Revisiting the Worksite in Worksite Health Campaigns: Evidence From a Multisite Organ Donation Campaign

This article advances the beginnings of a general theory of organizational features to aid in understanding why health campaigns that work well in one organization may be ineffectual in another organization. The physical, social, and information structures of organizations are theorized to create an interaction environment that is distinct to each organization and that influences health campaigns. To test this argument, an organ donation campaign was conducted in 46 organizations. Multilevel modeling yielded mixed findings. Physical structure was negatively associated with signing an organ donor card. Social structure and information structure were positively associated with communication with coworkers about donation and communicative peer influence. Industry type was positively associated with knowledge change.     

Feasibility of manual teach-and-replay and continuous impedance shaping for robotic locomotor training following spinal cord injury

Robotic gait training is an emerging technique for retraining walking ability following spinal cord injury (SCI). A key challenge in this training is determining an appropriate stepping trajectory and level of assistance for each patient, since patients have a wide range of sizes and impairment levels. Here, we demonstrate how a lightweight yet powerful robot can record subject-specific, trainer-induced leg trajectories during manually assisted stepping, then immediately replay those trajectories. Replay of the subject-specific trajectories reduced the effort required by the trainer during manual assistance, yet still generated similar patterns of muscle activation for six subjects with a chronic SCI. We also demonstrate how the impedance of the robot can be adjusted on a step-by-step basis with an error-based, learning law. This impedance-shaping algorithm adapted the robot's impedance so that the robot assisted only in the regions of the step trajectory where the subject consistently exhibited errors. The result was that the subjects stepped with greater variability, while still maintaining a physiologic gait pattern. These results are further steps toward tailoring robotic gait training to the needs of individual patients.     

Ochratoxin A in dried vine fruit: method development and survey

A method is described for the determination of concentrations of the mycotoxin ochratoxin A in dried vine fruits (currants, raisins and sultanas) using acidic methanolic extraction,immunoaffinity chromatography clean-up and HPLC determination. The limit of detection was estimated as 0.2mug/kg, and recoveries of 63-77% were achieved at 5mug/kg. HPLC-mass spectrometric confirmation of the identity of ochratoxin was obtained. Ochratoxin A and aflatoxins were determined in 60 samples of retail dried vine fruits purchased in the United Kingdom. Ochratoxin A was found in excess of 0.2mug/kg in 19 of 20 currant, 17 of 20 sultana and 17 of 20 raisin samples examined, an overall incidence of 88% . The maximum level found was 53.6mug/kg. No aflatoxin was found in any sample analysed, using a method with a detection limit of 0.2mug/kg for each of aflatoxin B1, B2, G1 and G2.     

Surveillance of stored grain from the 1997 harvest in the United Kingdom for ochratoxin A

This survey examined 306 samples of farm-stored wheat, barley and oats as received at, or tested by, central grain depots in the UK. Samples were taken from lorries or from stored grain using the existing inhouse procedures used for quality checking and examined for ochratoxin A using a fully validated analytical HPLC method with a detection limit of 0.1 μg/kg. Ochratoxin A was detected in 21 % of the samples examined, with barley more frequently contaminated than wheat. Mean concentrations of ochratoxin A found for all samples were 0.69 μg/kg in barley, 0.29 μg/kg in wheat and 0.15 μg/kg in oats. The highest concentration found was 17.8 μg/kg in a barley feed although concentrations of 81 and 30 μg/kg were found in 'reject-grade' wheat samples whose results were excluded from the main survey. In summary, 2.7 and 0.3 % of samples exceeded concentrations of 5 and 10 μg/kg respectively. There appeared to be significant relationships between ochratoxin A concentrations and moisture content, storage time and geographical area. Although conditions at harvest in 1997 were quite variable countrywide and often wet, results were similar to those found in earlier surveys carried out in the UK.     

Entropy-based measures for quantifying sleep-stage transition dynamics: relationship to sleep fragmentation and daytime sleepiness

We present two novel entropy-based measures that quantify sleep-stage transition dynamics (sleep structure) from polysomnogram derived hypnograms: Walsh spectral entropy (WSE) and Haar spectral entropy (HSE). These measures quantify patterns of temporal regularity of a categorical time series without requiring numerical encoding (scaling) of the (categorical) sleep stages. Additionally, we show that conditional entropy (CE) is well suited for quantifying predictability of the hypnogram. The relationship of those measures with traditional sleep fragmentation indices (arousal index, total sleep time, and sleep efficiency) is explored for a 394 participant sample of the Cleveland Family Study, an epidemiologic study in which standardized single-night polysomnogram data were collected. The new entropy-based sleep structure measures (WSE, HSE, and CE) are positively correlated (moderate to weak) with the traditional sleep fragmentation indices. Because the sleep structure measures developed in this paper provide direct information related to temporal patterns of sleep that is not contained in traditional sleep fragmentation measures, the correlation between these new alternative sleep structure measures and the traditional sleep fragmentation measures is less important. Our goal is not to develop alternative measures that correlate highly with traditional measures of sleep fragmentation, but rather to provide methods to quantify sleep structure by examining other (e.g., dynamic sleep-stage transition) properties of the hypnogram. Additionally, the relationship of the new entropy-based and traditional measures with daytime sleepiness as quantified by the Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS) is investigated. Multiple linear regression analysis shows that WSE has a stronger relationship with ESS than the traditional measures, even after both are adjusted for common confounders (age, race, gender, and body mass index). This further suggests that the entropy-based measures, especially WSE, are capturing additional temporal patterns of sleep not captured in the traditional sleep fragmentation measures, and have a relationship with daytime sleepiness.     

