Micro-slit-beam radiation therapy (MRT) using synchrotron-generated X-ray beams allows for extremely high-dose irradiation. However, the toxicity of MRT in central nervous system (CNS) use is still unknown. To gather baseline toxicological data, we evaluated mortality in normal mice following CNS-targeted MRT. Male C57BL/6 J mice were head-fixed in a stereotaxic frame. Synchrotron X-ray-beam ra...

Autoreactive B lymphocytes that escape central tolerance and mature in the periphery are a liability for developing autoimmunity. IgG insulin autoantibodies that predict type 1 diabetes and complicate insulin therapies indicate that mechanisms for tolerance to insulin are flawed. To examine peripheral tolerance in anti-insulin B cells, we generated C57BL/6 mice that harbor anti-insulin VDJH-125...

The use of dedicated bus shoulders is a key method for implementing bus rapid transit (BRT) in areas that do not have the space for additional infrastructure. However, the narrow width of the bus shoulder and the need to anticipate traffic hazards in the adjacent lane can both be significant stressors for bus drivers. Bus driver mental workload and stress in response to these conditions should ...

In this paper, we consider the problem of testing the equality of multivariate normal populations when the data set has missing observations with a two-step monotone pattern. The likelihood ratio test (LRT) statistic for the simultaneous testing of the mean vectors and the covariance matrices is given under the condition of two-step monotone missing data. An approximate modified likelihood rati...

In the United States, Light Rail Transit (LRT) systems have become a popular transportation alternative. Minnesota built its first light rail system in 2004 with the Hiawatha Line and additional projects are underway in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area. While light rail systems are attractive to commuters, they are expensive to construct and careful planning is ongoing to ensure their effectiv...

This paper investigates the statistical detection of JSteg steganography. The approach is based on a statistical model of discrete cosine transformation (DCT) coefficients challenging the usual assumption that among a subband all the coefficients are independent and identically distributed (i. i. d. ). The hidden information-detection problem is cast in the framework of hypothesis testing theor...

Background: Many chronic diseases and illnesses are associated with one or more chronic infections, dysfunction of mitochondria and reduced production of ATP. This results in fatigue and other symptoms that occur in most if not all chronic conditions and diseases. Methods: This is a review of the published literature on chronic infections in neurodegenerative diseases and fatiguing illnesses th...

Rare variant association studies are at a critical inflexion point with the increasing availability of exome-sequencing data. A popular test of association is the sequence kernel association test (SKAT). Weights are embedded within SKAT to reflect the hypothesized contribution of the variants to the trait variance. Correct weighting is expected to boost power, and yet the correct weights are ge...

BACKGROUND Cigarette smoking is associated with a number of common pulmonary diseases including chronic airflow limitation and bronchial carcinoma. Lower respiratory tract (LRT) nitric oxide (NO) concentrations are reduced in habitual cigarette smokers between cigarettes, and although this finding has been implicated in the pathogenesis of smoking related disease, the underlying mechanisms are ...

A comparison and validation study of Laser Ray Tracing (LRT) and Hartmann-Shack wave-front-sensor (to be referred to as H-S) methods was carried out on both artificial and human eyes. The aim of this work was double. First, we wanted to verify experimentally the equivalence of single- and double-pass measurements for both H-S and LRT. This interest is due to the impossibility of making single-p...