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Acute liver failure (ALF) is associated with high mortality. Alterations in albumin structure and function have been shown to correlate with outcomes in cirrhosis. We undertook a biomolecular analysis of albumin to determine its correlation with hepatocellular injury and early mortality in ALF. Altogether, 225 participants (200 patients with ALF and 25 healthy controls [HC]) were enrolled. Albumin was purified from the baseline plasma of the training cohort (ALF, n = 40; survivors, n = 8; non-survivors, n = 32; and HC, n = 5); analysed for modifications, functionality, and bound multi-omics signatures; and validated in a test cohort (ALF, n = 160; survivors, n = 53; non-survivors, n = 107; and HC, n = 20). In patients with ALF, albumin is more oxidised and glycosylated with a distinct multi-omics profile than that in HC, more so in non-survivors (p <0.05). In non-survivors, albumin was more often bound (p <0.05, false discovery rate <0.01) to proteins associated with inflammation, advanced glycation end product, metabolites linked to arginine, proline metabolism, bile acid, and mitochondrial breakdown products. Increased bacterial taxa (Listeria , Clostridium , etc.) correlated with lipids (triglycerides [4:0/12:0/12:0] and phosphatidylserine [39:0]) and metabolites (porphobilinogen and nicotinic acid) in non-survivors (r2 >0.7). Multi-omics signature-based probability of detection for non-survival was >90% and showed direct correlation with albumin functionality and clinical parameters (r2 >0.85). Probability-of-detection metabolites built on the top five metabolites, namely, nicotinic acid, l -acetyl carnitine, l -carnitine, pregnenolone sulfate, and N -(3-hydroxybutanoyl)- l -homoserine lactone, showed diagnostic accuracy of 98% (AUC 0.98, 95% CI 0.95–1.0) and distinguish patients with ALF predisposed to early mortality (log-rank <0.05). On validation using high-resolution mass spectrometry and five machine learning algorithms in test cohort 1 (plasma and paired one-drop blood), the metabolome panel showed >92% accuracy/sensitivity and specificity for prediction of mortality. In ALF, albumin is hyperoxidised and substantially dysfunctional. Our study outlines distinct 'albuminome' signatures capable of distinguishing patients with ALF predisposed to early mortality or requiring emergency liver transplantation. Here, we report that the biomolecular map of albumin is distinct and linked to severity and outcome in patients with acute liver failure (ALF). Detailed structural, functional, and albumin-omics analysis in patients with ALF led to the identification and classification of albumin-bound biomolecules, which could segregate patients with ALF predisposed to early mortality. More importantly, we found albumin-bound metabolites indicative of mitochondrial damage and hyperinflammation as a putative indicator of <30-day mortality in patients with ALF. This preclinical study validates the utility of albuminome analysis for understanding the pathophysiology and development of poor outcome indicators in patients with ALF. [Display omitted] • Albumin is hyperoxidised and hyperglycated and shows reduced (60%) binding capacity in ALF. • Albumin biomolecular composition (bound multi-omics profile) is severely deranged and correlates with severity in ALF. • Albumin biomolecular integration highlights hyperinflammation and mitochondrial failure linked to non-survival in ALF. • Albumin-bound metabolome showed the highest diagnostic accuracy for the prediction of early mortality in ALF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Salters’ Hall controversy (1719) was a watershed event in the history of English Dissent. Some historians have interpreted the controversy as an early sign of the theological demise of the English General Baptists and the English Presbyterians. Conversely, the controversy has also been used to demonstrate the theological steadfastness of the English Particular Baptists and Congregationalist in the eighteenth century. Yet some of the earliest accounts of the Salters’ Hall controversy maintain that the controversy was not about the doctrine of the Trinity, but rather the requirement of subscription to extrabiblical words and phrases. This was the view of the revered divine Edmund Calamy, who refused to be involved in the controversy, even at the potential expense of his reputation. Edward Wallin, a Particular Baptist subscriber at Salters’ Hall, held a similar view of the controversy. While some historians acknowledge these accounts, they seem to ultimately doubt their truthfulness. This hesitancy is likely due, in part, to the fact that there were a few anti-Trinitarians among the nonsubscribers at Salters’ Hall. Furthermore, the English General Baptists and the English Presbyterians did deviate from theological orthodoxy later in the century. However, those who question the motives of the Non-subscribers at Salters’ Hall fail to take into account a theologically orthodox, nonsubscribing tradition among the English General Baptists and the English Presbyterians found in the writings of Thomas Grantham and Richard Baxter. In sum, one’s orthodoxy at Salters’ Hall cannot be determined solely on the basis of one’s view of subscription.

