Recurrent non-melanoma skin cancer: remission of field cancerization after conversion from calcineurin inhibitor- to proliferation signal inhibitor-based immunosuppression in a cardiac transplant recipient

Non-melanoma skin cancers (NMSCs) are the most common malignancies after solid organ transplantation. Their incidence increases with time after transplantation. Calcineurin-inhibitors (CNIs) and azathioprine are known as skin neoplasia-initiating and -enhancing immunosuppressants. In contrast, increasing clinical experience suggests a relevant antiproliferative effect of mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitors, also named proliferation signal inhibitors (PSIs). We report the case of a cardiac allograft recipient with an impressive and consolidated reduction of recurrent NMSC, observed after conversion from CNI-therapy to a PSI-based protocol.

Segmentation of brain tumor images based on atlas-registration combined with a Markov-Random-Field lesion growth model

We present an automatic method to segment brain tissues from volumetric MRI brain tumor images. The method is based on non-rigid registration of an average atlas in combination with a biomechanically justified tumor growth model to simulate soft-tissue deformations caused by the tumor mass-effect. The tumor growth model, which is formulated as a mesh-free Markov Random Field energy minimization problem, ensures correspondence between the atlas and the patient image, prior to the registration step. The method is non-parametric, simple and fast compared to other approaches while maintaining similar accuracy. It has been evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively with promising results on eight datasets comprising simulated images and real patient data.

Infrared Parallaxes of Young Field Brown Dwarfs and Connections to Directly Imaged Gas-Giant Exoplanets

We have measured high-precision infrared parallaxes with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope for a large sample of candidate young (approximate to 10-100 Myr) and intermediate-age (approximate to 100-600 Myr) ultracool dwarfs, with spectral types ranging from M8 to T2.5. These objects are compelling benchmarks for substellar evolution and ultracool atmospheres at lower surface gravities (i.e., masses) than most of the field population. We find that the absolute magnitudes of our young sample can be systematically offset from ordinary (older) field dwarfs, with the young late-M objects being brighter and the young/dusty mid-L (L3-L6.5) objects being fainter, especially at J band. Thus, we conclude the "underluminosity" of the young planetary-mass companions HR 8799b and 2MASS J1207-39b compared to field dwarfs is also manifested in young free-floating brown dwarfs, though the effect is not as extreme. At the same time, some young objects over the full spectral type range of our sample are similar to field objects, and thus a simple correspondence between youth and magnitude offset relative to the field population appears to be lacking. Comparing the kinematics of our sample to nearby stellar associations and moving groups, we identify several new moving group members, including the first free-floating L dwarf in the AB Dor moving group, 2MASS J0355+11. Altogether, the effects of surface gravity (age) and dust content on the magnitudes and colors of substellar objects appear to be degenerate. (C) 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Beta-Endorphin Modulates the Effect of Stress on Novelty-Suppressed Feeding

Although stress is implicated in the pathophysiology of mood and anxiety disorders, not all individuals who suffer stressful life events develop psychopathology. Differential susceptibility to stress may be influenced by genetically mediated differences in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity and moderation of the stress response by the opioid peptide beta-endorphin (beta-E). The present study investigated genetic contributions to coping behavior by examining anxious behavior of transgenic mice with varying capacities to synthesize beta-E [B6.129S2-Pomc(tm1Low)/J; regulated by insertion of a premature stop codon into one or both copies of the proopiomelanocortin (POMC) gene], both under normal conditions and following 3 min of forced swim (FS). Ten minutes after this stress exposure or a control manipulation, acutely food-deprived female and male transgenic mice were subjected to a novelty-suppressed feeding (NSF) test, during which their interaction with an almond slice located in the center of an open field box was measured. There was an interaction between genotype and stress for latency to approach the almond and whether or not the almond was approached, such that mice with low or absent beta-E displayed a stronger aversion to novelty-feeding after stress exposure than did mice with normal levels. These data provide evidence for a moderating effect of beta-E on the behavioral response to stress. Genotypic differences in anxious behavior emerged when mice were stressed prior to behavioral assessment, suggesting that beta-E plays a role in coping behavior. These findings indicate that genetic variability in sensitivity of the beta-E system to stress may contribute, at least in part, to heritable differences in stress reactivity as well as vulnerability to stress-related psychopathology.

