A Review of Control Methodologies for Dynamic Glazing

With adaptive building façade technologies, a building envelope can provide a comfortable indoor environment under varying external conditions with minimal additional heating or cooling. The control strategy applied to the adaptation of the façade is a key determining factor in the successful integration of these technologies into a building. The building envelope plays a key role in regulating light, heat and mass transfer from the outdoor environment to the indoor. Dynamic glazing can be used to adjust the amount of solar radiation entering a building. The control strategies that ultimately determine the success of these switchable technologies to affect a building’s energy performance and occupant comfort are reviewed in this paper

Thought Calibration: How Thinking Just the Right Amount Increases One’s Influence and Appeal

Previous research suggests that people draw inferences about their attitudes and preferences based on their own thoughtfulness. The current research explores how observing other individuals make decisions more or less thoughtfully can shape perceptions of those individuals and their decisions, and ultimately impact observers’ willingness to be influenced by them. Three studies suggest that observing others make more (versus less) thoughtful decisions generates more positive reactions when a choice is difficult, but more negative reactions when a choice is easy. In essence, people perceive the quality of others’ decisions to be greater when other individuals engage in the right amount of thinking for the situation. These assessments then affect observers’ own decisions and openness to influence

Ethics of non-Therapeutic research on imminently dying patients in the intensive care unit

Non-Therapeutic research with imminently dying patients in intensive care presents complex ethical issues. The vulnerabilities of the imminently dying, together with societal disquiet around death and dying, contribute to an intuition that such research is beyond the legitimate scope of scientific inquiry. Yet excluding imminently dying patients from research hinders the advancement of medical science to the detriment of future patients. Building on existing ethical guidelines for research, we propose a framework for the ethical design and conduct of research involving the imminently dying. To enable rapid translation to practice, we frame the approach in the form of eight ethical questions that researchers and research ethics committees ought to answer prior to conducting any research with this patient population. (1) Does the study hypothesis require the inclusion of imminently dying patients? (2) Are non-Therapeutic risks and burdens minimised consistent with sound scientific design? (3) Are the risks of these procedures no more than minimal risk? (4) Are these non-Therapeutic risks justified insofar as they are reasonable in relation to the anticipated benefits of the study? (5) Will valid informed consent be obtained from an authorised surrogate decision maker? (6) How will incidental findings be handled? (7) What additional steps are in place to protect families and significant others of research participants? (8) What additional steps are in place to protect clinical staff and researchers? Several ethical challenges hinder research with imminently dying patients. Nonetheless, provided adequate protections are in place, non-Therapeutic research with imminently dying patients is ethically justifiable. Applying our framework to an ongoing study, we demonstrate how our question-driven approach is well suited to guiding investigators and research ethics committees

Towards Investigating Global Warming Impact on Human Health Using Derivatives of Photoplethysmogram Signals

Recent clinical studies show that the contour of the photoplethysmogram (PPG) wave contains valuable information for characterizing cardiovascular activity. However, analyzing the PPG wave contour is difficult; therefore, researchers have applied first or higher order derivatives to emphasize and conveniently quantify subtle changes in the filtered PPG contour. Our hypothesis is that analyzing the whole PPG recording rather than each PPG wave contour or on a beat-by-beat basis can detect heat-stressed subjects and that, consequently, we will be able to investigate the impact of global warming on human health. Here, we explore the most suitable derivative order for heat stress assessment based on the energy and entropy of the whole PPG recording. The results of our study indicate that the use of the entropy of the seventh derivative of the filtered PPG signal shows promising results in detecting heat stress using 20-second recordings, with an overall accuracy of 71.6%. Moreover, the combination of the entropy of the seventh derivative of the filtered PPG signal with the root mean square of successive differences, or RMSSD (a traditional heart rate variability index of heat stress), improved the detection of heat stress to 88.9% accuracy

The Potential Role of fNIRS in Evaluating Levels of Consciousness

Over the last few decades, neuroimaging techniques have transformed our understanding of the brain and the effect of neurological conditions on brain function. More recently, light-based modalities such as functional near-infrared spectroscopy have gained popularity as tools to study brain function at the bedside. A recent application is to assess residual awareness in patients with disorders of consciousness, as some patients retain awareness albeit lacking all behavioural response to commands. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy can play a vital role in identifying these patients by assessing command-driven brain activity. The goal of this review is to summarise the studies reported on this topic, to discuss the technical and ethical challenges of working with patients with disorders of consciousness, and to outline promising future directions in this field

