Cortical Stimulation Mapping of Heschl’s Gyrus in the Auditory Cortex for Tinnitus Treatment

Tinnitus is the perception of sound in the absence of an actual sound stimulus. Recent developments have shifted the focus to the central nervous system and the neural correlate of tinnitus. Broadly, tinnitus involves cortical map rearrangement, pathological neural synchrony, and increased spontaneous firing rates. Various cortical regions, such as Heschl’s gyrus in the auditory cortex, have been found to be associated with different aspects of tinnitus, such as perception and loudness. I propose a cortical stimulation mapping study of Heschl’s gyrus using a depth and subdural electrode montage to conduct electrocorticography. This study would provide high-resolution data on abnormal frequency band oscillations characteristic of tinnitus and pinpoint regions where they occur. The validity of the neural synchrony model would also be tested in this study

Unsafe at Any Campus: Don\u27t Let Colleges Become the Next Cruise Ships, Nursing Homes, and Food Processing Plants

The decision to educate our students via in-person or online learning environments while COVID-19 is unrestrained is a false choice, when the clear path to achieve our chief objective safely, the education of our students, can be done online. Our decision-making should be guided by the overriding principle that people matter more than money. We recognize that lost tuition revenue if students delay or defer education is an institutional concern, but we posit that many students and parents would prefer a safer online alternative to riskier in-person options, especially as we get closer to fall, and American death tolls rise. This Article argues the extra stress of trying to maintain safety from infection with a return to campus will make teaching and learning less effective. While high density classrooms promote virus transmission and potentially super-spreader events, we can take the lessons we learned during the spring and provide courses without the stressors of spreading the virus. We argue the socially responsible decision is to deliver compassionate, healthy, and first-rate online pedagogy, and we offer a vision of how to move forward into this brave new world

Unsafe at Any Campus: Don\u27t Let Colleges Become the Next Cruise Ships, Nursing Homes, and Food Processing Plants

The decision to educate our students via in-person or online learning environments while COVID-19 is unrestrained is a false choice, when the clear path to achieve our chief objective safely, the education of our students, can be done online. Our decision-making should be guided by the overriding principle that people matter more than money. We recognize that lost tuition revenue if students delay or defer education is an institutional concern, but we posit that many students and parents would prefer a safer online alternative to riskier in-person options, especially as we get closer to fall, and American death tolls rise. This Article argues the extra stress of trying to maintain safety from infection with a return to campus will make teaching and learning less effective. While high density classrooms promote virus transmission and potentially super-spreader events, we can take the lessons we learned during the spring and provide courses without the stressors of spreading the virus. We argue the socially responsible decision is to deliver compassionate, healthy, and first-rate online pedagogy, and we offer a vision of how to move forward into this brave new world

Unsafe at any Campus: Don\u27t Let Colleges Become the Next Cruise Ships, Nursing Homes, and Food Processing Plants

The decision to educate our students via in-person or online learning environments while COVID-19 is unrestrained is a false choice, when the clear path to achieve our chief objective safely, the education of our students, can be done online. Our decision-making should be guided by the overriding principle that people matter more than money. We recognize that lost tuition revenue if students delay or defer education is an institutional concern, but we posit that many students and parents would prefer a safer online alternative to riskier in-person options, especially as we get closer to fall, and American death tolls rise. This Article argues the extra stress of trying to maintain safety from infection with a return to campus will make teaching and learning less effective. While high density classrooms promote virus transmission and potentially super-spreader events, we can take the lessons we learned during the spring and provide courses without the stressors of spreading the virus. We argue the socially responsible decision is to deliver compassionate, healthy, and first-rate online pedagogy, and we offer a vision of how to move forward into this brave new world

A First Principles Derivation of Energy Conserving Momentum Jumps in Surface Hopping Simulations

The fewest switches surface hopping (FSSH) method proposed by Tully in 1990 [J. C Tully, J. Chem. Phys. 93, 1061 (1990)] -- along with its many later variations -- is basis for most practical simulations of molecular dynamics with electronic transitions in realistic systems. Despite its popularity, a rigorous formal derivation of the algorithm has yet to be achieved. In this paper, we derive the energy conserving momentum jumps characterizing FSSH from the perspective of quantum trajectory surface hopping (QTSH [C. C. Martens, J. Phys. Chem. A 123, 1110 (2019)]. In the limit of localized nonadiabatic transitions, simple mathematical and physical arguments allow the FSSH algorithm to be derived from first principles. For general processes, the quantum forces characterizing the QTSH method provides accurate results for nonadiabatic dynamics with rigorous energy conservation at the ensemble level within the consistency of the underlying stochastic surface hopping without resorting to the artificial momentum rescaling of FSSH.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Assessing the Value of Complex Refractive Index and Particle Density for Calibration of Low-Cost Particle Matter Sensor for Size-Resolved Particle Count and PM2.5 Measurements

Commercially available low-cost particulate matter (PM) sensors provide output as total or size-specific particle counts and mass concentrations. These quantities are not measured directly but are estimated by the original equipment manufacturers' (OEM) proprietary algorithms and have inherent limitations since particle scattering depends on their composition, size, shape, and complex index of refraction (CRI). Hence, there is a need to characterize and calibrate their performance under a controlled environment. We present calibration algorithms for Plantower PMS A003 sensor as a function of particle size and concentration. A standardized experimental protocol was used to control the PM level, environmental conditions and to evaluate sensor-to-sensor reproducibility. The calibration was based on tests when PMS A003 were exposed to different polydisperse standardized testing aerosols. The results suggested particle size distribution from PMS A003 was shifted compared to reference instrument measures. For calibration of number concentration, linear model without adjusting aerosol properties corrects the raw PMS A003 measurement for specific size bins with normalized mean absolute error within 4.0% of the reference instrument. Although the Bayesian Information Criterion suggests that models adjusting for particle optical properties and relative humidity are technically superior, they should be used with caution as the particle properties used in fitting were within a narrow range for challenge aerosols. The calibration models adjusted for particle CRI and density account for non-linearity in the OEM's mass concentrations estimates and demonstrated lower error. These results have significant implications for using PMS A003 in high concentration environments, including indoor air quality and occupational/industrial exposure assessments, wildfire smoke, or near-source monitoring scenarios

Computational image analysis of subcellular dynamics in time-lapse fluorescence microscopy

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, February 2005.Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-73).The use of image segmentation and motion tracking algorithms was adapted for analyzing time-lapse data of cells with fluorescently labeled protein. Performance metrics were devised and algorithm parameters were matched to hand-created ground-truth data. The performance of these algorithms in this domain was compared. Finally, the optimal algorithms were selected and used to acquire statistics on existing data, in order to reproduce previous studies on the cell cytoskeleton. New data was acquired to extend previous results and further test the algorithms on a different cell line, under both widefield and confocal microscope conditions.by Austin V. Huang.S.M