Wealth, work, and industriousness, 1670–1860: Evidence from rural Swedish probates

This paper uses a new database of 1,891 probate inventories from rural southern Sweden from the 1670s to the 1860s to investigate the development of wealth and productive capacity in the Swedish countryside in this period. We show that while real wages fell in the 1700s, material living standards — as measured by the contents of probate inventories — improved, indicating greater labour inputs. This was not driven by more widespread ownership of the means of production, as the rural underclasses rather owned less means of production over time, and to some extent farmers did too. The wage labour inputs of the labouring classes intensified, and for workers’ and farmers’ households alike, textile production at home became more important; in the 1860s, half of working-class households owned spinning wheels and weaving looms, and for farmer households, the shares were 68 and 82 per cent, respectively. We argue that the results support an interpretation of an industrious revolution in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Sweden, with the improving material living standards shown by probate inventories, in contrast to the stagnating GDP per capita suggested by historical national accounts research

Distinct Signatures For Coulomb Blockade and Aharonov-Bohm Interference in Electronic Fabry-Perot Interferometers

Two distinct types of magnetoresistance oscillations are observed in two electronic Fabry-Perot interferometers of different sizes in the integer quantum Hall regime. Measuring these oscillations as a function of magnetic field and gate voltages, we observe three signatures that distinguish the two types. The oscillations observed in a 2.0 square micron device are understood to arise from the Coulomb blockade mechanism, and those observed in an 18 square micron device from the Aharonov-Bohm mechanism. This work clarifies, provides ways to distinguish, and demonstrates control over, these distinct physical origins of resistance oscillations seen in electronic Fabry-Perot interferometers.Comment: related papers at http://marcuslab.harvard.ed

Prostate Cancer Nodal Staging: Using Deep Learning to Predict 68Ga-PSMA-Positivity from CT Imaging Alone

Lymphatic spread determines treatment decisions in prostate cancer (PCa) patients. 68Ga-PSMA-PET/CT can be performed, although cost remains high and availability is limited. Therefore, computed tomography (CT) continues to be the most used modality for PCa staging. We assessed if convolutional neural networks (CNNs) can be trained to determine 68Ga-PSMA-PET/CT-lymph node status from CT alone. In 549 patients with 68Ga-PSMA PET/CT imaging, 2616 lymph nodes were segmented. Using PET as a reference standard, three CNNs were trained. Training sets balanced for infiltration status, lymph node location and additionally, masked images, were used for training. CNNs were evaluated using a separate test set and performance was compared to radiologists' assessments and random forest classifiers. Heatmaps maps were used to identify the performance determining image regions. The CNNs performed with an Area-Under-the-Curve of 0.95 (status balanced) and 0.86 (location balanced, masked), compared to an AUC of 0.81 of experienced radiologists. Interestingly, CNNs used anatomical surroundings to increase their performance, "learning" the infiltration probabilities of anatomical locations. In conclusion, CNNs have the potential to build a well performing CT-based biomarker for lymph node metastases in PCa, with different types of class balancing strongly affecting CNN performance

Magnetic resonance imaging of hip joint cartilage and labrum

Hip joint instability and impingement are the most common biomechanical risk factors that put the hip joint at risk to develop premature osteoarthritis. Several surgical procedures like periacetabular osteotomy for hip dysplasia or hip arthroscopy or safe surgical hip dislocation for femoroacetabular impingement aim at restoring the hip anatomy. However, the success of joint preserving surgical procedures is limited by the amount of pre-existing cartilage damage. Biochemically sensitive MRI techniques like delayed Gadolinium Enhanced MRI of Cartilage (dGEMRIC) might help to monitor the effect of surgical or non-surgical procedures in the effort to halt or even reverse joint damage

Surrogates for myocardial power and power efficiency in patients with aortic valve disease

We aimed to assess surrogate markers for left ventricular (LV) myocardial power and efficiency in patients with isolated aortic stenosis (AS) and combined stenosis/regurgitation (AS/AR). In AS (n = 59), AS/AR (n = 21) and controls (n = 14), surrogates for LV myocardial power and circulatory/external myocardial efficiency were obtained from cardiac MRI. Median surrogate LV myocardial power was increased in AS, 7.7 W/m2 (interquartile range 6.0-10.2; p = 0.010) and AS/AR, 10.8 W/m2 (8.9-13.4; p < 0.001) when compared to controls, 5.4 W/m2 (4.2-6.5), and was lower in AS than AS/AR (p < 0.001). Surrogate circulatory efficiency was decreased in AS, 8.6% (6.8-11.1; p < 0.001) and AS/AR, 5.4% (4.1-6.2; p < 0.001) when compared to controls, 11.8% (9.8-16.9). Surrogate external myocardial efficiency was higher in AS, 15.2% (11.9-18.6) than in AS/AR, 12.2% (10.1-14.2; p = 0.031) and was significantly lower compared to controls, 12.2% (10.7-18.1) in patients with reduced ejection fraction (EF), 9.8% (8.1-11.7; p = 0.025). In 16% of all cases, left ventricular mass/volume indices and EF were within normal ranges, wheras surrogate LV myocardial power was elevated and patients were symptomatic. Although influenced by pressure/volume load, the myocardium is additionally affected by remodelling processes. Surrogates for circulatory efficiency and LV myocardial power gradually reflect alterations in patients with AS and AS/AR, even when surrogate external myocardial efficiency, EF, mass and volume indices still remain compensated

Biofuel cell based on microscale nanostructured electrodes with inductive coupling to rat brain neurons.

Miniature, self-contained biodevices powered by biofuel cells may enable a new generation of implantable, wireless, minimally invasive neural interfaces for neurophysiological in vivo studies and for clinical applications. Here we report on the fabrication of a direct electron transfer based glucose/oxygen enzymatic fuel cell (EFC) from genuinely three-dimensional (3D) nanostructured microscale gold electrodes, modified with suitable biocatalysts. We show that the process underlying the simple fabrication method of 3D nanostructured electrodes is based on an electrochemically driven transformation of physically deposited gold nanoparticles. We experimentally demonstrate that mediator-, cofactor-, and membrane-less EFCs do operate in cerebrospinal fluid and in the brain of a rat, producing amounts of electrical power sufficient to drive a self-contained biodevice, viz. 7 μW cm(-2) in vitro and 2 μW cm(-2) in vivo at an operating voltage of 0.4 V. Last but not least, we also demonstrate an inductive coupling between 3D nanobioelectrodes and living neurons

Edge-State Velocity and Coherence in a Quantum Hall Fabry-Perot Interferometer

We investigate nonlinear transport in electronic Fabry-Perot interferometers in the integer quantum Hall regime. For interferometers sufficiently large that Coulomb blockade effects are absent, a checkerboard-like pattern of conductance oscillations as a function of dc bias and perpendicular magnetic field is observed. Edge-state velocities extracted from the checkerboard data are compared to model calculations and found to be consistent with a crossover from skipping orbits at low fields to E x B drift at high fields. Suppression of visibility as a function of bias and magnetic field is accounted for by including energy- and field-dependent dephasing of edge electrons.Comment: related papers at http://marcuslab.harvard.ed

Circulatory efficiency in patients with severe aortic valve stenosis before and after aortic valve replacement

Background: Circulatory efficiency reflects the ratio between total left ventricular work and the work required for maintaining cardiovascular circulation. The effect of severe aortic valve stenosis (AS) and aortic valve replacement (AVR) on left ventricular/circulatory mechanical power and efficiency is not yet fully understood. We aimed to quantify left ventricular (LV) efficiency in patients with severe AS before and after surgical AVR. Methods: Circulatory efficiency was computed from cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging derived volumetric data, echocardiographic and clinical data in patients with severe AS (n = 41) before and 4 months after AVR and in age and sex-matched healthy subjects (n = 10). Results: In patients with AS circulatory efficiency was significantly decreased compared to healthy subjects (9 +/- 3% vs 12 +/- 2%; p = 0.004). There were significant negative correlations between circulatory efficiency and LV myocardial mass (r = - 0.591, p < 0.001), myocardial fibrosis volume (r = - 0.427, p = 0.015), end systolic volume (r = - 0.609, p < 0.001) and NT-proBNP (r = - 0.444, p = 0.009) and significant positive correlation between circulatory efficiency and LV ejection fraction (r = 0.704, p < 0.001). After AVR, circulatory efficiency increased significantly in the total cohort (9 +/- 3 vs 13 +/- 5%; p < 0.001). However, in 10/41 (24%) patients, circulatory efficiency remained below 10% after AVR and, thus, did not restore to normal values. These patients also showed less reduction in myocardial fibrosis volume compared to patients with restored circulatory efficiency after AVR. Conclusion: In our cohort, circulatory efficiency is reduced in patients with severe AS. In 76% of cases, AVR leads to normalization of circulatory efficiency. However, in 24% of patients, circulatory efficiency remained below normal values even after successful AVR. In these patients also less regression of myocardial fibrosis volume was seen. Trial Registration clinicaltrials.gov NCT03172338, June 1, 2017, retrospectively registered