Psychiatric blood biomarkers: avoiding jumping to premature negative or positive conclusions

Blood biomarkers may provide a scientifically useful and clinically usable peripheral signal in psychiatry, as they have been doing for other fields of medicine. Jumping to premature conclusions, negative or positive, can create confusion in this field. Reproducibility is a hallmark of good science. We discuss some recent examples from this dynamic field, and show some new data in support of previously published biomarkers for suicidality (SAT1, MARCKS and SKA2). Methodological clarity and rigor in terms of biomarker discovery, validation and testing is needed. We propose a set of principles for what constitutes a good biomarker, similar in spirit to the Koch postulates used at the birth of the field of infectious diseases

Direct Observation of Quark-Hadron Duality in the Free Neutron F\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e Structure Function

Using the recently published data from the BONuS(Barely Off-shell Nucleon Structure) experiment at Jefferson Lab, which utilized a spectator tagging technique to extract the inclusive electron-free neutron scattering cross section, we obtain the first direct observation of quark-hadron duality in the neutron F2 structure function. The data are used to reconstruct the lowest few (N = 2, 4, and 6) moments of F2 in the three prominent nucleon resonance regions, as well as the moments integrated over the entire resonance region. Comparison with moments computed from global parametrizations of parton distribution functions suggest that quark-hadron duality holds locally for the neutron in the second and third resonance regions down to Q2 approximate to 1 GeV2, with violations possibly up to 20% observed in the first resonance region

Significance of solutions of the inverse Biot-Savart problem in thick superconductors

The evaluation of current distributions in thick superconductors from field profiles near the sample surface is investigated theoretically. A simple model of a cylindrical sample, in which only circular currents are flowing, reduces the inversion to a linear least squares problem, which is analyzed by singular value decomposition. Without additional assumptions about the current distribution (e.g. constant current over the sample thickness), the condition of the problem is very bad, leading to unrealistic results. However, any additional assumption strongly influences the solution and thus renders the solutions again questionable. These difficulties are unfortunately inherent to the inverse Biot-Savart problem in thick superconductors and cannot be avoided by any models or algorithms

Towards precision medicine for pain: diagnostic biomarkers and repurposed drugs

We endeavored to identify objective blood biomarkers for pain, a subjective sensation with a biological basis, using a stepwise discovery, prioritization, validation, and testing in independent cohorts design. We studied psychiatric patients, a high risk group for co-morbid pain disorders and increased perception of pain. For discovery, we used a powerful within-subject longitudinal design. We were successful in identifying blood gene expression biomarkers that were predictive of pain state, and of future emergency department (ED) visits for pain, more so when personalized by gender and diagnosis. MFAP3, which had no prior evidence in the literature for involvement in pain, had the most robust empirical evidence from our discovery and validation steps, and was a strong predictor for pain in the independent cohorts, particularly in females and males with PTSD. Other biomarkers with best overall convergent functional evidence for involvement in pain were GNG7, CNTN1, LY9, CCDC144B, and GBP1. Some of the individual biomarkers identified are targets of existing drugs. Moreover, the biomarker gene expression signatures were used for bioinformatic drug repurposing analyses, yielding leads for possible new drug candidates such as SC-560 (an NSAID), and amoxapine (an antidepressant), as well as natural compounds such as pyridoxine (vitamin B6), cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12), and apigenin (a plant flavonoid). Our work may help mitigate the diagnostic and treatment dilemmas that have contributed to the current opioid epidemic

Moments of the Proton F2 Structure Function at Low Q2

The Q^2 dependence of inclusive electron-proton scattering F_2 structure function data in both the nucleon resonance region and the deep inelastic region, at momentum transfers below 5 (GeV/c)^2, is investigated. Moments of F_2 are constructed, down to momentum transfers of Q^2 ~ 0.1 (GeV/c)^2. The second moment is only slowly varying with Q^2 down to Q^2 ~ 1 (GeV/c)^2, which is a reflection of duality. Below Q^2 of 1 (GeV/c)^2, the Q^2 dependence of the moments is predominantly governed by the elastic contribution, whereas the inelastic channels still seem governed by local duality.Comment: 11 page paper, 1 LaTeX file, 10 postscript figure file

Processing fluency scale development for consumer research

Processing fluency or the subjective experience of ease that consumers can experience when processing information is a prominent construct in consumer research. Despite its prevalence, however, its measurement has been inconsistent. The present research addresses this methodological gap in literature by developing and testing a scale for assessing the subjective experience of processing fluency. This scale demonstrates strong evidence of convergent and discriminant validity, reliability, and nomological validity across different processing fluency manipulations and marketing contexts. Use of this scale will allow marketing practitioners and academicians to consistently measure a psychological state that is known to have ubiquitous effects on downstream consumer outcomes including trust, attitude, and choice. Researchers can administer this four-item scale by having participants indicate their agreement (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree) on whether a given marketing communication (e.g., ad copy) is (a) difficult to process, (b) difficult to read, (c) takes a long time to process, and (d) difficult to understand

Fly, Wake-up, Find: UAV-based Energy-efficient Localization for Distributed Sensor Nodes

A challenging application scenario in the field of industrial Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is the capability of a robot to find and query smart sensor nodes deployed at arbitrary locations in the mission area. This work explores the combination of different communication technologies, namely, Ultra-Wideband (UWB) and Wake-Up Radio (WUR), with a UAV that acts as a "ubiquitous local-host"of a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). First, the UAV performs the localization of the sensor node via multiple UWB range measurements, and then it flies in its proximity to perform energy-efficient data acquisition. We propose an energy-efficient and accurate localization algorithm - based on multi-lateration - that is computationally inexpensive and robust to in-field noise. Aiming at minimizing the sensor node energy consumption, we also present a communication protocol that leverages WUR technology to minimize ON-time of the power-hungry UWB transceiver on the sensors. In-field experimental evaluation demonstrates that our approach achieves a sub-meter localization precision of the sensor nodes - i.e., down to 0.6 m - using only three range measurements, and runs in 4 ms on a low power microcontroller (ARM Cortex-M4F). Due to the presence of the WUR and the proposed lightweight algorithm, the entire localization-acquisition cycle requires only 31 mJ on the sensor node. The approach is suitable for several emerging Industrial Internet of Things application scenarios where a mobile vehicle needs to estimate the location of static objects without any precise knowledge of their position