Generation and characterisation of gallium titanate surfaces through hydrothermal ion-exchange processes

Infection negation and biofilm prevention are necessary developments needed for implant materials. Furthermore, an increase in publications regarding gallium (Ga) as an antimicrobial ion has resulted in bacterial-inhibitory surfaces incorporating gallium as opposed to silver (Ag). The authors present the production of novel gallium titanate surfaces through hydrothermal ion-exchange reactions. Commercially-pure Ti (S0: Cp-Ti) was initially suspended in NaOH solutions to obtain sodium titanate (S1: Na2TiO3) layers ca. 0.5–1 μm in depth (2.4 at.% Na). Subsequent suspension in Ga(NO3)3 (S2: Ga2(TiO3)3), and post-heat-treatment at 700 °C (S3: Ga2(TiO3)3-HT), generated gallium titanate layers (9.4 and 4.1 at.% Ga, respectively). For the first time, RHEED analysis of gallium titanate layers was conducted and demonstrated titanate formation. Degradation studies in DMEM showed S2: Ga2(TiO3)3 released more Ga compared to S3: Ga2(TiO3)3-HT (2.76 vs. 0.68 ppm) over 168 h. Furthermore, deposition of Ca/P in a Ca:P ratio of 1.71 and 1.34, on S2: Ga2(TiO3)3 and S3: Ga2(TiO3)3-HT, respectively, over 168 h was seen. However, the study failed to replicate the antimicrobial effect presented by Yamaguchi who utilised A. baumannii, compared to S. aureus used presently. The authors feel a full antimicrobial study is required to assess gallium titanate as a candidate antimicrobial surface

Unlocking a national adult cardiac surgery audit registry with R

Following the Bristol Royal Infirmary heart scandal, the Society of Cardiothoracic Surgery in Great Britain & Ireland (SCTS) established a world-leading clinical registry to collect data on all adult cardiac surgery procedures. To date this registry contains >480,000 records and 163 fields. The data includes patient demographics, comorbidities and clinical measurements, cardiac and operative details, and post-operative outcomes. We will describe examples of how R has been used recently to interrogate the SCTS registry and run a national governance programme for performance monitoring. Understanding the data is vital to making decisions. The SCTS have recently used the googleVis package by Gesmann and de Castillo (2011) to visualize hospital- and surgeon-level data longitudinally over time as Google Motion Charts (SCTS, 2013a). This can be used to interrogate, for example, the risk-adjusted mortality rate of healthcare providers, whilst gaining an understanding of the variation due to sample size or inherent natural variability. It can also be used to understand the multivariate relationships between data; for example is postoperative length-of-stay related to patient age and the number of operations performed by each hospital? This tool has already been the instigator of a number of clinical and care-quality investigations. Monitoring performance of surgeons requires a broad portfolio of tools. First, statistical modelling tools, for example glm or glmer, are required to appropriately ‘risk-adjust’ outcomes. Second, functions to aggregate and summarize the data in different ways over healthcare providers are required. Finally, graphical tools are required to present the results as funnel plots and case mix charts to patients for scrutiny of their healthcare provision (SCTS 2013b). “Real-world” databases are messy – the SCTS registry is no exception. Cleaning data can be complicated, especially if there interdependencies between data frame rows and columns. Synonyms and homonyms required homogenizing; numerical, temporal and clinical conflicts required resolving; and duplicate records required accurate identification and removal. Previously this was a terminal obstacle facing cardiac surgeons in their bid to unlock the potential of this data. A registry-specific R package has been written to fully automate the cleaning in a transparent and reproducible manner, thus enabling analyses of the data. References Gesmann M and de Castillo D (2011). googleVis: Interface between R and the Google Visualisation API. The R Journal 3, 40-44. SCTS (2013a). Dynamic charts, http://www.scts.org/DynamicCharts. SCTS (2013b). Performance reports, http://www.scts.org/patients/default.aspx

Contributions of temporal encodings of voicing, voicelessness, fundamental frequency, and amplitude variation to audiovisual and auditory speech perception

Auditory and audio-visual speech perception was investigated using auditory signals of invariant spectral envelope that temporally encoded the presence of voiced and voiceless excitation, variations in amplitude envelope and F-0. In experiment 1, the contribution of the timing of voicing was compared in consonant identification to the additional effects of variations in F-0 and the amplitude of voiced speech. In audio-visual conditions only, amplitude variation slightly increased accuracy globally and for manner features. F-0 variation slightly increased overall accuracy and manner perception in auditory and audio-visual conditions. Experiment 2 examined consonant information derived from the presence and amplitude variation of voiceless speech in addition to that from voicing, F-0, and voiced speech amplitude. Binary indication of voiceless excitation improved accuracy overall and for voicing and manner. The amplitude variation of voiceless speech produced only a small increment in place of articulation scores. A final experiment examined audio-visual sentence perception using encodings of voiceless excitation and amplitude variation added to a signal representing voicing and F-0. There was a contribution of amplitude variation to sentence perception, but not of voiceless excitation. The timing of voiced and voiceless excitation appears to be the major temporal cues to consonant identity. (C) 1999 Acoustical Society of America. [S0001-4966(99)01410-1]

Layered Al2O3-SiO2 and Al2O3-Ta2O5 thin-film composites for high dielectric strength, deposited by pulsed direct current and radio frequency magnetron sputtering

Multilayer thin films have the potential to act as high dielectric strength insulation for wire and microelectronics. In this study, films consisting of 2, 4 or 8 layers, composed of Al2O3 with SiO2 or Ta2O5, were prepared via pulsed direct current and radio frequency magnetron sputtering to a thickness of between 152 and 236 nm. The dielectric strengths of all films exceeded the 310 Vμm−1 achieved for PDC Al2O3. Maximum dielectric strengths were obtained for four layer composites; Al2O3-SiO2-Al2O3-SiO2 (466 Vμm−1) and Al2O3-Ta2O5-Al2O3-Ta2O5 (513 Vμm−1), each containing two PDC-Al2O3 and two RF-SiO2/Ta2O5 layers. Whilst the average dielectric strength was higher in the Ta2O5 composites, they suffered from higher leakage prior to breakdown with ca. 6.5 nA compared to ca. 0.1 nA for SiO2 composites. The mechanical properties of the composites were poorer due to increased intrinsic coating stress. Samples exhibited complete interfacial delamination with maximum coating adhesion strengths of 22 and 25 MPa. The variance resulted from larger coefficient of thermal expansion for Ta2O5 compared to SiO2. Sputtered composites of Al2O3 and either SiO2 or Ta2O5 had high breakdown strength with reasonable adhesion and could be suitable for insulating copper conductors in the aerospace and automotive industries

Highly cost-efficient genome-wide association studies using DNA pools and dense SNP arrays

Genome-wide association (GWA) studies to map genes for complex traits are powerful yet costly. DNA-pooling strategies have the potential to dramatically reduce the cost of GWA studies. Pooling using Affymetrix arrays has been proposed and used but the efficiency of these arrays has not been quantified. We compared and contrasted Affymetrix Genechip HindIII and Illumina HumanHap300 arrays on the same DNA pools and showed that the HumanHap300 arrays are substantially more efficient. In terms of effective sample size, HumanHap300-based pooling extracts >80% of the information available with individual genotyping (IG). In contrast, Genechip HindIII-based pooling only extracts ∼30% of the available information. With HumanHap300 arrays concordance with IG data is excellent. Guidance is given on best study design and it is shown that even after taking into account pooling error, one stage scans can be performed for >100-fold reduced cost compared with IG. With appropriately designed two stage studies, IG can provide confirmation of pooling results whilst still providing ∼20-fold reduction in total cost compared with IG-based alternatives. The large cost savings with Illumina HumanHap300-based pooling imply that future studies need only be limited by the availability of samples and not cost

A Novel Patient-Specific Model for Predicting Severe Oliguria; Development and Comparison With Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes Acute Kidney Injury Classification

Objectives: The Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes urine output criteria for acute kidney injury lack specificity for identifying patients at risk of adverse renal outcomes. The objective was to develop a model that analyses hourly urine output values in real time to identify those at risk of developing severe oliguria. Design: This was a retrospective cohort study utilizing prospectively collected data. Setting: A cardiac ICU in the United Kingdom. Patients: Patients undergoing cardiac surgery between January 2013 and November 2017. Interventions: None. Measurement and Main Results: Patients were randomly assigned to development (n = 981) and validation (n = 2,389) datasets. A patient-specific, dynamic Bayesian model was developed to predict future urine output on an hourly basis. Model discrimination and calibration for predicting severe oliguria ( 0.8) were identified and their outcomes were compared with those for low-risk patients and for patients who met the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes urine output criterion for acute kidney injury. Model discrimination was excellent at all time points (area under the curve > 0.9 for all). Calibration of the model’s predictions was also excellent. After adjustment using multivariable logistic regression, patients in the high-risk group were more likely to require renal replacement therapy (odds ratio, 10.4; 95% CI, 5.9–18.1), suffer prolonged hospital stay (odds ratio, 4.4; 95% CI, 3.0–6.4), and die in hospital (odds ratio, 6.4; 95% CI, 2.8–14.0) (p < 0.001 for all). Outcomes for those identified as high risk by the model were significantly worse than for patients who met the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes urine output criterion. Conclusions: This novel, patient-specific model identifies patients at increased risk of severe oliguria. Classification according to model predictions outperformed the Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes urine output criterion. As the new model identifies patients at risk before severe oliguria develops it could potentially facilitate intervention to improve patient outcomes

Effects of GABRA2 variation on physiological, psychomotor and subjective responses in the Alcohol Challenge Twin Study

Multiple reports have identified variation in the GABRA2 gene as contributing to the genetic susceptibility to alcohol dependence. However, both the mechanism behind this association, and the range of alcohol-related phenotypes affected by variation in this gene, are currently undefined. Other data suggest that the risk of alcohol dependence is increased by relative insensitivity to alcohol's intoxicating effects. We have therefore tested whether GABRA2 variation is associated with variation in the subjective and objective effects of a standard dose of alcohol in humans. Data on responses to alcohol from the Alcohol Challenge Twin Study (Martin et al., 1985) have been tested against allelic and haplotype information obtained by typing 41 single-nucleotide polymorphisms in or close to the GABRA2 gene. Nominally significant allelic associations (p < .05, without correction for multiple testing) were found for body sway, motor coordination, pursuit rotor and arithmetical computation tasks, and for the personality dimension of Neuroticism. Because of the large number of phenotypes tested, these possibly significant findings will need to be confirmed in further studies

Chaos and localization in the wavefunctions of complex atoms NdI, PmI and SmI

Wavefunctions of complex lanthanide atoms NdI, PmI and SmI, obtained via multi-configuration Dirac-Fock method, are analyzed for density of states in terms of partial densities, strength functions ($F_k(E)$), number of principal components ($\xi_2(E)$) and occupancies (\lan n_\alpha \ran^E) of single particle orbits using embedded Gaussian orthogonal ensemble of one plus two-body random matrix ensembles [EGOE(1+2)]. It is seen that density of states are in general multi-modal, $F_k(E)$'s exhibit variations as function of the basis states energy and $\xi_2(E)$'s show structures arising from localized states. The sources of these departures from EGOE(1+2) are investigated by examining the partial densities, correlations between $F_k(E)$, $\xi_2(E)$ and \lan n_\alpha \ran^E and also by studying the structure of the Hamiltonian matrices. These studies point out the operation of EGOE(1+2) but at the same time suggest that weak admixing between well separated configurations should be incorporated into EGOE(1+2) for more quantitative description of chaos and localization in NdI, PmI and SmI.Comment: There are 9 figure

Statistical primer: sample size and power calculations-why, when and how?

When designing a clinical study, a fundamental aspect is the sample size. In this article, we describe the rationale for sample size calculations, when it should be calculated and describe the components necessary to calculate it. For simple studies, standard formulae can be used; however, for more advanced studies, it is generally necessary to use specialized statistical software programs and consult a biostatistician. Sample size calculations for non-randomized studies are also discussed and two clinical examples are used for illustration