The actuator failure compensation control problem of robotic systems possessing dynamic uncertainties has been investigated in this paper. Control design against partial loss of effectiveness (PLOE) and total loss of effectiveness (TLOE) of the actuator are considered and described, respectively, and a disturbance observer (DO) using neural networks is constructed to attenuate the influence of the unknown disturbance. Regarding the prescribed error bounds as time-varying constraints, the control design method based on barrier Lyapunov function (BLF) is used to strictly guarantee both the steady-state performance and the transient performance. A simulation study on a two-link planar manipulator verifies the effectiveness of the proposed controllers in dealing with the prescribed performance, the system uncertainties, and the unknown actuator failure simultaneously. Implementation on a Baxter robot gives an experimental verification of our controller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BackgroundAlthough much is known about the effect of chronic kidney failure and dialysis on the composition of solutes in plasma, little is known about their impact on the composition of gaseous compounds in exhaled breath. This study was designed to explore the effect of uremia and the hemodialysis (HD) procedure on the composition of exhaled breath. Breath samples were collected from 10 dialysis patients immediately before, during, and after a dialysis session. To determine the potential introduction of gaseous compounds from dialysis components, gasses emitted from dialyzers, tubing set, dialysate, and water supplies were collected.Study designProspective cohort study.Participants10 HD patients and 10 age-matched healthy individuals.PredictorPredictors include the dialyzers, tubing set, dialysate, and water supplies before, during, and after dialysis.OutcomesChanges in the composition of exhaled breath.MeasurementsA 5-column/detector gas chromatography system was used to measure hydrocarbon, halocarbon, oxygenate, and alkyl nitrate compounds.ResultsConcentrations of 14 hydrocarbons and halocarbons in patients' breath rapidly increased after the onset of the HD treatment. All 14 compounds and 5 others not found in patients' breath were emitted from the dialyzers and tubing sets. Contrary to earlier reports, exhaled breath ethane concentrations in our dialysis patients were virtually unchanged during the HD treatment.LimitationsSingle-center study with a small sample size may limit the generalizability of the findings.ConclusionsThe study documented the release of several potentially toxic hydrocarbons and halocarbons to patients from the dialyzer and tubing sets during the HD procedure. Because long-term exposure to these compounds may contribute to the morbidity and mortality in dialysis population, this issue should be considered in the manufacturing of the new generation of dialyzers and dialysis tubing sets.

Drawing on the horror and dark side of knowledge, which is in discrete complicity with the rational and powerful bases of power-the present article focuses on Ian McEwan's novel Saturday (2005). The paper attempts to draw analogies between the two set of characters Apollonian and Dionysian embodied in Henry Perowne and Baxter respectively. Perowne represents Western privilege and Baxter stands for the evil outsider. The absolute stable order of Perowne's existence is challenged when he is involved in a car crash with a young man named Baxter who experiences violent mood swings as a symptom of Huntington's disease. Saturday too, like most Ian McEwan's novels engenders a tension between the two poles of human thought: doubt and faith, rational and intuitive, out of which this paper attempts to explore another facet of this dichotomy in the Nietzschean terminology of Apollonian and Dionysian spirit. By setting the novel in a single day in London, after 9/11 and during preparations for war in Iraq, McEwan affirms a constructivist theory of knowledge in literature where individuals and collectives (including novelists) participate in making up meaningful presents and liveable futures(a combination of two extremes of Apollonian and Dionysian). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-time grasp detection plays a key role in manipulation, and it is also a complex task, especially for detecting how to grasp novel objects. This paper proposes a very quick and accurate approach to detect robotic grasps. The main idea is to perform grasping of novel objects in a typical RGB-D scene view. Our goal is not to find the best grasp for every object but to obtain the local optimal grasps in candidate grasp rectangles. There are three main contributions to our detection work. Firstly, an improved graph segmentation approach is used to do objects detection and it can separate objects from the background directly and fast. Secondly, we develop a morphological image processing method to generate candidate grasp rectangles set which avoids us to search grasp rectangles globally. Finally, we train a random forest model to predict grasps and achieve an accuracy of 94.26%. The model is mainly used to score every element in our candidate grasps set and the one gets the highest score will be converted to the final grasp configuration for robots. For real-world experiments, we set up our system on a tabletop scene with multiple objects and when implementing robotic grasps, we control Baxter robot with a different inverse kinematics strategy rather than the built-in one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is mainly about the designation of a new type of haptic device and an asymmetric teleoperation robot system. Aiming at the problems of tracking and transparency of an asymmetric teleoperation system, a robust control algorithm based on a state observer was proposed. The Haptic Device was designed and was chosen as the master-robot of the system. The Baxter dual-arm robot was chosen as the slave-robot of the system. The simulation experiment of robust control based on a state observer of the asymmetric teleoperation robot was carried out. The experiment results showed that the maximum values of displacement tracking errors in three directions x, y, and z are 0.02 m, 0.01 m, and 0.015 m, respectively. Compared with single- joint PID control, the performance of the new control algorithm is improved. The force feedback experiment on the real asymmetric teleoperation robot system was carried out. The results showed that the force feedback wave is consistent with the actual situation and showed that the robust control algorithm proposed is superior to PID. Therefore, the algorithm perfectly satisfied the system. The experiment parameters also demonstrate that the haptic device satisfies the design requirements of the asymmetric teleoperation robots system and the industry standards.

