Magnetization reversal in isolated and interacting single-domain nanoparticles

Computational and experimental results on the thermally-induced magnetization reversal in single-domain magnetic nanoparticles are reported. The simulations are based on the direct integration of the Fokker-Planck equation that governs the dynamics of the magnetic moment associated with the nanoparticles. A mean field approximation is used to account for the influence of the dipolar interaction between nanoparticles. It is shown that the interactions can either speed up or slow down the reversal process, depending on the angle between the external magnetic field and the axis of easy magnetization. The numerical results are in good agreement with experimental measurements on cobalt-platinum nanoparticles

CaO-Al₂O₃ calcined aerogels and alcogels for heterogeneous catalytic production of biodiesel from waste cooking oil

Thesis. M.M.E. American University of Beirut. Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2018. ET:6717$Advisor : Dr. Mohammad Ahmad, Professor, Chemical Engineering ; Co-advisor : Dr. Houssam El-Rassy, Associate Professor, Chemistry ; Committee members : Dr. Belal Abu Tarboush, Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering ; Dr. Joseph Zeaiter, Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering ; Dr. Elie Shammas, Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering ; Dr. Mu’Tasem Shehadeh, Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-64) .The depletion of the world’s petroleum reserves, increasing energy demand, and rising greenhouse gas emissions led to the search for an alternative and renewable sources of energy. Biodiesel has become the most promising substitute or additive to diesel fuels since it is renewable, clean, and share similar properties to diesel. In this work, CaO-Al₂O₃ calcined aerogels and alcogels were synthesized for the transesterification of WCO using a rapid epoxide-initiated gelation sol-gel method. All synthesized catalysts were characterized using FTIR spectroscopy, nitrogen adsorption-desorption technique, scanning electron microscopy, X-Ray diffraction, and thermogravimetric analysis. Characterization revealed that the calcined aerogels at low CaO content were not as affected by calcination at 700 oC as their corresponding calcined alcogels. Furthermore, calcined aerogels at low CaO content maintained a different structure than their corresponding calcined alcogels. The 3:1 CaO-Al₂O₃ calcined aerogel showed the best catalytic activity using the minimum amount of material to produce high biodiesel yield and conversion with no soap formation. The effect of CaO content, catalyst loading, methanol to oil ratio, and reaction time on biodiesel production was investigated. After optimization of the parameters, a maximum biodiesel yield (89.84 percent) with highest purity (98.04 percent) was achieved under the following optimum conditions: 1 wt. percent 3:1 CaO-Al₂O₃ calcined aerogel, 11:1 methanol to oil molar ratio, 65°C, and 4 hours. The transesterification reaction followed a pseudo first order kinetics. This work compared the activities of calcined aerogels and alcogels for the production of biodiesel from WCO in an economical and eco-friendly process

Automated Testing: Requirements Propagation via Model Transformation in Embedded Software

Testing is the most common activity to validate software systems and plays a key role in the software development process. In general, the software testing phase takes around 40-70% of the effort, time and cost. This area has been well researched over a long period of time. Unfortunately, while many researchers have found methods of reducing time and cost during the testing process, there are still a number of important related issues such as generating test cases from UCM scenarios and validate them need to be researched. As a result, ensuring that an embedded software behaves correctly is non-trivial, especially when testing with limited resources and seeking compliance with safety-critical software standard. It thus becomes imperative to adopt an approach or methodology based on tools and best engineering practices to improve the testing process. This research addresses the problem of testing embedded software with limited resources by the following. First, a reverse-engineering technique is exercised on legacy software tests aims to discover feasible transformation from test layer to test requirement layer. The feasibility of transforming the legacy test cases into an abstract model is shown, along with a forward engineering process to regenerate the test cases in selected test language. Second, a new model-driven testing technique based on different granularity level (MDTGL) to generate test cases is introduced. The new approach uses models in order to manage the complexity of the system under test (SUT). Automatic model transformation is applied to automate test case development which is a tedious, error-prone, and recurrent software development task. Third, the model transformations that automated the development of test cases in the MDTGL methodology are validated in comparison with industrial testing process using embedded software specification. To enable the validation, a set of timed and functional requirement is introduced. Two case studies are run on an embedded system to generate test cases. The effectiveness of two testing approaches are determined and contrasted according to the generation of test cases and the correctness of the generated workflow. Compared to several techniques, our new approach generated useful and effective test cases with much less resources in terms of time and labor work. Finally, to enhance the applicability of MDTGL, the methodology is extended with the creation of a trace model that records traceability links among generated testing artifacts. The traceability links, often mandated by software development standards, enable the support for visualizing traceability, model-based coverage analysis and result evaluation

