Semantic memory involvement in the default mode network: a functional neuroimaging study using independent component analysis

The Default Mode Network (DMN) is a higher order functional neural network that displays activation during passive rest and deactivation during many types of cognitive tasks. Accordingly, the DMN is viewed to represent the neural correlate of internally-generated self-referential cognition. This hypothesis implies that the DMN requires the involvement of cognitive processes, like declarative memory. The present study thus examines the spatial and functional convergence of the DMN and the semantic memory system. Using an active block-design functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) paradigm and Independent Component Analysis (ICA), we trace the DMN and fMRI signal changes evoked by semantic, phonological and perceptual decision tasks upon visually-presented words. Our findings show less deactivation during semantic compared to the two non-semantic tasks for the entire DMN unit and within left-hemispheric DMN regions, i.e., the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, the retrosplenial cortex, the angular gyrus, the middle temporal gyrus and the anterior temporal region, as well as the right cerebellum. These results demonstrate that well-known semantic regions are spatially and functionally involved in the DMN. The present study further supports the hypothesis of the DMN as an internal mentation system that involves declarative memory functions.

Self-sufficient control of urate homeostasis in mice by a synthetic circuit

Synthetic biology has shown that the metabolic behavior of mammalian cells can be altered by genetic devices such as epigenetic and hysteretic switches, timers and oscillators, biocomputers, hormone systems and heterologous metabolic shunts. To explore the potential of such devices for therapeutic strategies, we designed a synthetic mammalian circuit to maintain uric acid homeostasis in the bloodstream, disturbance of which is associated with tumor lysis syndrome and gout. This synthetic device consists of a modified Deinococcus radiodurans-derived protein that senses uric acids levels and triggers dose-dependent derepression of a secretion-engineered Aspergillus flavus urate oxidase that eliminates uric acid. In urate oxidase-deficient mice, which develop acute hyperuricemia, the synthetic circuit decreased blood urate concentration to stable sub-pathologic levels in a dose-dependent manner and reduced uric acid crystal deposits in the kidney. Synthetic gene-network devices providing self-sufficient control of pathologic metabolites represent molecular prostheses, which may foster advances in future gene- and cell-based therapies.

Local degradation of structural, mechanical, electrical and chemical properties of membrane electrode assembly in polymer electrolyte fuel cell

Polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEMFC) is promising source of clean power in many applications ranging from portable electronics to automotive and land-based power generation. However, widespread commercialization of PEMFC is primarily challenged by degradation. The mechanisms of fuel cell degradation are not well understood. Even though the numbers of installed units around the world continue to increase and dominate the pre-markets, the present lifetime requirements for fuel cells cannot be guarantee, creating the need for a more comprehensive knowledge of material’s ageing mechanism. The objective of this project is to conduct experiments on membrane electrode assembly (MEA) components of PEMFC to study structural, mechanical, electrical and chemical changes during ageing and understanding failure/degradation mechanism. The first part of this project was devoted to surface roughness analysis on catalyst layer (CL) and gas diffusion layer (GDL) using surface mapping microscopy. This study was motivated by the need to have a quantitative understanding of the GDL and CL surface morphology at the submicron level to predict interfacial contact resistance. Nanoindentation studies using atomic force microscope (AFM) were introduced to investigate the effect of degradation on mechanical properties of CL. The elastic modulus was decreased by 45 % in end of life (EOL) CL as compare to beginning of life (BOL) CL. In another set of experiment, conductive AFM (cAFM) was used to probe the local electric current in CL. The conductivity drops by 62 % in EOL CL. The future task will include characterization of MEA degradation using Raman and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Raman spectroscopy will help to detect degree of structural disorder in CL during degradation. FTIR will help to study the effect of CO in CL. XRD will be used to determine Pt particle size and its crystallinity. In-situ conductive AFM studies using electrochemical cell on CL to correlate its structure with oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) reactivity

