Developing Cost Effective Monitoring for Rainbow Smelt Using eDNA

Environmental DNA (eDNA) tools developed at the University of Maine were successfully deployed in four coastal streams in Casco Bay, Maine in spring 2018 to detect the presence of anadromous rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax), the first full application of this emerging technique. Field methods were refined and tested at sites with documented high (2) and low (2) spawning productivity. Samples were collected below known spawning areas immediately upstream of estuarine tidal influence 2-3 times each week during the spawning season. Three replicate samples were collected in the field at each site, as well as a contamination control, and all samples were filtered and preserved for laboratory analysis. Extracted eDNA samples and controls were run on three replicate qPCR assays. Initial efforts to extract eDNA from samples were hampered by the presence of environmental inhibitors. Use of a Zymo OneStep PCR Inhibitor Removal Kits appears to have overcome this problem and field collected eDNA samples were amplified successfully using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). In partnership with a qualified lab, these tools can now provide a low-cost, userfriendly, and reliable method for monitoring the presence of rainbow smelt

Dual-Band Quasi-Coherent Radiative Thermal Source

Thermal radiation from an unpatterned object is similar to that of a gray body. The thermal emission is insensitive to polarization, shows only Lambertian angular dependence, and is well modeled as the product of the blackbody distribution and a scalar emissivity over large frequency bands. Here, we design, fabricate and experimentally characterize the spectral, polarization, angular and temperature dependence of a microstructured SiC dual band thermal infrared source, achieving independent control of the frequency and polarization of thermal radiation in two spectral bands. The measured emission of the device in the Reststrahlen band (10.3-12.7 um) selectively approaches that of a blackbody, peaking at an emissivity of 0.85 at Lx=11.75 um and 0.81 at Ly=12.25 um. This effect arises due to the thermally excited phonon polaritons in silicon carbide. The control of thermal emission properties exhibited by the design is well suited for applications requiring infrared sources, gas or temperature sensors and nanoscale heat transfer. Our work paves the way for future silicon carbide based thermal metasurfaces.Comment: Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer (2018

Real World Clinicopathologic Observations of Patients with Metastatic Solid Tumors Receiving Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Therapy: Analysis from Kentucky Cancer Registry

The state of Kentucky has the highest cancer incidence and mortality in the United States. High‐risk populations such as this are often underrepresented in clinical trials. The study aims to do a comprehensive analysis of molecular landscape of metastatic cancers among these patients with detailed evaluation of factors affecting response and outcomes to immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy. We performed a retrospective analysis of metastatic solid tumor patients who received ICI and underwent molecular profiling at our institution. Sixty nine patients with metastatic solid tumors who received ICI were included in the study. Prevalence of smoking and secondhand tobacco exposure was 78.3% and 14.5%, respectively. TP53 (62.3%), CDKN1B/2A (40.5%), NOTCH and PIK3 (33.3%) were the most common alterations in tumors. 67.4% were PDL1 positive and 59.4% had intermediate‐high tumor mutational burden (TMB). Median TMB (12.6) was twofold to fourfold compared to clinical trials. The prevalence of mutations associated with smoking, homologous recombinant repair and PIK3/AKT/mTOR pathway mutations was higher compared to historic cohorts. PDL1 expression had no significant effect on radiologic response, but PFS improvement in patients with tumors expressing PDL1 trended toward statistical significance (median 18 vs. 40 weeks. HR = 1.43. 95%CI 0.93, 4.46). Median PFS was higher in the high‐TMB cohort compared to low‐intermediate TMB (median not reached vs. 26 weeks; HR = 0.37. 95%CI 0.13, 1.05). A statistically significant improvement in PFS was observed in the PIK3 mutated cohort (median 123 vs. 23 weeks. HR = 2.51. 95%CI 1.23, 5.14). This was independent of tumor mutational burden (TMB) status or PDL1 expression status. PIK3 mutants had a higher overall response rate than the wild type (69.6% vs. 43.5%, OR 0.34; p = 0.045). The results should prompt further evaluation of these potential biomarkers and more widespread real‐world data publications which might help determine biomarkers that could benefit specific populations

Algorithm Selection Framework for Cyber Attack Detection

The number of cyber threats against both wired and wireless computer systems and other components of the Internet of Things continues to increase annually. In this work, an algorithm selection framework is employed on the NSL-KDD data set and a novel paradigm of machine learning taxonomy is presented. The framework uses a combination of user input and meta-features to select the best algorithm to detect cyber attacks on a network. Performance is compared between a rule-of-thumb strategy and a meta-learning strategy. The framework removes the conjecture of the common trial-and-error algorithm selection method. The framework recommends five algorithms from the taxonomy. Both strategies recommend a high-performing algorithm, though not the best performing. The work demonstrates the close connectedness between algorithm selection and the taxonomy for which it is premised.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, 1 table, accepted to WiseML '2

