Extra Manipulation Research Articles

Directional surface plasmon polariton scattering using single magnetic nanoparticles.

Directional surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are expected to promote the energy efficiency of plasmonic devices, via limiting the energy in a given spatial domain. The directional scattering of dielectric nanoparticles induced by the interference between electric and magnetic responses presents a potential candidate for directional SPPs. Magnetic nanoparticles can introduce permeability as an extra manipulation, whose directional scattered SPPs have not been investigated yet. In this work, we demonstrated the directional scattered SPPs by using single magnetic nanoparticles via simulation and experiment. By increasing the permeability and particle size, the high-order TEM modes are excited inside the particle and induce more forward directional SPPs. It indicated that the particle size manifests larger tuning range compared with the permeability. Experimentally, the maximum forward-to-backward (F-to-B) SPP scattering intensity ratio of 118.52:1 is visualized by using a single 1 μm Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticle. The directional scattered SPPs of magnetic nanoparticles are hopeful to improve the efficiency of plasmonic devices and pave the way for plasmonic circuits on-chip.

Single-cell and single-nucleus RNA-sequencing from paired normal-adenocarcinoma lung samples provide both common and discordant biological insights.

Whether single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) captures the same biological information as single-nucleus RNA-sequencing (snRNA-seq) remains uncertain and likely to be context-dependent. Herein, a head-to-head comparison was performed in matched normal-adenocarcinoma human lung samples to assess biological insights derived from scRNA-seq versus snRNA-seq and better understand the cellular transition that occurs from normal to tumoral tissue. Here, the transcriptome of 160,621 cells/nuclei was obtained. In non-tumor lung, cell type proportions varied widely between scRNA-seq and snRNA-seq with a predominance of immune cells in the former (81.5%) and epithelial cells (69.9%) in the later. Similar results were observed in adenocarcinomas, in addition to an overall increase in cell type heterogeneity and a greater prevalence of copy number variants in cells of epithelial origin, which suggests malignant assignment. The cell type transition that occurs from normal lung tissue to adenocarcinoma was not always concordant whether cells or nuclei were examined. As expected, large differential expression of the whole-cell and nuclear transcriptome was observed, but cell-type specific changes of paired normal and tumor lung samples revealed a set of common genes in the cells and nuclei involved in cancer-related pathways. In addition, we showed that the ligand-receptor interactome landscape of lung adenocarcinoma was largely different whether cells or nuclei were evaluated. Immune cell depletion in fresh specimens partly mitigated the difference in cell type composition observed between cells and nuclei. However, the extra manipulations affected cell viability and amplified the transcriptional signatures associated with stress responses. In conclusion, research applications focussing on mapping the immune landscape of lung adenocarcinoma benefit from scRNA-seq in fresh samples, whereas snRNA-seq of frozen samples provide a low-cost alternative to profile more epithelial and cancer cells, and yield cell type proportions that more closely match tissue content.

Creating a semi-opened micro-cavity ovary through sacrificial microspheres as an in vitro model for discovering the potential effect of ovarian toxic agents

The bio-engineered ovary is an essential technology for treating female infertility. Especially the development of relevant in vitro models could be a critical step in a drug study. Herein, we develop a semi-opened culturing system (SOCS) strategy that maintains a 3D structure of follicles during the culture. Based on the SOCS, we further developed micro-cavity ovary (MCO) with mouse follicles by the microsphere-templated technique, where sacrificial gelatin microspheres were mixed with photo-crosslinkable gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) to engineer a micro-cavity niche for follicle growth. The semi-opened MCO could support the follicle growing to the antral stage, secreting hormones, and ovulating cumulus-oocyte complex out of the MCO without extra manipulation. The MCO-ovulated oocyte exhibits a highly similar transcriptome to the in vivo counterpart (correlation of 0.97) and can be fertilized. Moreover, we found that a high ROS level could affect the cumulus expansion, which may result in anovulation disorder. The damage could be rescued by melatonin, but the end of cumulus expansion was 3h earlier than anticipation, validating that MCO has the potential for investigating ovarian toxic agents in vitro. We provide a novel approach for building an in vitro ovarian model to recapitulate ovarian functions and test chemical toxicity, suggesting it has the potential for clinical research in the future.

