VITAMIN D RECEPTOR (VDR) GENE POLYMORPHISM AND MATERNAL VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY IN INDIAN WOMEN WITH PRETERM BIRTH (PTB)

  Objective: Preterm birth (PTB) is the leading cause of high infant mortality and long-term disability in young children worldwide. Array of adverse maternal and fetal outcomes linked with vitamin D level and its associated vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene. We undertook this study to investigate the association between VDR gene polymorphism with vitamin D deficiency and PTB in West Indian pregnant women.Methods: A total of 72 women with PTB and 138 healthy mothers with uncomplicated normal delivery were selected from different regions of Gujarat, India. FokI and TaqI single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of VDR gene determined by polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism. Vitamin D level was determined using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.Result: ff genotype (29.17% vs. 10.87%, p=0.002) and f allele (49.31% vs. 35.51%, p=0.006) frequency distributions of VDR FokI showed significantly (odds ratio=0.566, 95% confidence interval=0.368-0.870, p=0.006) higher in women with preterm delivery than in control full term group. Genotype frequency of VDR TaqI showed no significant difference between preterm group and control.Conclusion: These results confirmed that women carrying ff genotype of FokI gene had significantly higher risk for vitamin D deficiency which enhances the risk of prematurity than women carrying FF genotype in West Indian women

Towards a low carbon construction practice

Towards a low carbon construction practic

Software Design for Smile Analysis

Introduction: Esthetics and attractiveness of the smile is one of the major demands in contemporary orthodontic treatment. In order to improve a smile design, it is necessary to record “posed smile” as an intentional, non-pressure, static, natural and reproduciblesmile. The record then should be analyzed to determine its characteristics. In this study,we intended to design and introduce a software to analyze the smile rapidly and precisely in order to produce an attractive smile for the patients.Materials and Methods: For this purpose, a practical study was performed to design multimedia software “Smile Analysis” which can receive patients’ photographs and videographs. After giving records to the software, the operator should mark the points and lines which are displayed on the system’s guide and also define the correct scale for each image. Thirty-three variables are measured by the software and displayed on the report page. Reliability of measurements in both image and video was significantly high(=0.7-1).Results: In order to evaluate intra- operator and inter-operator reliability, five cases were selected randomly. Statistical analysis showed that calculations performed in smile analysis software were both valid and highly reliable (for both video and photo).Conclusion: The results obtained from smile analysis could be used in diagnosis,treatment planning and evaluation of the treatment progress

Multiplexed, High Density Electrophysiology with Nanofabricated Neural Probes

Extracellular electrode arrays can reveal the neuronal network correlates of behavior with single-cell, single-spike, and sub-millisecond resolution. However, implantable electrodes are inherently invasive, and efforts to scale up the number and density of recording sites must compromise on device size in order to connect the electrodes. Here, we report on silicon-based neural probes employing nanofabricated, high-density electrical leads. Furthermore, we address the challenge of reading out multichannel data with an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) performing signal amplification, band-pass filtering, and multiplexing functions. We demonstrate high spatial resolution extracellular measurements with a fully integrated, low noise 64-channel system weighing just 330 mg. The on-chip multiplexers make possible recordings with substantially fewer external wires than the number of input channels. By combining nanofabricated probes with ASICs we have implemented a system for performing large-scale, high-density electrophysiology in small, freely behaving animals that is both minimally invasive and highly scalable

Resilient cooling strategies – A critical review and qualitative assessment

The global effects of climate change will increase the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as heatwaves and power outages, which have consequences for buildings and their cooling systems. Buildings and their cooling systems should be designed and operated to be resilient under such events to protect occupants from potentially dangerous indoor thermal conditions. This study performed a critical review on the state-of-the-art of cooling strategies, with special attention to their performance under heatwaves and power outages. We proposed a definition of resilient cooling and described four criteria for resilience—absorptive capacity, adaptive capacity, restorative capacity, and recovery speed —and used them to qualitatively evaluate the resilience of each strategy. The literature review and qualitative analyses show that to attain resilient cooling, the four resilience criteria should be considered in the design phase of a building or during the planning of retrofits. The building and relevant cooling system characteristics should be considered simultaneously to withstand extreme events. A combination of strategies with different resilience capacities, such as a passive envelope strategy coupled with a low-energy space-cooling solution, may be needed to obtain resilient cooling. Finally, a further direction for a quantitative assessment approach has been pointed out

