Relaxation-based viscosity mapping for magnetic particle imaging

Magnetic particle imaging (MPI) has been shown to provide remarkable contrast for imaging applications such as angiography, stem cell tracking, and cancer imaging. Recently, there is growing interest in the functional imaging capabilities of MPI, where 'color MPI' techniques have explored separating different nanoparticles, which could potentially be used to distinguish nanoparticles in different states or environments. Viscosity mapping is a promising functional imaging application for MPI, as increased viscosity levels in vivo have been associated with numerous diseases such as hypertension, atherosclerosis, and cancer. In this work, we propose a viscosity mapping technique for MPI through the estimation of the relaxation time constant of the nanoparticles. Importantly, the proposed time constant estimation scheme does not require any prior information regarding the nanoparticles. We validate this method with extensive experiments in an in-house magnetic particle spectroscopy (MPS) setup at four different frequencies (between 250 Hz and 10.8 kHz) and at three different field strengths (between 5 mT and 15 mT) for viscosities ranging between 0.89 mPa • s-15.33 mPa • s. Our results demonstrate the viscosity mapping ability of MPI in the biologically relevant viscosity range. © 2017 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine

Capturing wheat phenotypes at the genome level

Recent technological advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have dramatically reduced the cost of DNA sequencing, allowing species with large and complex genomes to be sequenced. Although bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the world’s most important food crops, efficient exploitation of molecular marker-assisted breeding approaches has lagged behind that achieved in other crop species, due to its large polyploid genome. However, an international public–private effort spanning 9 years reported over 65% draft genome of bread wheat in 2014, and finally, after more than a decade culminated in the release of a gold-standard, fully annotated reference wheat-genome assembly in 2018. Shortly thereafter, in 2020, the genome of assemblies of additional 15 global wheat accessions was released. As a result, wheat has now entered into the pan-genomic era, where basic resources can be efficiently exploited. Wheat genotyping with a few hundred markers has been replaced by genotyping arrays, capable of characterizing hundreds of wheat lines, using thousands of markers, providing fast, relatively inexpensive, and reliable data for exploitation in wheat breeding. These advances have opened up new opportunities for marker-assisted selection (MAS) and genomic selection (GS) in wheat. Herein, we review the advances and perspectives in wheat genetics and genomics, with a focus on key traits, including grain yield, yield-related traits, end-use quality, and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. We also focus on reported candidate genes cloned and linked to traits of interest. Furthermore, we report on the improvement in the aforementioned quantitative traits, through the use of (i) clustered regularly interspaced short-palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9)-mediated gene-editing and (ii) positional cloning methods, and of genomic selection. Finally, we examine the utilization of genomics for the next-generation wheat breeding, providing a practical example of using in silico bioinformatics tools that are based on the wheat reference-genome sequence

Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report

Both music and language are found in all known human societies, yet no studies have compared similarities and differences between song, speech, and instrumental music on a global scale. In this Registered Report, we analyzed two global datasets: (i) 300 annotated audio recordings representing matched sets of traditional songs, recited lyrics, conversational speech, and instrumental melodies from our 75 coauthors speaking 55 languages; and (ii) 418 previously published adult-directed song and speech recordings from 209 individuals speaking 16 languages. Of our six preregistered predictions, five were strongly supported: Relative to speech, songs use (i) higher pitch, (ii) slower temporal rate, and (iii) more stable pitches, while both songs and speech used similar (iv) pitch interval size and (v) timbral brightness. Exploratory analyses suggest that features vary along a “musi-linguistic” continuum when including instrumental melodies and recited lyrics. Our study provides strong empirical evidence of cross-cultural regularities in music and speech

Thermal design and analysis of an organic rankine cycle system utilizing the main engine and cargo oil pump turbine based waste heats in a large tanker ship

The utilization of main engine-based waste heat sources using organic Rankine cycle (ORC) systems is only available during the navigation phases of marine vessels, which leads to reductions in the system uptake time and economic viability of the investment during cargo loading/discharging operations and waiting periods in ports. The novel perspective of this study is to propose the cargo oil pump turbine (COPT) based waste heat as a utilizable source, which has not been introduced in the literature yet, and show the economic viability of ORC systems for tanker ships. In this regard, a new waste heat recovery system specifically designed for a reference crude oil tanker ship was introduced that can utilize both main engine-based waste heat during navigation and COPT-based waste heat during cargo discharge operations. The optimal heat exchanger network of the main engine and COPT-based waste heats was designed using pinch point analysis method for achieving optimum waste heat recovery. Energy and exergy analyses were conducted for the proposed ORC integrated waste heat recovery system for both navigation and discharge operation modes of the ship. The economic performance of the ORC system was further assessed by calculating payback periods and levelized energy costs for eleven design points. The highest energy conversion efficiency (16.2%) was achieved when the ORC condenser outlet temperature was taken as 15 °C for R1233zd(E). COPT based waste heat reduced the levelized energy cost of the system by at least 8.9% and the minimum levelized energy cost value was obtained as 0.1307. The best economic performance was yielded with COPT utilization at design point 9 with a payback period of 6.2 years, which was reduced by at least 0.7 years with the utilization of COPT based waste heat.</p

Evaluation of the efficacy of adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with high-risk stage II colon cancer

WOS: 000322750700010PubMed ID: 23818348Purpose: This study aimed at comparing the disease-free survival (DFS) in high-risk TNM stage II colon cancer patients who had been subjected to adjuvant chemotherapy and TNM low-risk stage II patients who did not receive chemotherapy. Methods: : We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of stage II colon cancer patients between January 2006 and December 2011. High-risk patients were defined those with any colonic obstruction/perforation, mucinous histology, inadequate lymph node sampling, T4 disease, lymphatic/vascular or perineural invasion, preoperatively elevated carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and high-grade tumor. All patients with high-risk features received adjuvant chemotherapy. Results: There were 42 patients in the high-risk treatment group and 21 patients in the non-treatment (observation) group. There were no significant differences in terms of gender, tumor size, tumor localization, or the number of excised lymph nodes between the groups. The median follow-up time was 33.9 months in the treatment group and 29.3 months in the non-treatment group. Recurrence developed in 4 patients (6.3%), 3 of which were in the treatment group. DFS in both groups was statistically similar. Conclusion: Adjuvant chemotherapy in the high-risk patients resulted in similar DFS as that in the low-risk patients. Although the role of adjuvant chemotherapy for stage II colon cancer is unclear, it is rational to offer adjuvant chemotherapy to patients with high-risk stage II colon cancer