Diphenylcyclopropenone (DPCP) is widely considered the most effective topical immunotherapy for refractory or extensive alopecia areata (AA), but questions regarding how long to try DPCP therapy ...before terminating and what factors are prognostic of therapeutic success still remain unanswered. In this retrospective study of 50 AA patients, we evaluated DPCP efficacy and identified patient factors predictive of therapeutic success/failure. The median duration of DPCP treatment was 3 years, with 47% patients experiencing their first regrowth in the first 6 months of DPCP therapy, 20% between 6 months–1 year, and 8% between 1–2 years. In our study, treatment success, defined as ≥50% terminal hair regrowth, was reached in 71% of alopecia totalis patients and in 56% of alopecia universalis patients. Three factors were statistically significant predictors of poor treatment outcome—extent of hair loss before DPCP treatment, history of thyroid disease, and extent of body hair involvement. Relapse was observed in 44% of patients and significantly associated with history of thyroid disease. Common side effects were itching, rash, and local lymphadenopathy. The results of this study support our belief that DPCP therapy is a viable treatment option, can be successfully accomplished at home, and should not be terminated before 2 years.
Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) flare and post-chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) metal thickness are two main manufacturability concerns that introduce critical dimension distortions in nanometer process ...technology. Dummification, the addition of dummy patterns, is an effective technique to address the two concerns. However, while the two dummification objectives are competing in nature, existing works only tackle them separately, leading to problem-prone solutions because optimizing one would unavoidably deteriorate the other. This paper presents a new and effective method that simultaneously considers both concerns during dummification. Manufacturing sensitivity toward the two concerns are taken into account with a user-specified evaluation model adaptive to the adopted technology. Given the point spread function of a system and the evaluation model, our proposed two-stage method is able to find at the first stage an initial dummy assignment with better EUV flare uniformity than that obtained by a previous quasi-inverse method. With the initial assignment as the starting point, the gradient-guided optimization is then adopted to iteratively refine dummy distribution toward improved CMP quality. Experimental results on industrial test cases show the effectiveness of our method.
Differentiation of stem and progenitor cells routinely relies on the application of soluble growth factors, an approach that enables temporal control of cell fate but enables no spatial control of ...the differentiation process. Angiogenic progenitor cells derived from mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) were differentiated here according to the pattern of immobilized vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF). Mouse ESCs engineered to express green fluorescent protein (eGFP) under control of promoter for the receptor tyrosine kinase Flk1 were used. The Flk1+ angiogenic progenitors were selected from day 3 differentiating embryoid bodies based on their expression of eGFP using fluorescence activated cell sorting. Mouse VEGF
165 was covalently immobilized onto collagen IV (ColIV) using 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDC) chemistry. A non-cell adhesive layer of photocrosslinkable chitosan was first created, after which VEGF–ColIV was stamped as 100
μm wide lanes on top of the chitosan layer and the Flk1+ angiogenic progenitors were seeded for site-specific differentiation. Lanes stamped with only ColIV served as controls. The results presented here demonstrate that the cultivation of Flk1+ progenitors on surfaces with immobilized VEGF yielded primarily endothelial cells (53
±
13% CD31 positive and 17
±
2% smooth muscle actin positive), whereas surfaces without VEGF favored vascular smooth muscle-like cell differentiation (26
±
17% CD31 positive and 38
±
9% smooth muscle actin positive).
Monetizing Your Data Andrew Roman Wells, Kathy Williams Chiang
2017, 2017-02-27, 2017-02-23, 2017.
eBook
Transforming data into revenue generating strategies and actions Organizations are swamped with data—collected from web traffic, point of sale systems, enterprise resource planning systems, and more, ...but what to do with it? Monetizing your Data provides a framework and path for business managers to convert ever-increasing volumes of data into revenue generating actions through three disciplines: decision architecture, data science, and guided analytics. There are large gaps between understanding a business problem and knowing which data is relevant to the problem and how to leverage that data to drive significant financial performance. Using a proven methodology developed in the field through delivering meaningful solutions to Fortune 500 companies, this book gives you the analytical tools, methods, and techniques to transform data you already have into information into insights that drive winning decisions. Beginning with an explanation of the analytical cycle, this book guides you through the process of developing value generating strategies that can translate into big returns. The companion website, www.monetizingyourdata.com, provides templates, checklists, and examples to help you apply the methodology in your environment, and the expert author team provides authoritative guidance every step of the way. This book shows you how to use your data to: * Monetize your data to drive revenue and cut costs * Connect your data to decisions that drive action and deliver value * Develop analytic tools to guide managers up and down the ladder to better decisions Turning data into action is key; data can be a valuable competitive advantage, but only if you understand how to organize it, structure it, and uncover the actionable information hidden within it through decision architecture and guided analytics. From multinational corporations to single-owner small businesses, companies of every size and structure stand to benefit from these tools, methods, and techniques; Monetizing your Data walks you through the translation and transformation to help you leverage your data into value creating strategies.
