Cortical activity evoked by inoculation needle prick in infants up to one-year old

Inoculation is one of the first and most common experiences of procedural pain in infancy. However, little is known about how needle puncture pain is processed by the central nervous system in children. In this study, we describe for the first time the event-related activity in the infant brain during routine inoculation using electroencephalography. Fifteen healthy term-born infants aged 1 to 2 months (n = 12) or 12 months (n = 5) were studied in an outpatient clinic. Pain behavior was scored using the Modified Behavioral Pain Scale. A distinct inoculation event-related vertex potential, consisting of 2 late negative-positive complexes, was observable in single trials after needle contact with the skin. The amplitude of both negative-positive components was significantly greater in the 12-month group. Both inoculation event-related potential amplitude and behavioral pain scores increased with age but the 2 measures were not correlated with each other. These components are the first recordings of brain activity in response to real-life needle pain in infants up to a year old. They provide new evidence of postnatal nociceptive processing and, combined with more traditional behavioral pain scores, offer a potentially more sensitive measure for testing the efficacy of analgesic protocols in this age group

Adjustment Strategies and Business Success in Minority-Owned Family Firms

With data from the 2003 and 2005 National Minority Business Owners Survey, we examined the extent to which minority business owners differ from nonminority business owners in their reported use of adjustment strategies, and the relationship between the use of adjustment strategies and perceived business success. The sample consisted of 193 African American, 200 Mexican American, 200 Korean American, and 210 white business owners. Mexican American and Korean American business owners reported higher levels of adjustment strategy use than African American and white business owners. The ordinary least squares show that reallocating family resources to meet business needs and reallocating business resources to meet family needs were negatively associated with perceived business success, whereas hiring paid help was positively associated with perceived business success

MOSFET Channel Engineering using Strained Si, SiGe, and Ge Channels

Biaxial tensile strained Si grown on SiGe virtual substrates will be incorporated into future generations of CMOS technology due to the lack of performance increase with scaling. Compressively strained Ge-rich alloys with high hole mobilities can also be grown on relaxed SiGe. We review progress in strained Si and dual channel heterostructures, and also introduce high hole mobility digital alloy heterostructures. By optimizing growth conditions and understanding the physics of hole and electron transport in these devices, we have fabricated nearly symmetric mobility p- and n-MOSFETs on a common Si₀.₅Ge₀.₅ virtual substrate.Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA

High hole and electron mobilities using Strained Si/Strained Ge heterostructures

PMOS and NMOS mobility characteristics of the dual channel (strained Si/strained Ge) heterostructure have been reviewed. It is shown that the dual channel heterostructure can provide substantially enhanced mobilities for both electrons and holes. However, germanium interdiffusion from the germanium rich buried layer into the underlying buffer layer could potentially reduce the hole mobility enhancements.Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA

Mapping cortical responses to somatosensory stimuli in human infants with simultaneous near-infrared spectroscopy and event-related potential recording

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and electroencephalography (EEG) have recently provided fundamental new information about how the newborn brain processes innocuous and noxious somatosensory information. However, results derived independently from these two techniques are not entirely consistent, raising questions about the relationship between hemodynamic and electrophysiological responses in the study of touch and pain processing in the newborn. To address this, we have recorded NIRS and EEG responses simultaneously for the first time in the human infant following noxious (time-locked clinically required heel lances) and innocuous tactile cutaneous stimulation in 30 newborn infants. The results show that both techniques can be used to record quantifiable and distinct innocuous and noxious evoked activity at a group level in the newborn cortex. Noxious stimulation elicits a peak hemodynamic response that is 10-fold larger than that elicited by an innocuous stimulus (HbO2: 2.0 vs 0.3 µm) and a distinct nociceptive-specific N3P3 waveform in electrophysiological recordings. However, a novel single-trial analysis revealed that hemodynamic and electrophysiological responses do not always co-occur at an individual level, although when they do (64% of noxious test occasions), they are significantly correlated in magnitude. These data show that, while hemodynamic and electrophysiological touch and pain brain activity in newborn infants are comparable in group analyses, important individual differences remain. These data indicate that integrated and multimodal brain monitoring is required to understand central touch and pain processing in the newborn