Porous silicon technology for integrated microsystems

With the development of micro systems, there is an increasing demand for integrable porous materials. In addition to those conventional applications, such as filtration, wicking, and insulating, many new micro devices, including micro reactors, sensors, actuators, and optical components, can benefit from porous materials. Conventional porous materials, such as ceramics and polymers, however, cannot meet the challenges posed by micro systems, due to their incompatibility with standard micro-fabrication processes. In an effort to produce porous materials that can be used in micro systems, porous silicon (PS) generated by anodization of single crystalline silicon has been investigated. In this work, the PS formation process has been extensively studied and characterized as a function of substrate type, crystal orientation, doping concentration, current density and surfactant concentration and type. Anodization conditions have been optimized for producing very thick porous silicon layers with uniform pore size, and for obtaining ideal pore morphologies. Three different types of porous silicon materials: meso porous silicon, macro porous silicon with straight pores, and macro porous silicon with tortuous pores, have been successfully produced. Regular pore arrays with controllable pore size in the range of 2µm to 6µm have been demonstrated as well. Localized PS formation has been achieved by using oxide/nitride/polysilicon stack as masking materials, which can withstand anodization in hydrofluoric acid up to twenty hours. A special etching cell with electrolytic liquid backside contact along with two process flows has been developed to enable the fabrication of thick macro porous silicon membranes with though wafer pores. For device assembly, Si-Au and In-Au bonding technologies have been developed. Very low bonding temperature (~200 degrees C) and thick/soft bonding layers (~6µm) have been achieved by In-Au bondi ng technology, which is able to compensate the potentially rough surface on the porous silicon sample without introducing significant thermal stress. The application of the porous silicon material in micro systems has been demonstrated in a micro gas chromatograph system by two indispensable components: an integrated vapor source and an inlet filter, wherein porous silicon performs the basic functions of porous media: wicking and filtration. By utilizing a macro porous silicon wick, the calibration vapor source was able to produce a uniform and repeatable vapor generation for n-decane with less than a 0.1% variation in 9 hours, and less than a 0.5% variation in rate over 7 days. With engineered porous silicon membranes the inlet filter was able to show a depth filtration with nearly 100% collection efficiency for particles larger than 0.3µm in diameter, a low pressure-drop of 523Pa at 20sccm flow rate, and a filter capacity of 500µg/cm2.

Automated design of self-stabilization

Self-stabilization is a property of a distributed system such that, regardless of the legitimacy of its current state, the system behavior shall eventually reach a legitimate state and shall remain legitimate thereafter. The elegance of self-stabilization stems from the fact that it distinguishes distributed systems by a strong fault tolerance property against arbitrary state perturbations. The difficulty of designing and reasoning about self-stabilization has been witnessed by many researchers; most of the existing techniques for the verification and design of self-stabilization are either brute-force, or adopt manual approaches non-amenable to automation. In this dissertation, we first investigate the possibility of automatically designing self-stabilization through global state space exploration. In particular, we develop a set of heuristics for automating the addition of recovery actions to distributed protocols on various network topologies. Our heuristics equally exploit the computational power of a single workstation and the available parallelism on computer clusters. We obtain existing and new stabilizing solutions for classical protocols like maximal matching, ring coloring, mutual exclusion, leader election and agreement. Second, we consider a foundation for local reasoning about self-stabilization; i.e., study the global behavior of the distributed system by exploring the state space of just one of its components. It turns out that local reasoning about deadlocks and livelocks is possible for an interesting class of protocols whose proof of stabilization is otherwise complex. In particular, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions – verifiable in the local state space of every process – for global deadlock- and livelock-freedom of protocols on ring topologies. Local reasoning potentially circumvents two fundamental problems that complicate the automated design and verification of distributed protocols: (1) state explosion and (2) partial state information. Moreover, local proofs of convergence are independent of the number of processes in the network, thereby enabling our assertions about deadlocks and livelocks to apply on rings of arbitrary sizes without worrying about state explosion.

