The Inter-Mammary Sticky Roll: A Novel Technique for Securing a Doppler Ultrasonic Probe to the Precordium for Venous Air Embolism Detection.

Venous air embolism is a devastating and potentially life-threatening complication that can occur during neurosurgical procedures. We report the development and use of the "inter-mammary sticky roll," a technique to reliably secure a precordial Doppler ultrasonic probe to the chest wall during neurosurgical cases that require lateral decubitus positioning. We have found that this noninvasive technique is safe, and effectively facilitates a constant Doppler signal with no additional risk to the patient

A Year in Space for the CubeSat Multispectral Observing System: CUMULOS

CUMULOS is a three-camera system flying as a secondary payload on the Integrated Solar Array and Reflectarray Antenna (ISARA) mission with the goals of researching the use of uncooled commercial infrared cameras for Earth remote sensing and demonstrating unique nighttime remote sensing capabilities. Three separate cameras comprise the CUMULOS payload: 1) a visible (VIS) Si CMOS camera, 2) a shortwave infrared (SWIR) InGaAs camera, and 3) a longwave infrared (LWIR) vanadium oxide microbolometer. This paper reviews on-orbit operations during the past year, in-space calibration observations and techniques, and Earth remote sensing highlights from the first year of space operations. CUMULOS operations commenced on 8 June 2018 following the successful completion of the primary ISARA mission. Some of the unique contributions from the CUMULOS payloads include: 1) demonstrating the use of bright stars for on-orbit radiometric calibration of CubeSat payloads, 2) acquisition of science-quality nighttime lights data at 130-m resolution, and 3) operating the first simple Earth observing infrared payloads successfully flown on a CubeSat. Sample remote sensing results include images of: cities at night, ship lights (including fishing vessels), oil industry gas flares, serious wildfires, volcanic activity, and daytime and nighttime clouds. The CUMULOS VIS camera has measured calibrated nightlights imagery of major cities such as Los Angeles, Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo, Kuwait City, Abu Dhabi, Jeddah, Istanbul, and London at more than 5x the resolution of VIIRS. The utility of these data for measuring light pollution, and mapping urban growth and infrastructure development at higher resolution than VIIRS is being studied, with an emphasis placed on Los Angeles. The Carr , Camp and Woolsey fires from the 2018 California fire season were imaged with all three cameras and results highlight the excellent wildfire imaging performance that can be achieved by small sensors. The SWIR camera has exhibited extreme sensitivity to flare and fire hotspots, and was even capable of detecting airglow-illuminated nighttime cloud structures by taking advantage of the strong OH emissions within its 0.9-1.7 micron bandpass. The LWIR microbolometer has proven successful at providing cloud context imagery for our nightlights mapping experiments, can detect very large fires and the brightest flare hotspots, and can also image terrain temperature variation and urban heat islands at 300-m resolution. CUMULOS capabilities show the potential of CubeSats and small sensors to perform several VIIRS-like nighttime mission areas in which wide area coverage can be traded for greater resolution over a smaller field of view. The sensor has been used in collaboration with VIIRS researchers to explore these mission areas and side-by-side results will be presented illustrating the capabilities as well as the limitations of small aperture LEO CubeSat systems

CubeSat Laser Communication Crosslink Pointing Demonstration

An opportunity arose to demonstrate optical crosslink pointing between two CubeSats in LEO using spacecraft not specifically designed for that purpose. The AeroCube-7 spacecraft, designed for optical downlinks as part of the Optical Communication and Sensor Demonstration mission, was tasked to point its communications laser at the ISARA spacecraft to demonstrate the capability of one CubeSat to track another in LEO. The ISARA spacecraft, which does not carry a data receiver, but does carry a short-wave infrared camera (SWIR) as part of the CUMULOS payload, was tasked to track the AeroCube-7 spacecraft and use the SWIR camera to record the OCSD laser. The SWIR images were downloaded over an RF channel and used to evaluate the pointing and tracking of both spacecraft. Two successful tests of crosslink pointing were completed between AeroCube-7 and ISARA, providing a demonstration in principle of the capability, and laying the groundwork for more refined experiments that will use this technique for on-orbit measurements of beam profiling. Further tests between AeroCube-11 and ISARA are also in preparation to demonstrate crosslink pointing in a more-challenging orbital configuration

Diabetes changes ionotropic glutamate receptor subunit expression level in the human retina

Early diabetic retinopathy is characterized by changes in subtle visual functions such as contrast sensitivity and dark adaptation. The outcome of several studies suggests that glutamate is involved in retinal neurodegeneration during diabetes. We hypothesized that the protein levels of ionotropic glutamate receptor subunits are altered in the retina during diabetes. Therefore, we investigated whether human diabetic patients have altered immunoreactivity of ionotropic glutamate receptor subunits in the retina.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6SYR-4RS9SS1-1/1/232d6ae7147919a2286326863ee69f1

The Rogue Alpha and Beta Mission: Operations, Infrared Remote Sensing, LEO Data Processing, and Lessons Learned From Three Years on Orbit With Two Laser Communication-Equipped 3U CubeSats

The Aerospace Corporation\u27s Rogue-alpha, beta program was a rapid prototyping demonstration aimed at building and deploying an infrared remote sensing capability into low Earth orbit within 18 months. The two satellites and their data were then used for three years as an experimental testbed for future proliferated low Earth orbit (pLEO) constellations. Their launch took place on November 2, 2019, followed by boost and deployment of two identical spacecraft (Rogue-alpha and beta) by the Cygnus ISS cargo vessel into circular 460-km, 52° inclined orbits on January31, 2020. The primary sensors were 1.4-micron band, InGaAs short wavelength infrared (SWIR) cameras with640x512 pixels and a 28° field-of-view. The IR sensors were accompanied by 10-megapixel visible context cameras with a 37° field-of-view. Star sensors were also tested as nighttime imaging sensors. Three years of spacecraft and sensor operations were achieved, allowing a variety of experiments to be conducted. The first year focused on alignment and checkout of the laser communication systems, sensor calibration, and priority IR remote sensing objectives, including the study of Earth backgrounds, observation of natural gas flares, and detection of rocket launches. The second year of operations added study of environmental remote sensing targets, including severe storms, wildfires, and volcanic eruptions, while continuing to gather Earth backgrounds and rocket launch observations. The final year emphasized advanced data processing and exploitation techniques applied to collected data, using machine learning and artificial intelligence for tasks such as target tracking, frame co-registration, and stereo data exploitation. Mission operations continued in the final year, with an emphasis on collecting additional rocket launch data, and higher frame rate backgrounds data. This report summarizes the Rogue alpha, beta mission’s outcomes and presents processed IR data, including the detection and tracking of rocket launches with dynamic Earth backgrounds, embedded moving targets in background scenes, and the use of pointing-based registration to create fire line videos of severe wildfires and 3D scenes of pyrocumulonimbus clouds. Lessons learned from the experimental ConOps, data exploitation, and database curation are also summarized for application to future pLEO constellation missions

Human Developmental Chondrogenesis as a Basis for Engineering Chondrocytes from Pluripotent Stem Cells

