Enumeration of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) numbers through single cell digestion can be time consuming especially in high-throughput or multi-factorial analysis containing 50+ samples. We have developed a reproducible, cost-effective method of counting hESCs in clumps circumventing the need to manually dissociate each sample to single cells. The method is based on the DNA binding capacity ...

Numerus works that study the spread of information in social networks include a spreading mechanism in which a set of nodes is initially infected (i.e. seeded), followed by a viral process, which spontaneously spread the message through the nodes of the network. These models are used to describe the spread of rumors as well as the spread of new products and services. In reality however, it is q...

Background Cleanup of areas contaminated by explosives is a public health concern. Some explosives can be carcinogenic in humans. Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate (PETN), a powerful explosive with very low water solubility, can be easily transported to ground waters. Objective This study was conducted to determine the removal efficiencies of PETN from soil by bioremediation, and obtain kinetic pa...

In this paper we evaluate the usefulness of seeding genetic algorithms (GAs) from a case-base. This is motivated by the expectation that the seeding will speed up the GA by starting the search in promising regions of the search space. We evaluate this case-based seeding on popular GA solutions to the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) and the Job-Shop Scheduling Problem (JSSP). We find that seed...

Understanding the process of software adoption is of paramount importance to software start-ups. We study a monopolistic seller’s optimal seeding, sequencing, and pricing strategies under network effects. We demonstrate the importance of adoption sequencing as well as controllability over the seeding process to seller’s profit, consumer surplus, and social welfare. Under multi-pricing, full inf...

Ovarian cancer cells use integrins to attach to the peritoneal wall. Integrin alpha(5)beta(1) is also the target for the angiogenesis inhibitor, endostatin. Therefore, the ability of endostatin to competitively inhibit tumor cell seeding of the peritoneum was investigated. An imaging method was developed to determine early phases of peritoneal dissemination of ovarian cancer cells. Using this m...

Accidental transmission of prions during neurosurgery has been reported as a consequence of re-using contaminated surgical instruments. Several decontamination methods have been studied using the 263K-hamster prion; however, no studies have directly evaluated human prions. A newly developed in vitro amplification system, designated real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC), has allowed the...

It is well known that seeding can be used to produce narrow-bandwidth and fully coherent x-ray freeelectron lasers (FELs). Self-seeding, which uses an extra undulator to generate the seed pulse, is perhaps one of the most promising methods to accomplish this. In the hard x-ray regime with high-energy electrons, this method requires a large magnetic chicane to match the path-length delay of the ...

Cell patterning is useful for a variety of biological applications such as tissue engineering and drug discovery. In particular, the ability to localize cells within distinct fluids is beneficial for a variety of applications ranging from microencapsulation to high-throughput analysis. However, despite much progress, cell immobilization and maintenance within patterned microscale droplets remai...

Retinoblastoma has the unique capacity to accelerate its own intra-ocular propagation by adopting semi-solid or even liquid growth properties through seeding. Until recently, the presence of any degree of seeding was mostly incompatible with successful conservative management, due to the multiresistant nature of the seeds. Surprisingly, this well-recognized retinoblastoma behavior has not under...