehead, nasolabial, and hand samples, whereas N-acetyl-sulfamethoxazole, a drug metabolite, was detected in axillary samples. In addition, chemicals associated with environmental exposure were also detected from the skin, which provides insight into the multifaceted chemical influences on our health. The proof-of-concept results presented support the finding that the LC-MS and data analysis methodology is currently capable of the qualitative assessment of the presence of drugs directly via human skin

Targeting immunometabolism during cardiorenal injury: roles of conventional and alternative macrophage metabolic fuels

Macrophages play critical roles in mediating and resolving tissue injury as well as tissue remodeling during cardiorenal disease. Altered immunometabolism, particularly macrophage metabolism, is a critical underlying mechanism of immune dysfunction and inflammation, particularly in individuals with underlying metabolic abnormalities. In this review, we discuss the critical roles of macrophages in cardiac and renal injury and disease. We also highlight the roles of macrophage metabolism and discuss metabolic abnormalities, such as obesity and diabetes, which may impair normal macrophage metabolism and thus predispose individuals to cardiorenal inflammation and injury. As the roles of macrophage glucose and fatty acid metabolism have been extensively discussed elsewhere, we focus on the roles of alternative fuels, such as lactate and ketones, which play underappreciated roles during cardiac and renal injury and heavily influence macrophage phenotypes

Markerless 3D kinematics and force estimation in cheetahs

The complex dynamics of animal manoeuvrability in the wild is extremely challenging to study. The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is a perfect example: despite great interest in its unmatched speed and manoeuvrability, obtaining complete whole-body motion data from these animals remains an unsolved problem. This is especially difficult in wild cheetahs, where it is essential that the methods used are remote and do not constrain the animal’s motion. In this work, we use data obtained from cheetahs in the wild to present a trajectory optimisation approach for estimating the 3D kinematics and joint torques of subjects remotely. We call this approach kinetic full trajectory estimation (K-FTE). We validate the method on a dataset comprising synchronised video and force plate data. We are able to reconstruct the 3D kinematics with an average reprojection error of 17.69 pixels (62.94% PCK using the nose-to-eye(s) length segment as a threshold), while the estimates produce an average root-mean-square error of 171.3N (~17.16% of peak force during stride) for the estimated ground reaction force when compared against the force plate data. While the joint torques cannot be directly validated against ground truth data, as no such data is available for cheetahs, the estimated torques agree with previous studies of quadrupeds in controlled settings. These results will enable deeper insight into the study of animal locomotion in a more natural environment for both biologists and roboticists