4D Printed Protein-AuNR Nanocomposites with Photothermal Shape Recovery.

4D printing is the 3D printing of objects that change chemically or physically in response to an external stimulus over time. Photothermally responsive shape memory materials are attractive for their ability to undergo remote activation. While photothermal methods using gold nanorods (AuNRs) have been used for shape recovery, 3D patterning of these materials into objects with complex geometries using degradable materials has not been addressed.

Plexcitonic Nanorattles as Highly Efficient SERS-Encoded Tags.

Plexcitonic nanoparticles exhibit strong light-matter interactions, mediated by localized surface plasmon resonances, and thereby promise potential applications in fields such as photonics, solar cells, and sensing, among others. Herein, these light-matter interactions are investigated by UV-visible and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopies, supported by finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) calculations. Our results reveal the importance of combining plasmonic nanomaterials and J-aggregates with near-zero-refractive index.

Accounting for extra-binomial variability with differentially expressed genetic pathway data: a collaborative bioinformatic study.

We describe a collaborative project involving faculty and students in a university bioinformatics/biostatistics center. The project focuses on identification of differentially expressed gene sets ("pathways") in subjects expressing a disease state, medical intervention, or other distinguishable condition. The key feature of the endeavor is the data structure presented to the team: a single cohort of subjects with two samples taken from each subject - one for each of two differing conditions without replication.

'Single-subject studies'-derived analyses unveil altered biomechanisms between very small cohorts: implications for rare diseases.

Motivation: Identifying altered transcripts between very small human cohorts is particularly challenging and is compounded by the low accrual rate of human subjects in rare diseases or sub-stratified common disorders. Yet, single-subject studies (S3) can compare paired transcriptome samples drawn from the same patient under two conditions (e.g.

Outcomes after hepatic encephalopathy in population-based cohorts of patients with cirrhosis.

Background: Hepatic encephalopathy is a devastating complication of cirrhosis.

Aim: To describe the outcomes after developing hepatic encephalopathy among contemporary, aging patients.

Methods: We examined data for a 20% random sample of United States Medicare enrolees with cirrhosis and Part D prescription coverage from 2008 to 2014.