cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Inhibition of mammalian host cell infection by insect-derived, metacyclic forms of Trypanosoma cruzi in the presence of human or rabbit anti-T. cruzi antibodies.

Abstract The presence of serum from chronic chagasic patients or rabbits immunized with killed epimastigote forms of Trypanosoma cruzi inhibited infection of rat heart myoblasts by insect-vector ( Triatoma infestans )-derived, metacyclic forms of Trypanosoma cruzi . The effect was produced even after diluting the chagasic serum to non-agglutinating levels and was evidenced by marked reductions in both the percentage of infected myoblasts and the number of parasites per 100 cells. Human IgG or IgM purified from chronic chagasic serum and serum from rabbits immunized with killed T. cruzi epimastigotes also reduced both parameters. While previous work has shown that immunological destruction of invasive forms of T. cruzi may underlie the protective effects of the humoral immune response against this parasite, the present in vitro results suggest that specific anti- T. cruzi antibodies could also contribute to protection via inhibition of host cell infection by the vectortransmissible form of the parasite.
CD7 augments T cell proliferation via the interleukin-2 autocrine pathway

The role of CD7, a T cell differentiation antigen, in T cell function is not known at present; this study evaluates the effect of anti-CD7 mAb in PMBC cultures activated with suboptimal concentrations of lectins, antigens, and anti-CD3 mAb. We found that the inclusion of anti-CD7 resulted in increased IL-2 production and IL-2R-alpha expression in these cultures. H-7, a protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor, and genistein, a protein tyrosine kinase (PTK) inhibitor, significantly suppressed the proliferation of T cells in comitogenic assays. This suggested that the comitogenic effect mediated by CD7 molecule involved both the PKC and the PTK pathways of T cell activation. These drugs appeared to affect the CD7-mediated effects by inhibiting the IL-2 autocrine pathway, especially the up-regulation of IL-2R-alpha since inhibition was not relieved with exogenous rIL-2. Taken together, our results suggest that CD7 augments T cell function by up-regulating IL-2R-alpha expression and IL-2 production via multiple pathways of protein phosphorylation.
The effect of colloid formulation on colloid osmotic pressure in horses with naturally occurring gastrointestinal disease

Naturally occurring gastrointestinal disease is an important cause of acute hypoproteinemia in adult horses and hydroxyethyl starch colloid fluid treatment is a component of supportive care in these cases to improve plasma volume and maintain colloid osmotic pressure (COP). The objectives of the present study were to compare 2 formulations of high molecular weight hydroxyethyl starch and their relative effect on COP, acid-base status, and survival of horses with acute hypoproteinemia secondary to gastrointestinal disease. Twenty adult horses, ≥ 1 year of age, were prospectively enrolled, with informed client consent, if they developed acute hypoproteinemia, defined as a plasma total protein <5.0 g/dL or albumin <2.2 g/dL during hospitalization while undergoing treatment for gastrointestinal disease. Horses were randomly assigned to receive a rapid infusion of either 6% hydroxyethyl starch in 0.9% saline or 6% hydroxyethyl starch in lactated ringers solution at a dose of 10ml/kg. Venous blood gas analysis, COP, and PCV were evaluated before and after colloid administration. For both groups, average COP prior to treatment was 11.0 mmHg (9.7 – 12.2 mmHg) and post colloid treatment was 13.2 mmHg (12.0 -14.7 mmHg) [Normal range 18 – 22 mmHg]. COP was significantly increased with colloid treatment (p<0.001) but this increase was not significantly different between treatment groups. Venous pH did not change significantly with treatment. Twelve horses survived to hospital discharge and survival did not differ significantly between treatment groups. Post-treatment COP improved approximately 20% regardless of the formulation used, however, values did not reach the normal range of COP observed in healthy horses. Acid-base parameters were not significantly impacted by either treatment. Further study is needed to determine how these two products compare with regards to other outcome measures. Evaluation of the relative effects of colloid formulation in horses with clinical disease is a future area of interest.
Police Use-of-Force Data: Where We Are and Where We Should Be Going

Research on police use of force has become a topic of considerable interest to practitioners and researchers. This article focuses on the various methods used by agencies and researchers to collect...
QUANTIFYING NETWORK CONTENTION ON LARGE PARALLEL MACHINES

In the early years of parallel computing research, significant theoretical studies were done on interconnect topologies and topology aware mapping for parallel computers. With the deployment of virtual cut-through, wormhole routing and faster interconnects, message latencies reduced and research in the area died down. This article shows that network topology has become important again with the emergence of very large supercomputers, typically connected as a 3D torus or mesh. It presents a quantitative study on the effect of contention on message latencies on torus and mesh networks. Several MPI benchmarks are used to evaluate the effect of hops (links) traversed by messages, on their latencies. The benchmarks demonstrate that when multiple messages compete for network resources, link occupancy or contention can increase message latencies by up to a factor of 8 times on some architectures. Results are shown for three parallel machines – ANL's IBM Blue Gene/P (Surveyor), RNL's Cray XT4 (Jaguar) and PSC's Cray XT3 (BigBen). Findings in this article suggest that application developers should now consider interconnect topologies when mapping tasks to processors in order to obtain the best performance on large parallel machines.
Psychometric properties of a brief inventory for the screening of personality disorders: The SCATI.

The purpose of the present study was to report on the psychometric properties of a revised version of ab rief inventor yd esigned to scree na nd assess personality disorders. The shor tf orm of the Coolidge Axis II Inventor y( SCATI) is a7 0-item, self-report, form of the 250-item Coolidge Axis II Inventor y( CATI). On ac ommunity sample of 588 adults (range ¼ 16 –8 8y ears), the median internal scale reliability for the 14 personality disorder scales was .66, and the median test–retest reliability (1 week) was .83. Principal components analysis (PCA) revealed af our-component structure, essentially similar to previous PC As tudies of the SCAT Ia nd CATI. Good convergent validity was obtained between afi ve-factor model of psychopatholog ya nd the 14 SCAT Ip ersonality disorder scales. Gender differences wer eo btained on some scales, although the effect sizes wer eg enerally small. These preliminar yp sychometric properties establish that the SCAT Ih as sufficient reliability and validity to warrant further research, particularly in clinical samples.
XeF(B → X) laser optically excited by incoherent Xe 2 *(172-nm) radiation

Incoherent optical pumping of the XeF laser has been demonstrated. Stimulated emission on the B → X band of XeF at 349, 351, and 353 nm has been obtained by photolyzing XeF2 with Xe2* spontaneous emission (172 nm). Peak power of ~1.3 kW in a ~30-nsec FWHM pulse has been observed from a high-Q resonator (~0.1% transmission/mirror).
Designing Better Location Fields in User Profiles

Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and many other online communities ask their users to populate a location field in their user profiles. The information that is entered into this field has many uses in both industry and academia, with location field data providing valuable geographic context for operators of online communities and playing key roles in numerous research projects. However, despite the importance of location field entries, we know little about how to design location fields effectively. In this paper, we report the results of the first controlled study of the design of location fields in user profiles. After presenting a survey of location field design decisions in use across many online communities, we show that certain design decisions can lead to more granular location information or a higher percentage of users that fill out the field, but that there is a trade-off between granularity and the percent of non-empty fields. We also add context to previous work that found that location fields tend to have a high rate of non-geographic information (e.g. Location: "Justin Bieber's Heart"), showing that this result may be site-specific rather than endemic to all location fields. Finally, we provide evidence that verifying users' location field entries against a database of known-valid locations can eliminate toponym (place name) ambiguity and any non-geographic location field entries while at the same time having little effect on field population rate and granularity.
Evidence for major alterations in the thymocyte subpopulations in murine models of autoimmune diseases.

Abstract Thymocytes can be divided into four major subpopulations: CD4+CD8+ (double-positive), CD4−CD8− (double-negative), CD4+CD8− (CD4+) and CD4−CD8+ (CD8+) cells. Recent studies have shown that T-cell development in the thymus progresses as: CD4−CD8− → CD4+CD8+ → CD4+ or CD8+ cells. In the present study we investigated these and other subpopulations of thymocytes in autoimmune MRL-+/+, MRL - lpr lpr , C57BL 6 - lpr lpr , BXSB and NZB mice before (1-month old) and after (4–6-months old) the onset of lymphadenopathy and autoimmune disease. All the autoimmune strains at one month of age and other H-2, sex and age-matched controls (C3H, DBA 2 , and C57BL 6 ) demonstrated normal proportions of thymocyte subsets with ∼75% double-positive cells, 5–7% double-negative cells, 11–15% CD4+ cells and 3–5% CD8+ cells. By 4–6 months of age, MRL-+/+ mice demonstrated a moderate increase in double-negative cells (∼13%) and a decrease in double-positive cells (∼46%). Interestingly, in the presence of the lpr gene, as seen in MRL - lpr lpr mice, the double-negative cells increased to ∼47% and the double-positive cells decreased to ∼16%. In contrast, 4–6-month-old C57BL 6 - lpr lpr mice failed to demonstrate any alterations in the thymocyte subsets thereby suggesting that background genes, in addition to the lpr gene, played a role in the thymocyte differentiation. BXSB male mice with severe lymphadenopathy behaved very similarly to MRL - lpr lpr mice, inasmuch as their thymus contained ∼48% double-negative cells and only ∼8% double-positive cells. In contrast to MRL - lpr lpr and BXSB strains, NZB mice at 6 or 10 months of age had normal composition of thymocyte subsets. In MRL and BXSB animals, although there was a significant increase in CD4+ cells (∼23–33%), due to a consequent increase in CD8+ cells (∼11%), the ratio of CD4+:CD8+ cells remained 2–3:1, similar to that seen in normal mice. Furthermore, using the J11d marker expressed by the majority of the double-negative and all double-positive thymocytes but not by mature functional T cells, we confirmed the above findings and demonstrated further that MRL - lpr lpr mice at 4–6 months of age had an increased percentage of J11d− double-negative cells and a decrease in J11d+ double-negative cells. The present study demonstrates for the first time the existence of a common defect in T-cell differentiation in the thymus of autoimmune strains of mice which is dependent on the genetic background and other accelerating factors responsible for inducing autoimmune disease.
Full syndromal versus subthreshold anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder: a multicenter study.

Objective The diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa (AN), bulimia nervosa (BN), and binge eating disorder (BED) establish symptom severity levels, which are used to separate full cases from partial cases. However, the value of these distinctions is unclear. Method Three hundred eighty-five women with full or partial AN, BN, or BED were assessed at entry into a longitudinal study of eating disorders. Results Stepwise discriminant analysis revealed that full and partial BN were discriminated by the Yale-Brown-Cornell Eating Disorders Scale total scores (kappa = .46). However, it was not possible to discriminate between full and partial AN or BED. Discriminant analysis also demonstrated clear differences between full AN, BN, and BED. Discussion Full BN can be differentiated from partial BN by more severe eating disorder symptoms, whereas both full and partial AN and full and partial BED appear quite similar. These results emphasize the distinct nature of AN, BN, and BED, as well as the similarities between full and partial cases. © 2002 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Eat Disord 32: 309–318, 2002.
The Use of Control Charts to Display Item Analysis Data.

A procedure is described in this paper for the display of item analysis data using two types of control charts. The item control chart consists of a plot of item difficulty versus each item with action and warning limits drawn to denote boundaries for the 95% and 99% confidence intervals. A reference line is drawn at a mean item difficulty of 50%. The second control chart consists of a plot of item discrimination versus item difficulty for all test items. This procedure provides for a more efficient display of test data and could be used to supplement computerized item-analysis programs.
Fusion-based register allocation

The register allocation phase of a compiler maps live ranges of a program to registers. If there are more candidates than there are physical registers, the register allocator must spill a live range (the home location is in memory) or split a live range (the live range occupies multiple locations). One of the challenges for a register allocator is to deal with spilling and splitting together. Fusion-based register allocation uses the structure of the program to make splitting and spilling decisions, with the goal to move overhead operations to infrequently executed parts of a program. The basic idea of fusion-based register allocation is to build up the interference graph. Starting with some base region (e.g., a basic block, a loop), the register allocator adds basic blocks to the region and incrementallly builds the interference graph. When there are more live ranges than registers, the register allocator selects live ranges to split; these live ranges are split along the edge that was most recently added to the region. This article describes fusion-based register allocation in detail and compares it with other approaches to register allocation. For programs from the SPEC92 suite, fusion-based register allocation can improve the execution time (of optimized programs, for the MIPS architecture) by up to 8.4% over Chaitin-style register allocation.
Competition Between Thiol and Phosphine Ligands During the Synthesis of Au Nanoclusters

Reduction of a mixture of Ph3PAuCl and CH3(CH2)5SH with NaBH4 yields predominately phosphine encapsulated nanoclusters with Au cores 2 nm core thiol encapsulated Au nanoclusters as the majority product. This latter reduction has been examined in more detail through in situ 31P NMR experiments, and a solution exchange reaction is observed wherein the PPh3 generated by the reduction displaces thiol from the surface of the nanocluster product. This thiol displacement occurs with loss of a Au atom from the nanocluster core, as observed by NMR.
Breeding the Long-Tailed Pouched Rat, Beamys hindei, in Captivity

Methods for rearing the long-tailed pouched rat, Beamys hindei , in captivity are presented. Antagonism that prevented establishing permanent monogamous pairs began while the rats were still juveniles. Females did not breed until they were at least 5 months old. Minimum gestation was 22 days and there was no postpartum oestrus. An average lactation lasted between 5 and 6 weeks. Growth and development of the young are described.
Time-Related Patient Data Retrieval for the Case Studies from the Pharmacogenomics Research Network

There are lots of question-based data elements from the pharmacogenomics research network (PGRN) studies. Many data elements contain temporal information. To semantically represent these elements so that they can be machine processiable is a challenging problem for the following reasons: (1) the designers of these studies usually do not have the knowledge of any computer modeling and query languages, so that the original data elements usually are represented in spreadsheets in human languages; and (2) the time aspects in these data elements can be too complex to be represented faithfully in a machine-understandable way. In this paper, we introduce our efforts on representing these data elements using semantic web technologies. We have developed an ontology, CNTRO, for representing clinical events and their temporal relations in the web ontology language (OWL). Here we use CNTRO to represent the time aspects in the data elements. We have evaluated 720 time-related data elements from PGRN studies. We adapted and extended the knowledge representation requirements for EliXR-TIME to categorize our data elements. A CNTRO-based SPARQL query builder has been developed to customize users' own SPARQL queries for each knowledge representation requirement. The SPARQL query builder has been evaluated with a simulated EHR triple store to ensure its functionalities.
Comparative linkage maps for the mosquitoes, Aedes albopictus and Ae. aegypti, based on common RFLP loci

Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti are members of the mosquito family Culicidae and share a haploid chromosome complement of three. Although a genetic linkage map based on restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), markers exists for Ae. aegypti, the extent of synteny and linkage order conservation between the two species was unknown. A comparative linkage map for Ae. albopictus was constructed based mainly on cDNA clones from Ae. aegypti. Nearly all Ae. aegypti probes hybridized to Ae. albopictus DNA at high stringency. For eighteen RFLP markers tested, the linkage group and linear order appears to be identical for the two species. 78% of the loci tested exhibited significant deviations from the expected segregation ratio in at least one of the test crosses. An excess of heterozygote genotypes was recovered with most loci. This probably reflects the effects of lethal loci on survival of F2 progeny homozygous for the parental genotypes. These results demonstrate that comparative linkage maps based on common DNA markers provide a basis for rapidly developing linkage maps for various mosquito species, and the opportunity to examine the significance and function of orthologous quantitative trait loci associated with mosquito vector competence for disease transmission.
Lower peak bone mass and its decline.

There is evidence that two-thirds of the risk of osteoporotic fracture can be predicted from the pre-menopausal bone mineral density. The frequency of osteoporosis in older women may be modifiable by implementing invention strategies in the pre- and peri-menopausal periods. Lower peak bone mineral density and bone loss can be identified in women with altered reproductive hormone or calciotrophic hormone concentrations, or selected lifestyle practices. Alterations in reproductive hormones may occur in adolescence (from an early age of pregnancy or the amenorrhoea of anorexia nervosa or exercise), in the pre-menopause (nulliparity, oophorectomy, early ovarian failure or marginal hormonal status) or in the peri-menopause. Alterations in calciotrophic hormone concentrations include corticosteroid therapy and breast cancer treatment. Lifestyle risk factors include the misuse of alcohol and possibly smoking, physical inactivity or an imbalance in dietary intake. Effective intervention currently consists of treating underlying conditions and monitoring high-risk groups.
Spider flagelliform silk: lessons in protein design, gene structure, and molecular evolution

Spiders spin multiple types of silks that are renowned for their superb mechanical properties. Flagelliform silk, used in the capture spiral of an orb-web, is one of the few silks characterized by both cDNA and genomic DNA data. This fibroin is composed of repeating ensembles of three types of amino acid sequence motifs. The predominant subrepeat, GPGGX, likely forms a beta-turn, and tandem arrays of these turns are thought to create beta-spirals. These spring-like helices may be critical for the exceptional ability of capture silk to stretch and recoil. Each ensemble of motifs was found to correspond to a different exon within the flagelliform gene. The pattern of sequence similarity among exons indicates intragenic concerted evolution. Surprisingly, the introns between the iterated exons are also homogenized with each other. This unusual molecular architecture in the flagelliform silk gene has implications for the evolution and maintenance of spider silk proteins.
Re-expression of GATA2 Cooperates with Peroxisome Proliferator-activated Receptor-γ Depletion to Revert the Adipocyte Phenotype

Nuclear peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ (PPARγ) is required for adipocyte differentiation, but its role in mature adipocytes is less clear. Here, we report that knockdown of PPARγ expression in 3T3-L1 adipocytes returned the expression of most adipocyte genes to preadipocyte levels. Consistently, down-regulated but not up-regulated genes showed strong enrichment of PPARγ binding. Surprisingly, not all adipocyte genes were reversed, and the adipocyte morphology was maintained for an extended period after PPARγ depletion. To explain this, we focused on transcriptional regulators whose adipogenic regulation was not reversed upon PPARγ depletion. We identified GATA2, a transcription factor whose down-regulation early in adipogenesis is required for preadipocyte differentiation and whose levels remain low after PPARγ knockdown. Forced expression of GATA2 in mature adipocytes complemented PPARγ depletion and impaired adipocyte functionality with a more preadipocyte-like gene expression profile. Ectopic expression of GATA2 in adipose tissue in vivo had a similar effect on adipogenic gene expression. These results suggest that PPARγ-independent down-regulation of GATA2 prevents reversion of mature adipocytes after PPARγ depletion.
Clinical application of endovascular grafts in aortoiliac occlusive disease and vascular trauma

Intravascular stents and stented grafts are becoming important tools for the management of a variety of vascular lesions. This review addresses the technical feasibility and early results of aortoiliac endovascular reconstructions for limb salvage as well as the placement of stented grafts for the treatment of traumatic arterial lesions. Eighteen patients with limb-threatening ischemia secondary to aortoiliac and femoropopliteal occlusive disease who were poor candidates for standard arterial bypass operations and eight patients with traumatic arterial lesions (two arteriovenous fistulas; six pseudoaneurysms) were treated with endovascular stented grafts. These were constructed of 6-mm tubular polytetrafluoroethylene (GORE-TEX) and balloon-expandable stents (Palmaz). Technical success was achieved in 95% of grafts placed to treat long segment occlusive disease of the iliofemoral arteries and in 100% of grafts placed to treat traumatic arterial injuries. There were no deaths and only minor complications in both groups. Although the early results with these grafts are encouraging, long-term follow-up is needed before such devices can be recommended for widespread use.
Organic counterions and micellar parameters: Unusual effects of hydroxy- and chlorobenzoates

