Autonomous UAV Battery Swapping

One of the main hindrances of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology are power constraints. One way to alleviate some power constraints would be for two UAVs to exchange batteries while both are in flight. Autonomous mid-air battery swapping will expand the scope of UAV technology by allowing for indefinite flight times and longer missions. A single board computer will control each UAV’s flight software to respond to inputs to align with each other mid-flight. When the two UAVs have joined, mechanical components will exchange a depleted battery on the worker UAV for a freshly charged battery that belongs to the battery supply UAV. After the exchange, the drones will then detach themselves from each other, and the worker UAV will resume its mission while the battery supply UAV returns back to the ground control station

The Impact of Patient and Provider Education on Statin Therapy Initiation and Adherence in Type II Diabetics

Purpose/Background Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a common, chronic disease that increases the risk of coronary artery disease and stroke fourfold, which makes protecting cardiac function a priority. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) and American Heart Association (AHA) recommend the prescription of statins to reduce cardiovascular complications. Unfortunately, provider and patient adherence to this recommendation is poor.This study aimed to determine if shared-decision making and patient follow-up within a 6 month period of being newly diagnosed with T2D has an effect on the initiation rate of statin therapy. Methods In this retrospective study we requested data from the University of Tennessee Family Medicine clinic on newly diagnosed diabetic patients from December 2021 to December 2023 that met criteria (40 years or older, eligible for statin therapy, new diagnosis of T2D, had at least one follow-up appointment within the last 2 years). Information requested included the patient’s sex, age, baseline HbA1C, referral date, and whether or not statin therapy was initiated within 6 months of diagnosis. The data was then analyzed for descriptive statistics using Intellectus statistical analysis software. Results Twenty-nine patients (8 male, 21 female) met inclusion criteria. The mean age of the participants was 52.8 years (female mean age: 54.9 years; male mean age: 47.5 years), and the mean baseline HgA1C was 9.16%. Of the 29 patients included in the study, 100% of them had statin therapy initiated within 6 months of diagnosis. Implications for Nursing Practice The results of this study are reassuring that patient follow up within 6 months of a new T2D diagnosis is key in initiating current statin therapy guidelines. These findings reinforce the essential role of nurse practitioners in the management of T2D and associated cardiovascular risk, highlighting the importance of patient education, regular monitoring, and collaborative care

Molecular transport calculations with Wannier functions

We present a scheme for calculating coherent electron transport in atomic-scale contacts. The method combines a formally exact Green's function formalism with a mean-field description of the electronic structure based on the Kohn-Sham scheme of density functional theory. We use an accurate plane-wave electronic structure method to calculate the eigenstates which are subsequently transformed into a set of localized Wannier functions (WFs). The WFs provide a highly efficient basis set which at the same time is well suited for analysis due to the chemical information contained in the WFs. The method is applied to a hydrogen molecule in an infinite Pt wire and a benzene-dithiol (BDT) molecule between Au(111) surfaces. We show that the transmission function of BDT in a wide energy window around the Fermi level can be completely accounted for by only two molecular orbitals.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, submitted to Chemical Physic