The word-length effect in acquired alexia, and real and virtual hemianopia

A word-length effect is often described in pure alexia, with reading time proportional to the number of letters in a word. Given the frequent association of right hemianopia with pure alexia, it is uncertain whether and how much of the word-length effect may be attributable to the hemifield loss. To isolate the contribution of the visual field defect, we simulated hemianopia in healthy subjects with a gaze-contingent paradigm during an eye-tracking experiment. We found a minimal word-length effect of 14 ms/letter for full-field viewing, which increased to 38 ms/letter in right hemianopia and to 31 ms/letter in left hemianopia. We found a correlation between mean reading time and the slope of the word-length effect in hemianopic conditions. The 95% upper prediction limits for the word-length effect were 51 ms/letter in subjects with full visual fields and 161 ms/letter with simulated right hemianopia. These limits, which can be considered diagnostic criteria for an alexic word-length effect, were consistent with the reading performance of six patients with diagnoses based independently on perimetric and imaging data: two patients with probable hemianopic dyslexia, and four with alexia and lesions of the left fusiform gyrus, two with and two without hemianopia. Two of these patients also showed reduction of the word-length effect over months, one with and one without a reading rehabilitation program. Our findings clarify the magnitude of the word-length effect that originates from hemianopia alone, and show that the criteria for a word-length effect indicative of alexia differ according to the degree of associated hemifield loss.

The Effect Of Conformity On Economic Decision Making

Inspired by research in the field of behavioral economics as well as social psychology, this study aimed to explore if conformity plays a role in the occurrence of herd behavior in the financial market. Participants received one of nine different versions of a survey either online or on paper. They answered questions related to riskiness when making decisions, dependency on others when making decisions, and investment preferences among other questions. In experimental conditions, participants were told the majority of investors, either sixty percent or eighty percent, invested in a certain stock or won a game. It was predicted that individuals would conform to the group behavior in both experimental conditions with the highest level of conformity in the high pressure to conform condition. Results of experiments revealed that when the overwhelming majority of other investors behaved a certain way (80%), participants were more likely to behave that same way. Results of the third experiment supported previous research stating that emotion affects economic decision-making and facilitates herd behavior.

3CAM - A NOVEL TERNARY CONTENT ADDRESSABLE MEMORY USING THREE-VALUED LOGIC

Content Addressable Memory (CAM) is a special type of Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) storage element that allows for a parallel search operation on a memory stack in addition to the read and write operations yielded by a conventional SRAM storage array. In practice, it is often desirable to be able to store a “don’t care” state for faster searching operation. However, commercially available CAM chips are forced to accomplish this functionality by having to include two binary memory storage elements per CAM cell,which is a waste of precious area and power resources. This research presents a novel CAM circuit that achieves the “don’t care” functionality with a single ternary memory storage element. Using the recent development of multiple-voltage-threshold (MVT) CMOS transistors, the functionality of the proposed circuit is validated and characteristics for performance, power consumption, noise immunity, and silicon area are presented. This workpresents the following contributions to the field of CAM and ternary-valued logic:• We present a novel Simple Ternary Inverter (STI) transistor geometry scheme for achieving ternary-valued functionality in existing SOI-CMOS 0.18µm processes.• We present a novel Ternary Content Addressable Memory based on Three-Valued Logic (3CAM) as a single-storage-element CAM cell with “don’t care” functionality.• We explore the application of macro partitioning schemes to our proposed 3CAM array to observe the benefits and tradeoffs of architecture design in the context of power, delay, and area.

