Cell Therapy Analytics: Challenges and Opportunities

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Bilingualism enhances reported perspective taking in men, but not in women

Bilingual speakers have often been found to be superior in taking the perspective of another person. Also, females are commonly found to have enhanced perspective taking (PT) abilities compared with males, with male PT being generally more easily affected by external factors. The present study investigated whether bilingualism improves PT in males more strongly than in females. In total, 108 bilingual and 108 matched monolingual adults, with equal numbers of males and females, filled in the PT subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity index. While monolinguals showed the typical result of females scoring higher on PT than males, scores of male and female bilinguals did not differ, with both bilingual groups scoring as high as female monolinguals. Thus, bilingualism enhanced self-reported PT only in males, suggesting that male PT can be enhanced through socialization

Symplectic cacti, virtualization and Berenstein-Kirillov groups

We explicitly realize an internal action of the symplectic cactus group, recently defined by Halacheva for any complex, reductive, finite-dimensional Lie algebra, on crystals of Kashiwara-Nakashima tableaux. Our methods include a symplectic version of jeu de taquin due to Sheats and Lecouvey, symplectic reversal, and virtualization due to Baker. As an application, we define and study a symplectic version of the Berenstein-Kirillov group and show that it is a quotient of the symplectic cactus group. In addition two relations for symplectic Berenstein-Kirillov group are given that do not follow from the defining relations of the symplectic cactus group.Comment: 71 pages, comments welcom

Designing and Psychometric Properties of Elderly Cognitive Empowerment Questionnaire of Individual Changes

Background: Considering the growing elderly population and reducing their physical and mental abilities, and higher frequency of chronic diseases, attention to their empowerment is considered a necessity. So, the aim of this study was to designing and psychometric properties of elderly cognitive empowerment questionnaire of individual changes. Material and Methods: In this methodologic study, 294 elderly aged 60-70 years were studied by using a convenience sampling method in Bushehr city. Waltz 2010 was used to design the questionnaire. According to targeted literature review and available documents about the empowerment of the elderly, the initial version of the questionnaire was designed with 42 items. After confirming the content validity of questionnaire by 10 medical specialists, exploratory factor analysis was performed using the construct validity. Its reliability was determined by calculating Cronbach's alpha coefficient and test re-test. To analyze the data, SPSS version 18 was used. Results: The first version of the questionnaire cognitive empowerment of individual changes were designed with 42 items. In the process of psychometric evaluation no item were removed during the validity of the content. Content validity index and content validity ratio was calculated 0.82 and 0.95 respectively. Based on the exploratory factor analysis, the number of the questionnaire items was reduced to 32 and dimensions of empowerment were classified in the eight factors as physical abilities, self-respect, spirituality, commitment, performance role, positional identification, self-management and self-assessment which can predict with 75.787 %. Internal reliability of the questionnaire dimensions were ranged from 0.62-0.84 and external reliability was 0.96. Conclusion: Due to the appropriate reliability and validity of the questionnaire cognitive empowerment, applying it in training centers, treatment and rehabilitation centers is recommended to evaluate the cognitive empowerment of seniors to verify their requisites and offering qualitative services to them

