A biomarker of n−3 compliance in patients taking fish oil for rheumatoid arthritis

Dietary fish oil supplements have been shown to have benefits in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), other inflammatory diseases, and in cardiovascular disease. As with any medical advice, variability will exist with regard to adherence and consequent biochemical or pharmacophysiologic effects. The aim was to explore the utility of plasma phospholipid EPA as a measure of n−3 PUFA intake and response to standardized therapeutic advice given in an outpatient or office practice setting, to increase dietary n−3 PUFA, including a fish oil supplement. Patients with early RA were given verbal and written advice to alter their dietary n−3 PUFA intake, including ingestion of 20 mL of bottled fish oil on juice daily. The advice included instructions to increase n−3 PUFA and to avoid foods rich in n−6 PUFA. Every 3 mon, blood samples were obtained for analysis of plasma phospholipid FA. Plasma phospholipid EPA was used as the primary index of n−3 PUFA intake. A diverse response was seen, with about one-third of patients achieving a substantial elevation of plasma phospholipid EPA over the 12-mon study period. A third had little change, with the remainder achieving intermediate levels. Data obtained longitudinally from individual patients indicated that substantial elevations of EPA (>5% total plasma phospholipid FA) could be maintained for more than 3 yr. Plasma phospholipid EPA is a convenient measure of adherence to advice to take a dietary n−3 PUFA-rich fish oil supplement. This measure may prove a useful adjunct to intention to treat analyses in determining the effect of dietary fish oil supplements on long-term outcomes in arthritis and other chronic inflammatory diseases. It may also provide a guide to the effectiveness of therapeutic and preventive messages designed to increase n−3 PUFA intake.     

Densification behavior of flash sintered boron suboxide

A study to quantify the flash sintering kinetics of boron suboxide (B₆O) under various electric field strengths and cut‐off amperages is presented. B₆O is conventionally sintered at a prolonged temperature above 1800°C, near its thermal decomposition temperature, with an overpressure >3 atm. By applying a direct current (DC) electric field across a green powder compact, B₆O can be sintered at 1000°C at atmospheric pressure. During the flash sintering process, an intensive radiation was emitted (electroluminescence), which is distinct from the thermal radiation (thermoluminescence) that is expected in conventional sintering. It was observed that the degree of sintering of the large B₆O specimen was heterogeneous due to apparent localization of electrically conducting paths. The material near the surface was sintered, but the core of the specimen was not. It was found that the flash event occurred at a critical temperature, which was obtained by combining external heating via ambient furnace conditions and internal Joule heating. The progressive densification behaviors of the B₆O are also presented.     

Bioinspired Nacre‐Like Ceramic with Nickel Inclusions Fabricated by Electroless Plating and Spark Plasma Sintering

Hybrid composites of layered brittle‐ductile constituents assembled in a brick‐and‐mortar architecture are promising for applications requiring high strength and toughness. Mostly, polymer mortars have been considered as the ductile layer in brick‐and‐mortar composites. However, low stiffness of polymers does not efficiently transfer the shear between hard ceramic bricks. Theoretical models point to metals as a more efficient mortar layer. However, infiltration of metals into ceramic scaffold is non‐trivial, given the low wetting between metals and ceramics. The authors report on an alternative approach to fabricate brick‐and‐mortar ceramic‐metal composites by using electroless plating of nickel (Ni) on alumina micro‐platelets, in which Ni‐coated micro‐platelets are subsequently aligned by a magnetic field, taking advantage of ferromagnetic properties of Ni. The assembled Ni‐coated ceramic scaffold is then sintered using spark plasma sintering (SPS) to locally create Ni mortar layers between ceramic platelets, as well as to sinter the ceramic micro‐platelets. The authors report on materials and mechanical properties of the fabricated composite. The results show that this approach is promising toward development of bioinspired ceramic‐metal composites.

     

Measuring computer software reliability

Under certain conditions, traditional hypothesis-testing techniques may be used as a management tool by software developers or software purchasers who wish to insure that their packages have some specified reliability level. These conditions are: (1) the existence of independent collections of test data, (2) a way of determining the correctness of processing of these collections, and (3) a way of randomly selecting test data.Two basic approaches have been described. In a fixed sample size test, the user decides on the reliability desired. He can then determine the number of test cases which must be examined and the acceptance/rejection criteria. In a sequential test, the desired reliability level is again pre-determined, but samples are tested one at a time until an accept/reject decision can be made.Experiments with a large amount of error data derived from six separate systems indicate that reliability results derived from these models are consistent with actual reliability figures.Most current acceptance procedures are based on a naive assumption that a large program can be exhaustively tested and delivered in an error-free condition. Because these expectations cannot be fulfilled, the manager of a software development project or the purchaser of a software product is provided with no quantitative information on which to base an acceptance decision and is thus forced to make these decisions based mostly on intuition and his own experience in similar situations. These models allow one to replace these intuition-based decisions with quantitatively-based decisions and thus constitute an important contribution to the science of management of software development efforts.     