Critical micelle concentrations and aggregation numbers obtained by light scattering are reported for decyltrimethylammonium micelles in 0.5000 m solutions of the following counterions as sodium salts: benzoate, o-, m-, and p-hydroxybenzoate, and o-, m-, and p-chlorobenzoate. Salicylate (o-hydroxybenzoate) induces the formation of unusually large aggregates. The effects of substituent position are most easily interpreted in terms of a Hartley micelle model with an abrupt transition between the hydrocarbon core and a highly structured Stern region.
An analytical evaluation of the icing properties of several low and medium speed airfoils

A droplet trajectory computer code is used to analyze the water droplet impingement characteristics of several low and medium speed airfoils. The results are reported in terms of the airfoil maximum impingement efficiency, and limits of impingement. The airfoils are analyzed for angles of attack of -4 to 12 degrees, and modified inertia parameters of 0.01 to 1.0. These data are then used to evaluate the effect of airfoil geometry: leading edge radius, maximum thickness, maximum camber, and angle of attack on airfoil icing characteristics. Airfoils from the NACA four digit series to the new NASA NLF airfoils are considered. The strongest correlations were seen between airfoil leading edge radius and maximum local collection efficiency, thickness and total collection efficiency, and camber and the limits of impingement.
Usefulness of supine bicycle stress echocardiography for detection of restenosis after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty

Abstract The role of supine bicycle stress echocardiography (SBSE) for detecting restenosis after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) was evaluated in 80 patients: 41 (51%) with single and 39 (49%) with multivessel PTCA (total 129 dilated vessels). Total revascularization was performed in 54 (68%) and partial revascularization in 26 (32%) patients. Restenosis was angiographically demonstrated in 60 patients (75%) and in 72 vessels (56%) 6.1 ± 2.9 months after PTCA. The results for detecting restenosis were: (1) SBSE versus exercise electrocardiographic sensitivity, 87 versus 55% (p
Enhanced nitrification by addition of clinoptilolite to tertiary activated sludge units.

Abstract A new technique for improving the efficiency of the nitrification process in the treatment of wastewater utilizes the surface sorption property of a natural zeolite, Hector Clinoptilolite. The process utilizes the zeolite as a solid-phase in an activated sludge unit. The zeolite selectively sorbs NH4 + ions from wastewater and therefore provides an ideal surface for the attachment of nitrifying bacteria which oxidize NH4 + to NO3 -. The removal of the adsorbed NH4 + from the zeolite by nitrifying bacteria allows regeneration of the zeolite surface and thus enables the same zeolite to be used repeatedly.
Atomistic Mechanism of Ion Beam Deposition Induced Curvature Formation in Thin-Films

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are performed to study the stress generation mechanisms in cantilever graphene sheets impacted by energetic carbon neutrals. The carbon-carbon interactions are described by the Tersoff-Brenner potential [1]. The MD simulations show that the free-end deflection of the graphene sheets is strongly dependent on the kinetic energy of the incident ions. At low incident energy (<<10eV), the free end bends towards to the side on which ions are deposited (upward deflection); at high incident energy, the free end bends away from the side on which the ions are deposited (downward deflection). The downward deflection reaches its maximum at around 50 eV, beyond which the downward deflection decreases with increasing incident energies. In addition, the evolution of the free-end deflection in terms of the number of deposited atoms is also dependent on the kinetic energy of the incident ions. These numerical observations suggest that intrinsic stress of different levels in the graphene sheets is generated. A close examination of the microstructures of the grown films indicates that the generated stress can be attributed to a competing mechanism of the production and annihilation of vacancy-like and interstitial-like defects in the films.Copyright © 2007 by ASME
Convection and lunar thermal history

The effects of solid interior convection on the thermal history of the moon are examined. Convective models of lunar evolution are calculated to demonstrate the influence of various viscosities, radioactive heat source distributions and initial temperature profiles and tested by means of a thermal history simulation code. Results indicate that solid convection does not necessarily produce a quasi-steady thermal balance between heat sources and surface losses. The state of the lithosphere is found to be sensitive to the efficiency of heat source redistribution, while that of the convecting interior depends primarily on rheology. Interior viscosities of 10 to the 21st to 10 to the 22nd cm/sec are obtained, along with a central temperature above 1100 C. It is suggested that mare flooding could have been the result of magma production by pressure release melting in the upwelling region of convection cells.
Density expansion in quantum percolation system: Generalized bloch equation approach

Abstract We consider a quantum percolation system interacting with external radiation fields. We develop a new density expansion with respect to equations of motion. In low density limit the reduced equations of zero-, one- and two-body variables are derived which can be used to study any four-wave mixing processes.
Quantum cryptography: Code-breakers confounded.