Microfluidic hydrogen generator : featuring passive on-demand gas generation and self-circulated reactant for integration with micro fuel cell

A microfluidic hydrogen generator is presented in this work. Its fabrication, characterization, and integration with a micro proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell are described. Hydrogen gas is generated by the hydrolysis of aqueous ammonia borane. Gas generation, as well as the circulation of ammonia borane from a rechargeable fuel reservoir, is performed without any power consumption. To achieve this, directional growth and selective venting of hydrogen gas is maintained in the microchannels, which results in the circulation of fresh reactant from the fuel reservoir. In addition to this self-circulation mechanism, the hydrogen generator has been demonstrated to self-regulate gas generation to meet demands of a connected micro fuel cell. All of this is done without parasitic power consumption from the fuel cell. Results show its feasibility in applications of high-impedance systems. Lastly, recommendations for improvements and suggestions for future work are described

Bluetooth Enabled Ad-hoc Networks: Performance Evaluation of a Self-healing Scatternet Formation Protocol

Bluetooth wireless technology is a robust short-range communications system designed for low power (10 meter range) and low cost. It operates in the 2.4 GHz Industrial Scientific Medical (ISM) band and it employs two techniques for minimizing interference: a frequency hopping scheme which nominally splits the 2.400 - 2.485 GHz band in 79 frequency channels and a time division duplex (TDD) scheme which is used to switch to a new frequency channel on 625 μs boundaries. During normal operation a Bluetooth device will be active on a different frequency channel every 625 μs, thus minimizing the chances of continuous interference impacting the performance of the system. The smallest unit of a Bluetooth network is called a piconet, and can have a maximum of eight nodes. Bluetooth devices must assume one of two roles within a piconet, master or slave, where the master governs quality of service and the frequency hopping schedule within the piconet and the slave follows the master’s schedule. A piconet must have a single master and up to 7 active slaves. By allowing devices to have roles in multiple piconets through time multiplexing, i.e. slave/slave or master/slave, the Bluetooth technology allows for interconnecting multiple piconets into larger networks called scatternets. The Bluetooth technology is explored in the context of enabling ad-hoc networks. The Bluetooth specification provides flexibility in the scatternet formation protocol, outlining only the mechanisms necessary for future protocol implementations. A new protocol for scatternet formation and maintenance - mscat - is presented and its performance is evaluated using a Bluetooth simulator. The free variables manipulated in this study include device activity and the probabilities of devices performing discovery procedures. The relationship between the role a device has in the scatternet and it’s probability of performing discovery was examined and related to the scatternet topology formed. The results show that mscat creates dense network topologies for networks of 30, 50 and 70 nodes. The mscat protocol results in approximately a 33% increase in slaves/piconet and a reduction of approximately 12.5% of average roles/node. For 50 node scenarios the set of parameters which creates the best determined outcome is unconnected node inquiry probability (UP) = 10%, master node inquiry probability (MP) = 80% and slave inquiry probability (SP) = 40%. The mscat protocol extends the Bluetooth specification for formation and maintenance of scatternets in an ad-hoc network.

Development and characterization of fluorescent pH sensors based on porous silica and hydrogel support matrices