Nonmyeloablative, HLA-haploidentical bone marrow transplantation with high dose, post-transplantation cyclophosphamide

Allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT) from an HLA-haploidentical relative provides a potentially curative treatment option for hematologic malignancies patients who lack a suitably HLA-matched donor. The greatest challenge to performing HLA-haploidentical SCT has been high rates of graft failure and severe graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Our group has been exploring high dose, post-transplantation cyclophosphamide (Cy) as prophylaxis of GVHD after nonmyeloablative, HLA-haploidentical bone marrow transplantation, or mini-haploBMT. Among 210 recipients of mini-haploBMT, 87% of patients have experienced sustained donor cell engraftment. The cumulative incidences of grades II-IV acute GVHD and chronic GVHD are 27% and 13%, respectively. Five-year cumulative incidence of non-relapse mortality is 18%, relapse is 55%, and actuarial overall survival and event-free survivals are 35% and 27%, respectively. These outcomes suggest that mini-haploBMT with post-transplantation Cy is associated with acceptably low toxicities and can provide longterm survival, if not cure, for many patients with advanced hematologic malignancies

Hybrid CaO/Al2O3 aerogel as heterogeneous catalyst for biodiesel production

We report a new hybrid CaO/Al2O3 aerogel and its application as a heterogeneous catalyst for the production of biodiesel. These catalysts were successfully prepared for the first time via the rapid epoxide-initiated sol-gel process and dried under supercritical carbon dioxide conditions. The catalytic activity has been investigated under various conditions for the transesterification reaction of a waste cooking oil in the presence of methanol. The catalysts were characterized by FTIR spectroscopy, nitrogen adsorption-desorption technique, scanning electron microscopy, and powder X-Ray diffraction. The calcined aerogels at low CaO content were not as affected by calcination at 700 °C as their corresponding calcined alcogels and they revealed distinct structures, porosities, surface areas, and morphologies. The 3:1 CaO/Al2O3 calcined aerogel showed the best catalytic activity using the minimum amount of catalyst to produce high biodiesel yield and conversion with no soap formation. The effect on biodiesel production of calcium-to-aluminum molar ratio, catalyst loading, methanol-to-oil molar ratio, and reaction time was investigated. At optimal conditions, a maximum biodiesel yield (89.9%) with high purity (98.0%) was achieved and the transesterification reaction was found to follow pseudo-first-order kinetics. The optimal conditions are 1 wt% 3:1 CaO/Al2O3 calcined aerogel for reactions performed at 65 °C over 4 h using a methanol-to-oil molar ratio equal to 11:1. © 2019 Elsevier B.V

Magnetization reversal in isolated and interacting single-domain nanoparticles

Computational and experimental results of thermally induced magnetization reversal in single-domain magnetic nanoparticles are reported. The simulations are based on direct integration of the Fokker-Planck equation that governs the dynamics of the magnetic moment associated with the nanoparticles. A mean-field approximation is used to account for the influence of the dipolar interaction between nanoparticles. It is shown that the interactions can either speed up or slow down the reversal process, depending on the angle between the external magnetic field and the axis of easymagnetization. The numerical results are in good agreement with experimental measurements of cobalt-platinum nanoparticles

ClinGen Myeloid Malignancy Variant Curation Expert Panel recommendations for germline RUNX1 variants

