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Steven Weiss,1 Muhammad Qureshi2 1Quality and Support Services, Atlantic Dialysis Management Services, Ridgewood, New York, USA; 2Clinical Research, Mattoo & Bhat Medical Associates, P.C., College Point, New York, USACorrespondence: Steven WeissQuality and Support Services, Atlantic Dialysis Management Services, 385 Seneca Ave, Ridgewood, NY, 11385, USATel +1 347-512-9090Fax +1 718-366-2936Email sweiss@atlanticdialysis.comPurpose: Central line-associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) is the second leading cause of death in hemodialysis patients. Patients dialyzed via central venous catheters (CVCs) are more susceptible to vascular access-related bloodstream infection (VRBSI), sepsis, and mortality when compared to patients with other dialysis accesses.Patients and Methods: A retrospective observational data analysis was conducted from 13 outpatient dialysis clinics in the United States to compare novel chlorhexidine-coated end caps to standard needlefree connectors for differences in CLABSI rates when utilizing CVCs for hemodialysis. There were two periods in this study: in the first study period over a 5-month period (May 2018 to September 2018), data were evaluated from a group of patients undergoing hemodialysis using chlorhexidine end-caps (‘chlorhexidine group’) as well as a group using standard needlefree connectors (‘standard group’). An initial assessment found that a substantial CLABSI rate reduction was seen with use of chlorhexidine-coated end caps; therefore, most patients were switched to chlorhexidine by February 2019 and data continued to be collected till June 2019. The second study period spanned 9 months from October 2018 to June 2019.Results: Across 13 dialysis centers, anonymized health records of 5934 patients who were dialyzed via CVCs between May 2018 and June 2019 were analyzed. The mean age was 61.3 and 47.1% of all patients were female. Study period one included 967 patients with chlorhexidine and 1044 patients with standard end caps, while there were 3647 chlorhexidine and 276 standard patients in the second period. The combined CLABSI rate in the chlorhexidine group was 0.09/1000 CVC days versus 0.63/1000 CVC days in the standard group (p< 0.0001).Conclusion: Chlorhexidine-coated CVC caps may provide a therapeutic improvement in CVC hemodialysis management.Keywords: catheter-related infection, renal dialysis, quality improvement, infection control, chronic kidney failure, chlorhexidine-coated CVC caps

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Modeling realistic human skin with pores and wrinkles down to the milli‐ and micrometer resolution is a challenging task. Prior work showed that such micro geometry can be efficiently generated through simulation methods, or in specialized cases via 3D scanning of real skin. Simulation methods allow to highly customize the wrinkles on the face, but can lead to a synthetic look. Scanning methods can lead to a more organic look for the micro details, however these methods are only applicable to small skin patches due to the required image resolution. In this work we aim to overcome the gap between synthetic simulation and real skin scanning, by proposing a method that can be applied to large skin regions (e.g. an entire face) with the controllability of simulation and the organic look of real micro details. Our method is based on style transfer at its core, where we use scanned displacement maps of real skin patches as style images and displacement maps from an artist‐friendly simulation method as content images. We build a library of displacement maps as style images by employing a simplified scanning setup that can capture high‐resolution patches of real skin. To create the content component for the style transfer and to facilitate parameter‐tuning for the simulation, we design a library of preset parameter values depicting different skin types, and present a new method to fit the simulation parameters to scanned skin patches. This allows fully‐automatic parameter generation, interpolation and stylization across entire faces. We evaluate our method by generating realistic skin micro details for various subjects of different ages and genders, and demonstrate that our approach achieves a more organic and natural look than simulation alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sneha Mahalunkar,1 Amit Singh Yadav,2 Mahadeo Gorain,2 Vinay Pawar,3,4 Ranveig Braathen,5,6 Siegfried Weiss,3 Bjarne Bogen,5,6 Suresh W Gosavi,7 Gopal C Kundu2 1School of Basic Medical Science, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune 411007, Maharashtra, India; 2Laboratory of Tumor Biology, Angiogenesis and Nanomedicine Research, National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune 411007, India; 3Institute of Immunology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany; 4Department of Molecular