Two-Dimensional Flow Nanometry of Biological Nanoparticles for Accurate Determination of Their Size and Emission Intensity

Biological nanoparticles (BNPs) are of high interest due to their key role in various biological processes and use as biomarkers. BNP size and molecular composition are decisive for their functions, but simultaneous determination of both properties with high accuracy remains challenging, which is a severe limitation. Surface-sensitive microscopy allows one to precisely determine fluorescence or scattering intensity, but not the size of individual BNPs. The latter is better determined by tracking their random motion in bulk, but the limited illumination volume for tracking this motion impedes reliable intensity determination. We here show that attaching BNPs (specifically, vesicles and functionalized gold NPs) to a supported lipid bilayer, subjecting them to a hydrodynamic flow, and tracking their motion via surface-sensitive imaging enable to determine their diffusion coefficients and flow-induced drift velocities and to accurately quantify both BNP size and emission intensity. For vesicles, the high accuracy is demonstrated by resolving the expected radius-squared dependence of their fluorescence intensity.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figure

A Strategy Development Process for Smart Maintenance Implementation

Technological advancements are reshaping the manufacturing industry toward digitalized manufacturing. Despite the importance of top-class maintenance in such systems, many industrial companies lack a clear strategy for maintenance in digitalized manufacturing. The purpose of this paper is to facilitate the implementation of maintenance in digitalized manufacturing by proposing a strategy development process for the Smart Maintenance concept.A process of strategy development for smart maintenance is proposed, including six steps: benchmarking, setting clear goals, setting strategic priority, planning key activities, elevating implementation and follow-up.The proposed process provides industry practitioners with a step-by-step guide for the development of a clear smart maintenance strategy, based on the current state of their maintenance organization. This creates employee engagement and is a new way of developing maintenance strategies

Hindering Factors in Smart Maintenance Implementation

In today’s industrial environment, innovations and advancements in technology are extremely fast. This development has led to a Fourth Industrial Revolution where industrial companies strive to achieve highly digitalized and resilient production systems. To realize such production systems, the role of maintenance is critical. Industrial companies are anticipated to transform their maintenance organizations towards Smart Maintenance, but they need evidence-based guidance in pursuing such an implementation. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to support industry practitioners in their Smart Maintenance implementation. By means of an empirical case study within energy production, this paper identifies and describes hindering factors that impede the implementation of Smart Maintenance, as well as provides recommendations for overcoming the hindering factors. The recommendations can be used by industry practitioners to increase the likelihood of success in their Smart Maintenance implementation, thereby helping industrial companies in their development of sustainable and resilient production systems

Quantifying the Effects of Maintenance - a Literature Review of Maintenance Models

To secure future competitiveness, manufacturing companies have started a digital transformation where equipment and systems become more complex. To handle the complexity and enable higher levels of automation, maintenance organization is expected to take a key role. However, there are well-known challenges in industry to quantify the effects of maintenance, and thereby argue for maintenance investments. To quantify the effects, researchers have developed several models, but their application is limited in industry. This paper presents a structured literature review of existing maintenance models and discusses how to increase their applicability for practitioners in industry

Betamethasone in prevention of postoperative nausea and vomiting following breast surgery.

To investigate whether betamethasone decreases the incidence of postoperative nausea/vomiting (PONV) and reduces postoperative pain following partial mastectomy

Optimisation of slab track design considering dynamic train–track interaction and environmental impact

Modern railway tracks for high-speed traffic are often built based on a slab track design. A major disadvantage of slab track compared to conventional ballasted track is that the environmental impact of the construction is higher due to the significant amount of concrete required. In this paper, the dimensions of the rectangular cross-sections and the types of concrete used in slab tracks are optimised with the objective to minimise greenhouse gas emissions, while considering the constraint that the design must pass the static dimensioning analysis described in the European standard 16432-2. The optimised track design is also analysed using a three-dimensional (3D) model of vertical dynamic vehicle–track interaction, where the rails are modelled as Rayleigh–Timoshenko beams and the concrete parts are represented by quadratic shell elements. Wheel–rail contact forces and the time-variant stress field of the concrete parts are calculated using a complex-valued modal superposition for the finite element model of the track. For the studied traffic scenario, it is concluded that the thickness of the panel can be reduced compared to the optimised design from the standard without therisk of crack initiation due to the dynamic vehicle load. In parallel, a model of reinforced concrete is developed to predict crack widths, the bending stiffness of a cracked panel section and to assess in which situations the amount of steel reinforcement can be reduced. To reduce the environmental impact even further, there is potential for an extended geometry optimisation by excluding much of the concrete between the rails

Hyaluronic acid levels predict risk of hepatic encephalopathy and liver-related death in HIV/viral hepatitis coinfected patients

