Fabrication of clog-free microfluidic cell isolation and solid-state light-emitting devices for biomedical applications

Over the past few decades, research and development on microfluidic devices, also referred to as lab-on-a-chip systems or microfluidic total analysis systems (TAS), have advanced quickly. There aren't many commercial success stories for microfluidic devices, despite the many advantages they offer, including improved analytical performance, decreased sample and reagent usage in the biomedical disciplines. From liquid biopsies, microfluidics has been used to filter out rare tumor cells from blood. Low flow rates and device clogs brought on by a single fluidic path function severely restrict processing. A novel technique was created employing multifunctional hybrid microposts with various features has effectively ensured high effective separation of rare cells from biological fluids. Furthermore, Solid-State perovskite material is synthesized, fabricated in 3D printed layers, and characterized for the need to be incorporated into fluorescence imaging of biological cells. Since effective imaging techniques are required to image the cells in a PDMS-based microfluidic device, the emission of the perovskite material shows positive signs as a fluorescent light source for identification of cells based on their emission of light.Includes bibliographical references

Spatial heterogeneity of stink bug (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) populations in agricultural systems

Knowledge on spatial patterns of insect pest populations and the ecological processes influencing these patterns can be directly applied to the management of pests in agricultural systems. Recent increases in stink bug populations, importantly the invasive Halyomorpha halys (Stål 1855), has caused unprecedented economic losses in the mid-Atlantic United States. To inform integrated pest management programs, I quantified the spatial heterogeneity of stink bug population density in field crops at multiple spatial scales (field edge, entire fields and regional), and identified the associated environmental factors and the underlying ecological mechanisms (i.e. climatic tolerances, resource quality and availability). At corn and soybean field edges, highest density of stink bugs was limited to the first few crop rows. At some study sites, fields adjacent to woods and buildings harbored higher density of stink bugs than those adjacent to open areas. Injury to corn kernel damage, and soybean pod and seed increased with stink bug density, and was highest at the field edges. Stink bug density was also positively associated with yield loss in soybean. In entire fields of corn-soybean, H. halys was found in very low density or absent beyond 25m from the field edge. At study sites with high stink bug populations, interpolated density values showed potential dispersal of H. halys, particularly adults and large nymphs, from corn into soybean, coinciding with the end of dough stage in corn and beginning of soybean seed development stage. Temperature and developed areas, and proportion of forest and crop areas were important predictors of regional patterns in H. halys and Chinavis hilaris abundance, respectively. For Euschistus servus, temperature and forest cover influenced patterns at broad spatial scale. Adjacent habitat influence, with highest abundance along woods, on stink bug density was limited to within field scale, and difference in abundance between sites was driven primarily by temperature gradient. These results directly inform field level stink bug management strategies through planting date and orientation of fields in the landscape, and for timing and intensity of treatments, as well as area-wide management. This research also identified roles of temperature and landscape in facilitating or impeding invasive pest populations

Risk factors, microbiological findings and outcomes of necrotizing fasciitis in New Zealand: a retrospective chart review

BackgroundThe incidence and mortality from necrotizing fasciitis (NF) are increasing in New Zealand (NZ). Triggered by a media report that traditional Samoan tattooing was causing NF, we conducted a chart review to investigate the role of this and other predisposing and precipitating factors and to document NF microbiology, complications and interventions in NZ. MethodsWe conducted a retrospective review of 299 hospital charts of patients discharged with NF diagnosis codes in eight hospitals in NZ between 2000 and 2006. We documented and compared by ethnicity the prevalence of predisposing and precipitating conditions, bacteria isolated, complications and interventions used. ResultsOut of 299 charts, 247 fulfilled the case definition. NF was most common in elderly males. Diabetes was the most frequent co-morbid condition, followed by obesity. Nearly a quarter of patients were taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID). Traditional Samoan tattooing was an uncommon cause. Streptococcus pyogenes and Staphylococcus aureus were the two commonly isolated bacteria. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus was implicated in a relatively small number of cases. Shock, renal failure, coagulation abnormality and multi-organ dysfunction were common complications. More than 90% of patients underwent surgical debridement, 56% were admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) and slightly less than half of all patients had blood product transfusion. One in six NF cases had amputations and 23.5% died. ConclusionThis chart review found that the highest proportion of NF cases was elderly males with co-morbidities, particularly diabetes and obesity. Tattooing was an uncommon precipitating event. The role of NSAID needs further exploration. NF is a serious disease with severe complications, high case fatality and considerable use of health care resources. <br /

Cost and fault-tolerant aware resource management for scientific workflows using hybrid instances on clouds

Cloud service providers are offering computing resources at a reasonable price as a pay-per-use model. Further, cloud service providers have also introduced different pricing models like spot, blockspot and spotfleet instances that are cost effective and user’s have to go through the bidding to balance the reliability and monetary costs. Henceforth, Scientific Workflows (SWf) that are used to model applications of high throughput, computation and complex large-scale data analysis are significantly adopting these computing resources. Nevertheless, spot instances are terminated when the market spot price exceeds the users bid price. Moreover, failures are inevitable in such a large distributed systems and often pose a challenge to design a fault-tolerant scheduling algorithm for SWf. This paper presents an efficient, low-cost and fault-tolerant scheduling algorithm and a bidding strategy to minimize the

Climate Change and Phenology: Empoasca fabae (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) Migration and Severity of Impact

Funding for Open Access provided by the UMD Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund.Climate change can benefit individual species, but when pest species are enhanced by warmer temperatures agricultural productivity may be placed at greater risk. We analyzed the effects of temperature anomaly on arrival date and infestation severity of potato leafhopper, Empoasca fabae Harris, a classic new world long distance migrant, and a significant pest in several agricultural crops. We compiled E. fabae arrival dates and infestation severity data at different states in USA from existing literature reviews and agricultural extension records from 1951–2012, and examined the influence of temperature anomalies at each target state or overwintering range on the date of arrival and severity of infestation. Average E. fabae arrival date at different states reveal a clear trend along the south-north axis, with earliest arrival closest to the overwintering range. E. fabae arrival has advanced by 10 days over the last 62 years. E. fabae arrived earlier in warmer years in relation to each target state level temperature anomaly (3.0 days / °C increase in temperature anomaly). Increased temperature had a significant and positive effect on the severity of infestation, and arrival date had a marginal negative effect on severity. These relationships suggest that continued warming could advance the time of E. fabae colonization and increase their impact on affected crops

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements