Integrating Classical Chinese Dance and Western Contemporary Dance in the Midst of the Pandemic

Abstract Integrating Classical Chinese Dance and Western Contemporary Dance in the Midst of the Pandemic By Rose Xinran Qi, MFA Dance 2021 Thesis Directed by Professor Sara Pearson, School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance StudiesGhost Bride was a 40-minute original dance art presentation that premiered at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland on November 19 and 20, 2020. The production featured dramatic design elements and unique dance movements to convey the mystery, emotion, and supernatural events of the ancient ghost bride story. The theoretical premise and research focused primarily on philosophical and choreographic methods to effectively integrate the character of Classical Chinese female dance movements with Western contemporary movements, as a means to expand the creative boundaries for Western dancers. Other explored research interests included using the arts to drive cathartic healing from loss, and identifying creative opportunities to promote self-determination and personal freedoms for women. Planning, preparations and rehearsals occurred amidst challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. This work was conducted to fulfill requirements for the Master of Fine Arts in Dance at the University of Maryland

Hydrogenation and Hydro-Carbonation and Etching of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

We present a systematic experimental investigation of the reactions between hydrogen plasma and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) at various temperatures. Microscopy, infrared (IR) and Raman spectroscopy and electrical transport measurements are carried out to investigate the properties of SWNTs after hydrogenation. Structural deformations, drastically reduced electrical conductance and increased semiconducting nature of SWNTs upon sidewall hydrogenation are observed. These changes are reversible upon thermal annealing at 500C via dehydrogenation. Harsh plasma or high temperature reactions lead to etching of nanotube likely via hydro-carbonation. Smaller SWNTs are markedly less stable against hydro-carbonation than larger tubes. The results are fundamental and may have implications to basic and practical applications including hydrogen storage, sensing, band-gap engineering for novel electronics and new methods of manipulation, functionalization and etching of nanotubes.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figure

Robust inference with GhostKnockoffs in genome-wide association studies

Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have been extensively adopted to depict the underlying genetic architecture of complex diseases. Motivated by GWASs' limitations in identifying small effect loci to understand complex traits' polygenicity and fine-mapping putative causal variants from proxy ones, we propose a knockoff-based method which only requires summary statistics from GWASs and demonstrate its validity in the presence of relatedness. We show that GhostKnockoffs inference is robust to its input Z-scores as long as they are from valid marginal association tests and their correlations are consistent with the correlations among the corresponding genetic variants. The property generalizes GhostKnockoffs to other GWASs settings, such as the meta-analysis of multiple overlapping studies and studies based on association test statistics deviated from score tests. We demonstrate GhostKnockoffs' performance using empirical simulation and a meta-analysis of nine European ancestral genome-wide association studies and whole exome/genome sequencing studies. Both results demonstrate that GhostKnockoffs identify more putative causal variants with weak genotype-phenotype associations that are missed by conventional GWASs

An automatic deep learning-based workflow for glioblastoma survival prediction using pre-operative multimodal MR images

We proposed a fully automatic workflow for glioblastoma (GBM) survival prediction using deep learning (DL) methods. 285 glioma (210 GBM, 75 low-grade glioma) patients were included. 163 of the GBM patients had overall survival (OS) data. Every patient had four pre-operative MR scans and manually drawn tumor contours. For automatic tumor segmentation, a 3D convolutional neural network (CNN) was trained and validated using 122 glioma patients. The trained model was applied to the remaining 163 GBM patients to generate tumor contours. The handcrafted and DL-based radiomic features were extracted from auto-contours using explicitly designed algorithms and a pre-trained CNN respectively. 163 GBM patients were randomly split into training (n=122) and testing (n=41) sets for survival analysis. Cox regression models with regularization techniques were trained to construct the handcrafted and DL-based signatures. The prognostic power of the two signatures was evaluated and compared. The 3D CNN achieved an average Dice coefficient of 0.85 across 163 GBM patients for tumor segmentation. The handcrafted signature achieved a C-index of 0.64 (95% CI: 0.55-0.73), while the DL-based signature achieved a C-index of 0.67 (95% CI: 0.57-0.77). Unlike the handcrafted signature, the DL-based signature successfully stratified testing patients into two prognostically distinct groups (p-value<0.01, HR=2.80, 95% CI: 1.26-6.24). The proposed 3D CNN generated accurate GBM tumor contours from four MR images. The DL-based signature resulted in better GBM survival prediction, in terms of higher C-index and significant patient stratification, than the handcrafted signature. The proposed automatic radiomic workflow demonstrated the potential of improving patient stratification and survival prediction in GBM patients

Fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase deficiency: estimation of prevalence in the Chinese population and analysis of genotype-phenotype association

