Effect of Pacifier Design on Nonnutritive Suck Maturation and Weight Gain in Preterm Infants: A Pilot Study

Background: Pacifiers are effective in promoting oral feeding by increasing the maturation of nonnutritive sucking to nutritive suck in preterm neonates. It is unclear whether pacifier design can influence suck dynamics and weight loss during the first week of life. Objectives: This pilot study examined the feasibility of studying the effect of pacifier design on suck maturation and weight loss in preterm neonates. Methods: Twenty-five preterm neonates (mean [SD] birth weight 1791 [344.9] grams, mean [SD] gestational age 33.1 [1.2] weeks) were studied in a single newborn intensive care unit. Neonates were assigned to either an orthodontic pacifier (n = 13) or a bulb-shaped pacifier (n = 12) immediately after birth. Suck dynamics (cycles per minute, total compressions per minute, cycle bursts, and amplitude) were assessed with an NTrainer (Innara Health, Olathe, Kansas). Weight was recorded during the first week of life on day 1.2 ( ±2.5 days) and day 6.0 ( ±2.1 days). Descriptive statistics were applied to analyze data. Results: No significant differences were seen between groups with respect to birth weight and gestational age. Reproducible nonnutritive sucking measurements could be obtained with the NTrainer, with both types of pacifiers. No differences were detected in nonnutritive sucking dynamics or weight loss over time within each group or between groups. Conclusions: Data indicate that it is feasible to measure nonnutritive sucking dynamics and associated weight loss in relation to pacifier design in preterm neonates. Larger trials over longer time periods are needed to determine whether pacifier design influences suck dynamics and maturation, oromotor function, feeding/weight loss, and dental formation in preterm neonates. ( Curr Ther Res Clin Exp. 2020; 81:XXX–XXX

3D printing for bio-synthetic biliary stents

Three-dimensional (3D) printing is an additive manufacturing method that holds great potential in a variety of future patient-specific medical technologies. This project validated a novel crosslinked polyvinyl alcohol (XL-PVA) 3D printed stent infused with collagen, human placental mesenchymal stem cells (PMSCs), and cholangiocytes. The biofabrication method in the present study examined 3D printing and collagen injection molding for rapid prototyping of customized living biliary stents with clinical applications in the setting of malignant and benign bile duct obstructions. XL-PVA stents showed hydrophilic swelling and addition of radiocontrast to the stent matrix improved radiographic opacity. Collagen loaded with PMSCs contracted tightly around hydrophilic stents and dense choloangiocyte coatings were verified through histology and fluorescence microscopy. It is anticipated that design elements used in these stents may enable appropriate stent placement, provide protection of the stent-stem cell matrix against bile constituents, and potentially limit biofilm development. Overall, this approach may allow physicians to create personalized bio-integrating stents for use in biliary procedures and lays a foundation for new patient-specific stent fabrication techniques

Informe de Practica, Aplicada a la Empresa Soluciones Integrales Ecológicas Recuperar S.A.S. ESP.

En el presente informe de práctica empresarial desarrollado para la empresa SOLUCIONES INTEGRALES ECOLOGICAS RECUPERAR SAS ESP, ubicada en la ciudad Villavicencio en el departamento Meta, contiene el desarrollo de las metas planteadas en la evaluación de diagnóstico del SG-SST realizados por los estudiantes de posgrado, esto como objetivo para alcanzar un grado de desarrollo más acorde con la normatividad legal vigente.Resultado para Obtener el Título de Especialista en Seguridad y Salud en el Trabajo. Material acompañado por un Disco Compacto (CD-ROM), ubicado en la Colección Multimedia, identificado con el número E-SST/0005P Pasantía (Especialización en Seguridad y Salud en el Trabajo) Universidad de los Llanos. Programa de Seguridad y Salud en el Trabajo. Villavicencio- Meta, 2016.EspecializaciónEspecializaciones en Seguridad y Salud en el Trabaj

Enhancing the osteogenic efficacy of human bone marrow aspirate: concentrating osteoprogenitors using wave-assisted filtration

Background: recent approaches have sought to harness the potential of stem cells to regenerate bone that is lost as a consequence of trauma or disease. Bone marrow aspirate (BMA) provides an autologous source of osteoprogenitors for such applications. However, previous studies indicated that the concentration of osteoprogenitors present in BMA is less than required for robust bone regeneration. We provide further evidence for the importance of BMA enrichment for skeletal tissue engineering strategies using a novel acoustic wave-facilitated filtration strategy to concentrate BMA for osteoprogenitors, clinically applicable for intraoperative orthopedic use.Methods: femoral BMA from 15 patients of an elderly cohort was concentrated for the nucleated cell fraction against erythrocytes and excess plasma volume via size exclusion filtration facilitated by acoustic agitation. The effect of aspirate concentration was assessed by assays for colony formation, flow cytometry, multilineage differentiation and scaffold seeding efficiency.Results: BMA was filtered to achieve a mean 4.2-fold reduction in volume with a corresponding enrichment of viable and functional osteoprogenitors, indicated by flow cytometry and assays for colony formation. Enhanced osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation was observed using concentrated aspirate and enhanced cell-seeding efficiency onto allogeneic bone graft as an effect of osteoprogenitor concentration relative specifically to the concentration of erythrocytes in the aspirate.Conclusions: these studies provide evidence for the importance of BMA nucleated cell concentration for both cell differentiation and cell seeding efficiency and demonstrate the potential of this approach for intraoperative application to enhance bone healin

Curing Hepatitis C in Liver Transplant Recipients Is Associated with Changes in Immunosuppressant Use.