Hollow microneedle microfluidic paper-based chip for biomolecules rapid sampling and detection in interstitial fluid

The interstitial fluid (ISF) contains rich bioinformation for disease diagnosis and healthcare monitoring. However, the efficient sampling and detection of the biomolecules in ISF is still challenging. Herein, we develop a facile but versatile ISF analysis platform by combining controllable hollow microneedles (HMNs) and elaborate microfluidic paper-based analytical devices (μPADs). The HMNs and μPADs was fixed in a bottom PDMS layer. A top PDMS layer containing a cylindrical cavity to produce negative pressure for sampling was packaged on the bottom PDMS layer. The HMNs enable efficient and swift sampling of sufficient ISF to the μPADs through one-touch finger operation without extra manipulations. The μPADs realized to simultaneously detect glucose and lactic acid in the detection area to produce chromogenic agents and analyzed by the self-programed RGB application (APP) in smartphones. The HMN microfluidic paper-based chip provides a point-of-care platform for accurate detection of biomolecules in ISF, holding great promise in the development of wearable device.

Influence of faecal culture media and incubation time on the yield of infective larvae of Haemonchus contortus (Rudolphi 1803)

The aim of this experiment was to determine the yield of Haemonchus contortus third-stage larvae (L3) in faecal cultures in different conditions, including incubation time (7 or 14 days), the addition of inert additives (polystyrene pellets, vermiculite or no additive) and physical condition of the incubated faeces (ground or whole pellets). Twelve groups of 10 cultures each were arranged and incubated at 24 °C to evaluate the interaction of the above-mentioned conditions. Significantly, more L3 (p=0.0019 to p=0.0200) were recovered from cultures incubated for 7 days than for 14 days, except for the groups containing whole pellets with no additives (p=0.53) or with vermiculite (p=0.41). Larval yields from 7-day incubated cultures did not differ between groups (p=0.47), but for the whole pellets with vermiculite group, which yielded significantly less L3 (p<0.0001) than the rest of the cultures. Incubation for 14 days showed that cultures containing whole pellets with no additives yielded significantly more L3 (p<0.05) than the rest. Culturing faeces with H. contortus seems not to require inert additives or extra manipulation to obtain good L3 yields.

A Novel Approach to Fixed-Time Stabilization for a Class of Uncertain Second-Order Nonlinear Systems

This paper is concerned with the problem of fixed-time stabilization for a class of uncertain second-order nonlinear systems. By delicately introducing extra manipulations in the feedback domination and revamping the technique of adding a power integrator, a new approach is developed, by which a state feedback controller, together with a suitable Lyapunov function, which is critical for verifying fixed-time convergence, can be explicitly organized to render the closed-loop system fixed-time stable. The major novelty of this paper is attributed to a subtle strategy that offers a distinct perspective in controller design as well as stability analysis in the problem of fixed-time stabilization for nonlinear systems. Finally, the proposed approach is applied to the attitude stabilization of a spacecraft to demonstrate its merits and effectiveness.

Evaluation of Post-Placental IUD Insertion during Cesarean Section at a Tertiary Care Hospital in Egypt

Objectives: To evaluate the efficacy of post placental IUD insertion during cesarean section. Background: IUD could be applied to the female after delivery of placenta during cesarean section, it had many advantages as the female is under anesthesia so no extra manipulation needed, decrease pain, and also the female at the period of delivery had high motive for family planning. Post placental IUD insertion also had many disengages like bleeding and displacement. Material and methods: A randomized controlled study was conducted at tertiary care hospital (Tanta University Hospital) in the period from Jan, 1, 2017 to May 31 2019. Two groups of patients were selected; each group included 60 patients with desire of birth control. The group I was subjected to post-placental intrauterine device (IUD) insertion during cesarean section and group II was subjected to interval IUD insertion (3 months after cesarean delivery). The type of IUD used was cupper-T IUD, both groups were assessed as regard to time of cesarean section (CS), amount of postoperative bleeding, postoperative pain, occurrence of infection, any displacement of IUDs, failure of contraception and patients’ satisfaction. Results: The demographic data were comparable in both groups. The duration of cesarean surgery was slightly prolonged in the study group. The infection, puerperal bleeding, and displacement of IUDs were not significantly different in both groups. The discontinuation rate after 12 months was 13.72% in study group compared to 16.66% in the control group. The satisfaction rates in both groups were 90.20%, 91.67% in study and control groups respectively. The expulsion rates were 3.92% and 0.00% in the study and control groups respectively. Pregnancy on top of IUD was 1.96% in study group and 4.17% in control group with p value = 0.949. Conclusion: Post-placental IUD insertion is found to be safe, easily applied during cesarean section with slight prolongation of cesarean section duration. Post-placental IUD insertion is also effective, with few complications compared to interval IUD insertion. This modality of insertion was accepted by the great majority of patients being painless and at the same time of surgery with no added cost or maneuver and utilizing the enthusiasm of patients for immediate contraception. The continuation rates are good in the study follow up duration.