Carbon dioxide reduction in the building life cycle: a critical review

The construction industry is known to be a major contributor to environmental pressures due to its high energy consumption and carbon dioxide generation. The growing amount of carbon dioxide emissions over buildings’ life cycles has prompted academics and professionals to initiate various studies relating to this problem. Researchers have been exploring carbon dioxide reduction methods for each phase of the building life cycle – from planning and design, materials production, materials distribution and construction process, maintenance and renovation, deconstruction and disposal, to the material reuse and recycle phase. This paper aims to present the state of the art in carbon dioxide reduction studies relating to the construction industry. Studies of carbon dioxide reduction throughout the building life cycle are reviewed and discussed, including those relating to green building design, innovative low carbon dioxide materials, green construction methods, energy efficiency schemes, life cycle energy analysis, construction waste management, reuse and recycling of materials and the cradle-to-cradle concept. The review provides building practitioners and researchers with a better understanding of carbon dioxide reduction potential and approaches worldwide. Opportunities for carbon dioxide reduction can thereby be maximised over the building life cycle by creating environmentally benign designs and using low carbon dioxide materials

Nanotools for Neuroscience and Brain Activity Mapping

Neuroscience is at a crossroads. Great effort is being invested into deciphering specific neural interactions and circuits. At the same time, there exist few general theories or principles that explain brain function. We attribute this disparity, in part, to limitations in current methodologies. Traditional neurophysiological approaches record the activities of one neuron or a few neurons at a time. Neurochemical approaches focus on single neurotransmitters. Yet, there is an increasing realization that neural circuits operate at emergent levels, where the interactions between hundreds or thousands of neurons, utilizing multiple chemical transmitters, generate functional states. Brains function at the nanoscale, so tools to study brains must ultimately operate at this scale, as well. Nanoscience and nanotechnology are poised to provide a rich toolkit of novel methods to explore brain function by enabling simultaneous measurement and manipulation of activity of thousands or even millions of neurons. We and others refer to this goal as the Brain Activity Mapping Project. In this Nano Focus, we discuss how recent developments in nanoscale analysis tools and in the design and synthesis of nanomaterials have generated optical, electrical, and chemical methods that can readily be adapted for use in neuroscience. These approaches represent exciting areas of technical development and research. Moreover, unique opportunities exist for nanoscientists, nanotechnologists, and other physical scientists and engineers to contribute to tackling the challenging problems involved in understanding the fundamentals of brain function

A 10-b 330nW Third-Order Predictive SAR ADC Dedicated to Neural Recording Brain Implants

This paper reports on a predictive analog-todigital converter (ADC). The proposed ADC employs a linear predictive filter to prepare a prediction for the current sample based on the values of the previous digital codes. This leads to significant reduction in the mean bit cycle of the converter. It is shown in this work that this idea is significantly more effective for the digitization of biological signals (e.g., intra-cortical neural signals). Compared with other similar techniques available in the literature, the proposed predictive ADC is significantly more successful for small signal-to-noise ratios. The proposed algorithm results in 48% and 37% reduction in the converter’s mean bit cycle compared with the conventional and LSB-first structures, respectively. Designed and post-layout simulated in a 90-nm standard CMOS technology and operated at 200 kS/s with a supply voltage of 0.4 V, the 10-bit predictive ADC consumes 330 nW. The circuit occupies a core area of 0.025 mm2, achieves an ENOB of 9.42 bits, a figure-of-merit of 2.4 fJ/conv.-step, and an SFDR of 65.8 dB. The DNL and INL of the circuit are within 0.45 LSB and 0.56 LSB, respectively.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Bio-Electronic