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Objective The genetic factors leading to a predisposition to otitis media are not well understood. The objective of the current study was to develop a tag-single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) panel to determine if there is an association between candidate gene polymorphisms and the development of chronic otitis media with effusion. Study Design A 1:1 case/control design of 100 cases and 100 controls was used. The study was limited to the chronic otitis media with effusion phenotype to increase the population homogeneity. Methods A panel of 192 tag-SNPs was selected. Saliva for DNA extraction was collected from 100 chronic otitis media with effusion cases and 100 controls. After quality control, 100 case and 79 control samples were available for hybridization. Genomic DNA from each subject was hybridized to the single nucleotide polymorphism probes, and genotypes were generated. Quality control across all samples and SNPs reduced the final SNPs used for analysis to 170. Each single nucleotide polymorphism was then analyzed for statistical association with chronic otitis media with effusion. Results Eight single nucleotide polymorphisms from 4 genes had an unadjusted p-value of <0.05 for association with the chronic otitis media with effusion phenotype (TLR4, MUC5B, SMAD2, SMAD4); five of these polymorphisms were in the TLR4 gene. Conclusion While these results need to be replicated in a novel population, the presence of 5 single nucleotide polymorphisms in the TLR4 gene having association with chronic otitis media with effusion in our study population lends evidence for the possible role of this gene in the susceptibility to otitis media.

a b s t r a c tWe measured the change in specific heat of nitrate saltealumina nanoparticle nanofluids at low nanoparticle concentration (less than 2% by mass) to understand how adding small amounts of nanoparticles affected this property. Alumina nanoparticles were dispersed in a eutectic of sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate (60:40 mole fraction) to create nanofluids using a two-step method. Neutron activation analysis was used to measure the actual mass fraction of the alumina nanoparticles in the nanofluids. The nominal mass fraction was always larger than the actual mass fraction, with differences up to 41%. The specific heat was measured using a modulated differential scanning calorimeter (MDSC). The results showed that there exists a parabolic relation between specific heat and mass fraction of alumina nanoparticles (maximum 30.6% enhancement at 0.78% actual mass fraction of alumina nanoparticles). The measurement uncertainty for the specific heat values was less than 4%. The stability of the specific heat values of the nanofluids was also examined; we found the nanoparticle concentration with the highest specific heat value shifted from 0.78% to 0.3% when the same samples were tested after one and two months.

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