A Combined Finite-Element-Finite-Volume Method for Thermal Arc Numerical Simulation

Most of the numerical methods used for thermal arc simulation, are often based either on finite volume or finite element approaches but very seldom on both of them. In this paper, we present a new combined finite-element finite-volume method for stationary and unsteady cases. The flow, energy and species equations are solved using a classical finite-volume (FV) method which is conservative and bears a robust physical meaning. The electromagnetic equations (EM) are solved using finite-element (FE) analysis which has the ability to easily deal with their mathematical formulation without transforming the equations or doing any extra manipulation. We propose two separate approaches for the FE-method: one that is only suitable for a steady-state scheme and another that could be applicable for both steady and unsteady cases. Some illustrative numerical examples are also presented in this paper.

Immunomodulation as a neuroprotective strategy after spinal cord injury.

The study was supported by Premios Santa Casa Neurociencias-Prize Meloe Castro for Spinal Cord Injury Research; Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Financiado no ambito do Projecto 3599-Promover a Producao Cientifica e Desenvolvimento Tecnologico e a Constituicao de Redes Tematicas (3599-PPCDT), project: PTDC/DTP-FTO/5109/2014; Post-Doctoral fellowship-SFRH/BPD/97701/2013-to N.A. Silva; IF Development Grant to A. J. Salgado).

A novel technique to release sticking haptic of a single-piece hydrophobic acrylic IOL using irrigation-aspiration probe.

To describe a novel technique to release sticking haptic of a single-piece hydrophobic acrylic intraocular lens (IOL) using irrigation-aspiration (I/A) probe. In our technique, the I/A probe is introduced into the anterior chamber on Visco mode. Using the aspiration port of the I/A probe, the sticking haptic is held at its tip and suction force is built up until occlusion is noted. Then the haptic is nudged towards the center of the IOL along its curve. After the haptic is free from optic, the suction is released. Several techniques have been described to release the sticking haptic such as squeezing the haptic at the site where it sticks to the IOL or using Sinskey hook for releasing the adhesion. These techniques require extra manipulation of the IOL by introduction of surgical instruments. In our technique, we used the I/A probe itself for separating the sticky haptic successfully. This technique allows separation of sticking haptic without any extra instrumentation, thus reducing intraocular maneuvering and total surgery time.

A finite volume approach to the problem of heat transfer in axisymmetric annulus geometry with internal heating element using local analytical solution techniques

Abstract In this paper we implement the local analytical solution technique to the problem of heat transfer in axisymmetric annulus geometry with internal heating element. This method has shown to be very accurate in estimating the temperature field for axisymmetric problems even for coarse mesh. It is shown that this method reduces to the analytical solution for unidirectional heat transfer in the radial direction in homogeneous media. The technique is based on finding an analytical expression for the temperature field in the radial direction within each grid cell. This means that the temperature field in each cell is allowed to change in a nonlinear fashion along the radial direction. We compare this technique with the traditional finite volume technique and show that; with only few cells in the radial direction, this technique arrives at the mesh-independent solution quite accurately whereas it required denser mesh to arrive closer to this solution using traditional techniques. This method is proposed to the 1D codes that are currently being used to simulate thermalhydraulic characteristics of reactor systems. Furthermore, we also implement the experimental temperature field algorithm in which the governing equations are approximated for each cell as it would without extra manipulation to the governing equations. This technique is very simple and separates the physics from the solving part.

Impulsivity, "advergames," and food intake.

Previous studies have focused on the effect of food advertisements on the caloric intake of children. However, the role of individual susceptibility in this effect is unclear. The aim of this study was to examine the role of impulsivity in the effect of advergames that promote energy-dense snacks on children's snack intake. First, impulsivity scores were assessed with a computer task. Then a randomized between-subject design was conducted with 261 children aged 7 to 10 years who played an advergame promoting either energy-dense snacks or nonfood products. As an extra manipulation, half of the children in each condition were rewarded for refraining from eating, the other half were not. Children could eat freely while playing the game. Food intake was measured. The children then completed questionnaire measures, and were weighed and measured. Overall, playing an advergame containing food cues increased general caloric intake. Furthermore, rewarding children to refrain from eating decreased their caloric intake. Finally, rewarding impulsive children to refrain from eating had no influence when they were playing an advergame promoting energy-dense snacks, whereas it did lead to reduced intake among low impulsive children and children who played nonfood advergames. Playing an advergame promoting energy-dense snacks contributes to increased caloric intake in children. The advergame promoting energy-dense snacks overruled the inhibition task to refrain from eating among impulsive children, making it more difficult for them to refrain from eating. The findings suggest that impulsivity plays an important role in susceptibility to food advertisements.

The moderating role of self-control in the relation between food cue exposure and caloric intake

This study examines to what extent self-control moderates the influence of advergames promoting unhealthy food on caloric intake among children. Two hundred and sixty one children aged 6–9 played an advergame for 5 min, and caloric intake during play was tested. Children in the treatment conditions played an advergame promoting energy-dense snacks, while children in the control conditions played an advergame promoting non-food products. An extra manipulation was that half of the children were instructed to inhibit their craving for a reward, while other children were only instructed that they could eat as much as they wanted. Afterwards, they completed the experimental measures. Results (N = 261) show that children that played an advergame containing energy-dense snacks had a higher caloric intake than children that played an advergame containing non-food products. Furthermore, children that played an advergame promoting energy dense snacks that were instructed to inhibit their craving had a lower caloric intake than children that did not receive this instruction. Most remarkable is that children that played the advergame promoting energy-dense snacks and were instructed to inhibit food intake had a higher caloric intake than children that played the advergame promoting non-food products and had the same instruction. These findings suggest that advergames promoting energy-dense snacks increases the caloric intake of children and that these advergames makes it harder for children to self-control their craving for food.

Fractional Flow–Guided Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting

The traditional basis for all forms of coronary artery revascularization has been the percent stenosis resulting from an atherosclerotic plaque or thrombotic occlusion based on coronary angiography. With the introduction of fractional flow reserve (FFR) technology, a new gold standard has been developed to assess the severity of a coronary artery stenosis that takes into account the physiology of that stenosis. Article see p 1405 FFR is defined as the ratio of maximal blood flow across a stenotic lesion compared with normal maximal flow. It is measured with a coronary pressure guidewire and is compared with the aortic pressure measured simultaneously with the guide catheter during maximum hyperemia. An FFR value of 90%.1 The FFR technique requires some extra manipulation during the catheterization, and a central line may be necessary if intravenous adenosine is used to elicit the maximal hyperemic response. Although there is potential for trauma to the coronary vessel, this complication is rarely reported. Initially, FFR was used to determine the applicability of stenting for patients with single-vessel disease. In a study involving 67 patients with multivessel disease, Melikian and coworkers2 showed that FFR measurements were not influenced by either the presence or absence of stenosis in other adjacent vessels and could be used to assess coronary stenosis in patients with multivessel disease. The Fractional Flow Reserve Versus Angiography in Multivessel Evaluation (FAME) I trial used FFR to determine the need for stent deployment in 1005 patients with ≥2 diseased coronary arteries compared with decisions based on angiography alone.3 The primary end point, a combination of death, myocardial infarction, and the need for repeat revascularization, occurred in 18.3% of patients in the angiography group compared with 13.2% in the FFR group ( P …

Effect of co-incubation of oocytes with a decreasing number of spermatozoa on embryo quality

Shortened exposure of oocytes to spermatozoa has been reported to improve embryo quality. This technique requires extra manipulation of gametes in order to remove oocytes from the spermatozoa. This study presents a fertilization method that does not require additional manipulation and interference of oocytes during fertilization. To determine the benefits of this method, a prospective controlled study using sibling oocytes was conducted. The oocytes of patients were randomly allocated to study and control groups. Fertilization rates, embryo cleavage rates, day-3 embryo morphology and clinical pregnancy rates were compared between the two groups. The normal fertilization rates (2PN) of the two groups were comparable. The percentage of usable embryos (transferred plus cryopreserved embryos) was significantly higher in the treatment group compared with the control group (66.9±23.3% versus 57.6±26.7%; P=0.03). The mean embryo quality score of the treatment group was higher than the control group (18.3±4.8 versus 15.2±5.1; P=0.02). The results of this study demonstrated that this method can improve embryo quality, but further studies with additional IVF patients are needed to confirm the beneficial effects.A new method is presented which decreases the negative effects of an excessive number of spermatozoa on oocytes during the fertilization process without any manipulation and interference of oocytes. The method is easy to perform in a clinical IVF laboratory and led to improved embryo quality in our sibling-oocyte controlled study.

Residual strain-induced birefringent FBGs for multi-axial strain monitoring of CFRP composite laminates

Several solutions to measure multi-axial strain in composite materials using fibre Bragg gratings have already been presented in the literature. Most of them use Bragg sensors written in highly birefringent fibres. Unless they exhibit a higher transverse strain sensitivity, a major drawback of those highly birefringent Bragg sensors is the necessity to orient them before embedding them into the composite material, because otherwise an underestimation of the present strain field can occur. Therefore, in this paper we describe how the residual strain, which is built up during the cure cycle of a composite laminate, can in-situ create a highly birefringent fibre Bragg sensor making the need of extra manipulations before embedding redundant. Consequently, in the paper this Bragg sensor is used to quantitatively measure multi-axial strain fields of cross-ply laminates loaded along their three principal mechanical axes. Good similarities were found for the measured strains and the reference strains.