Effect of Participant Gender, Professor Gender, and Activity Interventions on the Understanding of Concepts in Thermodynamics

Misconceptions about heat and temperature have been seen across all educational levels, even in undergraduate engineering courses. One way these misconceptions can be remediated is through instructional methods, such as inquiry-based activities. Performance on assessments in sciences and engineering has been found to vary when gender is taken into consideration. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of participant gender, professor gender, and level of inquiry-based activities on the conceptual understanding of 247 undergraduate engineering students in thermodynamics. A pre-test post-test design was used. Conceptual understanding of thermodynamics was measured by students’ scores on the Concept Inventory for Engineering Thermodynamics (CIET; Vigeant, Prince & Nottis, 2011). Inquiry-based activities were developed by the researchers and given to professors who determined if they would do all, some, or none of them as they taught. Significant differences were found among participants of different gender, different gender of the professor instructing the course, and level of inquiry-based activity. The participants who were exposed to all of the activities provided didsignificantly better on the post-test than those who were only exposed to some or none of the activities. The results from this current study indicated that differences in gender, professorgender, and level of inquiry-based activity has an effect on undergraduate engineering students’ conceptual understanding of thermodynamics. Future research should investigate more factorsthat contribute to lower representation of women in the engineering field.

Effect of Classroom Gender Composition on Students' Development of Self-Regulated Learning Competencies

Success in any field depends on a complex interplay among environmental and personal factors. A key set of personal factors for success in academic settings are those associated with self-regulated learners (SRL). Self-regulated learners choose their own goals, select and organize their learning strategies, and self-monitor their effectiveness. Behaviors and attitudes consistent with self-regulated learning also contribute to self-confidence, which may be important for members of underrepresented groups such as women in engineering. This exploratory study, drawing on the concept of "critical mass", examines the relationship between the personal factors that identify a self-regulated learner and the environmental factors related to gender composition of engineering classrooms. Results indicate that a relatively student gender-balanced classroom and gender match between students and their instructors provide for the development of many adaptive SRL behaviors and attitudes.

One-Hertz transcranial magnetic stimulation over the frontal eye field induces lasting inhibition of saccade triggering

The aim of the study was to examine the effect of low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on saccade triggering. In five participants, a train of 600 pulses with a frequency of 1 Hz was applied over the right frontal eye field and--as control condition--over the vertex. After repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation application, oculomotor performance was evaluated with an overlap paradigm. The results show that the repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation effect was specific for frontal eye field stimulation. Saccade latencies were found to be increased bilaterally for several minutes after the stimulation, and the time course of recovery was different for the ipsilateral and contralateral sides. The results are discussed in the light of possible local and remote repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation effects on the oculomotor network.

Effect of short-wave (6-22 MHz) magnetic fields on sleep quality and melatonin cycle in humans: the Schwarzenburg shut-down study

This paper describes the results of a unique "natural experiment" of the operation and cessation of a broadcast transmitter with its short-wave electromagnetic fields (6-22 MHz) on sleep quality and melatonin cycle in a general human population sample. In 1998, 54 volunteers (21 men, 33 women) were followed for 1 week each before and after shut-down of the short-wave radio transmitter at Schwarzenburg (Switzerland). Salivary melatonin was sampled five times a day and total daily excretion and acrophase were estimated using complex cosinor analysis. Sleep quality was recorded daily using a visual analogue scale. Before shut down, self-rated sleep quality was reduced by 3.9 units (95% CI: 1.7-6.0) per mA/m increase in magnetic field exposure. The corresponding decrease in melatonin excretion was 10% (95% CI: -32 to 20%). After shutdown, sleep quality improved by 1.7 units (95% CI: 0.1-3.4) per mA/m decrease in magnetic field exposure. Melatonin excretion increased by 15% (95% CI: -3 to 36%) compared to baseline values suggesting a rebound effect. Stratified analyses showed an exposure effect on melatonin excretion in poor sleepers (26% increase; 95% CI: 8-47%) but not in good sleepers. Change in sleep quality and melatonin excretion was related to the extent of magnetic field reduction after the transmitter's shut down in poor but not good sleepers. However, blinding of exposure was not possible in this observational study and this may have affected the outcome measurements in a direct or indirect (psychological) way.