ObjectiveFructose-1,6-bisphosphatase deficiency (FBP1D) is a rare inborn error due to mutations in the FBP1 gene. The genetic spectrum of FBP1D in China is unknown, also nonspecific manifestations confuse disease diagnosis. We systematically estimated the FBP1D prevalence in Chinese and explored genotype-phenotype association.MethodsWe collected 101 FBP1 variants from our cohort and public resources, and manually curated pathogenicity of these variants. Ninety-seven pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants were used in our cohort to estimate Chinese FBP1D prevalence by three methods: 1) carrier frequency, 2) permutation and combination, 3) Bayesian framework. Allele frequencies (AFs) of these variants in our cohort, China Metabolic Analytics Project (ChinaMAP) and gnomAD were compared to reveal the different hotspots in Chinese and other populations. Clinical and genetic information of 122 FBP1D patients from our cohort and published literature were collected to analyze the genotype-phenotypes association. Phenotypes of 68 hereditary fructose intolerance (HFI) patients from our previous study were used to compare the phenotypic differences between these two fructose metabolism diseases.ResultsThe estimated Chinese FBP1D prevalence was 1/1,310,034. In the Chinese population, c.490G&gt;A and c.355G&gt;A had significantly higher AFs than in the non-Finland European population, and c.841G&gt;A had significantly lower AF value than in the South Asian population (all p values &lt; 0.05). The genotype-phenotype association analyses showed that patients carrying homozygous c.841G&gt;A were more likely to present increased urinary glycerol, carrying two CNVs (especially homozygous exon1 deletion) were often with hepatic steatosis, carrying compound heterozygous variants were usually with lethargy, and carrying homozygous variants were usually with ketosis and hepatic steatosis (all p values &lt; 0.05). By comparing to phenotypes of HFI patients, FBP1D patients were more likely to present hypoglycemia, metabolic acidosis, and seizures (all p-value &lt; 0.05).ConclusionThe prevalence of FBP1D in the Chinese population is extremely low. Genetic sequencing could effectively help to diagnose FBP1D

The Effects of Icariin on Enhancing Motor Recovery Through Attenuating Pro-inflammatory Factors and Oxidative Stress via Mitochondrial Apoptotic Pathway in the Mice Model of Spinal Cord Injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a severe medical problem leading to crucial life change. Icariin (ICA) is a natural flavonoid compound extracted from the Chinese herb Epimedium brevicornum which has neuroprotective effects. But little is known about the relationship between ICA and SCI. We hypothesized ICA may enhance motor recovery through attenuating inflammation, oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. Mice were randomly assigned to sham, SCI, ICA 20 μmol/kg (low dose) and ICA 50 μmol/kg (high dose) groups. And Behavioral, biochemical, molecular biological, immunofluorescent and histological assays were performed. First, ICA enhanced motor recovery greatly at 14, 28, and 42 days and protected spinal cord tissues especially in the high dose group. Meanwhile, ICA decreased the production of interleukin-1 beta, tumor necrosis factor-alpha and inducible nitric oxide synthase at 24 h and 3 days after SCI. The level of mitochondrial reduced glutathione, superoxide dismutase, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), Na+-K+-ATPase, mitochondrial membrane potential, state III respiration rate and the respiratory control ratio were also significantly increased, while malondialdehyde level and Ca2+ concentration were decreased by ICA. Furthermore, ICA decreased the expression of mitochondrial apoptotic proteins at 3 days after SCI. More importantly, transferase UTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) and Nissl staining implied that ICA at a high dose inhibited the neuronal apoptosis after SCI. Our research indicated that early and continuous treatment of ICA at a high dose significantly enhanced motor recovery after SCI through inhibiting pro-inflammatory factors, oxidative stress and neuronal apoptosis via mitochondrial apoptotic pathway

Ultrahigh mobility and efficient charge injection in monolayer organic thin-film transistors on boron nitride

Organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) with high mobility and low contact resistance have been actively pursued as building blocks for low-cost organic electronics. In conventional solution-processed or vacuum-deposited OTFTs, due to interfacial defects and traps, the organic film has to reach a certain thickness for efficient charge transport. Using an ultimate monolayer of 2,7-dioctyl[1]benzothieno[3,2-b][1]benzothiophene (C8-BTBT) molecules as an OTFT channel, we demonstrate remarkable electrical characteristics, including intrinsic hole mobility over 30 cm2/Vs, Ohmic contact with 100 Ω · cm resistance, and band-like transport down to 150 K. Compared to conventional OTFTs, the main advantage of a monolayer channel is the direct, nondisruptive contact between the charge transport layer and metal leads, a feature that is vital for achieving low contact resistance and current saturation voltage. On the other hand, bilayer and thicker C8-BTBT OTFTs exhibit strong Schottky contact and much higher contact resistance but can be improved by inserting a doped graphene buffer layer. Our results suggest that highly crystalline molecular monolayers are promising form factors to build high-performance OTFTs and investigate device physics. They also allow us to precisely model how the molecular packing changes the transport and contact properties

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat

Correction to: Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake