Renal Clearable Theranostic Nanoplatforms for Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors

Advances in molecular imaging modalities have accelerated the diagnosis and treatment of human diseases. However, tumors less than 1 cm in size still remain difficult to localize by conventional means because of the difficulty in specific targeting/delivery to the tumor site. Furthermore, high nonspecific uptake in the major organs and persistent background retention results in low tumor-to-background ratio. The targeting and therapy of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) using nonsticky and renal clearable theranostic nanoparticles (a.k.a. H-Dots) are demonstrated. H-Dots not only target GIST for image-guided surgery, but also tailor the fate of anticancer drugs such as imatinib (IM) to the tumor site resulting in efficient treatment of unresectable GIST. In addition, H-Dots can monitor targetability, pharmacokinetics, and drug delivery, while also showing therapeutic efficacy in GIST-bearing xenograft mice following surgical resection. More importantly, IM loaded H-Dots exhibit lower uptake into the immune system, improved tumor selectivity, and increased tumor suppression compared to free IM, which accumulates in the spleen/liver. Precisely designed H-Dots can be used as a promising theranostic nanoplatform that can potentially reduce the side effects of conventional chemotherapies.     

Practical reliability growth modeling

Reliability growth models are commonly used in the Department of Defense (DoD) to plan, track, and project reliability during system acquisition and testing. We describe two commonly used classes of reliability growth models for continuous failure time data and the metrics appropriate for their use. We also present two Bayesian reliability growth models that are based on the DoD models. The Bayesian models are easily interpretable in a statistical framework, which supports estimation and uncertainty quantification. Our goal is to provide a practical understanding of the development, implementation, and use of reliability growth models across a sequence of DoD testing events.     

Total Long-Chain n-3 Fatty Acid Intake and Food Sources in the United States Compared to Recommended Intakes: NHANES 2003–2008

The American Heart Association recommends consuming fish (particularly oily fish) at least two times per week, which would provide ≈ 0.5 g/day of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) + docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) for cardiovascular disease risk reduction. Previous analyses indicate that this recommendation is not being met; however, few studies have assessed different ethnicities, subpopulations requiring additional n-3 fatty acid intake (i.e., children and pregnant and/or lactating women), or deciles of intake. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003–2008 was used to assess n-3 fatty acid intake from foods and supplements in the US population, according to age, sex, and ethnicity. A unique “EPA equivalents” factor, which accounts for potential conversion of shorter-chain n-3 fatty acids, was used to calculate total long-chain n-3 fatty acid intake. Data are reported for 24,621 individuals. More than 90% consumed less than the recommended 0.5 g/day from food sources (median = 0.11 g/day; mean = 0.17 g/day). Among the top 15% of n-3 fatty acid consumers, fish was the largest dietary contributor (71.2%). Intake was highest in men aged 20 years or more, and lowest in children and women who are or may become pregnant and/or are lactating. Among ethnicities, intake was lowest in Mexican-Americans. Only 6.2% of the total population reported n-3 fatty acid supplement use, and this did not alter median daily intake. Additional strategies are needed to increase awareness of health benefits (particularly among Mexican-Americans and women of childbearing age) and promote consumption of oily fish or alternative dietary sources to meet current recommendations.     

Unpacking Cohort Social Ties: The Appropriateness of Perceived Social Capital to Graduate Early Career Performance in Construction Project Teams

Construction project teams require social capital. When present in appropriate forms, it creates the social cohesion through which individuals accept project goals as their own. It lets team members share knowledge when present and reveal when it is missing. In education, social learning helps students appreciate the need for social capital appropriate to team performance. In practice, social capital enables the project team learning that overcomes project-specific challenges. Despite this importance, little is known about how students perceive social capital or the compatibility of that understanding with construction project needs.

