Syntheses and characterization of three-and five-coordinate copper(II) complexes based on SNS pincer ligand precursors

A series of tridentate pincer ligands, each possessing two sulfur- and one nitrogen-donor functionalities (SNS), based on a bis-imidazolyl precursor were metallated with CuCl2 to give new tridentate SNS pincer copper(II) complexes [(SNS)CuCl2]. These purple complexes exhibit a five-coordinate pseudo-square pyramidal geometry at the copper center. The [(SNS)CuCl2] complexes were characterized with single crystal X-ray diffraction, electrospray mass spectrometry, EPR spectroscopy, attenuated total reflectance infrared spectroscopy, UV–Vis spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry, and elemental analysis. The EPR spectra are consistent with typical anisotropic Cu(II) signals with four hyperfine splittings in the lower-field region (g||). Various electronic transitions are apparent in the UV–Vis spectra of the complexes and originate from d-to-d transitions or various charge transfer transitions. We preformed computational studies to understand the influence that structural constraints internal to our tridentate SNS ligand precursors have on the oxidation state of the resulting bound copper complex. We have determined that a d9 copper(II) metal center is better situated than a d10 copper(I) center to bind our tridentate SNS ligand set when it does not contain an internal CH2 group. Without this methylene linker, the SNS ligand forces the N and S atoms into a T-shaped arrangement about the metal center

Defining the Effect of the 16p11.2 Duplication on Cognition, Behavior, and Medical Comorbidities

IMPORTANCE The 16p11.2 BP4-BP5 duplication is the copy number variant most frequently associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), schizophrenia, and comorbidities such as decreased body mass index (BMI). OBJECTIVES To characterize the effects of the 16p11.2 duplication on cognitive, behavioral, medical, and anthropometric traits and to understand the specificity of these effects by systematically comparing results in duplication carriers and reciprocal deletion carriers, who are also at risk for ASD. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This international cohort study of 1006 study participants compared 270 duplication carriers with their 102 intrafamilial control individuals, 390 reciprocal deletion carriers, and 244 deletion controls from European and North American cohorts. Data were collected from August 1, 2010, to May 31, 2015 and analyzed from January 1 to August 14, 2015. Linear mixed models were used to estimate the effect of the duplication and deletion on clinical traits by comparison with noncarrier relatives. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Findings on the Full-Scale IQ (FSIQ), Nonverbal IQ, and Verbal IQ; the presence of ASD or other DSM-IV diagnoses; BMI; head circumference; and medical data. RESULTS Among the 1006 study participants, the duplication was associated with a mean FSIQ score that was lower by 26.3 points between proband carriers and noncarrier relatives and a lower mean FSIQ score (16.2-11.4 points) in nonproband carriers. The mean overall effect of the deletion was similar (-22.1 points; P 100) compared with the deletion group (P < .001). Parental FSIQ predicted part of this variation (approximately 36.0% in hereditary probands). Although the frequency of ASD was similar in deletion and duplication proband carriers (16.0% and 20.0%, respectively), the FSIQ was significantly lower (by 26.3 points) in the duplication probands with ASD. There also were lower head circumference and BMI measurements among duplication carriers, which is consistent with the findings of previous studies. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE The mean effect of the duplication on cognition is similar to that of the reciprocal deletion, but the variance in the duplication is significantly higher, with severe and mild subgroups not observed with the deletion. These results suggest that additional genetic and familial factors contribute to this variability. Additional studies will be necessary to characterize the predictors of cognitive deficits

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Unbuilt WPI

Unbuilt WPI is an IQP devoted to exploring the WPI that could have been. The display portion of the project, inspired by recent 150th celebrations, is part of a visual timeline exhibit located around campus.  Each display presents proposed designs for WPI buildings ultimately constructed differently or, in some cases, not at all. WPI's Curation, Preservation, and Archives department provided the images and information for most of the displays. A research paper compliments these displays, delving further into the reasonings behind each proposed building(s) while also highlighting the architectural style and historical context of each proposal

Pinion Process Improvement at Primetals Technologies

The objective of this Major Qualifying Project (MQP) was to reduce Primetals’ cycle time and setup time for pinions at workstation WWC1 by 20%. WWC1 was identified by Primetals as the bottleneck in their value stream for pinion manufacturing, with a processing time over twice as long as every other step in the process. The team applied lean manufacturing techniques to reduce waste at WWC1. Additionally, the team designed and manufactured a custom gage, a crucial tool for the WWC1 workstation. These combined solutions resulted in a 16% decrease in total cycle time per pinion at the workstation. The reduction in setup time derived from the team’s solutions was over 37% per pinion. This total reduction in cycle time aided in relieving the bottleneck at WWC1 resulting in Primetals being capable producing 120 more pinons per year. Assuming there is a demand for those 120 additional pinions, this could increase potential pinion sales revenue by as much as $1,200,000 per year without increasing labor and machine availabilit

Design and Deployment of a Pediatric Cardiac Arrest Surveillance System

Objective. We aimed to increase detection of pediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) events and collection of physiologic and performance data for use in quality improvement (QI) efforts. Materials and Methods. We developed a workflow-driven surveillance system that leveraged organizational information technology systems to trigger CPR detection and analysis processes. We characterized detection by notification source, type, location, and year, and compared it to previous methods of detection. Results. From 1/1/2013 through 12/31/2015, there were 2,986 unique notifications associated with 2,145 events, 317 requiring CPR. PICU and PEDS-ED accounted for 65% of CPR events, whereas floor care areas were responsible for only 3% of events. 100% of PEDS-OR and >70% of PICU CPR events would not have been included in QI efforts. Performance data from both defibrillator and bedside monitor increased annually. (2013: 1%; 2014: 18%; 2015: 27%). Discussion. After deployment of this system, detection has increased ∼9-fold and performance data collection increased annually. Had the system not been deployed, 100% of PEDS-OR and 50–70% of PICU, NICU, and PEDS-ED events would have been missed. Conclusion. By leveraging hospital information technology and medical device data, identification of pediatric cardiac arrest with an associated increased capture in the proportion of objective performance data is possible

Dose-painting multicenter phase III trial in newly diagnosed glioblastoma: the SPECTRO-GLIO trial comparing arm A standard radiochemotherapy to arm B radiochemotherapy with simultaneous integrated boost guided by MR spectroscopic imaging

Abstract Background Glioblastoma, a high-grade glial infiltrating tumor, is the most frequent malignant brain tumor in adults and carries a dismal prognosis. External beam radiotherapy (EBRT) increases overall survival but this is still low due to local relapses, mostly occurring in the irradiation field. As the ratio of spectra of choline/N acetyl aspartate> 2 (CNR2) on MR spectroscopic imaging has been described as predictive for the site of local relapse, we hypothesized that dose escalation on these regions would increase local control and hence global survival. Methods/design In this multicenter prospective phase III trial for newly diagnosed glioblastoma, 220 patients having undergone biopsy or surgery are planned for randomization to two arms. Arm A is the Stupp protocol (EBRT 60 Gy on contrast enhancement + 2 cm margin with concomitant temozolomide (TMZ) and 6 months of TMZ maintenance); Arm B is the same treatment with an additional simultaneous integrated boost of intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) of 72Gy/2.4Gy delivered on the MR spectroscopic imaging metabolic volumes of CHO/NAA > 2 and contrast-enhancing lesions or resection cavity. Stratification is performed on surgical and MGMT status. Discussion This is a dose-painting trial, i.e. delivery of heterogeneous dose guided by metabolic imaging. The principal endpoint is overall survival. An online prospective quality control of volumes and dose is performed in the experimental arm. The study will yield a large amount of longitudinal multimodal MR imaging data including planning CT, radiotherapy dosimetry, MR spectroscopic, diffusion and perfusion imaging. Trial registration NCT01507506, registration date December 20, 2011