Cord Blood Stem Cell Processing, Banking and Thawing

Unrelated donor cord blood (CB) is one of the three sources of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) that are capable of curing ~80–160 standard hematologic and certain non-hematologic indications. Despite its many advantages, the principal drawback for CB in HSCT is its limited cell dose. Our group has focused on developing minimally manipulated technologies and strategies to maximize stem, progenitor, and nucleated cell doses to overcome this limitation. The term “MaxCell” is used in this chapter to denote two proprietary CB volume reduction processing technologies that yield virtually 100% recovery of all cell lineages in the manufactured CB products, including what the authors designate as “second generation” (2nd Gen) or plasma depletion/reduction (PDR) and “third generation” (3rd Gen) MaxCB or MaxCord CB processing technologies. In our proposed nomenclature system, the traditional red cell reduction (RCR) processing techniques are designated as “first generation” methods. The properties of various popular 1st Gen techniques are compared to the MaxCell CB processing technologies. Parallel processing with the traditional hetastarch (HES) RCR technique and the patented MaxCell CB processing technology were used to compare recovery of the various stem, progenitor, nucleated, and red cell lineages. MaxCell processing technology achieved virtually 100% recovery of all stem, progenitor, and nucleated cells tested after processing, with high cell viability upon thawing. The higher cell recovery produced MaxCell inventory with higher average stem, progenitor and nucleated cell doses, allowing patients to receive CB products with higher cell doses. Clinical outcome of HSCT using MaxCell CB products was compared to the outcome of HSCT with RCR CB products published in the literature from transplant data registries or CB banks. To allow for more rigorous comparisons, two matched-pair analysis (MP) were performed using a logistic regression model to find pairs of pediatric patients with hematologic malignancies and thalassemia transplanted with RCR CB or MaxCell CB, and patients receiving MaxCell CB showed superior engraftment, survival, and transplant-related mortality, confirming pre-match observations

Electronic Structure of Carbon Nanotube Ropes

We present a tight binding theory to analyze the motion of electrons between carbon nanotubes bundled into a carbon nanotube rope. The theory is developed starting from a description of the propagating Bloch waves on ideal tubes, and the effects of intertube motion are treated perturbatively in this basis. Expressions for the interwall tunneling amplitudes between states on neighboring tubes are derived which show the dependence on chiral angles and intratube crystal momenta. We find that conservation of crystal momentum along the tube direction suppresses interwall coherence in a carbon nanorope containing tubes with random chiralities. Numerical calculations are presented which indicate that electronic states in a rope are localized in the transverse direction with a coherence length corresponding to a tube diameter.Comment: 15 pages, 10 eps figure

Measurement of the Bottom-Strange Meson Mixing Phase in the Full CDF Data Set

We report a measurement of the bottom-strange meson mixing phase \beta_s using the time evolution of B0_s -> J/\psi (->\mu+\mu-) \phi (-> K+ K-) decays in which the quark-flavor content of the bottom-strange meson is identified at production. This measurement uses the full data set of proton-antiproton collisions at sqrt(s)= 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron, corresponding to 9.6 fb-1 of integrated luminosity. We report confidence regions in the two-dimensional space of \beta_s and the B0_s decay-width difference \Delta\Gamma_s, and measure \beta_s in [-\pi/2, -1.51] U [-0.06, 0.30] U [1.26, \pi/2] at the 68% confidence level, in agreement with the standard model expectation. Assuming the standard model value of \beta_s, we also determine \Delta\Gamma_s = 0.068 +- 0.026 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps-1 and the mean B0_s lifetime, \tau_s = 1.528 +- 0.019 (stat) +- 0.009 (syst) ps, which are consistent and competitive with determinations by other experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett 109, 171802 (2012

Effect of ground-state deformation on isoscalar giant resonances in Si 28

Multipole strength distributions for isoscalar L 642 transitions in Si28 have been extracted using 386-MeV inelastic \u3b1 scattering at extremely forward angles, including 0. Observed strength distributions are in good agreement with microscopic calculations for an oblate-deformed ground state. In particular, a large peak at an excitation energy of 17.7 MeV in the isoscalar giant monopole resonance strength is consistent with the calculations

