The Stealth Biplane: a Proposal in Response to a Low Reynolds Number Station Keeping Mission

The Stealth Biplane is conceived and constructed to serve as a remotely piloted vehicle designed to navigate a low-level figure-eight course at a target Reynolds number of 100,000. This flight vehicle will combine the latest in lightweight radio controlled hardware in conjunction with current low Reynolds number aerodynamic research to demonstrate feasible operation in a variety of applications. These potential low Reynolds number applications include high altitude atmospheric sampling, search and rescue, and even law enforcement. Design specs and fabrication technique are discussed

Assessment of musculoskeletal examination skills of 4th year medical students using a novel OSCE

Objective: Despite the high prevalence of musculoskeletal complaints presenting to physicians in the United States, there are very few opportunities for University of Michigan clinical medical students to receive formative or summative assessment of their ability to evaluate patients with these complaints. The purpose of this study was to assess 4th year students’ ability to examine and diagnose several common musculoskeletal disorders using a novel objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). Methods: A multidisciplinary team of musculoskeletal specialists developed the content and structure of three OSCE stations focusing on examination of the shoulder, back and knee. For each station, volunteer M4 students were provided a clinical vignette with three possible diagnoses to consider, and were instructed to anticipate physical examination maneuvers or findings that would discriminate between the three diagnoses. Then they would examine a professional patient simulating findings associated with one of the diagnoses and choose their favored diagnosis. Their encounter was directly observed by a faculty member who scored their performance on selected physical examination maneuvers based on a checklist (0 = not done, 1 = partially done, 2 = fully done). Each encounter was recorded to allow for later review by another faculty. Immediate feedback was provided to students at the end of the OSCE, making this a formative as well as summative assessment experience. Faculty received verbal and written instruction on how to score students. IRB exemption was obtained for this study. Results: 44 M4 students participated in the OSCE during the spring of 2012. General performance of M4 students in examining regional musculoskeletal complaints will be reported. Performance of individuals will be correlated with: anticipation of discriminatory features prior to examining the patients; self-assessment on ability to perform the relevant exam and anticipated need to do so in their future career; previous musculoskeletal elective exposure; future career choice; and performance on the M4 Comprehensive Clinical Assessment “Back pain” and “Abdominal pain” stations. Conclusions: Initial validity evidence for a multistation musculoskeletal OSCE will be presented, as will the performance of a sampling of the 2012 graduating UM medical student class. This data will be used as part of ongoing evaluation of the longitudinal musculoskeletal curriculum at the University of Michigan medical school.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91291/1/MedEdDay2012-poster-monradetal.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91291/3/MEDC22poster.pd

Movement Analysis of Philippine Folk Dance Itik-itik

The purpose of the study was to describe and analyze the dance movements of the Philippine folk dance Itik-itik. The researchers adopted the movement analysis method similar to that of Mackenzie that involves the (1) description of the actual movements which occur at the joints involved; (2) the plane in which the movement occurs; and (3) the muscles producing the movement (agonist & antagonist). In addition, similar to the study of Martin and Miller, the researchers also had done a mechanical analysis on the lever type involved in the execution of the dance movement in terms of force, axis, and resistance. Results revealed that the prominent dance steps in the Philippine local dance Itik-itik are the (1) running, (2) cross step, slide close, slide close step, (3) heel, close-ball, close arm, (4) step, slide-close, slide, (5) arms extension/flexion, and (6) flapping of the arms. The joints involved are the shoulder and hip muscle which are ball and socket type of joints; and elbow, knee and ankle which are hinge joints. The major muscles involved in the dance for the lower body include the quadriceps, hamstring muscle group, adductor muscle group, calves and gluts. While for the upper body muscles involved are the pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi, deltoid, trapezius, biceps, and triceps muscles. The type of lever used in performing the dance comprise majority of 1st class and 3rd class levers. By knowing the muscles involved in the dance the dance teacher may be able to devise activities to gradually prepare the prime mover muscles before the actual execution for injury prevention. Thus, the movements in the dance may improve the health and skill related fitness of the performers

Assessing the genetic association between vitamin B6 metabolism and genetic generalized epilepsy

Altered vitamin B6 metabolism due to pathogenic variants in the gene PNPO causes early onset epileptic encephalopathy, which can be treated with high doses of vitamin B6. We recently reported that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that influence PNPO expression in the brain are associated with genetic generalized epilepsy (GGE). However, it is not known whether any of these GGE-associated SNPs influence vitamin B6 metabolite levels. Such an influence would suggest that vitamin B6 could play a role in GGE therapy. Here, we performed genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to assess the influence of GGE associated genetic variants on measures of vitamin B6 metabolism in blood plasma in 2232 healthy individuals. We also asked if SNPs that influence vitamin B6 were associated with GGE in 3122 affected individuals and 20,244 controls. Our GWAS of vitamin B6 metabolites reproduced a previous association and found a novel genome-wide significant locus. The SNPs in these loci were not associated with GGE. We found that 84 GGE-associated SNPs influence expression levels of PNPO in the brain as well as in blood. However, these SNPs were not associated with vitamin B6 metabolism in plasma. By leveraging polygenic risk scoring (PRS), we found suggestive evidence of higher catabolism and lower levels of the active and transport forms of vitamin B6 in GGE, although these findings require further replication.Peer reviewe

101 Dothideomycetes genomes: A test case for predicting lifestyles and emergence of pathogens.

Dothideomycetes is the largest class of kingdom Fungi and comprises an incredible diversity of lifestyles, many of which have evolved multiple times. Plant pathogens represent a major ecological niche of the class Dothideomycetes and they are known to infect most major food crops and feedstocks for biomass and biofuel production. Studying the ecology and evolution of Dothideomycetes has significant implications for our fundamental understanding of fungal evolution, their adaptation to stress and host specificity, and practical implications with regard to the effects of climate change and on the food, feed, and livestock elements of the agro-economy. In this study, we present the first large-scale, whole-genome comparison of 101 Dothideomycetes introducing 55 newly sequenced species. The availability of whole-genome data produced a high-confidence phylogeny leading to reclassification of 25 organisms, provided a clearer picture of the relationships among the various families, and indicated that pathogenicity evolved multiple times within this class. We also identified gene family expansions and contractions across the Dothideomycetes phylogeny linked to ecological niches providing insights into genome evolution and adaptation across this group. Using machine-learning methods we classified fungi into lifestyle classes with >95 % accuracy and identified a small number of gene families that positively correlated with these distinctions. This can become a valuable tool for genome-based prediction of species lifestyle, especially for rarely seen and poorly studied species

Assessing the genetic association between vitamin B6 metabolism and genetic generalized epilepsy

Altered vitamin B6 metabolism due to pathogenic variants in the gene PNPO causes early onset epileptic encephalopathy, which can be treated with high doses of vitamin B6. We recently reported that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that influence PNPO expression in the brain are associated with genetic generalized epilepsy (GGE). However, it is not known whether any of these GGE-associated SNPs influence vitamin B6 metabolite levels. Such an influence would suggest that vitamin B6 could play a role in GGE therapy. Here, we performed genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to assess the influence of GGE associated genetic variants on measures of vitamin B6 metabolism in blood plasma in 2232 healthy individuals. We also asked if SNPs that influence vitamin B6 were associated with GGE in 3122 affected individuals and 20,244 controls. Our GWAS of vitamin B6 metabolites reproduced a previous association and found a novel genome-wide significant locus. The SNPs in these loci were not associated with GGE. We found that 84 GGE-associated SNPs influence expression levels of PNPO in the brain as well as in blood. However, these SNPs were not associated with vitamin B6 metabolism in plasma. By leveraging polygenic risk scoring (PRS), we found suggestive evidence of higher catabolism and lower levels of the active and transport forms of vitamin B6 in GGE, although these findings require further replication

The Impact of Kaluza-Klein Excited W Boson on the Single Top at LHC and Comparison with other Models

We study the s-channel single top quark production at the LHC in the context of extra dimension theories, including the Kaluza-Klein (KK) decomposition. It is shown that the presence of the first KK excitation of $W$ gauge boson can reduce the total cross section of s-channel single top production considerably if $M_{W_{KK}}\sim2.2 \rm TeV$ ($3.5 \rm TeV$) for $7\rm TeV$ ($14\rm TeV$) in proton-proton collisions. Then the results will be compared with the impacts of other beyond Standard Model (SM) theories on the cross section of single top s-channel. The possibility of distinguishing different models via their effects on the production cross section of the s-channel is discussed.Comment: 23 pages,6 figure