Multispectral lensless digital holographic microscope: imaging MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cancer cell cultures

Digital holography is the process where an object’s phase and amplitude information is retrieved from intensity images obtained using a digital camera (e.g. CCD or CMOS sensor). In-line digital holographic techniques offer full use of the recording device’s sampling bandwidth, unlike off-axis holography where object information is not modulated onto carrier fringes. Reconstructed images are obscured by the linear superposition of the unwanted, out of focus, twin images. In addition to this, speckle noise degrades overall quality of the reconstructed images. The speckle effect is a phenomenon of laser sources used in digital holographic systems. Minimizing the effects due to speckle noise, removal of the twin image and using the full sampling bandwidth of the capture device aids overall reconstructed image quality. Such improvements applied to digital holography can benefit applications such as holographic microscopy where the reconstructed images are obscured with twin image information. Overcoming such problems allows greater flexibility in current image processing techniques, which can be applied to segmenting biological cells (e.g. MCF-7 and MDA-MB- 231) to determine their overall cell density and viability. This could potentially be used to distinguish between apoptotic and necrotic cells in large scale mammalian cell processes, currently the system of choice, within the biopharmaceutical industry

Social and clinical determinants of preferences and their achievement at the end of life: Prospective cohort study of older adults receiving palliative care in three countries

© 2017 The Author(s). Background: Achieving choice is proposed as a quality marker. But little is known about what influences preferences especially among older adults. We aimed to determine and compare, across three countries, factors associated with preferences for place of death and treatment, and actual site of death. Methods: We recruited adults aged ≥65-years from hospital-based multiprofessional palliative care services in London, Dublin, New York, and followed them for >17 months. All services offered consultation on hospital wards, support for existing clinical teams, outpatient services and received funding from their National Health Service and/or relevant Insurance reimbursements. The New York service additionally had 10 inpatient beds. All worked with and referred patients to local hospices. Face-to-face interviews recorded most and least preferred place of death, treatment goal priorities, demographic and clinical information using validated questionnaires. Multivariable and multilevel analyses assessed associated factors. Results: One hundred and thirty eight older adults (64 London, 59 Dublin, 15 New York) were recruited, 110 died during follow-up. Home was the most preferred place of death (77/138, 56%) followed by inpatient palliative care/hospice units (22%). Hospital was least preferred (35/138, 25%), followed by nursing home (20%) and home (16%); hospice/palliative care unit was rarely least preferred (4%). Most respondents prioritised improving quality of life, either alone (54%), or equal with life extension (39%); few (3%) chose only life extension. There were no significant differences between countries. Main associates with home preference were: cancer diagnosis (OR 3.72, 95% CI 1.40-9.90) and living with someone (OR 2.19, 1.33-3.62). Adults with non-cancer diagnoses were more likely to prefer palliative care units (OR 2.39, 1.14-5.03). Conversely, functional independence (OR 1.05, 1.04-1.06) and valuing quality of life (OR 3.11, 2.89-3.36) were associated with dying at home. There was a mismatch between preferences and achievements - of 85 people who preferred home or a palliative care unit, 19 (25%) achieved their first preference. Conclusion: Although home is the most common first preference, it is polarising and for 16% it is the least preferred. Inpatient palliative care unit emerges as the second most preferred place, is rarely least preferred, and yet was often not achieved for those who wanted to die there. Factors affecting stated preferences and met preferences differ. Available services, notably community support and palliative care units, require expansion. Contrasting actual place of death with capacity for meeting patient and family needs may be a better quality indicator than simply 'achieved preferences'

Loci influencing blood pressure identified using a cardiovascular gene-centric array

Blood pressure (BP) is a heritable determinant of risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). To investigate genetic associations with systolic BP (SBP), diastolic BP (DBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP) and pulse pressure (PP), we genotyped 50 000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that capture variation in 2100 candidate genes for cardiovascular phenotypes in 61 619 individuals of European ancestry from cohort studies in the USA and Europe. We identified novel associations between rs347591 and SBP (chromosome 3p25.3, in an intron of HRH1) and between rs2169137 and DBP (chromosome1q32.1 in an intron of MDM4) and between rs2014408 and SBP (chromosome 11p15 in an intron of SOX6), previously reported to be associated with MAP. We also confirmed 10 previously known loci associated with SBP, DBP, MAP or PP (ADRB1, ATP2B1, SH2B3/ATXN2, CSK, CYP17A1, FURIN, HFE, LSP1, MTHFR, SOX6) at array-wide significance (P 2.4 10(6)). We then replicated these associations in an independent set of 65 886 individuals of European ancestry. The findings from expression QTL (eQTL) analysis showed associations of SNPs in the MDM4 region with MDM4 expression. We did not find any evidence of association of the two novel SNPs in MDM4 and HRH1 with sequelae of high BP including coronary artery disease (CAD), left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) or stroke. In summary, we identified two novel loci associated with BP and confirmed multiple previously reported associations. Our findings extend our understanding of genes involved in BP regulation, some of which may eventually provide new targets for therapeutic intervention.</p

Large-Scale Gene-Centric Meta-Analysis across 39 Studies Identifies Type 2 Diabetes Loci

To identify genetic factors contributing to type 2 diabetes (T2D), we performed large-scale meta-analyses by using a custom similar to 50,000 SNP genotyping array (the ITMAT-Broad-CARe array) with similar to 2000 candidate genes in 39 multiethnic population-based studies, case-control studies, and clinical trials totaling 17,418 cases and 70,298 controls. First, meta-analysis of 25 studies comprising 14,073 cases and 57,489 controls of European descent confirmed eight established T2D loci at genome-wide significance. In silico follow-up analysis of putative association signals found in independent genome-wide association studies (including 8,130 cases and 38,987 controls) performed by the DIAGRAM consortium identified a T2D locus at genome-wide significance (GATAD2A/CILP2/PBX4; p = 5.7 x 10(-9)) and two loci exceeding study-wide significance (SREBF1, and TH/INS; p <2.4 x 10(-6)). Second, meta-analyses of 1,986 cases and 7,695 controls from eight African-American studies identified study-wide-significant (p = 2.4 x 10(-7)) variants in HMGA2 and replicated variants in TCF7L2 (p = 5.1 x 10(-15)). Third, conditional analysis revealed multiple known and novel independent signals within five T2D-associated genes in samples of European ancestry and within HMGA2 in African-American samples. Fourth, a multiethnic meta-analysis of all 39 studies identified T2D-associated variants in BCL2 (p = 2.1 x 10(-8)). Finally, a composite genetic score of SNPs from new and established T2D signals was significantly associated with increased risk of diabetes in African-American, Hispanic, and Asian populations. In summary, large-scale meta-analysis involving a dense gene-centric approach has uncovered additional loci and variants that contribute to T2D risk and suggests substantial overlap of T2D association signals across multiple ethnic groups

One Woman Who Dared: Ichikawa Fusae And The Japanese Women's Suffrage Movement.

