Radiolabeling human peripheral blood stem cells for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging in young rhesus monkeys.

These studies focused on a new radiolabeling technique with copper ((64)Cu) and zirconium ((89)Zr) for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging using a CD45 antibody. Synthesis of (64)Cu-CD45 and (89)Zr-CD45 immunoconjugates was performed and the evaluation of the potential toxicity of radiolabeling human peripheral blood stem cells (hPBSC) was assessed in vitro (viability, population doubling times, colony forming units). hPBSC viability was maintained as the dose of (64)Cu-TETA-CD45 increased from 0 (92%) to 160 µCi/mL (76%, p>0.05). Radiolabeling efficiency was not significantly increased with concentrations of (64)Cu-TETA-CD45 >20 µCi/mL (p>0.50). Toxicity affecting both growth and colony formation was observed with hPBSC radiolabeled with ≥40 µCi/mL (p<0.05). For (89)Zr, there were no significant differences in viability (p>0.05), and a trend towards increased radiolabeling efficiency was noted as the dose of (89)Zr-Df-CD45 increased, with a greater level of radiolabeling with 160 µCi/mL compared to 0-40 µCi/mL (p<0.05). A greater than 2,000 fold-increase in the level of (89)Zr-Df-CD45 labeling efficiency was observed when compared to (64)Cu-TETA-CD45. Similar to (64)Cu-TETA-CD45, toxicity was noted when hPBSC were radiolabeled with ≥40 µCi/mL (p<0.05) (growth, colony formation). Taken together, 20 µCi/mL resulted in the highest level of radiolabeling efficiency without altering cell function. Young rhesus monkeys that had been transplanted prenatally with 25×10(6) hPBSC expressing firefly luciferase were assessed with bioluminescence imaging (BLI), then 0.3 mCi of (89)Zr-Df-CD45, which showed the best radiolabeling efficiency, was injected intravenously for PET imaging. Results suggest that (89)Zr-Df-CD45 was able to identify engrafted hPBSC in the same locations identified by BLI, although the background was high

Nodeless superconductivity in the cage-type superconductor Sc5Ru6Sn18 with preserved time-reversal symmetry

We report the single-crystal synthesis and detailed investigations of the cage-type superconductor Sc5Ru6Sn18, using powder x-ray diffraction (XRD), magnetization, specific-heat and muon-spin relaxation (muSR) measurements. Sc5Ru6Sn18 crystallizes in a tetragonal structure (space group I41/acd) with the lattice parameters a = 1.387(3) nm and c = 2.641(5) nm. Both DC and AC magnetization measurements prove the type-II superconductivity in Sc5Ru6Sn18 with Tc = 3.5(1) K, a lower critical field H_c1 (0) = 157(9) Oe and an upper critical field, H_c2 (0) = 26(1) kOe. The zero-field electronic specific-heat data are well fitted using a single-gap BCS model, with superconducting gap = 0.64(1) meV. The Sommerfeld constant varies linearly with the applied magnetic field, indicating s-wave superconductivity in Sc5Ru6Sn18. Specific-heat and transverse-field (TF) muSR measurements reveal that Sc5Ru6Sn18 is a superconductor with strong electron-phonon coupling, with TF-muSR also suggesting the single-gap s-wave character of the superconductivity. Furthermore, zero-field muSR measurements do not detect spontaneous magnetic fields below Tc, hence implying that time-reversal symmetry is preserved in Sc5Ru6Sn18.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figure

Performance Evaluation of Road Traffic Control Using a Fuzzy Cellular Model

In this paper a method is proposed for performance evaluation of road traffic control systems. The method is designed to be implemented in an on-line simulation environment, which enables optimisation of adaptive traffic control strategies. Performance measures are computed using a fuzzy cellular traffic model, formulated as a hybrid system combining cellular automata and fuzzy calculus. Experimental results show that the introduced method allows the performance to be evaluated using imprecise traffic measurements. Moreover, the fuzzy definitions of performance measures are convenient for uncertainty determination in traffic control decisions.Comment: The final publication is available at http://www.springerlink.co

Critical Factors of Adopting Enterprise Application Integration Technology: An Empirical Study on Larger Hospitals

As hospitals extend their service scope, they adopt more information systems. These systems are implemented in different timelines and the interfaces of databases become varied. Frequently, the exchange of information between various systems requires additional coordination or even manual input for unifying data. To embrace automation, the solution is to adopt enterprise application integration (EAI) technology, the middleware, to convert data from among various information systems to enable an efficient flow of data in the hospital. In this paper, we discuss and verify the impact factors on the integration levels of EAI by surveying larger hospitals above the regional level in Taiwan and testing a proposed research model. The findings of this study show that information technology infrastructure, hospital size, external pressure, internal pressure, and external support significantly affect the EAI level

Verification and Validation of Semantic Annotations

In this paper, we propose a framework to perform verification and validation of semantically annotated data. The annotations, extracted from websites, are verified against the schema.org vocabulary and Domain Specifications to ensure the syntactic correctness and completeness of the annotations. The Domain Specifications allow checking the compliance of annotations against corresponding domain-specific constraints. The validation mechanism will detect errors and inconsistencies between the content of the analyzed schema.org annotations and the content of the web pages where the annotations were found.Comment: Accepted for the A.P. Ershov Informatics Conference 2019(the PSI Conference Series, 12th edition) proceedin

Models of Little Higgs and Electroweak Precision Tests

The little Higgs idea is an alternative to supersymmetry as a solution to the gauge hierarchy problem. In this note, I review various little Higgs models and their phenomenology with emphases on the precision electroweak constraints in these models.Comment: 16 pages; 4 figures; review submitted to Modern Physics Letter

The antiferromagnetic phi4 Model, II. The one-loop renormalization

It is shown that the four dimensional antiferromagnetic lattice phi4 model has the usual non-asymptotically free scaling law in the UV regime around the chiral symmetrical critical point. The theory describes a scalar and a pseudoscalar particle. A continuum effective theory is derived for low energies. A possibility of constructing a model with a single chiral boson is mentioned.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev.