Determination of Sugar Level and the Existence of Magic Sugar in Various Beverages using a Glucose Meter with Four-Point Probe and Electrochemical Impedance

Nowadays, people are being inconsiderate about the healthy lifestyle that might lead us to be unhealthy and be prone to developing tumors in the kidney due to some kind of sugar being used. In order to minimize these problems, the team will raise people awareness. Raising people awareness is not the same as telling them what to do. It is about giving them the knowledge to let them decide for themselves. This is why the team developed a device that can measure the sugar level and determine the existence of magic sugar in various beverages. The device is composed of two major parts: first is the circuit that will measure the impedance of a liquid sample and second, is a four-point probe, which includes a microcontroller that will display and interpret the results. The Four-point probe applies the concept of Wenner method and Electrochemical Impedance. After constructing the device, the team performed its calibration that requires different liquid samples. Based on its gathered data, different graphical representations were formulated and translated into mathematical equations in order to integrate it onto the microcontroller. Whenever the microcontroller encounters an unknown solution, it can determine the sugar level and classify the type of sugar being used

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

PC-based braille reading system

This study aims to aid the visually-impaired people by creating a system that is an alternative to braille translated books. The system is capable of translating text from a captured image to braille. The image, which is captured by a self-triggering camera but can also be operated manually, will be sent to the PC through a USB cable. An open-source Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is obtained to extract text from the image. The OCR is integrated in a GUI. The translated text will be sent to a PIC microcontroller through USB to UART. The PIC microcontroller will drive the braille reading device by converting the text to braille equivalent characters. This braille reading system is a reliable alternative to braille translated books for it has an option where the reader can choose between word-per-word mode or continuous mode of reading. Also, the system achieved an overall accuracy around 90%. With this technology, the visually impaired people will be given a chance to widen their knowledge and explore further on what the world has to offer

Development of a text to braille interpreter for printed documents through optical image processing

This paper presents the development of an optical text to braille converter device for aiding visually impaired individuals to read printed materials. This is a solution for the lag or even failure of translating or printing the braille version of everyday reading materials. The system utilized optical character recognition engine in which an image of the text to be translated into braille is captured. The digitized texts are then transferred electronically in a braille haptic device. This device are piezoelectric based haptic system which is composed of several haptic pins arranged in a way to resemble the braille writing system. Several experiments were conducted to determine the performance of the system. The overall system reliability obtained was 95.68%. The system is also capable of processing speed of 1 word in 2 seconds. The system performs at its best with a letter sized page reading material within the range of 15 to 20 cm from the camera, with the camera positioned at 0 degrees. © 2017 IEEE

Effect of the Children’s Healthy Living Program on Young Child Overweight, Obesity, and Acanthosis Nigricans in the US-Affiliated Pacific Region

Importance: Pacific Islanders have among the highest rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes in the world. Targeting children is critical for primary prevention. Objectives: To prevent young child overweight and obesity and to improve health in the US-Affiliated Pacific region via the Children's Healthy Living Program. Design, setting, and participants: In this multijurisdictional, multilevel, multicomponent community randomized clinical trial, where all evaluable children were analyzed according to the random assignment of their community, hierarchical difference-in-difference models accounted for the community randomization, community clustering with jurisdictions, and these models were adjusted for the age and sex distribution of the community. The setting was 27 communities in 5 jurisdictions (Alaska, American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and Hawaii). Participants were 4329 children (time 1) and 4042 children (time 2) aged 2 to 8 years in 27 selected communities from October 7, 2012, to October 25, 2015. Data analysis was completed in June 2018. Interventions: Nineteen activities addressed policy, environment, messaging, training, and 6 target behaviors (sleep time, screen time, physical activity, fruits and vegetables, water, and sugar-sweetened beverages). Main outcomes and measures: Primary outcomes were body size measurements. Secondary outcomes were acanthosis nigricans, sleep quality and duration, dietary intake, physical activity, and other questionnaire reponses. Results: The study included 27 communities and 8371 evaluable children (mean [SD] age, 5.4 [1.8] years; 50.9% male [n = 4264]). Data analysis included 952 children in the intervention group and 930 children in the control group aged 2 to 5 years at time 1; 825 children in the intervention group and 735 children in the control group aged 2 to 5 years at time 2; 565 children in the intervention group and 561 children in the control group aged 6 to 8 years at time 1; and 517 children in the intervention group and 560 children in the control group aged 6 to 8 years at time 2. The intervention communities showed significant improvement compared with control communities in overweight and obesity prevalence (effect size [d] = -3.95%; 95% CI, -7.47% to -0.43%), waist circumference (d = -0.71 cm; 95% CI, -1.37 to -0.05 cm), and acanthosis nigricans prevalence (d = -2.28%; 95% CI, -2.77% to -1.57%). Age and sex subgroup analysis revealed greater difference among the intervention communities in acanthosis nigricans prevalence in the group aged 2 to 5 years (-3.99%) vs the group aged 6 to 8 years (-3.40%), and the interaction was significant (d = 0.59%, P < .001), as well as the smaller difference in the group aged 2 to 5 years (-0.10%) vs the group aged 6 to 8 years (-1.07%) in screen time (d = -0.97 hour per day, P = .01). Conclusions and relevance: The intervention reduced the prevalence of young child overweight and obesity and acanthosis nigricans. Comprehensive, effective, and sustainable interventions are needed to improve child health in the US-Affiliated Pacific region