Inflammatory Pseudotumors Induced by AdCre in Transgenic Oncopigs After In Situ Induction

https://openworks.mdanderson.org/sumexp23/1106/thumbnail.jp

Effects of Systemic Physiology on Mapping Resting-State Networks Using Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) has gained popularity mainly due to its simplicity and potential for providing insights into various brain disorders. In this vein, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an attractive choice due to its portability, flexibility, and low cost, allowing for bedside imaging of brain function. While promising, fNIRS suffers from non-neural signal contaminations (i.e., systemic physiological noise), which can increase correlation across fNIRS channels, leading to spurious rsFC networks. In the present work, we hypothesized that additional measurements with short channels, heart rate, mean arterial pressure, and end-tidal CO2 could provide a better understanding of the effects of systemic physiology on fNIRS-based resting-state networks. To test our hypothesis, we acquired 12 min of resting-state data from 10 healthy participants. Unlike previous studies, we investigated the efficacy of different pre-processing approaches in extracting resting-state networks. Our results are in agreement with previous studies and reinforce the fact that systemic physiology can overestimate rsFC. We expanded on previous work by showing that removal of systemic physiology decreases intra- and inter-subject variability, increasing the ability to detect neural changes in rsFC across groups and over longitudinal studies. Our results show that by removing systemic physiology, fNIRS can reproduce resting-state networks often reported with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Finally, the present work details the effects of systemic physiology and outlines how to remove (or at least ameliorate) their contributions to fNIRS signals acquired at rest

Atypical chemokine receptor 4 shapes activated B cell fate

Activated B cells can initially differentiate into three functionally distinct fates-early plasmablasts (PBs), germinal center (GC) B cells, or early memory B cells-by mechanisms that remain poorly understood. Here, we identify atypical chemokine receptor 4 (ACKR4), a decoy receptor that binds and degrades CCR7 ligands CCL19/CCL21, as a regulator of early activated B cell differentiation. By restricting initial access to splenic interfollicular zones (IFZs), ACKR4 limits the early proliferation of activated B cells, reducing the numbers available for subsequent differentiation. Consequently, ACKR4 deficiency enhanced early PB and GC B cell responses in a CCL19/CCL21-dependent and B cell-intrinsic manner. Conversely, aberrant localization of ACKR4-deficient activated B cells to the IFZ was associated with their preferential commitment to the early PB linage. Our results reveal a regulatory mechanism of B cell trafficking via an atypical chemokine receptor that shapes activated B cell fate

Protocol for the Prognostication of Consciousness Recovery Following a Brain Injury

Individuals who have suffered a severe brain injury typically require extensive hospitalization in intensive care units (ICUs), where critical treatment decisions are made to maximize their likelihood of recovering consciousness and cognitive function. These treatment decisions can be difficult when the neurological assessment of the patient is limited by unreliable behavioral responses. Reliable objective and quantifiable markers are lacking and there is both (1) a poor understanding of the mechanisms underlying the brain’s ability to reconstitute consciousness and cognition after an injury and (2) the absence of a reliable and clinically feasible method of tracking cognitive recovery in ICU survivors. Our goal is to develop and validate a clinically relevant EEG paradigm that can inform the prognosis of unresponsive, brain-injured patients in the ICU. This protocol describes a study to develop a point-of-care system intended to accurately predict outcomes of unresponsive, brain-injured patients in the ICU. We will recruit 200 continuously-sedated brain-injured patients across five ICUs. Between 24 h and 7 days post-ICU admission, high-density EEG will be recorded from behaviorally unresponsive patients before, during and after a brief cessation of pharmacological sedation. Once patients have reached the waking stage, they will be asked to complete an abridged Cambridge Brain Sciences battery, a web-based series of neurocognitive tests. The test series will be repeated every day during acute admission (ICU, ward), or as often as possible given the constraints of ICU and ward care. Following discharge, patients will continue to complete the same test series on weekly, and then monthly basis, for up to 12 months following injury. Functional outcomes will also be assessed up to 12 months post-injury. We anticipate our findings will lead to an increased ability to identify patients, as soon as possible after their brain injury, who are most likely to survive, and to make accurate predictions about their long-term cognitive and functional outcome. In addition to providing critically needed support for clinical decision-making, this study has the potential to transform our understanding of key functional EEG networks associated with consciousness and cognition

SUN1/2 are essential for RhoA/ROCK-regulated actomyosin activity in isolated vascular smooth muscle cells

Vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) are the predominant cell type in the blood vessel wall. Changes in VSMC actomyosin activity and morphology are prevalent in cardiovascular disease. The actin cytoskeleton actively defines cellular shape and the LInker of Nucleoskeleton and Cytoskeleton (LINC) complex, comprised of nesprin and the Sad1p, UNC-84 (SUN)-domain family members SUN1/2, has emerged as a key regulator of actin cytoskeletal organisation. Although SUN1 and SUN2 function is partially redundant, they possess specific functions and LINC complex composition is tailored for cell-type-specific functions. We investigated the importance of SUN1 and SUN2 in regulating actomyosin activity and cell morphology in VSMCs. We demonstrate that siRNA-mediated depletion of either SUN1 or SUN2 altered VSMC spreading and impaired actomyosin activity and RhoA activity. Importantly, these findings were recapitulated using aortic VSMCs isolated from wild-type and SUN2 knockout (SUN2 KO) mice. Inhibition of actomyosin activity, using the rho-associated, coiled-coil-containing protein kinase1/2 (ROCK1/2) inhibitor Y27632 or blebbistatin, reduced SUN2 mobility in the nuclear envelope and decreased the association between SUN2 and lamin A, confirming that SUN2 dynamics and interactions are influenced by actomyosin activity. We propose that the LINC complex exists in a mechanical feedback circuit with RhoA to regulate VSMC actomyosin activity and morphology