The hydrogen ion activity (pH) is a very important parameter in environment monitoring, biomedical research and other applications. Optical pH sensors have several advantages over traditional potentiometric pH measurement, such as high sensitivity, no need of constant calibration, easy for miniaturization and possibility for remote sensing. Several pH indicators has been successfully immobilized in three different solid porous materials to use as pH sensing probes. The fluorescent pH indicator fluorescein-5-isothiocyanate (FITC) was covalently bound onto the internal surface of porous silica (pore size ~10 nm) and retained its pH sensitivity. The excited state pK* a of FITC in porous silica (5.58) was slightly smaller than in solution (5.68) due to the free silanol groups (Si-OH) on the silica surface. The pH sensitive range for this probe is pH 4.5 - 7.0 with an error less than 0.1 pH units. The probe response was reproducible and stable for at least four month, stored in DI water, but exhibit a long equilibrium of up to 100 minutes. Sol-gel based pH sensors were developed with immobilization of two fluorescent pH indicators fluorescein-5-(and-6)-sulfonic acid, trisodium salt (FS) and 8-hydroxypyrene- 1,3,6-trisulfonic acid (HPTS) through physical entrapment. Prior to immobilization, the indicators were ion-paired with a common surfactant hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) in order to prevent leaching. The sol-gel films were synthesized through the hydrolysis of two different precursors, ethyltriethoxysilane (ETEOS) and 3- glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPTMS) and deposited on a quartz slide through spin coating. The pK a of the indicators immobilized in sol-gel films was much smaller than in solutions due to silanol groups on the inner surface of the sol-gel films and ammonium groups from the surrounding surfactants. Unlike in solution, the apparent pK a of the indicators in sol-gel films increased with increasing ionic strength. The equilibrium time for these sensors was within 5 minutes (with film thickness of ~470 nm). Polyethylene glycol (PEG) hydrogel was of interest for optical pH sensor development because it is highly proton permeable, transparent and easy to synthesize. pH indicators can be immobilized in hydrogel through physical entrapment and copolymerization. FS and HPTS ion-pairs were physically entrapped in hydrogel matrix synthesized via free radical initiation. For covalent immobilization, three indicators, 6,8-dihydroxypyrene-1,3- disulfonic acid (DHPDS), 2,7-dihydroxynaphthalene-3,6-disulfonic acid (DHNDS) and cresol red were first reacted with methacrylic anhydride (MA) to form methacryloylanalogs for copolymerization. These hydrogels were synthesized in aqueous solution with a redox initiation system. The thickness of the hydrogel film is controlled as ~ 0.5 cm and the porosity can be adjusted with the percentage of polyethylene glycol in the precursor solutions. The pK a of the indicators immobilized in the hydrogel both physically and covalently were higher than in solution due to the medium effect. The sensors are stable and reproducible with a short equilibrium time (less than 4 minutes). In addition, the color change of cresol red immobilized hydrogel is vivid from yellow (acidic condition) to purple (basic condition). Due to covalently binding, cresol red was not leaching out from the hydrogel, making it a good candidate of reusable "pH paper".

Evaluating retraining rules for semi-supervised learning in neural network based cursive word recognition

Training a system to recognize handwritten words is a task that requires a large amount of data with their correct transcription. However, the creation of such a training set, including the generation of the ground truth, is tedious and costly. One way of reducing the high cost of labeled training data acquisition is to exploit unlabeled data, which can be gathered easily. Making use of both labeled and unlabeled data is known as semi-supervised learning. One of the most general versions of semi-supervised learning is self-training, where a recognizer iteratively retrains itself on its own output on new, unlabeled data. In this paper we propose to apply semi-supervised learning, and in particular self-training, to the problem of cursive, handwritten word recognition. The special focus of the paper is on retraining rules that define what data are actually being used in the retraining phase. In a series of experiments it is shown that the performance of a neural network based recognizer can be significantly improved through the use of unlabeled data and self-training if appropriate retraining rules are applied.

Video Composer and Live Video Conductor: Future Professions for the Interactive Digital Broadcasting Industry

Innovations in hardware and network technologies lead to an exploding number of non-interrelated parallel media streams. Per se this does not mean any additional value for consumers. Broadcasting and advertisement industries have not yet found new formats to reach the individual user with their content. In this work we propose and describe a novel digital broadcasting framework, which allows for the live staging of (mass) media events and improved consumer personalisation. In addition new professions for future TV production workflows which will emerge are described, namely the 'video composer' and the 'live video conductor'.

