Fujaba hits the Wall(-e)

With the ever increasing pervasiveness of software in every day's life, it is quite easy to explain children the importance of software development. Especially when using gadgets such as LEGO robots, one can fascinate young pupils. It is much harder though to and fair link to the actual educational and research programs from a particular university without blowing the audience away with details of a particular Java framework. This paper illustrates how one can use Fujaba to involve children from 8 to 18 years old in realistic requirements elicitation workshops. The children implicitly get in touch with the object-oriented paradigm by playing in the real world the communication between objects in a robot's computer. Fujaba's visual object browser provides a convincing means to illustrate that the game adequately represents the robot's internals

Approximating the edge length of 2-edge connected planar geometric graphs on a set of points

Given a set P of n points in the plane, we solve the problems of constructing a geometric planar graph spanning P 1) of minimum degree 2, and 2) which is 2-edge connected, respectively, and has max edge length bounded by a factor of 2 times the optimal; we also show that the factor 2 is best possible given appropriate connectivity conditions on the set P, respectively. First, we construct in O(nlogn) time a geometric planar graph of minimum degree 2 and max edge length bounded by 2 times the optimal. This is then used to construct in O(nlogn) time a 2-edge connected geometric planar graph spanning P with max edge length bounded by √5 times the optimal, assuming that the set P forms a connected Unit Disk Graph. Second, we prove that 2 times the optimal is always sufficient if the set of points forms a 2 edge connected Unit Disk Graph and give an algorithm that runs in O(n 2) time. We also show that for κ ∈ O(√n), there exists a set P of n points in the plane such that even though the Unit Disk Graph spanning P is κ-vertex connected, there is no 2-edge connected geometric planar graph spanning P even if the length of its edges is allowed to be up to 17/16

Enhanced Transferrin Receptor Expression by Proinflammatory Cytokines in Enterocytes as a Means for Local Delivery of Drugs to Inflamed Gut Mucosa

Therapeutic intervention in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) is often associated with adverse effects related to drug distribution into non-diseased tissues, a situation which attracts a rational design of a targeted treatment confined to the inflamed mucosa. Upon activation of immune cells, transferrin receptor (TfR) expression increases at their surface. Because TfR is expressed in all cell types we hypothesized that its cell surface levels are regulated also in enterocytes. We, therefore, compared TfR expression in healthy and inflamed human colonic mucosa, as well as healthy and inflamed colonic mucosa of the DNBS-induced rat model. TfR expression was elevated in the colonic mucosa of IBD patients in both the basolateral and apical membranes of the enterocytes. Increased TfR expression was also observed in colonocytes of the induced colitis rats. To explore the underlying mechanism CaCo-2 cells were treated with various proinflammatory cytokines, which increased both TfR expression and transferrin cellular uptake in a mechanism that did not involve hyper proliferation. These findings were then exploited for the design of targetable carrier towards inflamed regions of the colon. Anti-TfR antibodies were conjugated to nano-liposomes. As expected, iron-starved Caco-2 cells internalized anti-TfR immunoliposomes better than controls. Ex vivo binding studies to inflamed mucosa showed that the anti-TfR immunoliposomes accumulated significantly better in the mucosa of DNBS-induced rats than the accumulation of non-specific immunoliposomes. It is concluded that targeting mucosal inflammation can be accomplished by nano-liposomes decorated with anti-TfR due to inflammation-dependent, apical, elevated expression of the receptor

Liposomal Formulations of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Drugs: Local versus Systemic Drug Delivery in a Rat Model

Based on adherence to intestinal mucosa, intralumenally administered liposomal formulations of 5-aminosalicylate (5-ASA) and 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP) were studied for their potential to enhance local drug delivery to intestinal tissue for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/41509/1/11095_2005_Article_5376.pd

Fujaba hits the Wall(-e)

With the ever increasing pervasiveness of software in every day's life, it is quite easy to explain children the importance of software development. Especially when using gadgets such as LEGO robots, one can fascinate young pupils. It is much harder though to and fair link to the actual educational and research programs from a particular university without blowing the audience away with details of a particular Java framework. This paper illustrates how one can use Fujaba to involve children from 8 to 18 years old in realistic requirements elicitation workshops. The children implicitly get in touch with the object-oriented paradigm by playing in the real world the communication between objects in a robot's computer. Fujaba's visual object browser provides a convincing means to illustrate that the game adequately represents the robot's internals

Accuracy of Fractional Flow Reserve Derived From Coronary Angiography.

Measuring fractional flow reserve (FFR) with a pressure wire remains underutilized because of the invasiveness of guide wire placement or the need for a hyperemic stimulus. FFR derived from routine coronary angiography (FFR <sub>angio</sub> ) eliminates both of these requirements and displays FFR values of the entire coronary tree. The FFR <sub>angio</sub> Accuracy versus Standard FFR (FAST-FFR) study is a prospective, multicenter, international trial with the primary goal of determining the accuracy of FFR <sub>angio</sub> . Coronary angiography was performed in a routine fashion in patients with suspected coronary artery disease. FFR was measured in vessels with coronary lesions of varying severity using a coronary pressure wire and hyperemic stimulus. Based on angiograms of the respective arteries acquired in ≥2 different projections, on-site operators blinded to FFR then calculated FFR <sub>angio</sub> using proprietary software. Coprimary end points were the sensitivity and specificity of the dichotomously scored FFR <sub>angio</sub> for predicting pressure wire-derived FFR using a cutoff value of 0.80. The study was powered to meet prespecified performance goals for sensitivity and specificity. Ten centers in the United States, Europe, and Israel enrolled a total of 301 subjects and 319 vessels meeting inclusion/exclusion criteria which were included in the final analysis. The mean FFR was 0.81 and 43% of vessels had an FFR≤0.80. The per-vessel sensitivity and specificity were 94% (95% CI, 88% to 97%) and 91% (86% to 95%), respectively, both of which exceeded the prespecified performance goals. The diagnostic accuracy of FFR <sub>angio</sub> was 92% overall and remained high when only considering FFR values between 0.75 to 0.85 (87%). FFR <sub>angio</sub> values correlated well with FFR measurements ( r=0.80, P<0.001) and the Bland-Altman 95% confidence limits were between -0.14 and 0.12. The device success rate for FFR <sub>angio</sub> was 99%. FFR <sub>angio</sub> measured from the coronary angiogram alone has a high sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy compared with pressure wire-derived FFR. FFR <sub>angio</sub> has the promise to substantially increase physiological coronary lesion assessment in the catheterization laboratory, thereby potentially leading to improved patient outcomes. URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov . Unique Identifier: NCT03226262

HLA-DRB1 AND –DQB1 ALLELES, HAPLOTYPES AND GENOTYPES IN EMIRATI PATIENTS WITH TYPE 1 DIABETES UNDERSCORES THE BENEFITS OF EVALUATING UNDERSTUDIED POPULATIONS

HLA class II (DR and DQ) alleles and antigens have historically shown strong genetic predisposition to type 1 diabetes (T1D). This study evaluated the association of DRB1 and DQB1 alleles, genotypes, and haplotypes with T1D in United Arab Emirate