3D-Mapping and Manipulation of Photocurrent in an Optoelectronic Diamond Device.

Establishing connections between material impurities and charge transport properties in emerging electronic and quantum materials, such as wide-bandgap semiconductors, demands new diagnostic methods tailored to these unique systems. Many such materials host optically-active defect centers which offer a powerful in situ characterization system, but one that typically relies on the weak spin-electric field coupling to measure electronic phenomena. In this work, charge-state sensitive optical microscopy is combined with photoelectric detection of an array of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers to directly image the flow of charge carriers inside a diamond optoelectronic device, in 3D and with temporal resolution.

BPP: a platform for automatic biochemical pathway prediction.

A biochemical pathway consists of a series of interconnected biochemical reactions to accomplish specific life activities. The participating reactants and resultant products of a pathway, including gene fragments, proteins, and small molecules, coalesce to form a complex reaction network. Biochemical pathways play a critical role in the biochemical domain as they can reveal the flow of biochemical reactions in living organisms, making them essential for understanding life processes.

INCAWrapper: a Python wrapper for INCA for seamless data import, -export, and -processing.

Motivation: INCA is a powerful tool for metabolic flux analysis, however, import and export of data and results can be tedious and limit the use of INCA in automated workflows.

Results: The INCAWrapper enables the use of INCA purely through Python, which allows the use of INCA in common data science workflows.

Availability And Implementation: The INCAWrapper is implemented in Python and can be found at https://github.

Percutaneous microwave ablation of T1a renal cell carcinomas: A 10-year single-center retrospective review.

Introduction: Partial nephrectomy is currently the preferred treatment option for T1a renal cell carcinomas (RCC), with nephron-sparing techniques, including microwave ablation, becoming more common in select patients. Primary aims are to document outcomes of microwave ablation for T1a RCCs in an Australian tertiary centre to add to the evidence for its safety and efficacy.

Methods: The prospectively maintained Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital Interventional Radiology database was retrospectively searched for all Renal Microwave ablations completed between June 2012 and February 2022.

Extreme Dewetting Resistance and Improved Visible Transmission of Ag Layers Using Sub-Nanometer Ti Capping Layers.

As technology development drives the thickness of thin film depositions down into the nano regime, understanding and controlling the dewetting of thin films has become essential for many applications. The dewetting of ultra-thin Ag (9 nm) films with Ti (0.5 nm) adhesion and capping layers on glass substrates was investigated in this work.

In Search of Disentanglement in Tandem Mass Spectrometry Datasets.

Generative modeling and representation learning of tandem mass spectrometry data aim to learn an interpretable and instrument-agnostic digital representation of metabolites directly from MS/MS spectra. Interpretable and instrument-agnostic digital representations would facilitate comparisons of MS/MS spectra between instrument vendors and enable better and more accurate queries of large MS/MS spectra databases for metabolite identification. In this study, we apply generative modeling and representation learning using variational autoencoders to understand the extent to which tandem mass spectra can be disentangled into their factors of generation (e.

Axo-glial interactions between midbrain dopamine neurons and oligodendrocyte lineage cells in the anterior corpus callosum.

Oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) receive synaptic innervation from glutamatergic and GABAergic axons and can be dynamically regulated by neural activity, resulting in activity-dependent changes in patterns of axon myelination. However, it remains unclear to what extent other types of neurons may innervate OPCs. Here, we provide evidence implicating midbrain dopamine neurons in the innervation of oligodendrocyte lineage cells in the anterior corpus callosum and nearby white matter tracts of male and female adult mice.

Monolayer Capping Provides Close to Optimal Resistance to Laser Dewetting of Au Films.

Next-generation heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) relies on fast, localized heating of the magnetic medium during the write process. Au plasmonic near-field transducers are an attractive solution to this challenge, but increased thermal stability of Au films is required to improve long-term reliability. This work compares the effect of nanoscale Al, AlO, and Ta capping films on Au thin films with Ti or Ta adhesion layers for use in HAMR and other high-temperature plasmonic applications.

An automated workflow for multi-omics screening of microbial model organisms.

Multi-omics datasets are becoming of key importance to drive discovery in fundamental research as much as generating knowledge for applied biotechnology. However, the construction of such large datasets is usually time-consuming and expensive. Automation might enable to overcome these issues by streamlining workflows from sample generation to data analysis.

Oral supplementation of nicotinamide riboside alters intestinal microbial composition in rats and mice, but not humans.

The gut microbiota impacts systemic levels of multiple metabolites including NAD precursors through diverse pathways. Nicotinamide riboside (NR) is an NAD precursor capable of regulating mammalian cellular metabolism. Some bacterial families express the NR-specific transporter, PnuC.

Automating the design-build-test-learn cycle towards next-generation bacterial cell factories.

Automation is playing an increasingly significant role in synthetic biology. Groundbreaking technologies, developed over the past 20 years, have enormously accelerated the construction of efficient microbial cell factories. Integrating state-of-the-art tools (e.