Unprecedented Trapping of Difluorooctamolybdate Anions within an α-Polonium Type Coordination Network

New fluorinated hybrid solids [Mo2F2O5(tr2pr)] (1), [Co3(tr2pr)2(MoO4)2F2]·7H2O (2), and [Co3(H2O)2(tr2pr)3(Mo8O26F2)]·3H2O (3) (tr2pr = 1,3-bis(1,2,4-triazol-4-yl)propane) were prepared from the reaction systems consisting of Co(OAc)2/CoF2 and MoO3/(NH4)6Mo7O24, as CoII and MoVI sources, in water (2) or in aqueous HF (1, 3) employing mild hydrothermal conditions. The tr2pr ligand serves as a conformationally flexible tetradentate donor. In complex 1, the octahedrally coordinated Mo atoms are linked in the discrete corner-sharing {Mo2(μ2-O)F2O4N4} unit in which a pair of tr-heterocycles (tr = 1,2,4-triazole) is arranged in cis-positions opposite to “molybdenyl” oxygen atoms. The anti−anti conformation type of tr2pr facilitates the tight zigzag chain packing motif. The crystal structure of the mixed-anion complex salt 2 consists of trinuclear [Co3(μ3-MoO4)2(μ2-F)2] units self-assembling in CoII-undulating chains (Co···Co 3.0709(15) and 3.3596(7) Å), which are cross-linked by tr2pr in layers. In 3, containing condensed oxyfluoromolybdate species, linear centrosymmetric [Co3(μ2-tr)6]6+ SBUs are organized at distances of 10.72−12.45 Å in an α-Po-like network using bitopic tr-linkers. The octahedral {N6} and {N3O3} environments of the central and peripheral cobalt atoms, respectively, are filled by triazole N atoms, water molecules, and coordinating [Mo8O26F2]6− anions. Acting as a tetradentate O-donor, each difluorooctamolybdate anion anchors four [Co3(μ2-tr)6]6+ units through their peripheral Co-sites, which consequently leads to a novel type of a two-nodal 4,10-c net with the Schläfli symbol {32.43.5}{34.420.516.65}. The 2D and 3D coordination networks of 2 and 3, respectively, are characterized by significant overall antiferromagnetic exchange interactions (J/k) between the CoII spin centers on the order of −8 and −4 K. The [Mo8O26F2]6− anion is investigated in detail by quantum chemical calculations.

Mobile Cloud Networking: Mobile Network, Compute, and Storage as One Service On-Demand

The Future Communication Architecture for Mobile Cloud Services: Mobile Cloud Networking (MCN) is a EU FP7 Large-scale Integrating Project (IP) funded by the European Commission. MCN project was launched in November 2012 for the period of 36 month. In total top-tier 19 partners from industry and academia commit to jointly establish the vision of Mobile Cloud Networking, to develop a fully cloud-based mobile communication and application platform.

Health risk appraisal in older people 6: factors associated with self-reported poor vision and uptake of eye tests in older people

BACKGROUND Although free eye testing is available in the UK from a nation-wide network of optometrists, there is evidence of unrecognised, tractable vision loss amongst older people. A recent review identified this unmet need as a priority for further investigation, highlighting the need to understand public perceptions of eye services and barriers to service access and utilisation. This paper aims to identify risk factors for (1) having poor vision and (2) not having had an eyesight check among community-dwelling older people without an established ophthalmological diagnosis. METHODS Secondary analysis of self-reported data from the ProAge trial. 1792 people without a known ophthalmological diagnosis were recruited from three group practices in London. RESULTS Almost two in ten people in this population of older individuals without known ophthalmological diagnoses had self-reported vision loss, and more than a third of them had not had an eye test in the previous twelve months. In this sample, those with limited education, depressed mood, need for help with instrumental and basic activities of daily living (IADLs and BADLs), and subjective memory complaints were at increased risk of fair or poor self-reported vision. Individuals with basic education only were at increased risk for not having had an eye test in the previous 12 months (OR 1.52, 95% CI 1.17-1.98 p=0.002), as were those with no, or only one chronic condition (OR 1.850, 95% CI 1.382-2.477, p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS Self-reported poor vision in older people without ophthalmological diagnoses is associated with other functional losses, with no or only one chronic condition, and with depression. This pattern of disorders may be the basis for case finding in general practice. Low educational attainment is an independent determinant of not having had eye tests, as well as a factor associated with undiagnosed vision loss. There are other factors, not identified in this study, which determine uptake of eye testing in those with self-reported vision loss. Further exploration is needed to identify these factors and lead towards effective case finding.

