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Technological advances, artificial intelligence innovations, and widespread computing have all combined to necessitate a new generation of knowledge workers where data becomes a ubiquitous part of decision making (Sutton, 2006). Teaching today's students through the application of this "new" knowledge to long-established fields represents a key opportunity for innovation, improvement, and progress (Vasisht, et al., 2017). The authors present here their experience, and the accompanying materials developed, while working with high school students in a setting that intentionally combined "new" knowledge--derived from high-tech sensors and aerial imagery captured by a drone--with the longstanding practices and traditions of irrigation in agriculture. In this lesson, they teamed up with a local teacher and several students attending a rural high school to develop materials related to aerial imagery collected from an agricultural drone and an associated design challenge aimed at reducing water waste in irrigation practices. To introduce students to data and help them understand the imagery provided by drones in agricultural applications, the authors introduced them to the sensors involved, the image acquisition process, the data processing performed, and visualization techniques prior to them flying the drone. Although, like many of the existing drone software packages, the software utilized by the students in this scenario (FieldAgent) performed many data-processing and visualization steps automatically, they felt it was important to help students understand both the technology involved and the imaging pipeline prior to interpreting the data and utilizing their findings to inform their design decision making while attempting to devise solutions to reduce water waste in irrigation. They believe this emphasis on both data acquisition and application is important for influencing the students' designing and introduction to data-driven decision making.

Mechanisms mediating vascular calcification remain incompletely understood. Nanometer scale objects hypothesized to be a type of bacteria (nanobacteria) are associated with calcified geological specimens, human kidney stones, and psammona bodies in ovarian cancer. Experiments were designed to evaluate human vascular tissue for the presence of similar nanometer-scale objects. Calcified human aneurysms (n = 8), carotid plaques (n = 2), femoral arterial plaques (n = 2), and cardiac valves (n = 2) and noncalcified aneurysms from patients with bicuspid aortic valve disease (n = 2) were collected as surgical waste from the Heart Hospital of Austin, Austin, Texas, and Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. Whole mounts or adjacent sections from each specimen were examined by electron microscopy, stained for calcium phosphate, or stained with a commercially available antibody (8D10). Filtered (0.2 [micro]m) homogenates of aneurysms were cultured and costained with 8D10 antibody followed by PicoGreen to detect DNA or incubated with [[sup.3]H]uridine. Staining for calcium phosphate was heterogeneously distributed within all calcifed tissues. Immunological staining with 8D10 was also heterogeneously distributed in areas with and without calcium phosphate. Analysis of areas with positive immunostaining identified spheres ranging in size from 30 to 100 nm with a spectral pattern of calcium and phosphorus (high-energy dispersive spectroscopy). Nanosized particles cultured from calcified but not from noncalcified aneurysms were recognized by a DNA-specific dye and incorporated radiolabeled uridine, and, after decalcification, they appeared via electron microscopy to contain cell walls. Therefore, nanometer-scale particles similar to those described as nanobacteria isolated from geological specimens and human kidney stones can be visualized in and cultured from calcified human cardiovascular tissue. aneurysm; chlamydia; infection; inflammation; nanobacteria

A study was conducted to analyze the alteration of specific virulence traits related to phenotypic changes seen when a low-passage disease-associated and well maintained parent strain of Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans was compared against a laboratory-growth spontaneous variant/mutant. Results indicated that clinical isolates of A actinomycetemomitans undergo virulence-reducing phenotypic alterations during in vitro passage.

Background: Nano-sized complexes of calcium phosphate mineral and proteins (calcifying nanoparticles [CNPs]) serve as mineral chaperones. Thus, CNPs may be both a result and cause of soft tissue calcification processes. This study determined if CNPs could augment calcification of arterial vascular smooth muscle cells in vitro., Methods: CNPs 210 nm in diameter were propagated in vitro from human serum. Porcine aortic smooth muscle cells were cultured for up to 28 days in medium in the absence (control) or presence of 2 mM phosphate ([P] positive calcification control) or after a single 3-day exposure to CNPs. Transmission electron-microscopy was used to characterize CNPs and to examine their cellular uptake. Calcium deposits were visualized by light microscopy and von Kossa staining and were quantified by colorimetry. Cell viability was quantified by confocal microscopy of live-/dead-stained cells and apoptosis was examined concurrently by fluorescent labeling of exposed phosphatidylserine., Results: CNPs, as well as smaller calcium crystals, were observed by transmission electron-microscopy on day 3 in CNP-treated but not P-treated cells. By day 28, calcium deposits were visible in similar amounts within multicellular nodules of both CNP- and P-treated cells. Apoptosis increased with cell density under all treatments. CNP treatment augmented the density of apoptotic bodies and cellular debris in association with mineralized multicellular nodules., Conclusion: Exogenous CNPs are taken up by aortic smooth muscle cells in vitro and potentiate accumulation of smooth-muscle-derived apoptotic bodies at sites of mineralization. Thus, CNPs may accelerate vascular calcification.

Fibrillar collagen serves as a thrombogenic surface for platelet adhesion mediated by von Willebrand factor (vWf) at high shear. Although abundant throughout the arterial wall, vWf-dependent platelet deposition to artery cross-sections from perfused citrated blood is localized to the adventitia of the vessel wall. Here we describe a similarly skewed distribution of vWf-binding sites in artery cross-sections. Binding of vWf-coated fluorescent beads, as well as detection of plasma vWf bound to artery cross-section at 3350 s(-1) shear rate with indirect particle-immunofluorescence or immunoelectron microscopy demonstrate vWf binding sites in the adventitia, but not in the media. A monoclonal anti-vWf antibody that interferes with vWf-binding to collagen in a microplate ELISA inhibits vWf-binding to both the adventitia and sections of collagen fibrils. Our data suggest that the media, despite its fibrillar collagen content, evidenced by electron microscopy, is defective for vWf-binding, which may explain its thromboresistant nature at high shear rates.