LAMP-enabled diagnosis of Kaposi's sarcoma for sub-Saharan Africa.

Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) is an endothelial cancer caused by the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) and is one of the most common cancers in sub-Saharan Africa. In limited-resource settings, traditional pathology infrastructure is often insufficient for timely diagnosis, leading to frequent diagnoses at advanced-stage disease where survival is poor. In this study, we investigate molecular diagnosis of KS performed in a point-of-care device to circumvent the limited infrastructure for traditional diagnosis.

MINI: A high-throughput point-of-care device for performing hundreds of nucleic acid tests per day.

There are a variety of infectious diseases with a high incidence and mortality in limited resource settings that could benefit from rapid point of care molecular diagnosis. Global health efforts have sought to implement mass-screening programs to provide earlier detection and subsequent treatment in an effort to control transmission and improve health outcomes. However, many of the current diagnostic technologies under development are limited to fewer than 10 samples per run, which inherently restricts the screening throughput of these devices.

Rapid nucleic acid extraction from skin biopsies using a point-of-care device.

Sample processing is often the rate-limiting step for point-of-care nucleic acid testing, especially for large, robust tissues such as skin biopsies, which can be used to diagnose a variety of dermatological diseases. Extraction of nucleic acids from these samples often relies on lengthy enzymatic digestions, increasing the time to result and reducing the potential impact of rapid molecular diagnostic approaches. To address this, we have developed BLENDER, a device for rapid nucleic acid extraction from tissue biopsies that combines bead-beating homogenization with simultaneous sample heating for enzymatic lysis.

Precision diagnostic approach to predict 5-year risk for microvascular complications in type 1 diabetes.

Background: Individuals with long standing diabetes duration can experience damage to small microvascular blood vessels leading to diabetes complications (DCs) and increased mortality. Precision diagnostic tailors a diagnosis to an individual by using biomedical information. Blood small molecule profiling coupled with machine learning (ML) can facilitate the goals of precision diagnostics, including earlier diagnosis and individualized risk scoring.

Room Temperature Fabrication of Macroporous Lignin Membranes for the Scalable Production of Black Silicon.

Rising global demand for biodegradable materials and green sources of energy has brought attention to lignin. Herein, we report a method for manufacturing standalone lignin membranes without additives for the first time to date. We demonstrate a scalable method for macroporous (∼100 to 200 nm pores) lignin membrane production using four different organosolv lignin materials under a humid environment (>50% relative humidity) at ambient temperatures (∼20 °C).

The State of Racial and Gender Diversity in Cardiothoracic Surgery Training.

Background: The field of cardiothoracic surgery has been striving to increase its gender and racial diversity. We sought to examine changes in gender and racial diversity in cardiothoracic fellowships and integrated residencies in the past decade.

Methods: Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education data were obtained from 2011 to 2019.

A Comprehensive Evaluation of Metabolomics Data Preprocessing Methods for Deep Learning.

Machine learning has greatly advanced over the past decade, owing to advances in algorithmic innovations, hardware acceleration, and benchmark datasets to train on domains such as computer vision, natural-language processing, and more recently the life sciences. In particular, the subfield of machine learning known as deep learning has found applications in genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. However, a thorough assessment of how the data preprocessing methods required for the analysis of life science data affect the performance of deep learning is lacking.

A Rapid, Isothermal, and Point-of-Care System for COVID-19 Diagnostics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound, detrimental effect on economies and societies worldwide. Where the pandemic has been controlled, extremely high rates of diagnostic testing for the SARS-CoV-2 virus have proven critical, enabling isolation of cases and contact tracing. Recently, diagnostic testing has been supplemented with wastewater measures to evaluate the degree to which communities have infections.

The association of hospital research publications and clinical quality.

Objective: To assess the quantity and impact of research publications among US acute care hospitals; to identify hospital characteristics associated with publication volumes; and to estimate the independent association of bibliometric indicators with Hospital Compare quality measures.

Data Sources: Hospital Compare; American Hospital Association Survey; Magnet Recognition Program; Science Citation Index Expanded.

Study Design: In cross-sectional studies using a 40% random sample of US Medicare-participating hospitals, we estimated associations of hospital characteristics with publication volumes and associations of hospital-linked bibliometric indicators with 19 Hospital Compare quality metrics.

Dichotomy between the humoral and cellular responses elicited by mRNA and adenoviral vector vaccines against SARS-CoV-2.

Background: Protection from severe disease and hospitalization by SARS-CoV-2 vaccination has been amply demonstrated by real-world data. However, the rapidly evolving pandemic raises new concerns. One pertains efficacy of adenoviral vector-based vaccines, particularly the single-dose Ad26.

Dichotomy between the humoral and cellular responses elicited by mRNA and adenoviral vector vaccines against SARS-CoV-2.

Protection from severe disease and hospitalization by SARS-CoV-2 vaccination has been amply demonstrated by real-world data. However, the rapidly evolving pandemic raises new concerns. One pertains efficacy of adenoviral vector-based vaccines, particularly the single-dose Ad26.