Enhancing Pockels effect in strained silicon waveguides

© 2019 Optical Society of America. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modifications of the content of this paper are prohibited"[EN] The magnitude and origin of the electro-optic measurements in strained silicon devices has been lately the object of a great controversy. Furthermore, recent works underline the importance of the masking effect of free carriers in strained waveguides and the low interaction between the mode and the highly strained areas. In the present work, the use of a p-i-n junction and an asymmetric cladding is proposed to eliminate the unwanted carrier influence and improve the electro-optical modulation response. The proposed configuration enhances the effective refractive index due to the strain-induced Pockels effect in more than two orders of magnitude with respect to the usual configuration. (C) 2019 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing AgreementMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO/FEDER, UE) (TEC2016-76849); Universitat Politècnica de València (FPI-Irene Olivares); Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (FPU17/04224); Generalitat Valenciana. Irene Olivares and Jorge Parra acknowledges the Universitat Politècnica de València and Generalitat Valenciana, respectively, for funding their research staff training (FPI) grant.Olivares-Sánchez-Mellado, I.; Parra Gómez, J.; Brimont, ACJ.; Sanchis Kilders, P. (2019). Enhancing Pockels effect in strained silicon waveguides. Optics Express. 27(19):26882-26892. https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.27.026882S26882268922719Komljenovic, T., Huang, D., Pintus, P., Tran, M. A., Davenport, M. L., & Bowers, J. E. (2018). Photonic Integrated Circuits Using Heterogeneous Integration on Silicon. 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I., Fage-Pedersen, J., Frandsen, L. H., Hansen, O., … Bjarklev, A. (2006). Strained silicon as a new electro-optic material. Nature, 441(7090), 199-202. doi:10.1038/nature04706Cazzanelli, M., & Schilling, J. (2016). Second order optical nonlinearity in silicon by symmetry breaking. Applied Physics Reviews, 3(1), 011104. doi:10.1063/1.4941558Manganelli, C. L., Pintus, P., & Bonati, C. (2015). Modeling of strain-induced Pockels effect in Silicon. Optics Express, 23(22), 28649. doi:10.1364/oe.23.028649Puckett, M. W., Smalley, J. S. T., Abashin, M., Grieco, A., & Fainman, Y. (2014). Tensor of the second-order nonlinear susceptibility in asymmetrically strained silicon waveguides: analysis and experimental validation. Optics Letters, 39(6), 1693. doi:10.1364/ol.39.001693Bianco, F., Fedus, K., Enrichi, F., Pierobon, R., Cazzanelli, M., Ghulinyan, M., … Pavesi, L. (2012). Two-dimensional micro-Raman mapping of stress and strain distributions in strained silicon waveguides. Semiconductor Science and Technology, 27(8), 085009. doi:10.1088/0268-1242/27/8/085009Chmielak, B., Matheisen, C., Ripperda, C., Bolten, J., Wahlbrink, T., Waldow, M., & Kurz, H. (2013). Investigation of local strain distribution and linear electro-optic effect in strained silicon waveguides. Optics Express, 21(21), 25324. doi:10.1364/oe.21.025324Schriever, C., Bianco, F., Cazzanelli, M., Ghulinyan, M., Eisenschmidt, C., de Boor, J., … Schilling, J. (2014). Second-Order Optical Nonlinearity in Silicon Waveguides: Inhomogeneous Stress and Interfaces. Advanced Optical Materials, 3(1), 129-136. doi:10.1002/adom.201400370Chmielak, B., Waldow, M., Matheisen, C., Ripperda, C., Bolten, J., Wahlbrink, T., … Kurz, H. (2011). Pockels effect based fully integrated, strained silicon electro-optic modulator. Optics Express, 19(18), 17212. doi:10.1364/oe.19.017212Damas, P., Le Roux, X., Le Bourdais, D., Cassan, E., Marris-Morini, D., Izard, N., … Vivien, L. (2014). Wavelength dependence of Pockels effect in strained silicon waveguides. Optics Express, 22(18), 22095. doi:10.1364/oe.22.022095Sharif Azadeh, S., Merget, F., Nezhad, M. P., & Witzens, J. (2015). On the measurement of the Pockels effect in strained silicon. Optics Letters, 40(8), 1877. doi:10.1364/ol.40.001877Borghi, M., Mancinelli, M., Merget, F., Witzens, J., Bernard, M., Ghulinyan, M., … Pavesi, L. (2015). High-frequency electro-optic measurement of strained silicon racetrack resonators. Optics Letters, 40(22), 5287. doi:10.1364/ol.40.005287Sharma, R., Puckett, M. W., Lin, H.-H., Isichenko, A., Vallini, F., & Fainman, Y. (2016). Effect of dielectric claddings on the electro-optic behavior of silicon waveguides. Optics Letters, 41(6), 1185. doi:10.1364/ol.41.001185Borghi, M., Mancinelli, M., Bernard, M., Ghulinyan, M., Pucker, G., & Pavesi, L. (2016). Homodyne Detection of Free Carrier Induced Electro-Optic Modulation in Strained Silicon Resonators. Journal of Lightwave Technology, 34(24), 5657-5668. doi:10.1109/jlt.2016.2628183Olivares, I., Angelova, T., & Sanchis, P. (2017). On the influence of interface charging dynamics and stressing conditions in strained silicon devices. Scientific Reports, 7(1). doi:10.1038/s41598-017-05067-9Khurgin, J. B., Stievater, T. H., Pruessner, M. W., & Rabinovich, W. S. (2015). On the origin of the second-order nonlinearity in strained Si–SiN structures. Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 32(12), 2494. doi:10.1364/josab.32.002494Damas, P., Marris-Morini, D., Cassan, E., & Vivien, L. (2016). Bond orbital description of the strain-induced second-order optical susceptibility in silicon. Physical Review B, 93(16). doi:10.1103/physrevb.93.165208Damas, P., Berciano, M., Marcaud, G., Alonso Ramos, C., Marris-Morini, D., Cassan, E., & Vivien, L. (2017). Comprehensive description of the electro-optic effects in strained silicon waveguides. 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Extrastriate body area underlies aesthetic evaluation of body stimuli

Humans appear to be the only animals to have developed the practice and culture of art. This practice presumably relies on special processing circuits within the human brain associated with a distinct subjective experience, termed aesthetic experience, and preferentially evoked by artistic stimuli. We assume that positive or negative aesthetic judgments are an important function of neuroaesthetic circuits. The localization of these circuits in the brain remains unclear, though neuroimaging studies have suggested several possible neural correlates of aesthetic preference. We applied repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over candidate brain areas to disrupt aesthetic processing while healthy volunteers made aesthetic preference judgments between pairs of dance postures, or control non-body stimuli. Based on evidence from visual body perception studies, we targeted the ventral premotor cortex (vPMC) and extrastriate body area (EBA), in the left and right hemispheres. rTMS over EBA reduced aesthetic sensitivity for body stimuli relative to rTMS over vPMC, while no such difference was found for non-body stimuli. We interpret our results within the framework of dual routes for visual body processing. rTMS over either EBA or vPMC reduced the contributions of the stimulated area to body processing, leaving processing more reliant on the unaffected route. Disruption of EBA reduces the local processing of the stimuli, and reduced observers’ aesthetic sensitivity. Conversely, disruption of the global route via vPMC increased the relative contribution of the local route via EBA, and thus increased aesthetic sensitivity. In this way, we suggest a complementary contribution of both local and global routes to aesthetic processing