Kalman filter has been successfully applied to fuse the motion capture data collected from Kinect sensor and a pair of MYO armbands to teleoperate a robot. A new strategy utilizing the vector approach has been developed to accomplish a specific motion capture task. The arm motion of the operator is captured by a Kinect sensor and programmed with Processing software. Two MYO armbands with the inertial measurement unit embedded are worn on the operator's arm, which is used to detect the upper arm motion of the human operator. This is utilized to recognize and to calculate the precise speed of the physical motion of the operator's arm. User Datagram Protocol is employed to send the human movement to a simulated Baxter robot arm for teleoperation. In order to obtain joint angles for human limb utilizing vector approach, RosPy and Python script programming has been utilized. A series of experiments have been conducted to test the performance of the proposed technique, which provides the basis for the teleoperation of simulated Baxter robot.

Entrepreneurship in the science-based industries is often the result of collective actions undergone by entrepreneurial groups. The origins of the biotech industry provide many examples. In the plasma protein industry, which has registered a continuous growth since 1910 and an accelerated process of mergers and acquisitions in the last decades, there are three leading corporations whose history reflects collective entrepreneurship: Baxter with headquarters in the United States (start 1931), CSL Behring in Australia (start 1916) and Grifols in Spain (start in plasma business in 1940). This article provides a historical overview of the industry and how the making of collective entrepreneurship allowed a challenger like Grifols, from a late industrialized country such as Spain, to cross entry barriers in the plasma industry, buy many of the pioneering corporations, and establish a global leadership position. This article argues that the long-term trust-based personal and professional relationships established by the entrepreneurial Spanish family lab, with managers from the US and Japanese corporations, produced a collective entrepreneurial hub of connections that made possible a long-term sustained process of innovation and globalization in a highly specialized biomedical industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores an opportunity to engage first-year engineering students in practice with a modern industrial robot Baxter and provides training in spatial skills. We developed a laboratory exercise in which the students operate the robot to perform spatial manipulations of objects. We implemented the exercise on a digital twin of Baxter in the Gazebo virtual environment. The digital twin was calibrated to mimic the physical properties of the Baxter and correctly simulate its spatial manipulations with oriented cubes. The exercise was delivered to a class of 25 students as part of the robotics workshop in the Introduction to Industrial Engineering course. We administered a postworkshop questionnaire with focus on the analysis of the learning outcomes and students' spatial difficulties. The students noted that the workshop and particularly the exercise effectively exposed them to industrial robotics and raised their spatial awareness in robot operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Del bestiario a la historia animal: el caso del simio

Some people object to realism about universals because they think that instantiation, the connection between something and the universals that characterize it, is too mysterious. Baxter and Armstrong try to make instantiation less mysterious by taking it to be a kind of partial identity. However, I argue that their accounts of instantiation, and any similar ones, fail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kalman filter has been successfully applied to fuse the motion capture data collected from Kinect sensor and a pair of MYO armbands to teleoperate a robot. A new strategy utilizing the vector approach has been developed to accomplish a specific motion capture task. The arm motion of the operator is captured by a Kinect sensor and programmed with Processing software. Two MYO armbands with the inertial measurement unit embedded are worn on the operator's arm, which is used to detect the upper arm motion of the human operator. This is utilized to recognize and to calculate the precise speed of the physical motion of the operator's arm. User Datagram Protocol is employed to send the human movement to a simulated Baxter robot arm for teleoperation. In order to obtain joint angles for human limb utilizing vector approach, RosPy and Python script programming has been utilized. A series of experiments have been conducted to test the performance of the proposed technique, which provides the basis for the teleoperation of simulated Baxter robot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess the prevalence of isolated findings of abnormalities leading to entrapment of the lateral plantar nerve and respective branches in patients complaining of chronic heel pain, whose magnetic resonance imaging exams have showed complete selective fatty atrophy of the abductor digiti quinti muscle. Materials and Methods: Retrospective, analytical, and cross-sectional study. The authors selected magnetic resonance imaging of hindfoot of 90 patients with grade IV abductor digiti quinti muscle atrophy according to Goutallier and Bernageau classification. Patients presenting with minor degrees of fatty muscle degeneration (below grade IV) and those who had been operated on for nerve decompression were excluded. Results: A female prevalence (78.8%) was observed, and a strong correlation was found between fatty muscle atrophy and plantar fasciitis in 21.2%, and ankle varices, in 16.8% of the patients. Conclusion: Fatty atrophy of the abductor digiti quinti muscle is strongly associated with neuropathic alterations of the first branch of the lateral plantar nerve. The present study showed a significant association between plantar fasciitis and ankle varices with grade IV atrophy of the abductor digiti quinti muscle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the Ashkin-Teller model (ATM) of spin-3/2 on a hypercubic lattice is undertaken via Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. The phase diagrams are displayed and discussed in the physical parameter space. Rich physical properties are recovered, namely the second order transition and multicritical points. The phase diagrams have been obtained by varying the strength describing the four spin interaction and the single ion potential. This model shows a new high temperature partially ordered phase, called and a new Baxter 3/2 ground state which do not exist neither in the spin-1/2 ATM nor in the spin-1 ATM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]