Solid Phase Synthesis of Modular Peptide-based Targeted Molecular Imaging Agents

Targeted molecular imaging agents (TMIA) are emerging as useful tools for early diagnosis of cancer and other diseases. These agents couple imaging agents such as near infrared fluorescence (NIRF) dyes or metallic contrast agents such as gadolinium (Gd) used in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to targeting agents that bind to biomarker receptors in cancer cells. Our group has developed a modular synthesis of peptide-based TMIAs containing these two agents starting from “puzzle pieces”. Puzzle pieces, or modules, are amino acids with imaging groups bonded to their side chains. These are assembled together to form imaging peptides which are then conjugated to targeting groups. The research goal was to synthesize targeting peptides using solid phase peptide synthesis (SPPS), and then add the imaging puzzle pieces to these in the same SPPS method. SPPS is widely used and has many advantages in the synthesis of TMIAs. The first goal, to learn how to synthesize simple peptides by SPPS, was accomplished. The second goal of making Met-enkephalin, a bioactive penta-peptide, and conjugating the imaging puzzle pieces containing a NIRF dye or gadolinium chelate for MRI by SPPS was also successful. The final goal, to synthesize a deca-peptide, 18-4a, useful for targeting breast cancer and then to couple these same imaging puzzle pieces, to the peptide 18-4 in the last step, was also accomplished

Just and Equitable Winding-up in the UK

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Leveraging generative artificial intelligence to simulate student learning behavior

Student simulation presents a transformative approach to enhance learning outcomes, advance educational research, and ultimately shape the future of effective pedagogy. We explore the feasibility of using large language models (LLMs), a remarkable achievement in AI, to simulate student learning behaviors. Unlike conventional machine learning based prediction, we leverage LLMs to instantiate virtual students with specific demographics and uncover intricate correlations among learning experiences, course materials, understanding levels, and engagement. Our objective is not merely to predict learning outcomes but to replicate learning behaviors and patterns of real students. We validate this hypothesis through three experiments. The first experiment, based on a dataset of N = 145, simulates student learning outcomes from demographic data, revealing parallels with actual students concerning various demographic factors. The second experiment (N = 4524) results in increasingly realistic simulated behaviors with more assessment history for virtual students modelling. The third experiment (N = 27), incorporating prior knowledge and course interactions, indicates a strong link between virtual students' learning behaviors and fine-grained mappings from test questions, course materials, engagement and understanding levels. Collectively, these findings deepen our understanding of LLMs and demonstrate its viability for student simulation, empowering more adaptable curricula design to enhance inclusivity and educational effectiveness

Tactile Bodily Gaze Mapping Could Regulate Human Attention

Increasing individuals' awareness of their own body signals can lead to improved interoception, enabling the brain to estimate current body states more accurately and in a timely manner. However, certain body signals, such as eye movements, often go unnoticed by individuals themselves. This study aimed to test the hypothesis that providing eye-movement-correlated tactile feedback on the body enhances individuals' awareness of their attentive states, subsequently improving attention. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of such feedback in redirecting and enhancing attention, particularly in the presence of distractions during long-duration tasks. Additionally, we observed that people's gaze behaviors changed in response to the tactile feedback, suggesting an increased self-awareness of current eye movements and attentive states. Ultimately, these changes in gaze behaviors contribute to the modulation of attentive states. Our findings highlight the potential of eye-movement-correlated bodily tactile feedback to increase individuals' self-awareness of their eye movements and attentive states. By providing real-time feedback through tactile stimuli, we can actively engage individuals in regulating their attention and enhancing their overall performance.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

On the global well-posedness and scattering of the 3D Klein-Gordon-Zakharov system

In this paper we are interested in the global well-posedness of the 3D Klein-Gordon-Zakharov equations with small initial data. We show the uniform boundedness of the energy for the global solution without any compactness assumptions on the initial data. The main novelty of our proof is to apply a modified Alinhac's ghost weight method together with a newly developed normal-form type estimate to remedy the lack of the space-time scaling vector field; moreover, we give a clear description of the smallness conditions on the initial data.Comment: 17 page