Module derivation problem for inverse semigroups

The derivation problem for a locally compact group G asserts that each bounded derivation from L 1(G) to L 1(G) is implemented by an element of M(G). Recently a simple proof of this result was announced. We show that basically the same argument with some extra manipulations with idempotents solves the module derivation problem for inverse semigroups, asserting that for an inverse semigroup S with set of idempotents E and maximal group homomorphic image G S , if E acts on S trivially from the left and by multiplication from the right, any bounded module derivation from l 1(S) to l 1(G S ) is inner.

An Equation-Type Approach for the Numerical Solution of the Partial Differential Equations Governing Transport Phenomena in Porous Media

A new technique for the numerical solution of the partial differential equations governing transport phenomena in porous media is introduced. In this technique, the governing equations as depicted from the physics of the problem are used without extra manipulations. In other words, there is no need to reduce the number of governing equations by some sort of mathematical manipulations. This technique enables the separation of the physics part of the problem and the solver part, which makes coding more robust and could be used in several other applications with little or no modifications (e.g., multi-phase flow in porous media). In this method, one abandons the need to construct the coefficient matrix for the pressure equation. Alternatively, the coefficients are automatically generated within the solver routine. We show examples of using this technique to solving several flow problems in porous media.

Interventional Radiology in the Management of Abdominal Collections After Distal Pancreatectomy: A Retrospective Review

The purpose of this study was to assess the technical and clinical success and complications of imaging-guided percutaneous catheter drainage of peripancreatic fluid collections after distal pancreatectomy. Between January 2001 and February 2009, the cases of patients who underwent distal pancreatectomy were selected from a surgical database, and the cases of those who underwent subsequent interventional radiologic percutaneous drainage were identified. Details of percutaneous catheter drainage were recorded, and technical and clinical success was determined. Technical success was defined as successful percutaneous imaging-guided placement of a drainage catheter. Primary clinical success was defined as resolution of peripancreatic fluid collection with percutaneous drainage only. Secondary clinical success was defined as resolution of peripancreatic fluid collection with percutaneous drainage and additional manipulations (i.e., tube repositioning, additional catheter drainage) and no surgical débridement. Multifactor logistic regression analysis was used to identify predictors of drain failure. Between January 2001 and February 2009, 365 patients underwent distal pancreatectomy. Of these, 51 patients (14%; 25 men, 26 women; mean age, 53.4 years; range, 18-81 years) underwent 57 CT-guided percutaneous procedures for drainage of postsurgical peripancreatic fluid collection. The mean interval between surgery and drainage was 23.5 days (median, 17 days; range, 2-120 days), and the mean collection size was 7.3 cm in transverse dimension (median, 6.9 cm; range, 2.3-16 cm). The mean duration of catheter drainage was 39.7 days (median, 24 days; range, 3-220 days). The technical success rate was 100%, primary clinical success rate was 60%, and primary and secondary clinical success rates together were 95%. Three of the 51 patients (6%) needed surgery for definitive management of the collection. One of 51 patients (2%) had a complication of the interventional radiologic procedure. Catheter size and the need for additional catheter manipulation were significantly associated with drainage failure (p < 0.05). Catheter drainage of peripancreatic fluid collections after distal pancreatectomy is a technically safe and clinically effective procedure. Although extra manipulations may be needed to achieve clinical success, the combined primary and secondary clinical success rates are high.

Langevin Particle: A Self‐Adaptive Lagrangian Primitive for Flow Simulation Enhancement

AbstractWe develop a new Lagrangian primitive, named Langevin particle, to incorporate turbulent flow details in fluid simulation. A group of the particles are distributed inside the simulation domain based on a turbulence energy model with turbulence viscosity. A particle in particular moves obeying the generalized Langevin equation, a well known stochastic differential equation that describes the particle's motion as a random Markov process. The resultant particle trajectory shows self‐adapted fluctuation in accordance to the turbulence energy, while following the global flow dynamics. We then feed back Langevin forces to the simulation based on the stochastic trajectory, which drive the flow with necessary turbulence. The new hybrid flow simulation method features nonrestricted particle evolution requiring minimal extra manipulation after initiation. The flow turbulence is easily controlled and the total computational overhead of enhancement is minimal based on typical fluid solvers.