Product design as a vehicle to integrate arts and sciences in design education

In many parts of the world, Higher Education has often considered arts and sciences as an odd combination and many institutions have avoided this particular mix. Historically, this has been the accepted view; however, this view is changing. This paper provides a detailed account of curriculum development and strategies for enabling arts and science disciplines to blend in an effective way. It shows how strong alliances can be built in line with industry and general design practice expectations through “Live Projects”, that is projects sponsored by industry or other clients. The case studies provided in the paper are based on work conducted in the Product Design and Engineering Department at Middlesex University. The paper further demonstrates the importance of industry involvement, and how industrial collaborations can be managed to ensure that the academic provision is both relevant to the sector as well as responding to the needs of students. The paper was presented at the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR07), held at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The papers for the conference were reviewed in a double blind review process, and the conference was attended by an audience of over 400 delegates, focusing on emerging trends in design researc

Towards a thoracic conductive phantom for EIT

Phantom experiments are a crucial step for testing new hardware or imaging algorithms for electrical impedance tomography (EIT) studies. However, constructing an accurate phantom for EIT research remains critical; some studies have attempted to model the skull and breasts, and even fewer, as yet, have considered the thorax. In this study, a critical comparison between the electrical properties (impedance) of three materials is undertaken: a polyurethane foam, a silicone mixture and a thermoplastic polyurethane filament. The latter was identified as the most promising material and adopted for the development of a flexible neonatal torso. The validation is performed by the EIT image reconstruction of the air filled cavities, which mimic the lung regions. The methodology is reproducible for the creation of any phantom that requires a slight flexibility

Torso shape detection to improve lung monitoring

Newborns with lung immaturity often require continuous monitoring and treatment of their lung ventilation in intensive care units, especially if born preterm. Recent studies indicate that Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) is feasible in newborn
 infants and children, and can quantitatively identify changes in regional lung aeration and ventilation following alterations to respiratory conditions. Information on the patient-specic shape of the torso and its role in minimizing the artefacts in the
 reconstructed images can improve the accuracy of the clinical parameters obtained from EIT. Currently, only idealized models or those segmented from CT scans are usually adopted. This study presents and compares two methodologies that can
 detect the patient-specic torso shape by means of wearable devices based on: (1) previously reported bend sensor technology and (2) a novel approach based on the use of accelerometers. The reconstruction of different phantoms, taking into account
 anatomical asymmetries and different sizes, are produced for comparison. As a result, the accelerometers are more versatile than bend sensors, which cannot be used on bigger cross-sections. The computational study estimates the optimal number of
 accelerometers required in order to generate an image reconstruction comparable to the use of a CT scan as the forward model. Furthermore, since the patient position is crucial to monitoring lung ventilation, the orientation of the phantoms is automatically
 detected by the accelerometer-based method. [Abstract copyright: © 2018 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.

Inhibition of Host Vacuolar H+-ATPase Activity by a Legionella pneumophila Effector

Legionella pneumophila is an intracellular pathogen responsible for Legionnaires' disease. This bacterium uses the Dot/Icm type IV secretion system to inject a large number of bacterial proteins into host cells to facilitate the biogenesis of a phagosome permissive for its intracellular growth. Like many highly adapted intravacuolar pathogens, L. pneumophila is able to maintain a neutral pH in the lumen of its phagosome, particularly in the early phase of infection. However, in all cases, the molecular mechanisms underlying this observation remain unknown. In this report, we describe the identification and characterization of a Legionella protein termed SidK that specifically targets host v-ATPase, the multi-subunit machinery primarily responsible for organelle acidification in eukaryotic cells. Our results indicate that after being injected into infected cells by the Dot/Icm secretion system, SidK interacts with VatA, a key component of the proton pump. Such binding leads to the inhibition of ATP hydrolysis and proton translocation. When delivered into macrophages, SidK inhibits vacuole acidification and impairs the ability of the cells to digest non-pathogenic E. coli. We also show that a domain located in the N-terminal portion of SidK is responsible for its interactions with VatA. Furthermore, expression of sidK is highly induced when bacteria begin to enter new growth cycle, correlating well with the potential temporal requirement of its activity during infection. Our results indicate that direct targeting of v-ATPase by secreted proteins constitutes a virulence strategy for L. pneumophila, a vacuolar pathogen of macrophages and amoebae

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Development of mobile platforms using PDA bluetooth control

This paper describes a prototype that uses Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and Bluetooth communication in an information system designed to supervise Automated Robotic Maintenance systems. This work is a collaboration between different University departments with different specialties. The work focuses on the programming of PDA devices and its usage in monitoring systems with domotic applicability. One of the desired goals is to apply new technologies for deploying an information system on mobile and wireless devices. The system’s architecture and results are presented in this pape