Coherent-state quantum cryptography holds the promise of efficient, secure communication. An experimental demonstration shows that a secure key to the code can be exchanged, even if there is a large transmission loss.
Serine Phosphorylation of Death Agonist BAD in Response to Survival Factor Results in Binding to 14-3-3 Not BCL-XL

Abstract Extracellular survival factors alter a cell's susceptibility to apoptosis, often through posttranslational mechanisms. However, no consistent relationship has been established between such survival signals and the BCL-2 family, where the balance of death agonists versus antagonists determines susceptibility. One distant member, BAD, heterodimerizes with BCL-X L or BCL-2, neutralizing their protective effect and promoting cell death. In the presence of survival factor IL-3, cells phosphorylated BAD on two serine residues embedded in 14-3-3 consensus binding sites. Only the nonphosphorylated BAD heterodimerized with BCL-X L at membrane sites to promote cell death. Phosphorylated BAD was sequestered in the cytosol bound to 14-3-3. Substitution of serine phosphorylation sites further enhanced BAD's death-promoting activity. The rapid phosphorylation of BAD following IL-3 connects a proximal survival signal with the BCL-2 family, modulating this checkpoint for apoptosis.
High-throughput gene expression profiling of memory differentiation in primary human T cells

Background: The differentiation of naive T and B cells into memory lymphocytes is essential for immunity to pathogens. Therapeutic manipulation of this cellular differentiation program could improve vaccine efficacy and the in vitro expansion of memory cells. However, chemical screens to identify compounds that induce memory differentiation have been limited by 1) the lack of reporter-gene or functional assays that can distinguish naive and memory-phenotype T cells at high throughput and 2) a suitable cell-line representative of naive T cells. Results: Here, we describe a method for gene-expression based screening that allows primary naive and memory-phenotype lymphocytes to be discriminated based on complex genes signatures corresponding to these differentiation states. We used ligation-mediated amplification and a fluorescent, bead-based detection system to quantify simultaneously 55 transcripts representing naive and memory-phenotype signatures in purified populations of human T cells. The use of a multi-gene panel allowed better resolution than any constituent single gene. The method was precise, correlated well with Affymetrix microarray data, and could be easily scaled up for highthroughput. Conclusion: This method provides a generic solution for high-throughput differentiation screens in primary human T cells where no single-gene or functional assay is available. This screening platform will allow the identification of small molecules, genes or soluble factors that direct memory differentiation in naive human lymphocytes.
Heterogeneity within T Cell Memory: Implications for Transplant Tolerance

Adaptive immunity in both mouse and man results in the generation of immunological memory. Memory T cells are both friend and foe to transplant recipients, as they are intimately involved and in many cases absolutely required for the maintenance of protective immunity in the face immunosuppression, yet from the evidence presented herein they clearly constitute a formidable barrier for the successful implementation of tolerance induction strategies in transplantation. This review describes the experimental evidence demonstrating the increased resistance of memory T cells to many distinct tolerance induction strategies, and outlines recent advances in our knowledge of the ways in which alloreactive memory T cells arise in previously untransplanted individuals. Understanding the impact of alloreactive memory T cell specificity, frequency, and quality might allow for better donor selection in order to minimize the donor-reactive memory T cell barrier in an individual transplant recipient, thus allowing stratification of relative risk of alloreactive memory T cell mediated rejection, and conversely increase the likelihood of successful establishment of tolerance. However, further research into the molecular and cellular pathways involved in alloreactive memory T cell-mediated rejection is required in order to design new strategies to overcome the memory T cell barrier, without critically impairing protective immunity.
Do premarital education programs really work? A meta-analytic study.

Previous studies (J. S. Carroll & W. J. Doherty, 2003) have asserted that premarital education programs have a positive effect on program participants. Using meta-analytic methods of current best practices to look across the entire body of published and unpublished evaluation research on premarital education, we found a more complex pattern of results. We coded 47 studies and found that premarital education programs do not improve relationship quality/satisfaction when unpublished studies are included in the analysis, although studies that follow couples past the honeymoon stage to detect prevention effects are rare. In contrast, premarital education programs appear to be effective at improving couple communication, with studies that employed observational measures rather than self-report measures producing large effects. Still, given the mixed, modest results, there is ample room and a real need to improve the practice of premarital education.
Phastlane: a rapid transit optical routing network

Tens and eventually hundreds of processing cores are projected to be integrated onto future microprocessors, making the global interconnect a key component to achieving scalable chip performance within a given power envelope. While CMOS-compatible nanophotonics has emerged as a leading candidate for replacing global wires beyond the 22nm timeframe, on-chip optical interconnect architectures proposed thus far are either limited in scalability or are dependent on comparatively slow electrical control networks.In this paper, we present Phastlane, a hybrid electrical/optical routing network for future large scale, cache coherent multicore microprocessors. The heart of the Phastlane network is a low-latency optical crossbar that uses simple predecoded source routing to transmit cache-line-sized packets several hops in a single clock cycle under contentionless conditions. When contention exists, the router makes use of electrical buffers and, if necessary, a high speed drop signaling network. Overall, Phastlane achieve 2X better network performance than a state-of-the-art electrical baseline while consuming 80% less network power.
Three-dimensional tarp coding for the compression of hyperspectral images