Education & Entrepreneurship: Implications For Contemporary Microfinance

In world regions receiving direct foreign aid, beneficiaries of aid often lack the education required to remove themselves from poverty. Micro-lending refers to the initiation of small loans to the neediest of borrowers who are unable to secure traditional financing from financial intermediaries. In order for micro-lending to thrive as a viable alternative to traditional government aid, borrowers must not only receive a loan, but also an education in business to fully equip borrowers with necessary resources to establish and operate a prosperous business entity. The authors will argue for the provision of increased educational resources and discuss the disparities between the US model of education and that of third-world nations. Furthermore, the authors will prescribe steps to develop educational materials and train micro-credit borrowers to better guarantee the viability of microfinance

Evaluation of a Portable Gynecological Examination Table on Increasing Access to Cervical Cancer Screenings

Introduction: Cervical cancer is a preventable disease affecting millions of women worldwide, with higher prevalence and mortality in developing countries. One explanation of this disparity is due to reduced access to screenings, especially in rural communities where mobile health clinics are limited by what medical equipment they can bring. To address these barriers, an engineering team called Project MESA (Making Examinations Safe and Accessible) designed a gynecological examination table that is portable, lightweight, and easily sanitizable. Objective: This study aims to (1) evaluate whether the implementation of this device improves the clinician’s ability to perform pap smears as opposed to alternative surfaces, and (2) investigate the impact on patients’ comfort with cervical cancer screening. Methods: Two gynecological exam tables are being used by a partner organization with clinics in Perú and Nicaragua. Since September of 2022, 42 responses have been recorded. Using clinician and patient questionnaires that were developed based on field observations, the team will perform a mixed methods analysis to compare clinician and patient preferences on the new device versus alternative surfaces. Results: Preliminary data may support greater clinician and patient satisfaction with the new device, but cannot be statistically confirmed yet due to ongoing data collection. Results that can be discussed are dynamic testing on the gynecological table which supported safety through 15,600 uses and positive feedback from many clinicians and international partners. Conclusion: This project provides a construct to address barriers to cervical cancer screenings, with more quantitative results becoming available soon

Privacy Risks of Securing Machine Learning Models against Adversarial Examples

The arms race between attacks and defenses for machine learning models has come to a forefront in recent years, in both the security community and the privacy community. However, one big limitation of previous research is that the security domain and the privacy domain have typically been considered separately. It is thus unclear whether the defense methods in one domain will have any unexpected impact on the other domain. In this paper, we take a step towards resolving this limitation by combining the two domains. In particular, we measure the success of membership inference attacks against six state-of-the-art defense methods that mitigate the risk of adversarial examples (i.e., evasion attacks). Membership inference attacks determine whether or not an individual data record has been part of a model's training set. The accuracy of such attacks reflects the information leakage of training algorithms about individual members of the training set. Adversarial defense methods against adversarial examples influence the model's decision boundaries such that model predictions remain unchanged for a small area around each input. However, this objective is optimized on training data. Thus, individual data records in the training set have a significant influence on robust models. This makes the models more vulnerable to inference attacks. To perform the membership inference attacks, we leverage the existing inference methods that exploit model predictions. We also propose two new inference methods that exploit structural properties of robust models on adversarially perturbed data. Our experimental evaluation demonstrates that compared with the natural training (undefended) approach, adversarial defense methods can indeed increase the target model's risk against membership inference attacks.Comment: ACM CCS 2019, code is available at https://github.com/inspire-group/privacy-vs-robustnes

Banning the bulb: institutional evolution and the phased ban of incandescent lighting in Germany

Much academic attention has been directed at analysing energy efficiency investments through the lens of ‘behavioural failure’. These studies have challenged the neoclassical framing of regulation which emphasises the efficiency benefits of price based policy, underpinned by the notion of rational individual self-mastery. The increasing use of a regulatory ban on electric lamps in many countries is one of the most recent and high profile flash points in this dialectic of ‘freedom-versus-the-state’ in the public policy discourse. This paper interrogates this debate through a study of electric lamp diffusion in Germany. It is argued that neoclassical theory and equilibrium analysis is inadequate as a tool for policy analysis as it takes the formation of market institutions, such as existing regulations, for granted. Further still, it may be prone to encourage idealistic debates around such grand narratives which may in practice simply serve those who benefit most from the status quo. Instead we argue for an evolutionary approach which we suggest offers a more pragmatic framing tool which focuses on the formation of market institutions in light of shifting social norms and political goals—in our case, progress towards energy efficiency and environmental goals