Body Limb Movement Limiter

A body limb movement limiter restrains the movement of a person\u27s arm so as to protect the person\u27s shoulder or restrains the movement of a person\u27s lower leg with respect to the upper leg so as to protect the person\u27s knee. The device uses a housing having a reel disposed therein with a tether attached thereto and a shear thickening non-Newtonian fluid disposed within the housing so that the fluid acts on the reel during a payout procedure of the tether. The housing is attached to a strap secured about the torso of the person while the free end of the tether is secured about the person\u27s arm. Alternately, a pair of arms are pivotally secured to each other within a housing having the non-Newtonian fluid therein for limiting movement of one arm with respect to the other

Method and Apparatus for Removal of Minute Particles from a Surface Using Thermophoresis to Prevent Particle Redeposition

A method and apparatus for removing minute particles from a surface of a sample are provided that prevent redeposition of the particles onto the surface. By combining thermophoresis with laser assisted particle removal (LAPR), the methods and apparatus remove minute particles (for example, micrometer and nanometer sizes) and assure that they will not redeposit

Apparatus for Removal of Minute Particles from a Surface Using Thermophoresis to Prevent Particle Redeposition

A method and apparatus for removing minute particles from a surface of a sample are provided that prevent redeposition of the particles onto the surface. By combining thermophoresis with laser assisted particle removal (LAPR), the methods and apparatus remove minute particles (for example, micrometer and nanometer sizes) and assure that they will not redeposit

Body Limb Movement Limiter

A body limb movement limiter restrains the movement of a person\u27s arm so as to protect the person\u27s shoulder or restrains the movement of a person\u27s lower leg with respect to the upper leg so as to protect the person\u27s knee. The device uses a housing having a reel disposed therein with a tether attached thereto and a shear thickening non-Newtonian fluid disposed within the housing so that the fluid acts on the reel during a payout procedure of the tether. The housing is attached to a strap secured about the torso of the person while the free end of the tether is secured about the person\u27s arm. Alternately, a pair of arms are pivotally secured to each other within a housing having the non-Newtonian fluid therein for limiting movement of one arm with respect to the other

Laser Machining and Related Control For Additive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing can include use of a laser-machin­ing technique. Laser machining can be used to form cavities, trenches, or other features in an additively-manufactured structure. Spectroscopy can be performed to monitor a laser machining operation. For example, a laser-enhanced addi­tive manufacturing process flow can include depositing a conductive layer on a surface of a dielectric layer, and conductively isolating a first region from a second region of the conductive layer using ablative optical energy, including applying ablative optical energy to the conductive layer, monitoring a spectrum of an ablative plume generated by applying the ablative optical energy, and controlling the ablative optical energy in response to a characteristic of the spectrum of the ablative plume

Multi-Color Cavity Ringdown Based Detection Method and Apparatus

A multi-color cavity ringdown based spectrometer system is housed in a light tight enclosure to detect the presence of trace quantities of gas phase molecules emanating from a subject, explosives, drugs, or hazardous materials. A method is also disclosed for simultaneous real time detection of gas phase molecules emanating from explosives, drugs, hazardous materials, a subject\u27s breath skin or bodily fluid

Bayesian Spatiotemporal Pattern and Eco-climatological Drivers of Striped Skunk Rabies in the North Central Plains

Citation: Raghavan, R. K., Hanlon, C. A., Goodin, D. G., Davis, R., Moore, M., Moore, S., & Anderson, G. A. (2016). Bayesian Spatiotemporal Pattern and Eco-climatological Drivers of Striped Skunk Rabies in the North Central Plains. Plos Neglected Tropical Diseases, 10(4), 16. doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0004632Striped skunks are one of the most important terrestrial reservoirs of rabies virus in North America, and yet the prevalence of rabies among this host is only passively monitored and the disease among this host remains largely unmanaged. Oral vaccination campaigns have not efficiently targeted striped skunks, while periodic spillovers of striped skunk variant viruses to other animals, including some domestic animals, are routinely recorded. In this study we evaluated the spatial and spatio-temporal patterns of infection status among striped skunk cases submitted for rabies testing in the North Central Plains of US in a Bayesian hierarchical framework, and also evaluated potential eco-climatological drivers of such patterns. Two Bayesian hierarchical models were fitted to point-referenced striped skunk rabies cases [n = 656 (negative), and n = 310 (positive)] received at a leading rabies diagnostic facility between the years 2007-2013. The first model included only spatial and temporal terms and a second covariate model included additional covariates representing eco-climatic conditions within a 4km(2) home-range area for striped skunks. The better performing covariate model indicated the presence of significant spatial and temporal trends in the dataset and identified higher amounts of land covered by low-intensity developed areas [Odds ratio (OR) = 3.41; 95% Bayesian Credible Intervals (CrI) = 2.08, 3.85], higher level of patch fragmentation (OR = 1.70; 95% CrI = 1.25, 2.89), and diurnal temperature range (OR = 0.54; 95% CrI = 0.27, 0.91) to be important drivers of striped skunk rabies incidence in the study area. Model validation statistics indicated satisfactory performance for both models; however, the covariate model fared better. The findings of this study are important in the context of rabies management among striped skunks in North America, and the relevance of physical and climatological factors as risk factors for skunk to human rabies transmission and the space-time patterns of striped skunk rabies are discussed

RNA-seq: primary cells, cell lines and heat stress

Transcriptome analysis by RNA-seq has emerged as a high-throughput, cost-effective means to evaluate the expression pattern of genes in organisms. Unlike other methods, such as microarrays or quantitative PCR, RNA-seq is a target free method that permits analysis of essentially any RNA that can be amplified from a cell or tissue. At its most basic, RNA-seq can determine individual gene expression levels by counting the number of times a particular transcript was found in the sequence data. Transcript levels can be compared across multiple samples to identify differentially expressed genes and infer differences in biological states between the samples. We have used this approach to examine gene expression patterns in chicken and human cells, with particular interest in determining response to heat stress