An embedded wavelet-based coder for the compression of hyperspectral imagery is described. The proposed coder, three-dimensional (3-D) tarp, employs an explicit estimate of the probability of coefficient significance to drive a nonadaptive arithmetic coder, resulting in a simple implementation suited to vectorized acceleration in single-instruction-multiple-data (SIMD) hardware. The proposed 3-D tarp coder is compared to other prominent coders for the compression of hyperspectral imagery, and state-of-the-art rate-distortion performance is observed.
Ultrastructural evaluation of the parathyroid glands of pigs with naturally occurring atrophic rhinitis.

The secretory activity of the parathyroid glands of 4-month-old pigs with naturally occurring atrophic rhinitis was evaluated ultrastructurally and compared to control pigs of the same age. The principal difference between the 2 groups was a transformation of the predominately inactive chief cell population in control pigs into chief cells of a more active stage of their secretory cycle in diseased pigs. The active chief cells in pigs with atrophic rhinitis had an electron-dense cytoplasm, large Golgi apparatuses, aggregated ribosomes, and abundant endoplasmic reticulum. Secretory granules occurred in increased numbers in the active chief cells of diseased pigs compared to control pigs. The degree of parathyroid stimulation appeared to be mild in pigs with atrophic rhinitis and the stimulative effects seemed to be greater on hormonal synthesis than on hormonal secretion. There was no evidence of severe or prolonged parathyroid stimulation.
Purity and Contamination: Language Ideologies in French Colonial Native Policy in Morocco

Among French scholars and administrators during the French Protectorate of Morocco (1912–1956), especially prior to World War II, there was both a great belief in, and widespread suspicion of, a group's language as a reliable indicator of its ethnicity. Legend among the Ida ou Zeddout Berber people of southwestern Morocco holds that Captain Ropars, who ran the French Protectorate's Anti-Atlas mountain military post in Igherm from 1949–1954, not only spoke the Tashelhit Berber language, but also ordered the local men to do so under threat of imprisonment. “You're Ishelhin (Tashelhit speakers),” he allegedly told people in this collective memory as recounted to me. “You should speak Tashelhit, not Arabic.” The widespread eighteenth- and nineteenth- century idea of Volkgeist (‘soul of the folk’) that Ropars evoked has become commonplace today. A group's language is often considered to function as what Herder called the “treasury of the thought of an entire people” and “the mirror of its history, its deeds, joys and sorrows” (in Bauman and Briggs 2003: 169–70; see also Lorcin 1999: 44), and even what Abbey Condillac earlier called the “genius of each people” (Steedly 1996: 447). Captain Ropars followed Samuel Johnson's claim that identifying languages was the same as identifying “nations,” and, as Irvine and Gal paraphrase, “a logical first step in comparing, understanding, and ordering [nations'] relations to each other and to Europeans” (2000: 50). Yet, other French Protectorate administrators and scholars saw the link between language and primordial ethnicity as false, since histories of language use may be obscured or simply uninterrogated by a group's members.
Persistent complete molecular remission after nilotinib and graft-versus-leukemia effect in an acute lymphoblastic leukemia patient with cytogenetic relapse after allogeneic stem cell transplantation

We report the successful treatment and sustained molecular remission using single agent nilotinib in a relapsed Philadelphia chromosome positive (Ph+) acute lymphoblastic leukemia patient after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Compared to previously published studies, this is the first report where a patient did not receive additional chemotherapy after relapse, nor did she receive donor lymphocyte infusions. With nilotinib, the patient reverted back to normal blood counts and 100% donor reconstitution by single tandem repeat (STR) chimerism analysis in the bone marrow and in peripheral blood, granulocytes, T and B-lymphocytes. This report also highlights the use of nilotinib in combination with extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) for concomitant graft-versus-host disease. Our data suggests that ECP, together with nilotinib, did not adversely affect the overall Graft-versus-leukemia (GVL) effect.
Generation of high quality tests for functional sensitizable paths

Some previously published results show that in a number of combinational circuits a significant portion of long paths is neither robustly nor non-robustly testable. However, not all of those untestable paths may be ignored in delay testing. Functional sensitizable paths are robust and non-robust untestable but, under some faulty conditions, may degrade the performance of the circuit. Even though the need for testing functional sensitizable paths was recognized in previous research, up till now, there was no strategy for generating tests for them. In this paper we present an algorithm for generating high quality tests for functional sensitizable paths based on including the timing information into the process of test derivation. Our experimental results prove that the quality of delay testing increases if additional test vectors for functional sensitizable path delay faults are included.
FRET Microscopy Reveals that Phospholamban Binds More Avidly to SERCA1a than SERCA2a