Solid cancer tumors are thought to arise from aberrant stem cell populations, called cancer stem cells (CSCs). Hence, the development of effective cancer therapies may rely on developing methods that ...specifically target these cells. However, the scarcity of CSCs in vivo represents a major impediment to such research, as there is an insufficient supply for basic biochemical and genetic analyses. It is therefore necessary to develop methods to expand reproducibly CSC tissue in vitro in a controlled environment. To date, we have developed bioreactor protocols for the suspension culture of an aggressive and deadly type of brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Human GBM-derived cells achieved a maximum cell density of 2.4 x 10(6) cells/mL after 24 days under high shear conditions in batch culture conditions. In comparison, fed-batch cultures achieved 4.5 x 10(6) cells/mL after 32 days. Characterization of bioreactor-expanded cells using both flow cytometry and a differentiation assay indicated that bioreactor-generated human GBM-derived cells have similar characteristics to the initial cell population and achieve >90% CD133 expression. Additionally, genomic characterization indicated that a very small number of key genes were differentially expressed in the bioreactor-expanded GBM-derived cells, thereby conserving the basic nature of the brain cancer tissue in the cell expansion process.
Stem Cell-Based Cardiac Tissue Engineering Nunes, Sara S.; Song, Hannah; Chiang, C. Katherine ...
Journal of cardiovascular translational research,
10/2011, Letnik:
4, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide, and cell-based therapies represent a potential cure for patients with cardiac diseases such as myocardial infarction, heart failure, ...and congenital heart diseases. Towards this goal, cardiac tissue engineering is now being investigated as an approach to support cell-based therapies and enhance their efficacy. This review focuses on the latest research in cardiac tissue engineering based on the use of embryonic, induced pluripotent, or adult stem cells. We describe different strategies such as direct injection of cells and/or biomaterials as well as direct replacement therapies with tissue mimics. In this regard, the latest research has shown promising results demonstrating the improvement of cardiac function with different strategies. It is clear from recent studies that the most important consideration to be addressed by new therapeutic strategies is long-term functional improvement. For this goal to be realized, novel and efficient methods of cell delivery are required that enable high cell retention, followed by electrical integration and mechanical coupling of the injected cells or the engineered tissue to the host myocardium.
To increase the density of magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) beyond the 1T1MTJ MRAM cell in use today, the design space for 1S1MTJ MRAM array is analyzed by cooptimizing both selectors and ...MTJs. Current low-resistance MTJs for 1T1MTJ MRAM are not suitable for 1S1MTJ MRAM. Threshold-type selectors would induce a strong read disturb on the MTJ due to the snapback voltage (VTH-VHOLD) when the selector is turned on. Also, exponential-typeselectors would degrade the read margin (RM) due to its large ON-state resistance. When using existing selectors to achieve a 1-M-bit 1S1MTJ array, it is necessary to adjust the product of resistance and area(RA) and the diameter of the MTJ. An MTJ with the RA = 15 Ω · μm 2 and the diameter = 50 nm can meet the criterion of RM > 10% for both exponential-type selectors (exponential slope = 300-500 mV/decade with the current density ~ 1 MA/cm 2 ) and threshold-type selectors (VTH-VHOLD ~ 250 mV). A design space accommodating a selector variation of around 1% can be found for MTJs with tunnel magnetoresistance ratio (TMR) <; 250%. With an increased TMR of 250%-350% of the MTJ, the tolerance of variations for exponential-type selectors and threshold-type selectors can be improved to 2% and 4%, respectively. This provides a chance for the 1S1MTJ MRAM with existing selectors.
Henkin quantifiers, when applied on Boolean formulae, yielding the so-called dependency quantified Boolean formulae (DQBFs), offer succinct descriptive power specifying variable dependencies. Despite ...their natural applications to games with incomplete information, logic synthesis with constrained input dependencies, etc., DQBFs remain a relatively unexplored subject however. This paper investigates their basic properties, including formula negation and complement, formula expansion, prenex and non-prenex form conversions, and resolution. In particular, the proposed DQBF formulation is established from a synthesis perspective concerned with Skolem-function models and Herbrand-function countermodels. Also a generalized resolution rule is shown to be sound, but incomplete, for DQBF evaluation.
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