Background and aimsAll-oral interferon-free antivirals are highly effective in treating recurrent hepatitis C (HCV) infection in liver transplant (LT) recipients. The aim of the study was to assess immunosuppression needs after achieving a sustained viral response (SVR).MethodsWe compared immunosuppression needs before and after achieving a SVR in adult LT recipients treated for recurrent HCV infection with all-oral direct acting agents.ResultsWe identified 52 liver LT treated recipients who achieved a SVR. The median (25th and 75th percentile interquartile range [IQR]) age was 62 years (57.75, 65). Most recipients received tacrolimus (TAC) for their immunosuppressant regimen. After achieving SVR, there was no statistically significant difference in daily dose of TAC unadjusted per weight (p > 0.05). However, there was a statistically significant decrease in daily dose of TAC adjusted per weight, serum levels of TAC, and the product of glomerular filtration rate and TAC. No statistically significant differences in cyclosporine unadjusted/adjusted per weight daily dose or serum levels were noted.ConclusionsImmunosuppression needs were increased for those patients treated with TAC but not cyclosporine. LT recipients prescribed TAC require close monitoring after treatment completion to avoid potential risk of acute rejection

Learning Representations that Support Extrapolation

Extrapolation -- the ability to make inferences that go beyond the scope of one's experiences -- is a hallmark of human intelligence. By contrast, the generalization exhibited by contemporary neural network algorithms is largely limited to interpolation between data points in their training corpora. In this paper, we consider the challenge of learning representations that support extrapolation. We introduce a novel visual analogy benchmark that allows the graded evaluation of extrapolation as a function of distance from the convex domain defined by the training data. We also introduce a simple technique, temporal context normalization, that encourages representations that emphasize the relations between objects. We find that this technique enables a significant improvement in the ability to extrapolate, considerably outperforming a number of competitive techniques.Comment: ICML 202

Identifying Basal Ganglia Divisions in Individuals Using Resting-State Functional Connectivity MRI

Studies in non-human primates and humans reveal that discrete regions (henceforth, “divisions”) in the basal ganglia are intricately interconnected with regions in the cerebral cortex. However, divisions within basal ganglia nuclei (e.g., within the caudate) are difficult to identify using structural MRI. Resting-state functional connectivity MRI (rs-fcMRI) can be used to identify putative cerebral cortical functional areas in humans (Cohen et al., 2008). Here, we determine whether rs-fcMRI can be used to identify divisions in individual human adult basal ganglia. Putative basal ganglia divisions were generated by assigning basal ganglia voxels to groups based on the similarity of whole-brain functional connectivity correlation maps using modularity optimization, a network analysis tool. We assessed the validity of this approach by examining the spatial contiguity and location of putative divisions and whether divisions’ correlation maps were consistent with previously reported patterns of anatomical and functional connectivity. Spatially constrained divisions consistent with the dorsal caudate, ventral striatum, and dorsal caudal putamen could be identified in each subject. Further, correlation maps associated with putative divisions were consistent with their presumed connectivity. These findings suggest that, as in the cerebral cortex, subcortical divisions can be identified in individuals using rs-fcMRI. Developing and validating these methods should improve the study of brain structure and function, both typical and atypical, by allowing for more precise comparison across individuals

Do the Rewards Justify the Means? Measuring Trade-Offs Between Rewards and Ethical Behavior in the MACHIAVELLI Benchmark

Artificial agents have traditionally been trained to maximize reward, which may incentivize power-seeking and deception, analogous to how next-token prediction in language models (LMs) may incentivize toxicity. So do agents naturally learn to be Machiavellian? And how do we measure these behaviors in general-purpose models such as GPT-4? Towards answering these questions, we introduce MACHIAVELLI, a benchmark of 134 Choose-Your-Own-Adventure games containing over half a million rich, diverse scenarios that center on social decision-making. Scenario labeling is automated with LMs, which are more performant than human annotators. We mathematize dozens of harmful behaviors and use our annotations to evaluate agents' tendencies to be power-seeking, cause disutility, and commit ethical violations. We observe some tension between maximizing reward and behaving ethically. To improve this trade-off, we investigate LM-based methods to steer agents' towards less harmful behaviors. Our results show that agents can both act competently and morally, so concrete progress can currently be made in machine ethics--designing agents that are Pareto improvements in both safety and capabilities.Comment: ICML 2023 Oral; 31 pages, 5 figure