Background: Whereas it is well established that various soluble biomarkers can predict level of liver fibrosis, their ability to predict liver-related clinical outcomes is less clearly established, in particular among HIV/viral hepatitis co-infected persons. We investigated plasma hyaluronic acid’s (HA) ability to predict risk of liver-related events (LRE; hepatic coma or liver-related death) in the EuroSIDA study. Methods: Patients included were positive for anti-HCV and/or HBsAg with at least one available plasma sample. The earliest collected plasma sample was tested for HA (normal range 0–75 ng/mL) and levels were associated with risk of LRE. Change in HA per year of follow-up was estimated after measuring HA levels in latest sample before the LRE for those experiencing this outcome (cases) and in a random selection of one sixth of the remaining patients (controls). Results: During a median of 8.2 years of follow-up, 84/1252 (6.7%) patients developed a LRE. Baseline median (IQR) HA in those without and with a LRE was 31.8 (17.2–62.6) and 221.6 ng/mL (74.9–611.3), respectively (p<0.0001). After adjustment, HA levels predicted risk of contracting a LRE; incidence rate ratios for HA levels 75–250 or ≥250 vs. <75 ng/mL were 5.22 (95% CI 2.86–9.26, p<0.0007) and 28.22 (95% CI 14.95–46.00, p<0.0001), respectively. Median HA levels increased substantially prior to developing a LRE (107.6 ng/mL, IQR 0.8 to 251.1), but remained stable for controls (1.0 ng/mL, IQR –5.1 to 8.2), (p<0.0001 comparing cases and controls), and greater increases predicted risk of a LRE in adjusted models (p<0.001). Conclusions: An elevated level of plasma HA, particularly if the level further increases over time, substantially increases the risk of contracting LRE over the next five years. HA is an inexpensive, standardized and non-invasive supplement to other methods aimed at identifying HIV/viral hepatitis co-infected patients at risk of hepatic complications

Determination of Nano-sized Adsorbate Mass in Solution using Mechanical Resonators: Elimination of the so far Inseparable Liquid Contribution

Assumption-free mass quantification of nanofilms, nanoparticles, and (supra)molecular adsorbates in liquid environment remains a key challenge in many branches of science. Mechanical resonators can uniquely determine the mass of essentially any adsorbate; yet, when operating in liquid environment, the liquid dynamically coupled to the adsorbate contributes significantly to the measured response, which complicates data interpretation and impairs quantitative adsorbate mass determination. Employing the Navier-Stokes equation for liquid velocity in contact with an oscillating surface, we show that the liquid contribution can be eliminated by measuring the response in solutions with identical kinematic viscosity but different densities. Guided by this insight, we used quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), one of the most widely-employed mechanical resonator, to demonstrate that kinematic-viscosity matching can be utilized to accurately quantify the dry mass of systems such as adsorbed rigid nanoparticles, tethered biological nanoparticles (lipid vesicles), as well as highly hydrated polymeric films. The same approach applied to the simultaneously measured energy dissipation made it possible to quantify the mechanical properties of the adsorbate and its attachment to the surface, as demonstrated by, for example, probing the hydrodynamic stablization induced by nanoparticles crowding. Finally, we envision that the possibility to simultaneously determine the dry mass and mechanical properties of adsorbates as well as the liquid contributions will provide the experimental tools to use mechanical resonators for applications beyond mass determination, as for example to directly interrogate the orientation, spatial distribution, and binding strength of adsorbates without the need for complementary techniques.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figure

Global analysis of mRNA stability in the archaeon Sulfolobus

BACKGROUND: Transcript half-lives differ between organisms, and between groups of genes within the same organism. The mechanisms underlying these differences are not clear, nor are the biochemical properties that determine the stability of a transcript. To address these issues, genome-wide mRNA decay studies have been conducted in eukaryotes and bacteria. In contrast, relatively little is known about RNA stability in the third domain of life, Archaea. Here, we present a microarray-based analysis of mRNA half-lives in the hyperthermophilic crenarchaea Sulfolobus solfataricus and Sulfolobus acidocaldarius, constituting the first genome-wide study of RNA decay in archaea. RESULTS: The two transcriptomes displayed similar half-life distributions, with medians of about five minutes. Growth-related genes, such as those involved in transcription, translation and energy production, were over-represented among unstable transcripts, whereas uncharacterized genes were over-represented among the most stable. Half-life was negatively correlated with transcript abundance and, unlike the situation in other organisms, also negatively correlated with transcript length. CONCLUSION: The mRNA half-life distribution of Sulfolobus species is similar to those of much faster growing bacteria, contrasting with the earlier observation that median mRNA half-life is proportional to the minimal length of the cell cycle. Instead, short half-lives may be a general feature of prokaryotic transcriptomes, possibly related to the absence of a nucleus and/or more limited post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms. The pattern of growth-related transcripts being among the least stable in Sulfolobus may also indicate that the short half-lives reflect a necessity to rapidly reprogram gene expression upon sudden changes in environmental conditions

Serum thymidine kinase 1 concentration as a predictive biomarker in prostate cancer

Background Thymidine kinase 1 (TK1) recycles DNA before cell division. We do not know if baseline blood concentrations of TK1 predict death in prostate cancer within 30 years. Our objective is to determine if there is an association between baseline levels of TK1 and future prostate cancer-specific mortality. Methods With a "proof of concept" approach, we performed a nested case-control study among 1782 individuals screened for prostate cancer between 1988 and 1989. The concentration of TK1 was measured in frozen serum from 330 men, 36 of whom have died of prostate cancer. The primary endpoint was prostate cancer-specific mortality and outcomes after 30 years were analyzed using logistic regression modeling odds ratios (Ors). Results The estimated OR (adjusted for age) for dying from prostate cancer among the men who had a TK1 value in the upper tertile was 2.39 (95% confidence interval 1.02-5.63). The corresponding OR, regardless of the cause of death, was 2.81 (1.24-6.34). Conclusions High levels of TK1 predicts death in prostate cancer within 30 years of follow-up