This thesis examines the prewar activities of Ichikawa Fusae, the central figure in the decades-long struggle for women's rights in Japan. Born into a late nineteenth century farming family in central Japan, Ichikawa was scarcely aware as a child that being female would someday limit her aspirations. A highly motivated child and young adult, she expected to earn her slice of the expanding pie of opportunities in Japan's modernizing society and economy. By the time she reached adulthood in the 1910s, however, brakes had been applied to Japan's societal momentum, stopping progress short of the radical change implicit in women's equality. Ichikawa began to perceive that the emphasis on women's traditional role as wives and mothers would inhibit her own proclivity for an active career. Although Ichikawa was not the only one to articulate the distinct limitations of women's prescribed role, her name alone runs as a thread throughout the prewar women's rights movement. She is, perhaps, the best example of a pure feminist in her generation. She consistently refused to internalize her frustrations by blaming herself for personal setbacks. Rather, she sought to relate her own experiences in Japan's changing society to the more abstract problem of women's social circumscription. Though various political ideologies may have attracted her at different stages in her life, none vied with feminism for her attention. I have developed an analytic explanation for Ichikawa Fusae's evolution from discontented young woman to conscious feminist and committed suffragist. In Part One, I explore the influence of her upbringing, education, and early work experiences on the development of her activist personality. The crucial factor in the development of her non-feminine (as traditionally defined) personality--that is, a bold, aggressive, inquisitive, activist personality--was, I believe, her provincial background and her father's uncommon emphasis on self-improvement. Part Two discusses her exposure to feminist ideas in Tokyo and the ways in which she began to see beyond her own experiences in developing an abstract ideology of feminism. She devoted unflagging energy to the cause of women's rights, but she was never stubbornly wedded to one organizational approach to activism. During her twenties, she developed her ideas in several contexts, learning through Tokyo's New Woman's Association, through sitting at the feet of America's Alice Paul, and through agitation in the Diet. Pragmatism demanded shifts in methods--her feminism demanded consistency in ideology--as she worked out an organizational approach appropriate to her tastes and talents. Part Three discusses that approach by exploring Ichikawa's role and activities in the Women's Suffrage League, the organization she helped to establish in 1924. It was through her activities in this organization that Ichikawa became the recognized leader of the women's rights movement in her country. In Part Four, I discuss the difficulties she faced as a feminist in wartime Japan. Her story as a suffrage activists ends with the granting of women's suffrage after World War Two. Although not directly responsible for the granting of women's suffrage in December 1945 (the role of MacArthur's Occupation is undisputed), Ichikawa's earlier activities helped to make the idea of political rights for women acceptable to millions of Japanese. Above all, she succeeded in creating a new role for Japanese women, one in which they were more politically sophisticated than before, more likely to express their discontent through organization, and, consequently, less dependent on men.Ph.D.Asian historySocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/127540/2/8017323.pd

Celebrating women's rights in the Japanese Constitution

Japanese translation of the article, "Celebrating women's rights in the Japanese Constitution", Nichi-bei josei janaru English version, No.14, 1998, pp. 64-83) The lecture by Ms. Beate Sirota Gordon, who drafted women's rights in Japanese Constitution, and remarks by Dr. Susan Pharr and Dr. Barbara Molony at the Association of Asia Studies in Chicago in 1997 to commemorate of the 50th anniversary of Japanese Constitution. The copy of the entire draft by the Steering Committee is found at the National Diet Library. http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/shiryo/03/147shoshi.html The original copy of the draft submitted to the Japanese government on February 13, 1946 http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/shiryo/03/076shoshi.htmlhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107986/1/Gordon.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107986/5/Draft original.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107986/7/Beate Gordon Draft Original.pdfDescription of Gordon.pdf : main articleDescription of Draft original.pdf : SUPERSEDED: Original documents drafted by Beate Sirota Gordon (the Hussey Papers collection at the University of Michigan Library)Description of Beate Gordon Draft Original.pdf : Draft original from the "Alfred Rodman Hussey Papers at the UM LIbrar

Segmentation and visualization of digital in-line holographic microscopy of three-dimensional scenes using reconstructed intensity images

This paper demonstrates a technique that could prove useful for extracting three-dimensional (3D) models from a single two-dimensional (2D) digital in-line holographic microscopy (DIHM) recording. Multiple intensity images are reconstructed at a range of depths through a transmissive or partially transmissive scene recorded by DIHM. A two step segmentation of each of these reconstructed intensity images facilitates the construction of a data set of surfaces in 3D. First an adaptive thresholding step and then a border following step are implemented. The surfaces of segmented features are rendered in 3D by applying the marching cubes algorithm to polygonize the data set. Experimental results for a real world DIHM capture of a transmissive glass sample are presented to demonstrate this segmentation and visualization process