Why participate in an online social network: an empirical analysis

Despite their enormous success the motivation behind user participation in Online Social Networks is still little understood. This study explores a variety of possible incentives and provides an empirical evaluation of their subjective relevance. The analysis is based on survey data from 129 test subjects. Using Structural Equation Modeling, we identified that the satisfaction of the needs for belongingness and the esteem needs through self-presentation together with peer pressure are the main drivers of participation. The analysis of a sub-sample of active users pointed out the satisfaction of the cognitive needs as an additional participation determinant. Based on these findings, recommendations for online social network providers are made.

ΔNp63 REGULATES A COMPLEX NETWORK OF TARGET GENES IN LIMB AND EPIDERMAL DEVELOPMENT

The skin is composed of two major compartments, the dermis and epidermis. The epidermis forms a barrier to protect the body. The stratified epithelium has self-renewing capacity throughout life, and continuous turnover is mediated by stem cells in the basal layer. p63 is structurally and functionally related to p53. In spite of their structural similarities, p63 is critical for the development and maintenance of stratified epithelial tissues, unlike p53. p63 is highly expressed in the epidermis and previously has been shown to play a critical role in the development and maintenance of the epidermis. The study of p63 has been complicated due to the existence of multiple isoforms: those with a transactivation domain (TAp63) and those lacking this domain (ΔNp63). Mice lacking p63 cannot form skin, have craniofacial and skeletal defects and die within hours after birth. These defects are due to the ability of p63 to regulate multiple processes in skin development including epithelial stem cell proliferation, differentiation, and adherence programs. To determine the roles of these isoforms in skin development and maintenance, isoform specific p63 conditional knock out mice were generated by our lab. TAp63-/- mice age prematurely, develop blisters, and display wound-healing defects that result from hyperproliferation of dermal stem cells. That results in premature depletion of these cells, which are necessary for wound repair, that indicates TAp63 plays a role in dermal/epidermal maintenance. To study the role of ΔNp63, I generated a ΔNp63-/- mouse and analyzed the skin by performing immunofluorescence for markers of epithelial differentiation. The ΔNp63-/- mice developed a thin, disorganized epithelium but differentiation markers were expressed. Interestingly, the epidermis from ΔNp63-/- mice co-expressed K14 and K10 in the same cell suggesting defects in epidermal differentiation and stratification. This phenotype is reminiscent of the DGCR8fl/fl;K14Cre and Dicerfl/fl;K14Cre mice skin. Importantly, DGCR8-/- embryonic stem cells (ESCs) display a hyperproliferation defect by failure to silence pluripotency genes. Furthermore, I have observed that epidermal cells lacking ΔNp63 display a phenotype reminiscent of embryonic stem cells instead of keratinocytes. Thus, I hypothesize that genes involved in maintaining pluripotency, like Oct4, may be upregulated in the absence of ΔNp63. To test this, q-RT PCR was performed for Oct4 mRNA with wild type and ΔNp63-/- 18.5dpc embryo skin. I found that the level of Oct4 was dramatically increased in the absence of ΔNp63-/-. Based on these results, I hypothesized that ΔNp63 induces differentiation by silencing pluripotency regulators, Oct4, Sox2 and Nanog directly through the regulation of DGCR8. I found that DGCR8 restoration resulted in repression of Oct4, Sox2 and Nanog in ΔNp63-/- epidermal cells and rescue differentiation defects. Loss of ΔNp63 resulted in pluripotency that caused defect in proper differentiation and stem cell like phenotype. This led me to culture the ΔNp63-/- epidermal cells in neuronal cell culture media in order to address whether restoration of DGCR8 can transform epidermal cells to neuronal cells. I found that DGCR8 restoration resulted in a change in cell fate. I also found that miR470 and miR145 play a role in the induction of pluripotency by repressing Oct4, Sox2 and Nanog. This indicates that ΔNp63 induces terminal differentiation through the regulation of DGCR8.