Time course of blood oxygenation level-dependent signal response after theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation of the frontal eye field

The aim of the current study was to examine the effect of theta burst repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on the blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) activation during repeated functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measurements. Theta burst rTMS was applied over the right frontal eye field in seven healthy subjects. Subsequently, repeated fMRI measurements were performed during a saccade-fixation task (block design) 5, 20, 35, and 60 min after stimulation. We found that theta burst rTMS induced a strong and long-lasting decrease of the BOLD signal response of the stimulated frontal eye field at 20 and 35 min. Furthermore, less pronounced alterations of the BOLD signal response with different dynamics were found for remote oculomotor areas such as the left frontal eye field, the pre-supplementary eye field, the supplementary eye field, and both parietal eye fields. Recovery of the BOLD signal changes in the anterior remote areas started earlier than in the posterior remote areas. These results show that a) the major inhibitory impact of theta burst rTMS occurs directly in the stimulated area itself, and that b) a lower effect on remote, oculomotor areas can be induced.

The effect of nutritional management on the mood of malnourished patients

Starvation and weight loss are common accompaniments of severe illness. The functional consequences of such malnutrition include not only physical changes but also psychological changes such as depression, anxiety, irritability, apathy, poor sleep pattern and loss of concentration. We carried out a pilot observational study in 22 undernourished patients at the time of referral to the nutritional team and after 8 days of nutritional support, using the Profile of Mood States Score (POMS) questionnaire to determine whether measurable and clinically significant changes in mood occurred with treatment.

Assessment of a high school geological field course

Fieldwork is supportive of students’ natural inquiry abilities. Educational research findings suggest that instructors can foster the growth of thinking skills and promote science literacy by incorporating active learning strategies (McConnel et al, 2003). Huntoon (2001) states that there is a need to determine optimal learning strategies and to document the procedure of assessing those optimal geoscience curricula. This study seeks to determine if Earth Space II, a high school geological field course, can increase students’ knowledge of selected educational objectives. This research also seeks to measure any impact Earth Space II has on students’ attitude towards science. Assessment of the Earth Space II course objectives provided data on the impact of field courses on high school students’ scientific literacy, scientific inquiry skills, and understanding of selected course objectives. Knowledge assessment was done using a multiple choice format test, the Geoscience Concept Inventory, and an open-ended format essay test. Attitude assessment occurred by utilizing a preexisting science attitude survey. Both knowledge assessments items showed a positive effect size from the pretest to the posttest. The essay exam effect size was 17 and the Geoscience Concept Inventory effect size was 0.18. A positive impact on students’ attitude toward science was observed by an increase in the overall mean Likert value from the pre-survey to the post-survey.

Fabrication and characterization of room temperature operating single electron transistors using focused ion beam technologies

The single electron transistor (SET) is a Coulomb blockade device, whose operation is based on the controlled manipulation of individual electrons. Single electron transistors show immense potential to be used in future ultra lowpower devices, high density memory and also in high precision electrometry. Most SET devices operate at cryogenic temperatures, because the charging energy is much smaller than the thermal oscillations. The room temperature operation of these devices is possible with sub- 10nm nano-islands due to the inverse dependance of charging energy on the radius of the conducting nano-island. The fabrication of sub-10nm features with existing lithographic techniques is a technological challenge. Here we present the results for the first room temperature operating SET device fabricated using Focused Ion Beam deposition technology. The SET device, incorporates an array of tungsten nano-islands with an average diameter of 8nm. The SET devices shows clear Coulomb blockade for different gate voltages at room temperature. The charging energy of the device was calculated to be 160.0 meV; the capacitance per junction was found to be 0.94 atto F; and the tunnel resistance per junction was calculated to be 1.26 G Ω. The tunnel resistance is five orders of magnitude larger than the quantum of resistance (26 k Ω) and allows for the localization of electrons on the tungsten nano-island. The lower capacitance of the device combined with the high tunnel resistance, allows for the Coulomb blockade effects observed at room temperature. Different device configurations, minimizing the total capacitance of the device have been explored. The effect of the geometry of the nano electrodes on the device characteristics has been presented. Simulated device characteristics, based on the soliton model have been discussed. The first application of SET device as a gas sensor has been demonstrated.