Objective:Intracerebral delivery of agents in liquid form is usually achieved through commercially available and durable metal needles.However,their size and texture may contribute to mechanical brain damage.Glass pip...Objective:Intracerebral delivery of agents in liquid form is usually achieved through commercially available and durable metal needles.However,their size and texture may contribute to mechanical brain damage.Glass pipettes with a thin tip may significantly reduce injection-associated brain damage but require access to prohibitively expensive programmable pipette pullers.This study is to remove the economic barrier to the application of minimally invasive delivery of therapeutics to the brain,such as chemical compounds,viral vectors,and cells.Methods:We took advantage of the rapid development of free educational online resources and emerging low-cost 3D printers by designing an affordable pipette puller(APP)to remove the cost obstacle.Results:We showed that our APP could produce glass pipettes with a sharp tip opening down to 20μm or less,which is sufficiently thin for the delivery of therapeutics into the brain.A pipeline from pipette pulling to brain injection using low-cost and open-source equipment was established to facilitate the application of the APP.Conclusion:In the spirit of frugal science,our device may democratize glass pipette-puling and substantially promote the application of minimally invasive and precisely controlled delivery of therapeutics to the brain for finding more effective therapies of brain diseases.展开更多
Based on diffusion of innovation(DOI)theory and economic consumption analysis as well as the concept of frugal innovation,this study develops an extended DOI model that theorizes the characteristics of the diffusion o...Based on diffusion of innovation(DOI)theory and economic consumption analysis as well as the concept of frugal innovation,this study develops an extended DOI model that theorizes the characteristics of the diffusion of frugal information communication technologies(ICTs)and their impacts on the Internet diffusion.This model posits that frugal digital ICTs diffuse more rapidly in developing countries than in developed countries and significantly bridge the digital divide between them.The diffusion of frugal smartphones is investigated as a case of the diffusion of frugal digital ICTs,which provides empirical evidence for the theoretical model presented herein.展开更多
Mobile crowdsensing has become an efficient paradigm for performing large-scale sensing tasks. An incentive mechanism is important for a mobile crowdsensing system to stimulate participants and to achieve good service...Mobile crowdsensing has become an efficient paradigm for performing large-scale sensing tasks. An incentive mechanism is important for a mobile crowdsensing system to stimulate participants and to achieve good service quality. In this paper, we explore truthful incentive mechanisms that focus on minimizing the total payment for a novel scenario, where the platform needs the complete sensing data in a requested time window （RTW）. We model this scenario as a reverse auction and design FIMI, a constant frugal incentive mechanism for time window coverage. FIMI consists of two phases, the candidate selection phase and the winner selection phase. In the candidate selection phase, it selects two most competitive disjoint feasible user sets. Afterwards, in the winner selection phase, it finds all the interchangeable user sets through a graph-theoretic approach. For every pair of such user sets, FIMI chooses one of them by the weighted cost. Further, we extend FIMI to the scenario where the RTW needs to be covered more than once. Through both rigorous theoretical analysis and extensive simulations, we demonstrate that the proposed mechanisms achieve the properties of RTW feasibility （or RTW multi-coverage）, computation efficiency, individual rationality, truthfulness, and constant frugality.展开更多
基金UMGCCC American Cancer Society Institutional Research,Grant/Award Numbers:IRG-18-160-16,NIH1R21AG077631-01,R03NS123733Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund,Grant/Award Numbers:2022-MSCRFL-5893,R03NS128459。
文摘Objective:Intracerebral delivery of agents in liquid form is usually achieved through commercially available and durable metal needles.However,their size and texture may contribute to mechanical brain damage.Glass pipettes with a thin tip may significantly reduce injection-associated brain damage but require access to prohibitively expensive programmable pipette pullers.This study is to remove the economic barrier to the application of minimally invasive delivery of therapeutics to the brain,such as chemical compounds,viral vectors,and cells.Methods:We took advantage of the rapid development of free educational online resources and emerging low-cost 3D printers by designing an affordable pipette puller(APP)to remove the cost obstacle.Results:We showed that our APP could produce glass pipettes with a sharp tip opening down to 20μm or less,which is sufficiently thin for the delivery of therapeutics into the brain.A pipeline from pipette pulling to brain injection using low-cost and open-source equipment was established to facilitate the application of the APP.Conclusion:In the spirit of frugal science,our device may democratize glass pipette-puling and substantially promote the application of minimally invasive and precisely controlled delivery of therapeutics to the brain for finding more effective therapies of brain diseases.
文摘Based on diffusion of innovation(DOI)theory and economic consumption analysis as well as the concept of frugal innovation,this study develops an extended DOI model that theorizes the characteristics of the diffusion of frugal information communication technologies(ICTs)and their impacts on the Internet diffusion.This model posits that frugal digital ICTs diffuse more rapidly in developing countries than in developed countries and significantly bridge the digital divide between them.The diffusion of frugal smartphones is investigated as a case of the diffusion of frugal digital ICTs,which provides empirical evidence for the theoretical model presented herein.
文摘Mobile crowdsensing has become an efficient paradigm for performing large-scale sensing tasks. An incentive mechanism is important for a mobile crowdsensing system to stimulate participants and to achieve good service quality. In this paper, we explore truthful incentive mechanisms that focus on minimizing the total payment for a novel scenario, where the platform needs the complete sensing data in a requested time window （RTW）. We model this scenario as a reverse auction and design FIMI, a constant frugal incentive mechanism for time window coverage. FIMI consists of two phases, the candidate selection phase and the winner selection phase. In the candidate selection phase, it selects two most competitive disjoint feasible user sets. Afterwards, in the winner selection phase, it finds all the interchangeable user sets through a graph-theoretic approach. For every pair of such user sets, FIMI chooses one of them by the weighted cost. Further, we extend FIMI to the scenario where the RTW needs to be covered more than once. Through both rigorous theoretical analysis and extensive simulations, we demonstrate that the proposed mechanisms achieve the properties of RTW feasibility （or RTW multi-coverage）, computation efficiency, individual rationality, truthfulness, and constant frugality.
