Performance testing of a low power consumption wireless sensor communication system integrated with an energy harvesting power source

This paper presents the performance testing results of a wireless sensor communication system with low power consumption integrated with a vibration energy harvesting power source. The experiments focus on the system’s capability to perform continuous monitoring and to wirelessly transmit the data acquired from the sensors to a user base station, completely battery-free. Energy harvesting technologies together with system design optimisation for power consumption minimisation ensure the system’s energy autonomous capability demonstrated in this paper by presenting the promising testing results achieved following its integration with Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) and Body Area Network (BAN) applications

Characterization of a novel HESX1 mutation in a pediatric case of septo-optic dysplasia

Septo‐optic dysplasia (SOD) is a rare condition for which the precise etiology is still unclear. Elucidating the genetic component of SOD is a difficult but necessary task for the future. We describe herein a novel HESX1 c.475C>T (p.R159W) mutation and demonstrate its potential pathogenicity in the development of this rare disease

Realization of quantum walks with negligible decoherence in waveguide lattices

Quantum random walks are the quantum counterpart of classical random walks, and were recently studied in the context of quantum computation. Physical implementations of quantum walks have only been made in very small scale systems severely limited by decoherence. Here we show that the propagation of photons in waveguide lattices, which have been studied extensively in recent years, are essentially an implementation of quantum walks. Since waveguide lattices are easily constructed at large scales and display negligible decoherence, they can serve as an ideal and versatile experimental playground for the study of quantum walks and quantum algorithms. We experimentally observe quantum walks in large systems (similar to 100 sites) and confirm quantum walks effects which were studied theoretically, including ballistic propagation, disorder, and boundary related effects

Selection and characterization of a promoter for expression of single-copy recombinant genes in Gram-positive bacteria

BACKGROUND: In the past ten years there has been a growing interest in engineering Gram-positive bacteria for biotechnological applications, including vaccine delivery and production of recombinant proteins. Usually, bacteria are manipulated using plasmid expression vectors. The major limitation of this approach is due to the fact that recombinant plasmids are often lost from the bacterial culture upon removal of antibiotic selection. We have developed a genetic system based on suicide vectors on conjugative transposons allowing stable integration of recombinant DNA into the chromosome of transformable and non-transformable Gram-positive bacteria. RESULTS: The aim of this work was to select a strong chromosomal promoter from Streptococcus gordonii to improve this genetic system making it suitable for expression of single-copy recombinant genes. To achieve this task, a promoterless gene encoding a chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (cat), was randomly integrated into the S. gordonii chromosome and transformants were selected for chloramphenicol resistance. Three out of eighteen chloramphenicol resistant transformants selected exhibited 100% stability of the phenotype and only one of them, GP215, carried the cat gene integrated as a single copy. A DNA fragment of 600 base pairs exhibiting promoter activity was isolated from GP215 and sequenced. The 5' end of its corresponding mRNA was determined by primer extention analysis and the putative -10 and a -35 regions were identified. To study the possibility of using this promoter (PP) for single copy heterologous gene expression, we created transcriptional fusions of PP with genes encoding surface recombinant proteins in a vector capable of integrating into the conjugative transposon Tn916. Surface recombinant proteins whose expression was controlled by the PP promoter were detected in Tn916-containing strains of S. gordonii and Bacillus subtilis after single copy chromosomal integration of the recombinant insertion vectors into the resident Tn916. The surface recombinant protein synthesized under the control of PP was also detected in Enterococcus faecalis after conjugal transfer of a recombinant Tn916 containing the transcriptional fusion. CONCLUSION: We isolated and characterized a S. gordonii chromosomal promoter. We demonstrated that this promoter can be used to direct expression of heterologous genes in different Gram-positive bacteria, when integrated in a single copy into the chromosome

Should healthcare providers do safety cases? : Lessons from a cross-industry review of safety case practices

Healthcare organisations are often encouraged to learn from other industries in order to develop proactive and rigorous safety management practices. In the UK safety–critical industries safety cases have been used to provide justification that systems are acceptably safe. There has been growing interest in healthcare in the application of safety cases for medical devices and health information technology. However, the introduction of safety cases into general safety management and regulatory practices in healthcare is largely unexplored and unsupported. Should healthcare as an industry be encouraged to adopt safety cases more widely? This paper reviews safety case practices in six UK industries and identifies drivers and developments in the adoption of safety cases. The paper argues that safety cases might best be used in healthcare to provide an exposition of risk rather than as a regulatory tool to demonstrate acceptable levels of safety. Safety cases might support healthcare organisations in establishing proactive safety management practices. However, there has been criticism that safety cases practices have, at times, contributed to poor safety management and standards by prompting a “tick-box” and compliance-driven approach. These criticisms represent challenges for the adoption of safety cases in healthcare, where the level of maturity of safety management systems is arguably still lower than in traditional safety–critical industries. Healthcare stakeholders require access to education and guidance that takes into account the specifics of healthcare as an industry. Further research is required to provide evidence about the effectiveness of safety cases and the costs involved with the approach

