TwitFace

The TwitFace program provides a convenient and efficient tool for Twitter and Facebook users. The central purpose of this project is to create a program that is able to communicate with both the Twitter and Facebook API’s, thus allowing the user to post an identical status simultaneously. The program will require the user’s login information for both accounts and will prompt the user to enter a status to share. The user will also have the option to share a pre-generated post from a generic list of options

Sex differences in heart failure patients assessed by combined echocardiographic and cardiopulmonary exercise testing

BackgroundWe aimed to test the differences in peak VO2 between males and females in patients diagnosed with heart failure (HF), using combined stress echocardiography (SE) and cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET).MethodsPatients who underwent CPET and SE for evaluation of dyspnea or exertional intolerance at our institution, between January 2013 and December 2017, were included and retrospectively assessed. Patients were divided into three groups: HF with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), HF with mildly reduced or reduced ejection fraction (HFmrEF/HFrEF), and patients without HF (control). These groups were further stratified by sex.ResultsOne hundred seventy-eight patients underwent CPET-SE testing, of which 40% were females. Females diagnosed with HFpEF showed attenuated increases in end diastolic volume index (P = 0.040 for sex × time interaction), significantly elevated E/e' (P < 0.001), significantly decreased left ventricle (LV) end diastolic volume:E/e ratio (P = 0.040 for sex × time interaction), and lesser increases in A-VO2 difference (P = 0.003 for sex × time interaction), comparing to males with HFpEF. Females diagnosed with HFmrEF/HFrEF showed diminished increases in end diastolic volume index (P = 0.050 for sex × time interaction), mostly after anaerobic threshold was met, comparing to males with HFmrEF/HFrEF. This resulted in reduced increases in peak stroke volume index (P = 0.010 for sex × time interaction) and cardiac output (P = 0.050 for sex × time interaction).ConclusionsCombined CPET-SE testing allows for individualized non-invasive evaluation of exercise physiology stratified by sex. Female patients with HF have lower exercise capacity compared to men with HF. For females diagnosed with HFpEF, this was due to poorer LV compliance and attenuated peripheral oxygen extraction, while for females diagnosed with HFmrEF/HFrEF, this was due to attenuated increase in peak stroke volume and cardiac output. As past studies have shown differences in clinical outcomes between females and males, this study provides an essential understanding of the differences in exercise physiology in HF patients, which may improve patient selection for targeted therapeutics

Multi-scale Modeling of Heat Transfer

The dynamics of a complex fluid or fluid close to interfaces is affected by its microscopic structure. Because the molecular level dynamics is playing a role, and macroscopic scale is effected by lower levels, in these situations the fluid cannot be completely described by continuum theory and Navier-Stokes equation. However, molecular dynamics also is not a practical approach; the large number of particles in the large scales makes it computational impossible. I solve the problem with a Mesoscopic simulation methods by making use of information from different length scale, macroscopic and microscopic, and solve the problem in middle ground in the mesoscale level. However, by using the coupling of continuum and a mesoscale method, I could solve an industry size problem with accuracy of lower scale problem. For the first time, I present a novel coupling method of dissipative particle dynamics to continuum model to calculate heat transfer. The results of the method shows an excellent agreement with a broad range of experimental results in various cases

Multi-scale Modeling of Heat Transfer

The dynamics of a complex fluid or fluid close to interfaces is affected by its microscopic structure. Because the molecular level dynamics is playing a role, and macroscopic scale is effected by lower levels, in these situations the fluid cannot be completely described by continuum theory and Navier-Stokes equation. However, molecular dynamics also is not a practical approach; the large number of particles in the large scales makes it computational impossible. I solve the problem with a Mesoscopic simulation methods by making use of information from different length scale, macroscopic and microscopic, and solve the problem in middle ground in the mesoscale level. However, by using the coupling of continuum and a mesoscale method, I could solve an industry size problem with accuracy of lower scale problem. For the first time, I present a novel coupling method of dissipative particle dynamics to continuum model to calculate heat transfer. The results of the method shows an excellent agreement with a broad range of experimental results in various cases

Stronger tilt aftereffects in persons with schizophrenia

Symptoms of schizophrenia have been explained as a failure to appropriately apply past environmental regularities to the interpretation of incoming sensory information, thus leading to abnormal perceptions and beliefs. Here we use the visual system as a test bed for investigating how prior experience shapes perception in individuals with schizophrenia. Specifically, we use visual aftereffects, illusory percepts resulting from prior exposure to visual input, to measure the influence of prior events on current processing. At a neural level, visual aftereffects arise due to attenuation in the responses of neurons that code the features of the prior stimulus (neuronal adaptation) and subsequent disinhibition of neurons signaling activity at the opposite end of the feature dimension. In the current study, we measured tilt aftereffects and negative afterimages, two types of aftereffects that reflect, respectively, adaptation of cortical orientation-coding neurons and adaptation of subcortical and retinal luminance-coding cells in persons with schizophrenia (PSZ; n=36) and demographically-matched healthy controls (HC; n=22). We observed stronger tilt aftereffects in PSZ compared to HC, but no difference in negative afterimages. Stronger tilt aftereffects were related to more severe negative symptoms. These data suggest over-sensitivity to recent regularities at cortical, but not subcortical, levels in schizophrenia, which is in line with a growing literature that predictive processes in schizophrenia are altered at multiple cortical levels. More broadly, the results underscore the value of aftereffect paradigms as a tool for the quantitative examination of canonical computations whose dysfunction may underpin symptom genesis in schizophrenia

Structural Thalamofrontal Hypoconnectivity Is Related to Oculomotor Corollary Discharge Dysfunction in Schizophrenia

By predicting sensory consequences of actions, humans can distinguish self-generated sensory inputs from those that are elicited externally. This is one mechanism by which we achieve a subjective sense of agency over our actions. Corollary discharge (CD) signals-"copies" of motor signals sent to sensory areas-permit such predictions, and CD abnormalities are a hypothesized mechanism for the agency disruptions in schizophrenia that characterize a subset of symptoms. Indeed, behavioral evidence of altered CD, including in the oculomotor system, has been observed in schizophrenia patients. A pathway projecting from the superior colliculus to the frontal eye fields (FEFs) via the mediodorsal thalamus (MD) conveys oculomotor CD associated with saccadic eye movements in nonhuman primates. This animal work provides a promising translational framework in which to investigate CD abnormalities in clinical populations. In the current study, we examined whether structural connectivity of this MD-FEF pathway relates to oculomotor CD functioning in schizophrenia. Twenty-two schizophrenia patients and 24 healthy control participants of both sexes underwent diffusion tensor imaging, and a large subset performed a trans-saccadic perceptual task that yields measures of CD. Using probabilistic tractography, we identified anatomical connections between FEF and MD and extracted indices of microstructural integrity. Patients exhibited compromised microstructural integrity in the MD-FEF pathway, which was correlated with greater oculomotor CD abnormalities and more severe psychotic symptoms. These data reinforce the role of the MD-FEF pathway in transmitting oculomotor CD signals and suggest that disturbances in this pathway may relate to psychotic symptom manifestation in patients