Bacteriology, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Braunschweig, Germany; 5K.G. Jebsen Centre for Influenza Vaccines Research, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; 6Oslo University Hospital, Oslo 0027, Norway; 7Department of Physics, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune 411007, Maharashtra, IndiaCorrespondence: Gopal C KunduLaboratory of Tumor Biology, Angiogenesis and Nanomedicine Research, National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune 411007, IndiaTel +91 202 570 8104Fax +91 202 569 2259Email kundu@nccs.res.in Suresh W GosaviDepartment of Physics, Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune 411007, Maharashtra, IndiaTel +91 202 569 2678Fax +91 202 569 1684Email swg@physics.unipune.ac.inBackground: Curcumin has been widely used owing to its various medicinal properties including antitumor effects. However, its clinical application is limited by its instability, poor solubility and low bioavailability. Folic acid (FA)-functionalized nanoformulations may enhance the sustained release of an anticancer drug (curcumin) by tumor-specific targeting to improve therapeutic benefit. This study aims to design a nanoconjugate (NC) comprised of folate–curcumin-loaded gold–polyvinylpyrrolidone nanoparticles (FA–CurAu-PVP NPs) for targeted delivery in breast cancer model systems.Methods: We developed curcumin-loaded FA-functionalized Au-PVP NCs by layer-by-layer assembly. The folic acid–curcumin Au-PVP NCs (FA–CurAu-PVP NCs) were characterized by ultraviolet–visible spectra, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction and thermogravimetric analysis. In vitro anticancer and antimigratory effects of NCs were examined by performing MTT and wound migration assays. The in vivo antitumor efficacy of NCs was investigated using a preclinical breast cancer orthotopic mouse model.Results: Curcumin (40 μg/mL) was loaded along with conjugation of folate onto Au-PVP NPs to form FA–CurAu-PVP NCs. The size and charge of the NCs were increased gradually through layer-by-layer assembly and showed 80% release of curcumin at acidic pH. The NC did not show aggregation when incubated with human serum and mimicked an intrinsic peroxidase-like property in the presence of 3,3ʹ,5,5ʹ-tetramethylbenzidine substrate. The MTT data using these NCs showed efficient anticancer activity at lower doses in estrogen/progesterone receptor (ER/PR)-negative cells compared with ER/PR-positive cells. Furthermore, the NCs did not show cytotoxicity at the investigated concentration in human breast epithelial and mouse fibroblast cell lines. They showed inhibitory effects on cell migration and high antitumor efficacy in in vivo analysis.Conclusion: These results suggest that folate-based tumor targeting using CurAu-PVP NCs is a promising approach for tumor-specific therapy of breast cancer without harming normal cells.Keywords: curcumin, gold nanoconjugate, folic acid, breast cancer cell line, cytotoxic activity

We present the requirements, design, and evaluation of the cryogenic continuously rotating half-wave plate (CHWP) for the Simons Observatory (SO). SO is a cosmic microwave background polarization experiment at Parque Astronómico de Atacama in northern Chile that covers a wide range of angular scales using both small (⌀ 0.42 m) and large (⌀ 6 m) aperture telescopes. In particular, the small aperture telescopes (SATs) focus on large angular scales for primordial B-mode polarization. To this end, the SATs employ a CHWP to modulate the polarization of the incident light at 8 Hz, suppressing atmospheric 1/f noise and mitigating systematic uncertainties that would otherwise arise due to the differential response of detectors sensitive to orthogonal polarizations. The CHWP consists of a 505 mm diameter achromatic sapphire HWP and a cryogenic rotation mechanism, both of which are cooled down to ∼50 K to reduce detector thermal loading. Under normal operation, the HWP is suspended by a superconducting magnetic bearing and rotates with a constant 2 Hz frequency, controlled by an electromagnetic synchronous motor. We find that the number of superconductors and the number of magnets that make up the superconducting magnetic bearing are important design parameters, especially for the rotation mechanism's vibration performance. The rotation angle is detected through an angular encoder with a noise level of 0.07 μrad s . During a cooldown process, the rotor is held in place by a grip-and-release mechanism that serves as both an alignment device and a thermal path. In this paper, we provide an overview of the SO SAT CHWP: its requirements, hardware design, and laboratory performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity can be measured with a variety of methods including self-reports, others reports, and ability tests. While typical self-reports are best understood as weak proxies of creativity, biographical reports that assess previous