A scintillator‐based approach to monitor secondary neutron production during proton therapy

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135048/1/mp3813.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135048/2/mp3813_am.pd

Exposing the human nude phenotype [4]

Peer reviewedSubmitted Versio

Global meteorological drought – Part 2: Seasonal forecasts

Global seasonal forecasts of meteorological drought using the standardized precipitation index (SPI) are produced using two data sets as initial conditions: the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre (GPCC) and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ERA-Interim reanalysis (ERAI); and two seasonal forecasts of precipitation, the most recent ECMWF seasonal forecast system and climatologically based ensemble forecasts. The forecast evaluation focuses on the periods where precipitation deficits are likely to have higher drought impacts, and the results were summarized over different regions in the world. The verification of the forecasts with lead time indicated that generally for all regions the least reduction on skill was found for (i) long lead times using ERAI or GPCC for monitoring and (ii) short lead times using ECMWF or climatological seasonal forecasts. The memory effect of initial conditions was found to be 1 month of lead time for the SPI-3, 4 months for the SPI-6 and 6 (or more) months for the SPI-12. Results show that dynamical forecasts of precipitation provide added value with skills at least equal to and often above that of climatological forecasts. Furthermore, it is very difficult to improve on the use of climatological forecasts for long lead times. Our results also support recent questions of whether seasonal forecasting of global drought onset was essentially a stochastic forecasting problem. Results are presented regionally and globally, and our results point to several regions in the world where drought onset forecasting is feasible and skilful

Maternal longevity is associated with lower infant mortality

OBJECTIVE Referring to the multidisciplinary and multipurpose survey AKeA2, and focusing on family genealogy data on centenarian women and controls, this paper aims to verify the hypothesis that maternal longevity is associated with lower infant mortality in offspring, after having controlled for fertility characteristics, familial longevity and some contextual variables. METHODS The association between the longevity of a mother and her children's infant mortality level was assessed using a multivariate Poisson Regression Model with robust estimates, which is suitable for estimating consistently and efficiently the relative risk when binary data are used. RESULTS Our results show an association between longevity and infant mortality among the children of the Sardinians who survived to become centenarians. Infant mortality is significantly lower for children belonging to a mother born and living in Sassari and Oristano than Nuoro, close to each other and both located on the Western coast.</br

Effect of Erdosteine on COPD Exacerbations in COPD Patients with Moderate Airflow Limitation

Background: The RESTORE study, a multi-national randomized, placebo-controlled study, showed that erdosteine - a muco-active antioxidant that modulates bacterial adhesiveness - reduced the rate and duration of exacerbations in moderate and severe COPD with a history of exacerbations. How much benefit patients with less severe disease experience when taking this drug remains unclear. Methods: This post hoc analysis of the 254 RESTORE participants with spirometrically-defined moderate COPD (post-bronchodilator forced expiratory volume in 1 second [FEV1] 50\u201279% predicted) examined exacerbation rate and duration, time to first exacerbation, and exacerbation-free time. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and comparisons between treatment groups used Wilcoxon rank-sum tests, Mann-Whitney U-tests, or log rank tests. Results: Patients with moderate COPD received erdosteine 300 mg twice daily (n=126) or placebo (n=128) added to usual COPD therapy for 12 months. During this time, there were 53 exacerbations in the erdosteine group and 74 in the placebo group, with 42.1% and 57.8% of patients, respectively, experiencing an exacerbation. There was a 47% reduction in the mean exacerbation rate with erdosteine compared to placebo (0.27 vs 0.51 exacerbations per-patient per-year, respectively, P=0.003), and a 58.3% reduction in the mild exacerbation rate (0.23 vs 0.53 mild exacerbations per-patient per-year, P=0.001). Mean duration of exacerbations was 26% shorter in erdosteine-treated patients (9.1 vs 12.3 days for placebo, P=0.022), with significant reductions in the duration of mild and moderate-to-severe exacerbations. Mean time to first exacerbation was prolonged by 7.7% (182 days for erdosteine vs 169 days for placebo, P&lt;0.001) and the mean exacerbation-free time was increased by 51 days (279 days for erdosteine vs 228 days for placebo; P&lt;0.001). Conclusion: These results indicate that adding erdosteine to usual COPD maintenance therapy reduces the number of mild, and duration of all, exacerbations in patients with moderate COPD and a history of exacerbations