Experiencing a Computer Supported College Course– “Creating Culture Identity through Food and Language: United States and China in Dialogue”

AbstractComputer science and network technology are bringing about enormous new challenges, opportunities, possibilities and changes to education, typically the classroom teaching-learning based on printed textbooks and blackboard, so much so that the ideology and practices of education, ranging from theoretical research on education, educational administration, curriculum development and evaluation, and construction and using of teaching and learning materials, to teaching style and methodology and learning strategy, etc., are undergoing tremendous influence from computer and network based media. I myself (Bangxiu Xie) have experienced an internationally collaborative course which was made possible by a variety of electronic media, like websites, email and voice-mail service, and skype service. The impacts of computer and network techniques upon the course cover the whole process of the development and implementation of the course

Self-Packaged and Low-Loss Suspended Integrated Stripline Filters for Next Generation Systems

The method in which the frequency spectrum is currently allocated is unsustainable. An increasing number of devices are becoming wireless, overcrowding an already crowded spectrum (e.g., the ISM band). Therefore, future systems will be forced to move to higher frequencies in order to be allocated an unused slice of the spectrum and accumulate the desired/required bandwidth. Furthermore, with the continued desire to implement a multitude of sensors on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as well as the need for conformal small-cell repeaters for 5G communications, next generation systems will have to achieve unprecedented reductions in size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C). In order for future systems to become practical, several fundamental technological hurdles must be overcome including the development of low loss and highly integrated components used to build next generation systems. The RF/microwave filter is of particular interest, as it is not only crucial for conditioning the signal for transmission and/or digitization, but can also affect critical system parameters based on it's placement in the system. Due to the increased attenuative nature of the environment at microwave frequencies, the systems dynamic range will have to be maximized requiring an exceptionally low loss filter if placed close to the antenna in the receiver (Rx) chain, which is necessary for defense and adaptive/re-configurable systems. While low loss microwave filtering can be easily achieved using waveguide design techniques, it is much more difficult in a highly integrated planar design due to increased radiation and dielectric losses. A promising solution which minimizes these losses and offers a planar solution is the suspended integrated stripline (SISL) filter. In this research, a low loss fully-board integrated lowpass and highpass filter, using the suspended integrated stripline technology, are designed and studied, pushing the stat-of-the-art in planar filtering technologies. A multi-layer board stack-up, with internally buried hollowed cavities, is used to create the suspended stripline. The embedded filter is accessed through a co-planar waveguide-to-stripline vertical via transition and vice-versa. Simulated and measured results show that insertion losses of less than 1 dB are obtainable including the vertical via transition and associated trace losses. Compared to it's suspended substrate stripline (SSS) predecessor, the SISL filter is one order of magnitude smaller and lighter while achieving identical performance. Beyond the proposed filters, this technological solution can be applied to several other passive microwave components such as couplers, power dividers, and gain equalizers. The capabilities demonstrated in this research will be crucial to the design and integration of modern and next generation systems as it requires no mechanical housing, connectors, or assembly, resulting in a light weight, compact size, and low cost solution

Design, Integration, and Miniaturization of a Multichannel Ultra-Wideband Snow Radar Receiver and Passive Microwave Components

At the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS), two Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radars are used for remote sensing of snow. The 12-18 GHz Ku-Band Radar altimeters provides high resolution surface elevation measurements, while the 2-8 GHz Snow Radar measures snow thickness over sea ice. In order for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to continuously develop more accurate models, additional snow characterization over sea ice is needed. Employing a constrained optimization approach, the snow water equivalent (SWE) can be estimated directly from the measured radar backscatter. Using the current Snow Radar depth measurement ability along with modified SWE approximation, remotely sensed snow density data can be gathered over large areas using airborne microwave sensors. These additional snow parameters will allow scientists to more accurately model a given area of snow and its effect on polar climate change. To meet this demand, a new “Airborne” Multi-Channel, Quad-Polarized 2-18GHz Snow Radar has been proposed. With tight size and weight constraints from the airborne platforms deploying with the Navy Research Laboratory (NRL), the need for integrated and miniaturized receivers for cost and size reduction is crucial for future deployments. A set of heterodyne microwave receivers were developed as part of the new 2-18 GHz Snow radar to satisfy the March 2015 NRL deployment. The receivers were designed to enable snow thickness measurements from a survey altitude of 500 feet to 5000 feet while nadir looking, and estimation of SWE from polarimetric backscattered signals at low elevation 30 degree off nadir. The individual receiver has undergone a five times size reduction with respect to initial prototype design, while achieving a sensitivity of -125 dBm on average across the 2-18 GHz bandwidth, enabling measurements with a vertical range resolution of 1.64 cm in snow. The design of a compact enclosure was defined to accommodate up to 18 individual receiver modules allowing for multi-channel quad-polarized measurements of snow backscatter over the entire 16 GHz bandwidth. With the new receiver and enclosure design, a one-fourth size reduction of the overall receiver chassis has been accomplished. The receiver bank was tested individually and with the entire system in a full multi-channel loop-back measurement, using a 2.95 μs optical delay line, resulting in a beat frequency of 200 MHz with 20dB range side lobes. Due to the multi-angle, multi-polarization, and multi-frequency content from the data, the number of free parameters in the SWE estimation can thus be significantly reduced resulting in more accurate estimation of SWE. In addition to the receiver design, several UWB passive components were designed, fabricated, and tested for future implementation to reduce cost and allow for quick lead time due to in-house assembly. Design equations have been derived and a new method for modeling Suspended Substrate Stripline (SSS) filters in ADS for rapid-prototyping has been accomplished. Two SSS filters were designed which include an Optimized Chebyshev SSS Low Pass Filter (LPF) with an 18 GHz cutoff frequency and a Broadside Coupled SSS High Pass Filter (HPF) with a 2 GHz cutoff frequency. These filters were designed and modeled in house and sent out for professional fabrication. Mechanical design, fabrication, and assembly were all completed at CReSIS. Measurements were taken with a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) and compared with HFSS simulations. Also, a 2-18 GHz three- port Transverse Electromagnetic (TEM) Mode Hybrid 8:1 power combiner was designed and modeled at CReSIS. This design will be integrated into the Vivaldi Dual Polarized antenna array with 8 active dual-polarized elements to implement a lightweight and compact array structure, eliminating cable and connector cost and losses

Hypothesis Generation Using Network Structures on Community Health Center Cancer-Screening Performance

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES: Nationally sponsored cancer-care quality-improvement efforts have been deployed in community health centers to increase breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer-screening rates among vulnerable populations. Despite several immediate and short-term gains, screening rates remain below national benchmark objectives. Overall improvement has been both difficult to sustain over time in some organizational settings and/or challenging to diffuse to other settings as repeatable best practices. Reasons for this include facility-level changes, which typically occur in dynamic organizational environments that are complex, adaptive, and unpredictable. This study seeks to understand the factors that shape community health center facility-level cancer-screening performance over time. This study applies a computational-modeling approach, combining principles of health-services research, health informatics, network theory, and systems science. METHODS: To investigate the roles of knowledge acquisition, retention, and sharing within the setting of the community health center and to examine their effects on the relationship between clinical decision support capabilities and improvement in cancer-screening rate improvement, we employed Construct-TM to create simulated community health centers using previously collected point-in-time survey data. Construct-TM is a multi-agent model of network evolution. Because social, knowledge, and belief networks co-evolve, groups and organizations are treated as complex systems to capture the variability of human and organizational factors. In Construct-TM, individuals and groups interact by communicating, learning, and making decisions in a continuous cycle. Data from the survey was used to differentiate high-performing simulated community health centers from low-performing ones based on computer-based decision support usage and self-reported cancer-screening improvement. RESULTS: This virtual experiment revealed that patterns of overall network symmetry, agent cohesion, and connectedness varied by community health center performance level. Visual assessment of both the agent-to-agent knowledge sharing network and agent-to-resource knowledge use network diagrams demonstrated that community health centers labeled as high performers typically showed higher levels of collaboration and cohesiveness among agent classes, faster knowledge-absorption rates, and fewer agents that were unconnected to key knowledge resources. Conclusions and research implications: Using the point-in-time survey data outlining community health center cancer-screening practices, our computational model successfully distinguished between high and low performers. Results indicated that high-performance environments displayed distinctive network characteristics in patterns of interaction among agents, as well as in the access and utilization of key knowledge resources. Our study demonstrated how non-network-specific data obtained from a point-in-time survey can be employed to forecast community health center performance over time, thereby enhancing the sustainability of long-term strategic-improvement efforts. Our results revealed a strategic profile for community health center cancer-screening improvement via simulation over a projected 10-year period. The use of computational modeling allows additional inferential knowledge to be drawn from existing data when examining organizational performance in increasingly complex environments

Transcription-associated breaks in Xeroderma Pigmentosum group D cells from patients with combined features of Xeroderma Pigmentosum and Cockayne Syndrome

Defects in the XPD gene can result in several clinical phenotypes, including xeroderma pigmentosum (XP), trichothiodystrophy, and, less frequently, the combined phenotype of XP and Cockayne syndrome (XP-D/CS). We previously showed that in cells from two XP-D/CS patients, breaks were introduced into cellular DNA on exposure to UV damage, but these breaks were not at the sites of the damage. In the present work, we show that three further XP-D/CS patients show the same peculiar breakage phenomenon. We show that these breaks can be visualized inside the cells by immunofluorescence using antibodies to either gamma-H2AX or poly-ADP-ribose and that they can be generated by the introduction of plasmids harboring methylation or oxidative damage as well as by UV photoproducts. Inhibition of RNA polymerase II transcription by four different inhibitors dramatically reduced the number of UV-induced breaks. Furthermore, the breaks were dependent on the nucleotide excision repair (NER) machinery. These data are consistent with our hypothesis that the NER machinery introduces the breaks at sites of transcription initiation. During transcription in UV-irradiated XP-D/CS cells, phosphorylation of the carboxy-terminal domain of RNA polymerase II occurred normally, but the elongating form of the polymerase remained blocked at lesions and was eventually degraded

Using computational modeling to assess the impact of clinical decision support on cancer screening improvement strategies within the community health centers

AbstractOur conceptual model demonstrates our goal to investigate the impact of clinical decision support (CDS) utilization on cancer screening improvement strategies in the community health care (CHC) setting. We employed a dual modeling technique using both statistical and computational modeling to evaluate impact. Our statistical model used the Spearman’s Rho test to evaluate the strength of relationship between our proximal outcome measures (CDS utilization) against our distal outcome measure (provider self-reported cancer screening improvement). Our computational model relied on network evolution theory and made use of a tool called Construct-TM to model the use of CDS measured by the rate of organizational learning. We employed the use of previously collected survey data from community health centers Cancer Health Disparities Collaborative (HDCC). Our intent is to demonstrate the added valued gained by using a computational modeling tool in conjunction with a statistical analysis when evaluating the impact a health information technology, in the form of CDS, on health care quality process outcomes such as facility-level screening improvement. Significant simulated disparities in organizational learning over time were observed between community health centers beginning the simulation with high and low clinical decision support capability

Diagnosis, Treatment and Follow Up of Acute Pulmonary Embolism: Consensus Practice from the PERT Consortium

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a life-threatening condition and a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. There have been many advances in the field of PE in the last few years, requiring a careful assessment of their impact on patient care. However, variations in recommendations by different clinical guidelines, as well as lack of robust clinical trials, make clinical decisions challenging. The Pulmonary Embolism Response Team Consortium is an international association created to advance the diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes of patients with PE. In this consensus practice document, we provide a comprehensive review of the diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of acute PE, including both clinical data and consensus opinion to provide guidance for clinicians caring for these patients

Heterologous expression of tylosin polyketide synthase and production of a hybrid bioactive macrolide in Streptomyces venezuelae

Tylosin polyketide synthase (Tyl PKS) was heterologously expressed in an engineered strain of Streptomyces venezuelae bearing a deletion of pikromycin PKS gene cluster using two compatible low-copy plasmids, each under the control of a pikAI promoter. The mutant strain produced 0.5 mg/l of the 16-membered ring macrolactone, tylactone, after a 4-day culture, which is a considerably reduced culture period to reach the maximum production level compared to other Streptomyces hosts. To improve the production level of tylactone, several precursors for ethylmalonyl-CoA were fed to the growing medium, leading to a 2.8-fold improvement (1.4 mg/ml); however, switching the pikAI promoter to an actI promoter had no observable effect. In addition, a small amount of desosamine-glycosylated tylactone was detected from the extract of the mutant strain, revealing that the native glycosyltransferase DesVII displayed relaxed substrate specificity in accepting the 16-membered ring macrolactone to produce the glycosylated tylactone. These results demonstrate a successful attempt for a heterologous expression of Tyl PKS in S. venezuelae and introduce S. venezuelae as a rapid heterologous expression system for the production of secondary metabolites.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45861/1/253_2006_Article_318.pd