Strained Ge channel p-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors grown on SiââxGex/Si virtual substrates

We have fabricated strained Ge channel p-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (p-MOSFETs) on Siâ.âGeâ.â virtual substrates. The poor interface between silicon dioxide (SiOâ) and the Ge channel was eliminated by capping the strained Ge layer with a relaxed, epitaxial silicon surface layer grown at 400° C. Ge p-MOSFETs fabricated from this structure show a hole mobility enhancement of nearly 8 times that of co-processed bulk Si devices, and the Ge MOSFETs have a peak effective mobility of 1160 cm²/V-s. These MOSFETs demonstrate the possibility of creating a surface channel enhancement mode MOSFET with buried channel-like transport characteristics.Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA

Si Industry at a Crossroads: New Materials or New Factories?

Many trends in the silicon industry could be interpreted as the herald of the end of traditional Si scaling. If this premise holds, future performance and system-on-chip applications may not be reached with conventional Si technology extensions. We review progress towards our vision that a larger crystal structure on Si, namely relaxed SiGe epitaxial layers, can support many generations of higher performance Si CMOS and new system-on-chip functionality without the expense of significant new equipment and change to CMOS manufacturing ideology. We will review the impact of tensile strained Si layers grown on relaxed SiGe layers. Both NMOS and PMOS exhibit higher carrier mobilities due to the strained Si MOSFET channel. Heterostructure MOSFETs designed on relaxed SiGe can have multiple-generation performance increases, and therefore determine a new performance roadmap for Si CMOS technology, independent of MOSFET gate length. We also indicate that this materials platform naturally leads to incorporating new optical functionality into Si CMOS technology.Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA

Encoding of mechanical nociception differs in the adult and infant brain

Newborn human infants display robust pain behaviour and specific cortical activity following noxious skin stimulation, but it is not known whether brain processing of nociceptive information differs in infants and adults. Imaging studies have emphasised the overlap between infant and adult brain connectome architecture, but electrophysiological analysis of infant brain nociceptive networks can provide further understanding of the functional postnatal development of pain perception. Here we hypothesise that the human infant brain encodes noxious information with different neuronal patterns compared to adults. To test this we compared EEG responses to the same time-locked noxious skin lance in infants aged 0-19 days (n = 18, clinically required) and adults aged 23-48 years (n = 21). Time-frequency analysis revealed that while some features of adult nociceptive network activity are present in infants at longer latencies, including beta-gamma oscillations, infants display a distinct, long latency, noxious evoked 18-fold energy increase in the fast delta band (2-4 Hz) that is absent in adults. The differences in activity between infants and adults have a widespread topographic distribution across the brain. These data support our hypothesis and indicate important postnatal changes in the encoding of mechanical pain in the human brain

Magnetic resonance imaging features of large endolymphatic sac compartments: audiological and clinical correlates

Abstract Objectives: (1) To study the prevalence and characteristics of large endolymphatic sac internal compartments on thin-section T2- and T2*-weighted magnetic resonance imaging, and to relate these to other large endolymphatic sac magnetic resonance imaging features, and (2) to correlate the compartment imaging features, endolymphatic sac size and labyrinthine anomalies with the patients' clinical and audiological data. Method: Magnetic resonance imaging studies for 38 patients with large endolymphatic sac anomalies were retrospectively reviewed in a tertiary referral centre. Endolymphatic sac compartment presence, morphology and imaging signal were assessed. Endolymphatic sac size and labyrinthine anomalies were also recorded. Endolymphatic sac compartments and other imaging features were correlated with clinical and audiological data. Results: Compartments were present in 57 per cent of the imaged endolymphatic sacs, but their presence alone did not correlate with other imaging features or clinical data. The endolymphatic sac:internal auditory meatus signal ratio was associated with a history of sudden or fluctuating hearing loss. Hearing loss correlated with opercular and extraosseous endolymphatic sac size measurements. A larger midpoint intraosseous endolymphatic sac size was associated with clear fluid loss at cochlear implantation. Conclusion: The magnetic resonance imaging characteristics of large endolymphatic sac compartments have been defined. The endolymphatic sac size and distal compartment signal should be recorded, as these provide prognostic information and assist the planning of appropriate intervention