creative activities seem more promising. Drawbacks of such measures – including skewed item distributions, a lack of measurement invariance across sex, and low convergent validity with established measures of creativity (such as divergent thinking tasks) – might be attributable to issues of item sampling. Therefore, we use a meta-heuristic algorithm (Ant Colony Optimization) to develop a short-scale of creative activities that a) maintains coverage of the original domains, b) provides good model fit, c) has good reliability, d) demonstrates balanced item difficulty, e) is measurement invariant across sex, and f) possesses convergent validity with divergent thinking. For an 8-item short version of the original Inventory of Creative Activities and Achievements, we identified an item set that satisfies the most pre-specified criteria using data from N = 296 adults. In a replication sample (N = 327) we replicate the findings and report good model fit, good reliability, adequate item difficulty, and measurement invariance across sex. We derive recommendations on the measurement of creative activities, and discuss implications for understanding creativity in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Christoph Schuhmacher,1 Johann Pratschke,2 Sascha Weiss,2 Stefan Schneeberger,2 André L Mihaljevic,1 Rebekka Schirren,1 Michael Winkler,3 Nikos Emmanouilidis3 1Department of Surgery, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany; 2Department of Visceral, Transplant, and Thoracic Surgery, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria; 3Department of General, Visceral, and Transplantation Surgery, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany Background: Continuous bleeding after using conventional hemostatic methods involving energy, sutures, or clips, is a serious and costly surgical complication. Many topical agents have been developed to promote intraoperative hemostasis, but improvement is needed in both decreasing time to hemostasis and increasing ease of use. Veriset™ hemostatic patch is CE-marked for controlling bleeding on the liver and in soft tissue. In the current study, we aimed to gather further evidence for the safety and effectiveness of Veriset™ hemostatic patch in soft tissue bleeding during a variety of surgical procedures. Methods: Thirty patients scheduled for nonemergency surgery, each with an intraoperative soft tissue bleeding site, were treated with Veriset™ hemostatic patch. Time to hemostasis was monitored, and adverse events were assessed during the 90 days after surgery. Results: When Veriset™ hemostatic patch was used, hemostasis occurred within 5 minutes in 29/30 (96.7%) subjects and within 1 minute in 21/30 (70.0%) subjects. No device-related serious adverse events were recorded during the 30 days after surgery, and no reoperations for device-related bleeding complications were performed during the 5 days after surgery. Conclusions: Veriset™ hemostatic patch is a safe and effective hemostat for controlling soft tissue bleeding during a variety of surgical procedures. Keywords: Veriset™ hemostatic patch, hemostasis, topical hemostat

We present a novel graph‐based simulation approach for generating micro wrinkle geometry on human skin, which can easily scale up to the micro‐meter range and millions of wrinkles. The simulation first samples pores on the skin and treats them as nodes in a graph. These nodes are then connected and the resulting edges become candidate wrinkles. An iterative optimization inspired by pedestrian trail formation is then used to assign weights to those edges, i.e., to carve out the wrinkles. Finally, we convert the graph to a detailed skin displacement map using novel shape functions implemented in graphics shaders. Our simulation and displacement map creation steps expose fine controls over the appearance at real‐time framerates suitable for interactive exploration and design. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the generated wrinkles by enhancing state‐of‐art 3D reconstructions of real human subjects with simulated micro wrinkles, and furthermore propose an artist‐driven design flow for adding micro wrinkles to fictional characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016, 43000 members of 159 wine cooperatives were growing wine on about 30% of the total German viticultural area. Those members have different origin, belong to different age groups, their business dispose over different sizes and business models, and all members have individual desires and interests. Thus, the task of the cooperative management and boards is to align the resulting heterogeneous individual aims and interests with the overall aims and interests of the cooperative. Hence the aim of the paper is to answer the question: How the heterogenous member interests can be aligned within the cooperative? In order to answer this question four in-depth expert interviews have been conducted.