BackgroundA powerful way to identify genes for complex traits it to combine genetic and genomic methods. Many trait quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for complex traits are sex specific, but the reason for this is not well understood.Methodology/Principal FindingsRNA was prepared from bone marrow derived macrophages of 93 female and 114 male F2 mice derived from a strain intercross between apoE-deficient mice on the AKR and DBA/2 genetic backgrounds, and was subjected to transcriptome profiling using microarrays. A high density genome scan was performed using a mouse SNP chip, and expression QTLs (eQTLs) were located for expressed transcripts. Using suggestive and significant LOD score cutoffs of 3.0 and 4.3, respectively, thousands of eQTLs in the female and male cohorts were identified. At the suggestive LOD threshold the majority of the eQTLs were trans eQTLs, mapping unlinked to the position of the gene. Cis eQTLs, which mapped to the location of the gene, had much higher LOD scores than trans eQTLs, indicating their more direct effect on gene expression. The majority of cis eQTLs were common to both males and females, but only ∼1% of the trans eQTLs were shared by both sexes. At the significant LOD threshold, the majority of eQTLs were cis eQTLs, which were mostly sex-shared, while the trans eQTLs were overwhelmingly sex-specific. Pooling the male and female data, 31% of expressed transcripts were expressed at different levels in males vs. females after correction for multiple testing.Conclusions/SignificanceThese studies demonstrate a large sex effect on gene expression and trans regulation, under conditions where male and female derived cells were cultured ex vivo and thus without the influence of endogenous sex steroids. These data suggest that eQTL data from male and female mice should be analyzed separately, as many effects, such as trans regulation are sex specific.

Background During the current period of the pandemic, telehealth has been a boon to the healthcare system by providing quality healthcare services at a safe social distance. However, there has been slow progress in telehealth services in low- and middle-income countries with little to no evidence of the cost and effectiveness of such programmes. Objective To provide an overview of the expansion of telehealth in low- and middle-income countries amid the COVID-19 pandemic and identify the challenges, benefits, and costs associated with implementing telehealth services in these countries. Methods We performed a literature review using the search term: ‘*country name* AND ((telemedicine[Title][Abstract]) OR (telehealth[Title][Abstract] OR eHealth[Title][Abstract] OR mHealth[Title][Abstract]))’. Initially, we started with 467 articles, which were reduced to 140 after filtering out duplicates and including only primary research studies. Next, these articles were screened based on established inclusion criteria and 44 articles were finalised to be used in the review. Results We found telehealth-specific software being used as the most common tool to provide such services. Nine articles reported patient satisfaction of greater than 90% with telehealth services. Moreover, the articles identified the ability to make a correct diagnosis to resolve the condition, efficient mobilisation of healthcare resources, increased accessibility for patients, increased service utilisation, and increased satisfaction as benefits of telehealth services, whereas inaccessibility, low technological literacy, and lack of support, poor security standards and technological concerns, loss of interest by the patients, and income impacts on physicians as challenges. The review could not find articles that explored the financial information on telehealth programme implementation. Conclusion Although telehealth services are growing in popularity, the research gap on the efficacy of telehealth is high in low- and middle-income countries. To better guide the future development of telehealth services, rigorous economic evaluation of telehealth is needed.

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This paper reports the design, construction and control of a two-wheel self-balancing robot. The system architecture comprises a pair of DC motor and an Arduino microcontroller board; 3-axis MEMS (Micro Electrical Mechanical Systems) accelerometer and 3-axis MEMS gyroscope are employed for attitude determination. In addition, a complementary filter is implemented to compensate for gyro drifts i.e. PID. Experimental results show that self-balancing can be achieved with PI-PD control in the vicinity of the upright position. I. INTRODUCTION In the past decade, mobile robots have stepped out of the military and industrial settings, and entered civilian and personal spaces such as hospitals, schools and ordinary homes. While many of these robots for civil applications are mechanically stable, such as Aibo the Sony robotic dog, or four-wheel vacuum cleaners, one that ordinary onlookers would find awe-inspiring is the Segway personal transport, a mechanically unstable, two-wheel self-balancing vehicle that has seen deployment for law-enforcement, tourism, etc. This vehicle can be rightfully called a robot because, without the sensory capability and intelligent control that accompany every robot, the Segway can never stay upright. While Segway may have been a well-known commercial product, research into the control of such a mechanical system has been diverse. A two-wheel self-balancing robot is very similar to the inverted pendulum, which is an important testbed in control education and research; see, for example [1], [2]. Besides the development of Segway, studies of two-wheel self-balancing robots have been widely reported. For example, JOE [3] and nBot [4] are both early versions complete with inertia sensors, motor encoders and on-vehicle microcontrollers. See also an updated reference at the nBot website [4]. Since then, there has been active research on the control design for such platforms, including classical and linear multivariable control methods [3], [5], [6], [7] ,nonlinear back stepping controls [8], [9] , and combinations of the above [10]. A related and interesting work that is worth mentioning concerns balancing of a four wheeled vehicle on its two side-wheels, using classical control [12]. One of the key enabler for this research in the academia is arguably the increasing affordability of commercial off-the shelf (COTS) sensors and microprocessor boards. While JOEfeatured a digital signal processor board, controller boards based on microprocessor such as the 68HC11, ARM and the ATmega series of the Atmel architecture have become the staple in recent years. Arduino is an open prototyping platform based on ATmega processors and a C language-like software development environment, and can be connected with a variety of COTS sensors [13]. It is fast becoming popular platform for both education [14] and product development, with applications ranging from robotics [15],[16] to process control [17], [18] and networked control [19] .In this paper, we report a student project on the design, construction and cont...