A Novel Buried-Emitter Photovoltaic Cell for High Efficiency Energy Conversion

To address the commonly poor short wavelength response of the conventional solar cell structure which consists of a highly doped thin emitter layer on top of a thicker and less doped base, the novel concept of the Buried-Windowed-Emitter is introduced. This new solar cell structure makes use of a high quality semiconductor layer on top of the traditionally made highly doped emitter and greatly enhances the spectral response of the solar cell by giving the superficially generated carriers a higher chance of collection at the junction. In the proposed BWE structure the emitter is windowed in order to electrically connect the top layer to the base for current collection. The efficacy of the proposed novel device is proven by computer aided device simulations using the available device simulation tools such as MEDICI. The results of simulation show that the proposed novel Buried-Windowed-Emitter solar cell will not only improve the short wavelength spectral response of the overall cell as expected, but also will boost the spectral efficiency for all the wavelengths. Another exciting conclusion from the results of the computer simulation of the BWE solar cell is that the minority carrier lifetime in the top layer does not need to be very high for a superb performance and values as low as 1µs can still boost the short circuit current of the cell to values close to the theoretical limit of the photo-current collectable by a silicon solar cell. This is indeed a good news for manufacturability of this device as it should be practically feasible to achieve epitaxial films with minority carrier lifetime in this range. In order to increase the understanding about the rather complex structure of the proposed Buried-Windowed-Emitter solar cell, an analytical circuit level model, similar to the case of the standard solar cell, is developed for the proposed device. The developed analytical model helps to understand the importance of the main design parameters such as the dimensions of the pattern of the windowed emitter. On the path to fabricate the proposed BWE solar cell, great deal of work is done on the development of a low temperature (<300°C) epitaxial silicon technology using the benefits of Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD). Highly doped epitaxial silicon layers of up to around 1µm thickness are achieved with sheet resistivity as low as 7Ω/sq which is much lower than what is reposted in the literature in similar deposition conditions. Intrinsic, phosphorous doped n-type and boron doped p-type epitaxial films have been developed on silicon substrates. Measurement of reflection spectra of the deposited epitaxial films is proposed as a fast, non destructive and process-integrate-able method to assess the crystalline quality of the epitaxial films. Effects of higher temperature post deposition annealing have been studied on the develop epitaxial films A full technology is developed for the fabrication of the proposed novel solar cells. Photo-masks are designed to create 10 different architectures for the design of the windowed emitter in the BWE cell. All the steps taken in the successful fabrication of the novel BWE cells are presented in detail and the relevant findings are discussed and proposed as future research topics. Three kinds of cells are fabricated using the developed technology to separately study the effects of partial coverage of the windowed emitter, the optical performance of the developed epitaxial silicon films and the performance and manufacturability of the novel BWE solar cell The results show that the concept of windowed-emitter by itself (even without the top layer) is capable of enhancing the performance of the solar cell when compared to a standard design. It also promises high conversion efficiency for the BWE solar cell in case a high quality top layer can be deposited on top of the windowed emitter. The results further reveal the lower than expected quality of the low temperature epitaxial films despite the indication of their full crystallinity through other analyses. Use of the epitaxial films as the emitter of the solar cell is proposed as a direct and effective method of studying the photovoltaic performance of the low temperature epitaxial films. Further development of the epitaxial technology will lead to feasibility of a BWE solar cell with very high photovoltaic performance

Application of visible and near-infrared spectrophotometry for detecting salinity effects on wheat leaves (Triticumasativum L.)

Soil and water salinity is the most limiting factor for plant growth and productivity. Due to a high rate of evaporation, agricultural lands become saline in arid regions after a while. This leads to a decline in plant production. The present study investigated the capability of visible and near infrared (VNIR) spectrophotometry as a non-destructive method in detecting salinity effect on wheat leaves. A completely randomized design was work out with four salinity levels and three replicates. Wheat seeds were planted in plastic pots and irrigated with four levels of saline water [0 (control), 4, 8 and 12 dSm-1] Leaf spectrophotometry at VNIR (190-1100 nm) wavelength was performed on wheat leaves at the nodule-formation growth stage. The results indicated that treatments are discriminated mostly by reflectance and absorption spectra of 530-660 nm although a difference existed between the control treatment and the other treatments at 700-1100 nm. The difference between the treatments of T0, T4 and T12 was found to be significant (

Effective reduction of primary dysmenorrheal symptoms through concurrent use of n-3 fatty acids and Rosa damascena extract (RDE)

Background: Primary dysmenorrhea (PD) is characterized by painful cramps of lower abdomen without abnormal pelvic pathology. PD begins some hours before or simultaneously with the onset of menstrual bleeding. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of separate and concurrent supplementation of fish oils (FO) containing n-3 fatty acids and Rosa Damascena extract (RDE) on PD symptoms. Methods: In this double blind clinical trial in 2015, through convenience sampling, 105 university students with primary menstrual pain in most recent years, without abnormal pathology, and with moderate/severe dysmenorrheal symptoms according to visual analogue scale (VAS) were randomly assigned into one of four groups: 1. FO 1000 mg/day (n=26), 2. RDE 1000 mg/day (n=27), 3. FO and RDE concurrently, with the same dose (n=27), and 4. Control group (n=25). All measurements were performed three times, at the beginning, 30th day, and 60th day. Symptoms including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bloating, cramp, low back pain, headache, fatigue, anxiety, sweat, weakness, dizziness, drowsiness, and feeling cold were measured by VAS. Results: After 2-month treatment, supplementation with RDE significantly reduced severity of bloating (p<0.001) and sweat (p<0.001), but FO supplementation had no significant effect on PD symptoms. The concurrent use of FO and RDE significantly decreased severity of diarrhea (p=0.038), weakness (p<0.001), dizziness (p=0.003), and feeling cold (p=0.049). Conclusion: Our results suggest that the concurrent supplementation of omega-3 fatty acids and RDE could be more effective than their separate use in decreasing PD symptoms; however, larger trials are warranted to confirm these preliminary findings