To characterise this aspect of ‘graduateness,’ collective understanding of social capital was elicited from construction students in a Scottish university by free recall. Analysis was structured around four dimensions of social capital: cohesion, legitimacy & authenticity, sharing, and safety. Notions of friendship were found to dominate student understanding of their social capital even though this understanding derived from settings where the need for capital to support team performance is emphasized. The potential for misalignment between the capital that graduating students bring into practice with that required by project teams was apparent. The case for further investigation of this influence on early career development was established.     

Housing affordability,tenure and mental health in Australia and the United Kingdom: a comparative panel analysis

This paper contributes insights into the role of tenure in modifying the relationship between housing affordability and health, using a cross-national comparison of similar post-industrial nations—Australia and the United Kingdom—with different tenure structures. The paper utilises longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey and British Household Panel Survey to examine change in the mental health of individuals associated with housing becoming unaffordable and considers modification by tenure. We present evidence that the role of tenure in the relationship between housing and health is context dependent and should not be unthinkingly generalised across nations. These findings suggest that the UK housing context offers a greater level of protection to tenants living in unaffordable housing when compared with Australia, and this finds expression in the mental health of the two populations. We conclude that Australian governments could improve the mental health of their economically vulnerable populations through more supportive housing policies.     

Interferometric measurement of phase change on reflection

We show an interferometric method for measuring phase change with known uncertainty. Because this measurement uses the backreflection from a sample, the height is intrinsically removed, and only the phase change is measured. The uncertainty in the phase change measurement is +/-3.8 degrees and is dominated by the background subtraction method. We also investigate the effect of the phase change on the interferometric radius measurement. The theoretical worst-case error in the interferometric radius measurement due to the phase change is 30 nm.     

Design and facile production of recombinant resilin-like polypeptides: gene construction and a rapid protein purification method

Resilin is an elastic protein found in specialized regions of the cuticle of insects, which displays unique resilience and fatigue lifetime properties. As is the case with many elastomeric proteins, including elastin, gliadin and spider silks, resilin contains distinct repetitive domains that appear to confer elastic properties to the protein. Recent work within our laboratory has demonstrated that cloning and expression of exon 1 of the Drosophila melanogaster CG15920 gene, encoding a putative resilin-like protein, results in a recombinant protein that can be photochemically crosslinked to form a highly resilient, elastic biomaterial (Rec1 resilin). The current study describes a recursive cloning strategy for generating synthetic genes encoding multiple copies of consensus polypeptides, based on the repetitive domains within resilin-like genes from D. melanogaster and Anopheles gambiae. A simple non-chromatographic purification method that can be applied to these synthetic proteins and Rec1 is also reported. These methods for the design and purification of resilin-like periodic polypeptides will facilitate the future investigation of structural and functional properties of resilin, and the development of novel highly resilient biomaterials.     

Algorithm selection and instance space analysis for curriculum-based course timetabling

Journal of Scheduling - We propose an algorithm selection approach and an instance space analysis for the well-known curriculum-based course timetabling problem (CB-CTT), which is an important...     

Dereplication by automated ribotyping of a competitive exclusion culture bacterial isolate library

Concerns over the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria within the food animal industry have intensified the search for natural approaches to the prevention and treatment of bacterial diseases. Competitive exclusion cultures are the foundation of a disease-management strategy based on the use of benign bacterial strains to prevent the establishment of pathogenic bacteria within a specific host. Differentiation of phenotypically ambiguous isolates is a critical step in establishing a manageable library of bacteria for use in the development of defined competitive exclusion cultures. We used automated ribotyping techniques to dereplicate a large collection of phenotypically ambiguous isolates from a continuous-flow competitive exclusion culture. A total of 157 isolates were screened following an EcoRI restriction enzyme digestion. The 157 isolates were resolved into 23 ribogroups, which represents an 85% reduction in the number of isolates in the bacterial isolate library. Seventy-six percent of the isolates fit into one of five ribogroups. This work demonstrated that automated ribotyping is an effective and efficient tool for dereplication of diverse bacterial isolate libraries.