Exploring mathematical approximation for the time spans of transfer operations in parcel transshipment terminals

The parcel delivery industry (PDI) is a very labor intensive industry, from the drivers of the pickup and delivery vans, to the unloaders, sorters, and loaders in the transshipment terminals. The labor efficiency is a key performance measure in the PDI. In this study, the focus is on developing a framework for improving labor efficiencies in a parcel transshipment terminal. The objective is to minimize the time required to transfer parcels from inbound trailers to outbound trailers. This paper is an exploratory study to developing a framework for a solution approach to solve large-scale parcel hub scheduling problems (PHSP). A binary integer programming (BIP) model is proposed along with a branch and bound (BaB) algorithm with lower and upper bounds. The computational study shows that the BaB algorithm is able to generate solutions for small-size problems. The proposed BIP model sets the ground work for developing solution approaches to much larger size problems.     

Managing lean DRC systems with demand uncertainty: an analytical approach

This paper considers a dual resource constrained manufacturing system with identical parallel work cells, which operates in an environment with demand uncertainty. The system is evaluated under the principles of lean manufacturing: zero lead times, zero inventories, and zero defects. The study shows that group-dispatching rules and labor assignment policies have a significant impact on manufacturing productivity. By properly managing the changeover-per-unit output ratios and operator assignments, the available capacity for value adding activities is increased and manufacturing cost is reduced. Results of an experiment show that labor requirements can be reduced from 5% to 46% and, machine utilization can be reduced from 2% to 14%.     

Laser-induced fluorescence ion diagnostics in light of plasma processing

A brief overview of non-perturbing light diagnostics is followed by recent examples of process plasma properties measured via laser-induced fluorescence (LIF), optical emission, and absorption spectroscopy. Examples include radical density measurement via absorption and emission spectroscopy. With LIF, examples show properties of ion beam etching sources and ion velocity angle variations in ICP sheaths near a process surface. Because of the wide range of process plasma parameters, appropriate choice of light diagnostics varies.     

Daunorubicin‐Loaded DNA Origami Nanostructures Circumvent Drug‐Resistance Mechanisms in a Leukemia Model

Many cancers show primary or acquired drug resistance due to the overexpression of efflux pumps. A novel mechanism to circumvent this is to integrate drugs, such as anthracycline antibiotics, with nanoparticle delivery vehicles that can bypass intrinsic tumor drug‐resistance mechanisms. DNA nanoparticles serve as an efficient binding platform for intercalating drugs (e.g., anthracyclines doxorubicin and daunorubicin, which are widely used to treat acute leukemias) and enable precise structure design and chemical modifications, for example, for incorporating targeting capabilities. Here, DNA nanostructures are utilized to circumvent daunorubicin drug resistance at clinically relevant doses in a leukemia cell line model. The fabrication of a rod‐like DNA origami drug carrier is reported that can be controllably loaded with daunorubicin. It is further directly verified that nanostructure‐mediated daunorubicin delivery leads to increased drug entry and retention in cells relative to free daunorubicin at equal concentrations, which yields significantly enhanced drug efficacy. Our results indicate that DNA origami nanostructures can circumvent efflux‐pump‐mediated drug resistance in leukemia cells at clinically relevant drug concentrations and provide a robust DNA nanostructure design that could be implemented in a wide range of cellular applications due to its remarkably fast self‐assembly (≈5 min) and excellent stability in cell culture conditions.     

Single-frequency 1310-nm AlGaInAs-InP grating-outcoupled surface-emitting lasers

Single-frequency 1310-nm grating-outcoupled surface-emitting (GSE) semiconductor lasers with output slope efficiencies exceeding 0.1 mW/mA into multimode fibers, threshold currents below 22 mA, and >30-dB sidemode suppression ratios are reported. These GSE lasers consist of 500-/spl mu/m-long active ridges that excite one end of surface-emitting second-order outcoupling gratings with 200-/spl mu/m-long first-order distributed Bragg reflector gratings terminating the laser cavities at both ends. The grating outcouplers range from 10 to 50 /spl mu/m in length. These lasers have an open eye pattern for nonreturn-to-zero signals at 2.5 Gb/s into single-mode fibers. The full-width half-maximum far-field beam divergences range from 1.5/spl deg/ /spl times/ 8/spl deg/ to 5/spl deg/ /spl times/ 8/spl deg/.