Breast Pump for Low-Resource Settings

ME450 Capstone Design and Manufacturing Experience: Winter 2015Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life is highly recommended by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO) based on its extraordinary range of benefits to both mothers and children. However, only 15% of infants aged 0 to 6 months in some least developed countries such as Nigeria and only 38% of infants worldwide are exclusively breastfed. The low breastfeeding rates are due in large part to a mother’s need to return to work, where mothers have no access to breastfeeding or expressing breast milk at work. Existing commercial grade and personal-use breast pumps are cost prohibitive and difficult to maintain for mothers in low-resource settings where clean water is a challenge and electricity is not available. Therefore, the team designed and prototyped a cheap, easy to clean, and easy to maintain breast pump for working mothers in low-resource settings.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111327/1/09_Report.pd

Predicting and understanding spatio-temporal dynamics of species recovery : implications for Asian crested ibis Nipponia nippon conservation in China

Acknowledgements This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31372218) and cofunded by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) and the ITC Research Fund, Enschede, the Netherlands. We thank Shaanxi Hanzhong Crested Ibis National Nature Reserve for sharing the data of nest site locations. We are grateful to Brendan Wintle, Justin Travis and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on a previous version of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Imaging the Centromedian Thalamic Nucleus Using Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping.

The centromedian (CM) nucleus is an intralaminar thalamic nucleus that is considered as a potentially effective target of deep brain stimulation (DBS) and ablative surgeries for the treatment of multiple neurological and psychiatric disorders. However, the structure of CM is invisible on the standard T1- and T2-weighted (T1w and T2w) magnetic resonance images, which hamper it as a direct DBS target for clinical applications. The purpose of the current study is to demonstrate the use of quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) technique to image the CM within the thalamic region. Twelve patients with Parkinson's disease, dystonia, or schizophrenia were included in this study. A 3D multi-echo gradient recalled echo (GRE) sequence was acquired together with T1w and T2w images on a 3-T MR scanner. The QSM image was reconstructed from the GRE phase data. Direct visual inspection of the CM was made on T1w, T2w, and QSM images. Furthermore, the contrast-to-noise ratios (CNRs) of the CM to the adjacent posterior part of thalamus on T1w, T2w, and QSM images were compared using the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test. QSM dramatically improved the visualization of the CM nucleus. Clear delineation of CM compared to the surroundings was observed on QSM but not on T1w and T2w images. Statistical analysis showed that the CNR on QSM was significantly higher than those on T1w and T2w images. Taken together, our results indicate that QSM is a promising technique for improving the visualization of CM as a direct targeting for DBS surgery

EXPLORING THE ROLE OF SWITCHING COSTS IN EXPLAINING MICRO-GROUP ADHERENCE FROM THE SOCIO-TECHNICAL PERSPECTIVE

Micro-group is a commonly used function provided by most of China micro-blog platforms though which friends or people with common interests can share conversations like an online community. In this study, we draw from established socio-technical theory in Information Systems to develop an integrated model of customers’ adherence to micro-groups from the view of switching cost. The results of the empirical analysis confirmed that switching cost increases when the user perceived that the system was secure, full-functional or when there is a high level of network size, information value and network status. In the same way, greater switching cost was also found to have a positive influence on user adherence to micro-groups. Based on the findings, strategies to help micro-group site develop an enhanced “lock-in” effect are proposed

Quantum interference induced by multiple Landau-Zener transitions in a strongly driven rf-SQUID qubit

We irradiated an rf-SQUID qubit with large-amplitude and high frequency electromagnetic field. Population transitions between macroscopic distinctive quantum states due to Landau-Zener transitions at energy-level avoided crossings were observed. The qubit population on the excited states as a function of flux detuning and microwave power exhibits interference patterns. Some novel features are found in the interference and a model based on rate equations can well address the features.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, comments are welcom