Standardized variant curation is essential for clinical care recommendations for patients with inherited disorders. Clinical Genome Resource (ClinGen) variant curation expert panels are developing disease-associated gene specifications using the 2015 American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) and Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) guidelines to reduce curation discrepancies. The ClinGen Myeloid Malignancy Variant Curation Expert Panel (MM-VCEP) was created collaboratively between the American Society of Hematology and ClinGen to perform gene- and disease-specific modifications for inherited myeloid malignancies. The MM-VCEP began optimizing ACMG/AMP rules for RUNX1 because many germline variants have been described in patients with familial platelet disorder with a predisposition to acute myeloid leukemia, characterized by thrombocytopenia, platelet functional/ultrastructural defects, and a predisposition to hematologic malignancies. The 28 ACMG/AMP codes were tailored for RUNX1 variants by modifying gene/disease specifications, incorporating strength adjustments of existing rules, or both. Key specifications included calculation of minor allele frequency thresholds, formulating a semi-quantitative approach to counting multiple independent variant occurrences, identifying functional domains and mutational hotspots, establishing functional assay thresholds, and characterizing phenotype-specific guidelines. Preliminary rules were tested by using a pilot set of 52 variants; among these, 50 were previously classified as benign/likely benign, pathogenic/likely pathogenic, variant of unknown significance (VUS), or conflicting interpretations (CONF) in ClinVar. The application of RUNX1-specific criteria resulted in a reduction in CONF and VUS variants by 33%, emphasizing the benefit of gene-specific criteria and sharing internal laboratory data.Xi Luo, Simone Feurstein, Shruthi Mohan, Christopher C. Porter, Sarah A. Jackson, Sioban Keel ... et al

Review of the medical literature and assessment of current utilization patterns regarding the use of two common fluorescence in situ hybridization assays in the diagnosis of dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans and clear cell sarcoma

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146634/1/cup13345.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146634/2/cup13345_am.pd

How I curate: applying American Society of Hematology-Clinical Genome Resource Myeloid Malignancy Variant Curation Expert Panel rules for RUNX1 variant curation for germline predisposition to myeloid malignancies

The broad use of next-generation sequencing and microarray platforms in research and clinical laboratories has led to an increasing appreciation of the role of germline mutations in genes involved in hematopoiesis and lineage differentiation that contribute to myeloid neoplasms. Despite implementation of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics and Association for Molecular Pathology 2015 guidelines for sequence variant interpretation, the number of variants deposited in ClinVar, a genomic repository of genotype and phenotype data, and classified as having uncertain significance or being discordantly classified among clinical laboratories remains elevated and contributes to indeterminate or inconsistent patient care. In 2018, the American Society of Hematology and the Clinical Genome Resource co-sponsored the Myeloid Malignancy Variant Curation Expert Panel to develop rules for classifying gene variants associated with germline predisposition to myeloid neoplasia. Herein, we demonstrate application of our rules developed for the RUNX1 gene to variants in six examples to show how we would classify them within the proposed framework

Genomes for Kids: The Scope of Pathogenic Mutations in Pediatric Cancer Revealed by Comprehensive DNA and RNA Sequencing

Genomic studies of pediatric cancer have primarily focused on specific tumor types or high-risk disease. Here, we used a three-platform sequencing approach, including whole-genome sequencing (WGS), whole-exome sequencing (WES), and RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), to examine tumor and germline genomes from 309 prospectively identified children with newly diagnosed (85%) or relapsed/refractory (15%) cancers, unselected for tumor type. Eighty-six percent of patients harbored diagnostic (53%), prognostic (57%), therapeutically relevant (25%), and/or cancer-predisposing (18%) variants. Inclusion of WGS enabled detection of activating gene fusions and enhancer hijacks (36% and 8% of tumors, respectively), small intragenic deletions (15% of tumors), and mutational signatures revealing of pathogenic variant effects. Evaluation of paired tumor-normal data revealed relevance to tumor development for 55% of pathogenic germline variants. This study demonstrates the power of a three-platform approach that incorporates WGS to interrogate and interpret the full range of genomic variants across newly diagnosed as well as relapsed/refractory pediatric cancers. SIGNIFICANCE: Pediatric cancers are driven by diverse genomic lesions, and sequencing has proven useful in evaluating high-risk and relapsed/refractory cases. We show that combined WGS, WES, and RNA-seq of tumor and paired normal tissues enables identification and characterization of genetic drivers across the full spectrum of pediatric cancers. This article is highlighted in the In This Issue feature, p. 2945