Joint injury and osteoarthritis affect millions of people worldwide, but attempts to generate articular cartilage using adult stem/progenitor cells have been unsuccessful. We hypothesized that recapitulation of the human developmental chondrogenic program using pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) may represent a superior approach for cartilage restoration. Using laser-capture microdissection followed by microarray analysis, we first defined a surface phenotype (CD166(low/neg)CD146(low/neg)CD73(+)CD44(low)BMPR1B(+)) distinguishing the earliest cartilage committed cells (prechondrocytes) at 5-6 weeks of development. Functional studies confirmed these cells are chondrocyte progenitors. From 12 weeks, only the superficial layers of articular cartilage were enriched in cells with this progenitor phenotype. Isolation of cells with a similar immunophenotype from differentiating human PSCs revealed a population of CD166(low/neg)BMPR1B(+) putative cartilage-committed progenitors. Taken as a whole, these data define a developmental approach for the generation of highly purified functional human chondrocytes from PSCs that could enable substantial progress in cartilage tissue engineering.Fil: Wu, Ling. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Bluguermann, Carolina. Fundación para la Lucha contra las Enfermedades Neurológicas de la Infancia. Laboratorio de Biología del Desarrollo Celular; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Kyupelyan, Levon. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Latour, Brooke. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Gonzalez, Stephanie. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Shah, Saumya. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Galic, Zoran. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Ge, Sundi. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Zhu, Yuhua. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Petrigliano, Frank A.. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Nsair, Ali. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Miriuka, Santiago Gabriel. Fundación para la Lucha contra las Enfermedades Neurológicas de la Infancia. Laboratorio de Biología del Desarrollo Celular; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Li, Xinmin. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Lyons, Karen M.. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Crooks, Gay M.. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: McAllister, David R.. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Van Handel, Ben. Novogenix Laboratories; Estados UnidosFil: Adams, John S.. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados UnidosFil: Evseenko, Denis. University of California at Los Angeles; Estados Unido

Outcomes after angiography with sodium bicarbonate and acetylcysteine

Background: Intravenous sodium bicarbonate and oral acetylcysteine are widely used to prevent acute kidney injury and associated adverse outcomes after angiography without definitive evidence of their efficacy. Methods: Using a 2-by-2 factorial design, we randomly assigned 5177 patients at high risk for renal complications who were scheduled for angiography to receive intravenous 1.26% sodium bicarbonate or intravenous 0.9% sodium chloride and 5 days of oral acetylcysteine or oral placebo; of these patients, 4993 were included in the modified intention-to-treat analysis. The primary end point was a composite of death, the need for dialysis, or a persistent increase of at least 50% from baseline in the serum creatinine level at 90 days. Contrast-associated acute kidney injury was a secondary end point. Results: The sponsor stopped the trial after a prespecified interim analysis. There was no interaction between sodium bicarbonate and acetylcysteine with respect to the primary end point (P=0.33). The primary end point occurred in 110 of 2511 patients (4.4%) in the sodium bicarbonate group as compared with 116 of 2482 (4.7%) in the sodium chloride group (odds ratio, 0.93; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.72 to 1.22; P=0.62) and in 114 of 2495 patients (4.6%) in the acetylcysteine group as compared with 112 of 2498 (4.5%) in the placebo group (odds ratio, 1.02; 95% CI, 0.78 to 1.33; P=0.88). There were no significant between-group differences in the rates of contrast-associated acute kidney injury. Conclusions: Among patients at high risk for renal complications who were undergoing angiography, there was no benefit of intravenous sodium bicarbonate over intravenous sodium chloride or of oral acetylcysteine over placebo for the prevention of death, need for dialysis, or persistent decline in kidney function at 90 days or for the prevention of contrast-associated acute kidney injury. (Funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia; PRESERVE ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01467466.

The Ion Propulsion System for the Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Demonstration Mission

The Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission is a candidate Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Demonstration Mission whose main objectives are to develop and demonstrate a high-power solar electric propulsion capability for the Agency and return an asteroidal mass for rendezvous and characterization in a companion human-crewed mission. The ion propulsion system must be capable of operating over an 8-year time period and processing up to 10,000 kg of xenon propellant. This high-power solar electric propulsion capability, or an extensible derivative of it, has been identified as a critical part of an affordable, beyond-low-Earth-orbit, manned-exploration architecture. Under the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate the critical electric propulsion and solar array technologies are being developed. The ion propulsion system being co-developed by the NASA Glenn Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the Asteroid Redirect Vehicle is based on the NASA-developed 12.5 kW Hall Effect Rocket with Magnetic Shielding (HERMeS0 thruster and power processing technologies. This paper presents the conceptual design for the ion propulsion system, the status of the NASA in-house thruster and power processing activity, and an update on flight hardware