Multifunctional Magnetic-fluorescent Nanocomposites for Biomedical Applications

Nanotechnology is a fast-growing area, involving the fabrication and use of nano-sized materials and devices. Various nanocomposite materials play a number of important roles in modern science and technology. Magnetic and fluorescent inorganic nanoparticles are of particular importance due to their broad range of potential applications. It is expected that the combination of magnetic and fluorescent properties in one nanocomposite would enable the engineering of unique multifunctional nanoscale devices, which could be manipulated using external magnetic fields. The aim of this review is to present an overview of bimodal “two-in-one” magnetic-fluorescent nanocomposite materials which combine both magnetic and fluorescent properties in one entity, in particular those with potential applications in biotechnology and nanomedicine. There is a great necessity for the development of these multifunctional nanocomposites, but there are some difficulties and challenges to overcome in their fabrication such as quenching of the fluorescent entity by the magnetic core. Fluorescent-magnetic nanocomposites include a variety of materials including silica-based, dye-functionalised magnetic nanoparticles and quantum dots-magnetic nanoparticle composites. The classification and main synthesis strategies, along with approaches for the fabrication of fluorescent-magnetic nanocomposites, are considered. The current and potential biomedical uses, including biological imaging, cell tracking, magnetic bioseparation, nanomedicine and bio- and chemo-sensoring, of magnetic-fluorescent nanocomposites are also discussed

An Empirical Comparison of Consumer Innovation Adoption Models: Implications for Subsistence Marketplaces

So called “pro-poor” innovations may improve consumer wellbeing in subsistence marketplaces. However, there is little research that integrates the area with the vast literature on innovation adoption. Using a questionnaire where respondents were asked to provide their evaluations about a mobile banking innovation, this research fills this gap by providing empirical evidence of the applicability of existing innovation adoption models in subsistence marketplaces. The study was conducted in Bangladesh among a geographically dispersed sample. The data collected allowed an empirical comparison of models in a subsistence context. The research reveals the most useful models in this context to be the Value Based Adoption Model and the Consumer Acceptance of Technology model. In light of these findings and further examination of the model comparison results the research also shows that consumers in subsistence marketplaces are not just motivated by functionality and economic needs. If organizations cannot enhance the hedonic attributes of a pro-poor innovation, and reduce the internal/external constraints related to adoption of that pro-poor innovation, then adoption intention by consumers will be lower

Search for gravitational waves from Scorpius X-1 in the second Advanced LIGO observing run with an improved hidden Markov model

We present results from a semicoherent search for continuous gravitational waves from the low-mass x-ray binary Scorpius X-1, using a hidden Markov model (HMM) to track spin wandering. This search improves on previous HMM-based searches of LIGO data by using an improved frequency domain matched filter, the J-statistic, and by analyzing data from Advanced LIGO's second observing run. In the frequency range searched, from 60 to 650 Hz, we find no evidence of gravitational radiation. At 194.6 Hz, the most sensitive search frequency, we report an upper limit on gravitational wave strain (at 95% confidence) of h095%=3.47×10-25 when marginalizing over source inclination angle. This is the most sensitive search for Scorpius X-1, to date, that is specifically designed to be robust in the presence of spin wandering. © 2019 American Physical Society

Erratum: "A Gravitational-wave Measurement of the Hubble Constant Following the Second Observing Run of Advanced LIGO and Virgo" (2021, ApJ, 909, 218)

[no abstract available

Risk profiles and one-year outcomes of patients with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation in India: Insights from the GARFIELD-AF Registry.

BACKGROUND: The Global Anticoagulant Registry in the FIELD-Atrial Fibrillation (GARFIELD-AF) is an ongoing prospective noninterventional registry, which is providing important information on the baseline characteristics, treatment patterns, and 1-year outcomes in patients with newly diagnosed non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). This report describes data from Indian patients recruited in this registry. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 52,014 patients with newly diagnosed AF were enrolled globally; of these, 1388 patients were recruited from 26 sites within India (2012-2016). In India, the mean age was 65.8 years at diagnosis of NVAF. Hypertension was the most prevalent risk factor for AF, present in 68.5% of patients from India and in 76.3% of patients globally (P < 0.001). Diabetes and coronary artery disease (CAD) were prevalent in 36.2% and 28.1% of patients as compared with global prevalence of 22.2% and 21.6%, respectively (P < 0.001 for both). Antiplatelet therapy was the most common antithrombotic treatment in India. With increasing stroke risk, however, patients were more likely to receive oral anticoagulant therapy [mainly vitamin K antagonist (VKA)], but average international normalized ratio (INR) was lower among Indian patients [median INR value 1.6 (interquartile range {IQR}: 1.3-2.3) versus 2.3 (IQR 1.8-2.8) (P < 0.001)]. Compared with other countries, patients from India had markedly higher rates of all-cause mortality [7.68 per 100 person-years (95% confidence interval 6.32-9.35) vs 4.34 (4.16-4.53), P < 0.0001], while rates of stroke/systemic embolism and major bleeding were lower after 1 year of follow-up. CONCLUSION: Compared to previously published registries from India, the GARFIELD-AF registry describes clinical profiles and outcomes in Indian patients with AF of a different etiology. The registry data show that compared to the rest of the world, Indian AF patients are younger in age and have more diabetes and CAD. Patients with a higher stroke risk are more likely to receive anticoagulation therapy with VKA but are underdosed compared with the global average in the GARFIELD-AF. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION-URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT01090362