Using neural networks to calibrate agent based models enables improved regional evidence for vaccine strategy and policy.

Distribution and administration strategy are critical to successful population immunization efforts. Agent-based modeling (ABM) can reflect the complexity of real-world populations and can experimentally evaluate vaccine strategy and policy. However, ABMs historically have been limited in their time-to-development, long runtime, and difficulty calibrating.

Analyzing the Effect of Time in Migration Measurement Using Georeferenced Digital Trace Data.

Georeferenced digital trace data offer unprecedented flexibility in migration estimation. Because of their high temporal granularity, many migration estimates can be generated from the same data set by changing the definition parameters. Yet despite the growing application of digital trace data to migration research, strategies for taking advantage of their temporal granularity remain largely underdeveloped.

The inverted U-shaped effect of urban hotspots spatial compactness on urban economic growth.

The compact city, as a sustainable concept, is intended to augment the efficiency of urban function. However, previous studies have concentrated more on morphology than on structure. The present study focuses on urban structural elements, i.

Collecting Symptoms and Sensor Data With Consumer Smartwatches (the Knee OsteoArthritis, Linking Activity and Pain Study): Protocol for a Longitudinal, Observational Feasibility Study.

Background: The Knee OsteoArthritis, Linking Activity and Pain (KOALAP) study is the first to test the feasibility of using consumer-grade cellular smartwatches for health care research.

Objective: The overall aim was to investigate the feasibility of using consumer-grade cellular smartwatches as a novel tool to capture data on pain (multiple times a day) and physical activity (continuously) in patients with knee osteoarthritis. Additionally, KOALAP aimed to investigate smartwatch sensor data quality and assess whether engagement, acceptability, and user experience are sufficient for future large-scale observational and interventional studies.

Development of an eHealth System to Capture and Analyze Patient Sensor and Self-Report Data: Mixed-Methods Assessment of Potential Applications to Improve Cancer Care Delivery.

Background: Capturing and Analyzing Sensor and Self-Report Data for Clinicians and Researchers (COMPASS) is an electronic health (eHealth) platform designed to improve cancer care delivery through passive monitoring of patients' health status and delivering customizable reports to clinicians. Based on data from sensors and context-driven administration of patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures, key indices of patients' functional status can be collected between regular clinic visits, supporting clinicians in the delivery of patient care.

Objective: The first phase of this project aimed to systematically collect input from oncology providers and patients on potential clinical applications for COMPASS to refine the system.

Current CRISPR gene drive systems are likely to be highly invasive in wild populations.

Recent reports have suggested that self-propagating CRISPR-based gene drive systems are unlikely to efficiently invade wild populations due to drive-resistant alleles that prevent cutting. Here we develop mathematical models based on existing empirical data to explicitly test this assumption for population alteration drives. Our models show that although resistance prevents spread to fixation in large populations, even the least effective drive systems reported to date are likely to be highly invasive.

Sentiment, Contents, and Retweets: A Study of Two Vaccine-Related Twitter Datasets.

Introduction: Social media platforms are important channels through which health education about the utility and safety of vaccination is conducted.

Objective: To investigate if tweets with different sentiments toward vaccination and different contents attract different levels of Twitter users' engagement (retweets).

Methods: A stratified random sample (N = 1425) of 142,891 #vaccine tweets (February 4, 2010, to November 10, 2016) was manually coded.

Toward Impactful Collaborations on Computing and Mental Health.

We describe an initiative to bring mental health researchers, computer scientists, human-computer interaction researchers, and other communities together to address the challenges of the global mental ill health epidemic. Two face-to-face events and one special issue of the Journal of Medical Internet Research were organized. The works presented in these events and publication reflect key state-of-the-art research in this interdisciplinary collaboration.

Four ethical priorities for neurotechnologies and AI.

Artificial intelligence and brain-computer interfaces must respect and preserve people’s privacy, identity, agency and equality, say Rafael Yuste, Sara Goering and colleagues.

Fluorescence from Multiple Chromophore Hydrogen-Bonding States in the Far-Red Protein TagRFP675.

Far-red fluorescent proteins are critical for in vivo imaging applications, but the relative importance of structure versus dynamics in generating large Stokes-shifted emission is unclear. The unusually red-shifted emission of TagRFP675, a derivative of mKate, has been attributed to the multiple hydrogen bonds with the chromophore N-acylimine carbonyl. We characterized TagRFP675 and point mutants designed to perturb these hydrogen bonds with spectrally resolved transient grating and time-resolved fluorescence (TRF) spectroscopies supported by molecular dynamics simulations.

Protein-retention expansion microscopy of cells and tissues labeled using standard fluorescent proteins and antibodies.

Expansion microscopy (ExM) enables imaging of preserved specimens with nanoscale precision on diffraction-limited instead of specialized super-resolution microscopes. ExM works by physically separating fluorescent probes after anchoring them to a swellable gel. The first ExM method did not result in the retention of native proteins in the gel and relied on custom-made reagents that are not widely available.

What's Next for Gastrointestinal Disorders: No Needles?

A myriad of pathologies affect the gastrointestinal tract, citing this affected area as a significant target for therapeutic intervention. One group of therapeutic agents, antisense and oligonucleotides and small interfering RNAs, offer a promising platform for treating a wide variety of diseases ranging from cancer to auto-immune diseases. Current delivery methods are carried out either systemically or locally into diseased areas, both of which involve needles.

Time-of-Flight Microwave Camera.

Microwaves can penetrate many obstructions that are opaque at visible wavelengths, however microwave imaging is challenging due to resolution limits associated with relatively small apertures and unrecoverable "stealth" regions due to the specularity of most objects at microwave frequencies. We demonstrate a multispectral time-of-flight microwave imaging system which overcomes these challenges with a large passive aperture to improve lateral resolution, multiple illumination points with a data fusion method to reduce stealth regions, and a frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) receiver to achieve depth resolution. The camera captures images with a resolution of 1.

DNA construction: homemade or ordered out?

Automation and optimization of DNA construction results in the efficient production of large target sequences.