Negative differential electrical resistance of a rotational organic nanomotor

A robust, nanoelectromechanical switch is proposed based upon an asymmetric pendant moiety anchored to an organic backbone between two C60 fullerenes, which in turn are connected to gold electrodes. Ab initio density functional calculations are used to demonstrate that an electric field induces rotation of the pendant group, leading to a nonlinear current–voltage relation. The nonlinearity is strong enough to lead to negative differential resistance at modest source–drain voltages

Resection planning in extratemporal epilepsy surgery using 3D multimodality imaging and intraoperative MRI

Surgical resection in non-lesional, extratemporal epilepsy, informed by stereoEEG recordings, is challenging. There are no clear borders of resection, and the surgeon is often operating in deep areas of the brain that are difficult to access. We present a technical note where 3D multimodality image integration in EpiNav(TM) is used to build a planned resection model, based on a previous intracranial EEG evaluation. Intraoperative MRI is then used to ensure a complete resection of the planned model. As stereoEEG becomes more common in the presurgical evaluation of epilepsy, these tools will become increasingly important to facilitate targeted cortical resections

Mapping and analyzing energy use and efficiency in a modified hydroponic shipping container

In urban centers today, vertical farming is becoming a popular alternative to conventional agriculture in an effort to increase local food production and improve urban food security by growing crops using hydroponic methods in controlled environment spaces. More specifically, one vertical method involves growing crops inside refurbished shipping containers, or a “farm-in-a-box” concept, which offers a flexible, mobile, and scalable means of year-round food production in a variety of climates. Despite benefits of producing food locally, some of the concerns associated with these vertical farming systems include high energy consumption from climate control and electric lighting systems as well as expensive capital investments. Therefore, this study investigated the viability and effectiveness of shipping container farms as alternative food systems through analysis of system energy requirements and resulting crop yields. A Modified Hydroponic Shipping Container (MHSC) system was designed, and a Nutrient Film Technique (NFT) hydroponics system was tested by growing lettuce plants and monitoring energy use throughout the growth period. Additionally, theoretical energy use was quantified for one year of production at full scale by modeling energy consumption of major system components. Crop production and energy consumption were assessed using a crop production efficiency metric created to evaluate the ratio of system outputs to inputs. A baseline crop production efficiency value was determined, and scenarios for improving system efficiency from the baseline value were then analyzed. As a result, alternative energy scenarios reduced yearly consumption up to 53 percent from baseline consumption. Improvements to the MHSC design through suggested energy use reduction strategies will allow for the creation of a viable and sustainable alternative food system that is capable of providing local, accessible foods year-round for a variety of urban communities

E-cadherin can limit the transforming properties of activating β-catenin mutations

Wnt pathway deregulation is a common characteristic of many cancers. But only Colorectal Cancer predominantly harbours mutations in APC, whereas other cancer types (hepatocellular carcinoma, solid pseudopapillary tumours of pancreas) have activating mutations in β-catenin (CTNNB1). We have compared the dynamics and the potency of β-catenin mutations in vivo. Within the murine small intestine (SI), an activating mutation of β-catenin took much longer to achieve a Wnt deregulation and acquire a crypt-progenitor-cell (CPC) phenotype than Apc or Gsk3 loss. Within the colon, a single activating mutation of β-catenin was unable to drive Wnt deregulation or induce the CPC phenotype. This ability of β-catenin mutation to differentially transform the SI versus the colon correlated with significantly higher expression of the β-catenin binding partner E-cadherin. This increased expression is associated with a higher number of E-cadherin:β-catenin complexes at the membrane. Reduction of E-cadherin synergised with an activating mutation of β-catenin so there was now a rapid CPC phenotype within the colon and SI. Thus there is a threshold of β-catenin that is required to drive transformation and E-cadherin can act as a buffer to prevent β-catenin accumulation

The Use of Turning and Repositioning Versus Pressure Redistributing Support Surfaces in the Prevention of Pressure Ulcers

Currently, 1.3-3 million adults in the United States are affected by pressure ulcers, costing $37,800 to$70,000 per ulcer (Smith, 2013). This costs the United States 11 billion dollars annually (Smith, 2013). This review’s PICO question is “In hospitalized critically ill patients, how does turning and repositioning every two to four hours compared to the use of pressure redistributing support surfaces prevent the occurrence of pressure ulcers?” For this review, the articles found were rated as excellent (n=7), good (n=2), and fair (n=1). Appendix A shows the critical appraisal of all pertinent articles used. Findings suggest that there is minimal statistically significant evidence that the use of one intervention is more effective than another (pressure redistributing support surfaces versus turning and repositioning every two to four hours) (Bergstrom, 2013; Chou, 2013; Huang, 2013; Manzano, 2013; Manzano, 2014; Rich, 2011b; Smith, 2013). Furthermore, findings indicate that when both interventions are used together, pressure ulcer prevention is increased (Chou, 2013; Rich, 2011a; Smith, 2013)

Engaging Underrepresented Adolescents in Reimagined Learning of Integrated STEM

It is well-documented that there are large gaps in STEM achievement and degree attainment among women and racially minoritized groups (hereafter referred to as PEERs, People Excluded due to Ethnicity or Race). While there are a multitude of hypothesized reasons for these gaps, there remains a clear need for research exploring resources and programs to foster substantially increased representation of women and PEERs in STEM. Educational interventions in the form of out-of-school programs such as summer camps have shown promising gains in affective STEM outcomes in girls and PEERs. This paper builds upon this literature to describe a research study taking place during a one-week summer camp at a mid-sized university designed to increase STEM identity, self-efficacy, and sense of belonging among women and PEERs, with the goal of yielding an increased likelihood of pursuing STEM careers

Icarus Falls: The Coal Health Scandal

The handling of cases under the Coal Health Compensation Schemes, set up in 1999 to compensate miners suffering from workplace medical conditions, resulted in over 100 solicitors from more than 30 firms facing disciplinary proceedings. Three were struck off, three suspended and over forty fined following the largest investigation ever mounted by the regulator. This article examines the political and regulatory context of the scandal, describes one of the cases presented to the Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal and examines the relevance of theories of transgression to professional disciplinary matters. It concludes by considering the regulatory impacts and implications of the scandal

ARHNet: Adaptive Region Harmonization for Lesion-aware Augmentation to Improve Segmentation Performance

Accurately segmenting brain lesions in MRI scans is critical for providing patients with prognoses and neurological monitoring. However, the performance of CNN-based segmentation methods is constrained by the limited training set size. Advanced data augmentation is an effective strategy to improve the model's robustness. However, they often introduce intensity disparities between foreground and background areas and boundary artifacts, which weakens the effectiveness of such strategies. In this paper, we propose a foreground harmonization framework (ARHNet) to tackle intensity disparities and make synthetic images look more realistic. In particular, we propose an Adaptive Region Harmonization (ARH) module to dynamically align foreground feature maps to the background with an attention mechanism. We demonstrate the efficacy of our method in improving the segmentation performance using real and synthetic images. Experimental results on the ATLAS 2.0 dataset show that ARHNet outperforms other methods for image harmonization tasks, and boosts the down-stream segmentation performance. Our code is publicly available at https://github.com/King-HAW/ARHNet.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, 3 table