A polymeric immunoglobulin-antigen fusion protein strategy for enhancing vaccine immunogenicity.

In this study, a strategy based on polymeric immunoglobulin G scaffolds (PIGS) was used to produce a vaccine candidate for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. A genetic fusion construct comprising genes encoding the mycobacterial Ag85B antigen, an immunoglobulin γ‐chain fragment and the tailpiece from immunoglobulin μ chain was engineered. Expression was attempted in Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells and in Nicotiana benthamiana. The recombinant protein assembled into polymeric structures (TB‐PIGS) in N. benthamiana, similar in size to polymeric IgM. These complexes were subsequently shown to bind to the complement protein C1q and FcγRs with increased affinity. Modification of the N‐glycans linked to TB‐PIGS by removal of xylose and fucose residues that are normally found in plant glycosylated proteins also resulted in increased affinity for low‐affinity FcγRs. Immunization studies in mice indicated that TB‐PIGS are highly immunogenic with and without adjuvant. However, they did not improve protective efficacy in mice against challenge with M. tuberculosis compared to conventional vaccination with BCG, suggesting that additional or alternative antigens may be needed to protect against this disease. Nevertheless, these results establish a novel platform for producing polymeric antigen‐IgG γ‐chain molecules with inherent functional characteristics that are desirable in vaccines

Immune response of healthy horses to DNA constructs formulated with a cationic lipid transfection reagent

Background Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) vaccines are used for experimental immunotherapy of equine melanoma. The injection of complexed linear DNA encoding interleukin (IL)-12/IL-18 induced partial tumour remission in a clinical study including 27 grey horses. To date, the detailed mechanism of the anti-tumour effect of this treatment is unknown. Results In the present study, the clinical and cellular responses of 24 healthy horses were monitored over 72 h after simultaneous intradermal and intramuscular application of equine IL-12/IL-18 DNA (complexed with a transfection reagent) or comparative substances (transfection reagent only, nonsense DNA, nonsense DNA depleted of CG). Although the strongest effect was observed in horses treated with expressing DNA, horses in all groups treated with DNA showed systemic responses. In these horses treated with DNA, rectal temperatures were elevated after treatment and serum amyloid A increased. Total leukocyte and neutrophil counts increased, while lymphocyte numbers decreased. The secretion of tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) and interferon gamma (IFNγ) from peripheral mononuclear blood cells ex vivo increased after treatments with DNA, while IL-10 secretion decreased. Horses treated with DNA had significantly higher myeloid cell numbers and chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand (CXCL)-10 expression in skin samples at the intradermal injection sites compared to horses treated with transfection reagent only, suggesting an inflammatory response to DNA treatment. In horses treated with expressing DNA, however, local CXCL-10 expression was highest and immunohistochemistry revealed more intradermal IL-12-positive cells when compared to the other treatment groups. In contrast to non-grey horses, grey horses showed fewer effects of DNA treatments on blood lymphocyte counts, TNFα secretion and myeloid cell infiltration in the dermis. Conclusion Treatment with complexed linear DNA constructs induced an inflammatory response independent of the coding sequence and of CG motif content. Expressing IL-12/IL-18 DNA locally induces expression of the downstream mediator CXCL-10. The grey horses included appeared to display an attenuated immune response to DNA treatment, although grey horses bearing melanoma responded to this treatment with moderate tumour remission in a preceding study. Whether the different immunological reactivity compared to other horses may contributes to the melanoma susceptibility of grey horses remains to be elucidated

Catalytic Intermolecular Hetero-Dehydro-Diels–Alder Cycloadditions: Regio- and Diasteroselective Synthesis of 5,6-Dihydropyridin-2-ones

A novel catalyzed intermolecular heterodehydro-Diels–Alder reaction between push–pull 1,3-dien-5-ynes and aldimines or silylaldimines is reported. The sequence is promoted both by gold(I) or silver(I) catalysts and leads to the diastereo- and regioselective formation of 5,6-dihydropyridin-2-onesMICINN (Spain) (grants CTQ2009-09949, CTQ2010-16790, PTA2008-1524-P contract to J.M.F.-G. and Ramon y Cajal postdoctoral contract to M.A.F.-R.) and FICYT (project IB08-088)This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Organic letters, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see http://pubs.acs.org/page/policy/articlesonrequest/index.htm