Poly(cyclodextrin)‐Polydrug Nanocomplexes as Synthetic Oncolytic Virus for Locoregional Melanoma Chemoimmunotherapy

Despite the approval of oncolytic virus (OV) therapy for advanced melanoma, its intrinsic limitations that include the risk of persistent viral infection and cost‐intensive manufacturing motivate the development of analogous approaches that are free from the disadvantages of virus‐based therapies. Herein, reported is a nanoassembly comprised of multivalent host–guest interactions between polymerized paclitaxel (pPTX) and nitric oxide‐incorporated polymerized β‐cyclodextrin (pCD‐pSNO) that through its bioactive components and when used locoregionally recapitulates the therapeutic effects of OV. The resultant pPTX/pCD‐pSNO exhibits significantly enhanced cytotoxicity, immunogenic cell death, dendritic cell (DC) activation, and T cell expansion in vitro compared to free agents alone or in combination. In vivo, intratumoral administration of pPTX/pCD‐pSNO results in activation and expansion of DCs systemically, but with a corresponding expansion of myeloid‐derived suppressor cells and suppression of CD8⁺ T cell expansion. When combined with antibody targeting cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen‐4 that blunts this molecule's signaling effects on T cells, intratumoral pPTX/pCD‐pSNO treatment elicits potent anticancer effects that significantly prolong animal survival. This formulation thus leverages the chemo‐ and immunotherapeutic synergies of PTX and nitric oxide and suggests the potential for virus‐free nanoformulations to mimic the therapeutic action and benefits of OVs.     

Learning algorithms for joint resource block and power allocation in underlay D2D networks

We investigate the problem of resource block (RB) and power allocation jointly and in a distributed manner using game theoretic learning solutions, in an underlay device-to-device network where device pairs communicate directly with each other by reusing the spectrum allocated to the cellular users. We formulate the joint RB and power allocation as multi-agent learning problems with discrete strategy sets; and suggest partially distributed and fully distributed learning algorithms to determine the RB and power level to be used by each device pair. The partially distributed algorithms, viz., Fictitious Play and its variant Fading Memory Joint Strategy Fictitious Play with Inertia, achieve Nash Equilibrium (NE) of the sum-rate maximization game in a static wireless environment. The completely distributed and uncoupled Stochastic Learning Algorithm converges to pure strategy NE of the interference mitigation game in a time-varying radio environment. We provide proofs for the existence of NE and convergence of the learning algorithms to the NE. Performance of the proposed schemes are evaluated in log-normal, Rayleigh and Nakagami fading environments and compared with an existing hybrid scheme and a centralized scheme. The simulation results show that the partially distributed schemes give the same performance as the centralized scheme, and the fully distributed scheme gives similar performance as the hybrid scheme but with much reduced signaling and computation overhead.     

A floating sleeve antenna yields localized hepatic microwave ablation

We report a novel coaxial antenna for hepatic microwave ablation. This device uses a floating sleeve, that is, a metal conductor electrically isolated from the outer connector of the antenna coaxial body, to achieve a highly localized specific absorption rate pattern that is independent of insertion depth. This floating sleeve coaxial dipole antenna has low power reflection in the 2.4-GHz IMS band. Ex vivo experiments confirm our numerical simulation results. Index Terms-Ablation, coaxial aperture antennas, finite element methods, floating sleeve, microwave heating.     

Supported Lipid Bilayer Assembly on PEDOT:PSS Films and Transistors

Lipid bilayers are widely employed as a model system to investigate interactions between cells and their environment. Supported lipid bilayers (SLB) with integrated transmembrane proteins are emerging as a preferred platform for sensing applications. Challenges lie in the generation of SLB on surfaces which allow transduction of signals for characterization of lipid bilayer and incorporated transmembrane proteins. For the first time, the formation of SLBs is shown on films of the conducting polymer, poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene) doped with poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS), using traditional methods for characterizing lipid bilayer quality and function (QCM‐D, FRAP) combined with impedance spectroscopy. Further, partial formation of SLBs on PEDOT:PSS based organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) is successfully demonstrated, as well as the ability to integrate and sense the ion pore α‐hemolysin, confirming the sensitivity of the OECT as a transducer of biological membrane function. This work represents a highly promising first step toward the use of such OECTs for functional readout of transmembrane proteins in their native environment.