Improving the Performance and Stability of Flexible Pressure Sensors with an Air Gap Structure

A highly sensitive flexible resistive pressure sensor based on an air gap structure was presented. The flexible pressure sensor consists of two face to face polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) films covered with carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The pressure sensor with a 230 μm thickness air gap has relatively high sensitivity (58.9 kPa−1 in the range of 1–5 Pa, 0.66 kPa−1 in the range of 5–100 Pa), low detectable pressure limit (1 Pa), and a short response time (less than 1 s). The test results showed that the pressure sensor with an appropriate air gap has excellent pressure sensitive performance and application potential

DNA methylation in the APOE genomic region is associated with cognitive function in African Americans

Abstract Background Genetic variations in apolipoprotein E (APOE) and proximal genes (PVRL2, TOMM40, and APOC1) are associated with cognitive function and dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s disease. Epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation play a central role in the regulation of gene expression. Recent studies have found evidence that DNA methylation may contribute to the pathogenesis of dementia, but its association with cognitive function in populations without dementia remains unclear. Methods We assessed DNA methylation levels of 48 CpG sites in the APOE genomic region in peripheral blood leukocytes collected from 289 African Americans (mean age = 67 years) from the Genetic Epidemiology Network of Arteriopathy (GENOA) study. Using linear regression, we examined the relationship between methylation in the APOE genomic region and multiple cognitive measures including learning, memory, processing speed, concentration, language and global cognitive function. Results We identified eight CpG sites in three genes (PVRL2, TOMM40, and APOE) that showed an inverse association between methylation level and delayed recall, a measure of memory, after adjusting for age and sex (False Discovery Rate q-value < 0.1). All eight CpGs are located in either CpG islands (CGIs) or CGI shelves, and six of them are in promoter regions. Education and APOE ε4 carrier status significantly modified the effect of methylation in cg08583001 (PVRL2) and cg22024783 (TOMM40), respectively. Together, methylation of the eight CpGs explained an additional 8.7% of the variance in delayed recall, after adjustment for age, sex, education, and APOE ε4 carrier status. Methylation was not significantly associated with any other cognitive measures. Conclusions Our results suggest that methylation levels at multiple CpGs in the APOE genomic region are inversely associated with delayed recall during normal cognitive aging, even after accounting for known genetic predictors for cognition. Our findings highlight the important role of epigenetic mechanisms in influencing cognitive performance, and suggest that changes in blood methylation may be an early indicator of individuals at risk for dementia as well as potential targets for intervention in asymptomatic populations.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143538/1/12920_2018_Article_363.pd

Intrinsic and extrinsic epigenetic age acceleration are associated with hypertensive target organ damage in older African Americans

Abstract Background Epigenetic age acceleration, a measure of biological aging based on DNA methylation, is associated with cardiovascular mortality. However, little is known about its relationship with hypertensive target organ damage to the heart, kidneys, brain, and peripheral arteries. Methods We investigated associations between intrinsic (IEAA) or extrinsic (EEAA) epigenetic age acceleration, blood pressure, and six types of organ damage in a primarily hypertensive cohort of 1390 African Americans from the Genetic Epidemiology Network of Arteriopathy (GENOA) study. DNA methylation from peripheral blood leukocytes was collected at baseline (1996–2000), and measures of target organ damage were assessed in a follow-up visit (2000–2004). Linear regression with generalized estimating equations was used to test for associations between epigenetic age acceleration and target organ damage, as well as effect modification of epigenetic age by blood pressure or sex. Sequential Oligogenic Linkage Analysis Routines (SOLAR) was used to test for evidence of shared genetic and/or environmental effects between epigenetic age acceleration and organ damage pairs that were significantly associated. Results After adjustment for sex, chronological age, and time between methylation and organ damage measures, higher IEAA was associated with higher urine albumin to creatinine ratio (UACR, p = 0.004), relative wall thickness (RWT, p = 0.022), and left ventricular mass index (LVMI, p = 0.007), and with lower ankle-brachial index (ABI, p = 0.014). EEAA was associated with higher LVMI (p = 0.005). Target organ damage associations for all but IEAA with LVMI remained significant after further adjustment for blood pressure and antihypertensive use (p < 0.05). Further adjustment for diabetes attenuated the IEAA associations with UACR and RWT, and adjustment for smoking attenuated the IEAA association with ABI. No effect modification by age or sex was observed. Conclusions Measures of epigenetic age acceleration may help to better characterize the functional mechanisms underlying organ damage from cellular aging and/or hypertension. These measures may act as subclinical biomarkers for damage to the kidney, heart, and peripheral vasculature; however more research is needed to determine whether these relationships remain independent of lifestyle factors and comorbidities.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/152221/1/12920_2019_Article_585.pd

Postgraduate ethics training programs: a systematic scoping review

BACKGROUND: Molding competent clinicians capable of applying ethics principles in their practice is a challenging task, compounded by wide variations in the teaching and assessment of ethics in the postgraduate setting. Despite these differences, ethics training programs should recognise that the transition from medical students to healthcare professionals entails a longitudinal process where ethics knowledge, skills and identity continue to build and deepen over time with clinical exposure. A systematic scoping review is proposed to analyse current postgraduate medical ethics training and assessment programs in peer-reviewed literature to guide the development of a local physician training curriculum. METHODS: With a constructivist perspective and relativist lens, this systematic scoping review on postgraduate medical ethics training and assessment will adopt the Systematic Evidence Based Approach (SEBA) to create a transparent and reproducible review. RESULTS: The first search involving the teaching of ethics yielded 7669 abstracts with 573 full text articles evaluated and 66 articles included. The second search involving the assessment of ethics identified 9919 abstracts with 333 full text articles reviewed and 29 articles included. The themes identified from the two searches were the goals and objectives, content, pedagogy, enabling and limiting factors of teaching ethics and assessment modalities used. Despite inherent disparities in ethics training programs, they provide a platform for learners to apply knowledge, translating it to skill and eventually becoming part of the identity of the learner. Illustrating the longitudinal nature of ethics training, the spiral curriculum seamlessly integrates and fortifies prevailing ethical knowledge acquired in medical school with the layering of new specialty, clinical and research specific content in professional practice. Various assessment methods are employed with special mention of portfolios as a longitudinal assessment modality that showcase the impact of ethics training on the development of professional identity formation (PIF). CONCLUSIONS: Our systematic scoping review has elicited key learning points in the teaching and assessment of ethics in the postgraduate setting. However, more research needs to be done on establishing Entrustable Professional Activities (EPA)s in ethics, with further exploration of the use of portfolios and key factors influencing its design, implementation and assessment of PIF and micro-credentialling in ethics practice. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-021-02644-5

Real-time Monitoring for the Next Core-Collapse Supernova in JUNO

Core-collapse supernova (CCSN) is one of the most energetic astrophysical events in the Universe. The early and prompt detection of neutrinos before (pre-SN) and during the SN burst is a unique opportunity to realize the multi-messenger observation of the CCSN events. In this work, we describe the monitoring concept and present the sensitivity of the system to the pre-SN and SN neutrinos at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), which is a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector under construction in South China. The real-time monitoring system is designed with both the prompt monitors on the electronic board and online monitors at the data acquisition stage, in order to ensure both the alert speed and alert coverage of progenitor stars. By assuming a false alert rate of 1 per year, this monitoring system can be sensitive to the pre-SN neutrinos up to the distance of about 1.6 (0.9) kpc and SN neutrinos up to about 370 (360) kpc for a progenitor mass of 30$M_{\odot}$ for the case of normal (inverted) mass ordering. The pointing ability of the CCSN is evaluated by using the accumulated event anisotropy of the inverse beta decay interactions from pre-SN or SN neutrinos, which, along with the early alert, can play important roles for the followup multi-messenger observations of the next Galactic or nearby extragalactic CCSN.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure

Detection of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background with JUNO

As an underground multi-purpose neutrino detector with 20 kton liquid scintillator, Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is competitive with and complementary to the water-Cherenkov detectors on the search for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). Typical supernova models predict 2-4 events per year within the optimal observation window in the JUNO detector. The dominant background is from the neutral-current (NC) interaction of atmospheric neutrinos with 12C nuclei, which surpasses the DSNB by more than one order of magnitude. We evaluated the systematic uncertainty of NC background from the spread of a variety of data-driven models and further developed a method to determine NC background within 15\% with {\it{in}} {\it{situ}} measurements after ten years of running. Besides, the NC-like backgrounds can be effectively suppressed by the intrinsic pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities of liquid scintillators. In this talk, I will present in detail the improvements on NC background uncertainty evaluation, PSD discriminator development, and finally, the potential of DSNB sensitivity in JUNO

Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO

JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve

KEP: Keystroke Evoked Potential for EEG-Based User Authentication

In recent years, the rapid proliferation of Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) applications has made the issue of security increasingly important. User authentication serves as the cornerstone of any secure BCI systems, and among various methods, EEG-based authentication is particularly well-suited for BCIs. However, existing paradigms, such as visual evoked potentials and motor imagery, demand significant user efforts during both enrollment and authentication phases. To address these challenges, we introduce a novel paradigm–Keystroke Evoked Potentials (KEP) for EEG-based authentication, which is secure, user-friendly, and lightweight. Then, we design an authentication system based on our proposed KEP. The core concept involves generating a shared cryptographic session key derived from EEG data and keystroke dynamics captured during random button-pressing activities. This shared key is subsequently employed in a Diffie-Hellman Encrypted Key Exchange (DH-EKE) to facilitate device pairing and establish a secure communication channel. Based on a collected dataset, the results demonstrate that our system is secure against various attacks (e.g., mimicry attack, replay attack) and efficient in practice (e.g., taking only 0.07 s to generate 1 bit)

Method of Calculating the Compensation for Rectifying the Horizontal Displacement of Existing Tunnels by Grouting

Sleeve valve pipe grouting, an effective method for reinforcing soil layers, is often employed to correct the deformation of subway tunnels. In order to study the effect of grouting on rectifying the displacement of existing tunnels, this paper proposes a mechanical model of the volume expansion of sleeve valve pipe grouting taking into consideration the volume expansion of the grouted soil mass. A formula for the additional stress on the soil layer caused by grouting was derived based on the principle of the mirror method. In addition, a formula for the horizontal displacement of a tunnel caused by grouting was developed through a calculation model of shearing dislocation and rigid body rotation. The results of the calculation method proposed herein were in good agreement with actual engineering data. In summary, enlarging the grouting volume within a reasonable range can effectively enhance the grouting corrective effect. Further, with an increase in the grouting distance, the influence of grouting gradually lessens. At a constant grouting length, setting the bottom of the grouting section at the same depth as the lower end of the tunnel can maximize the grouting corrective effect