SERCA1a and SERCA2a have been used interchangeably in mutagenic and structural analyses of the PLB-SERCA interaction, since in vitro studies have shown their functional inhibition by PLB is equivalent. To quantify the quaternary structure and binding energetics of PLB binding to SERCA isoforms, fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) from Cer-SERCA1a or Cer-SERCA2a to YFP-PLB was measured in live AAV-293 cells. FRET efficiency increased with increasing protein expression level to a maximum of 28.8% for PLB-SERCA1a and 28.1% for PLB-SERCA2a, suggesting the complexes have the same quaternary conformation. Unexpectedly, the data also revealed that PLB has a 2.6 fold higher apparent affinity for SERCA1a relative to SERCA2a. To test whether the observed difference in affinity arises from differential distributions of SERCA E1/E2 enzymatic substates, cells were treated with 1mM EGTA and 0.5uL/mL calcium ionophore A23187. Under these conditions, PLB still showed greater affinity for SERCA1a over SERCA2a, suggesting that the differential affinities are intrinsic properties of the SERCA isoforms. The data suggest that PLB preferentially binds SERCA1a over SERCA2a, which may be an important strategic consideration for therapeutic overexpression of SERCA isoforms in cardiac muscle.
Channel estimation for a new high performance MIMO STC-OFDM WLAN system

A novel MIMO STC-OFDM technique has been developed that achieves both high spectral efficiency and high performance over frequency selective channels. This is accomplished by a combination of MIMO OFDM, group coded transmit signals and antennas, array processing at the receiver for interference suppression on a per carrier basis, and a new decoding scheme. It also incorporates frequency diversity by pairing, for STC purposes, subcarriers that are K/2 apart, where K is the total number of FFT frequencies. This paper discusses a channel estimation scheme for this new 4/spl times/4 MIMO WLAN system. Time domain matrix-vector formulation leads to estimates that have an SNR on the order of 48 dB when just one block of high power QPSK symbols per transmitter is used, while the receiver AWGN SNR is 19 dB or higher. The final 4/spl times/2 equivalent channel matrix, for each of the two component subsystems, is shown to have a corresponding SNR of 37 dB. Most importantly, the loss in system BER performance due to the channel estimation process (compared to the known channel case) is found to be negligible. At 19 dB signal SNR, this new scheme achieves a BER of 3/spl times/10/sup 4/, without the need for coding or interleaving. The data rate achieved, over a bandwidth of 20 MHz, is 144 Mbps with a corresponding spectral efficiency of 7.2 bits/s/Hz.
The corporate social performance-financial performance link

Strategic managers are consistently faced with the decision of how to allocate scarce corporate resources in an environment that is placing more and more pressures on them. Recent scholarship in strategic management suggests that many of these pressures come directly from sources associated with social issues in management, rather than traditional arenas of strategic management. Using a greatly improved source of data on corporate social performance, this paper reports the results of a rigorous study of the empirical linkages between financial and social performance. Corporate social performance (CSP) is found to be positively associated with prior financial performance, supporting the theory that slack resource availability and CSP are positively related. CSP is also found to be positively associated with future financial performance, supporting the theory that good management and CSP are positively related.? 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Polyphenols as cancer chemopreventive agents.

In recent years, the concept of chemoprevention has matured to be considered as a practical option to reduce the occurrence of cancer (1–5). Chemoprevention—the use of natural and/or synthetic compounds to intervene in the early precancerous stages of carcinogenesis before the onset of invasive disease—offers a viable approach to define substances, either food components or pharmaceuticals, which can prevent, delay, or completely halt the process of carcinogenesis. Often chemoprevention is referred to as “prevention by delay.”
A distortion-theoretic perspective for redundant metering security in a smart grid

In a smart grid environment some customers employ third-party meters and terminals for integrity verification of the smart meter power measurements reported by the electric utility company. We address the security issues that may arise under the presence of a third-party wireless terminal. In this paper we consider a rate-distortion perspective that contrasts the Slepian-Wolf distortionless coding approach recently presented by Varodayan and Gao [1] for integrity verification through redundant metering. We show that through the use of a limited secret key, we can impose a certain minimum distortion on the eavesdropper, while enabling the wireless terminal to retrieve the measurements losslessly with high probability. We highlight the advantages of our approach.
Virtualized lab infrastructure on a budget for various computing and engineering courses

Educators in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, especially in computing and engineering, must be flexible, up-to-date, and able to offer their students practical experience with continually changing information technologies. The importance of practical work in science and engineering, supported by lab exercises, is widely known. While it is desirable to create physical laboratories for teaching these technologies, it is not always possible nor feasible. Cost, availability, and environmental effects of physical space represent constraints on building physical infrastructure. Additionally, cost effectiveness is becoming increasingly more important, and purchasing a specific technology offers no guarantees that it will not soon become obsolete. In this paper, we present our response to these challenges in the form of an affordable, virtualized laboratory environment that can be used in a variety of computing and engineering courses, as well as in other fields, in lieu of physical computing labs. This environment allows instructors and students to build more complex settings than are typically available in physical laboratories. To date, the environment has been used at our institution for courses in computer networking, operating systems, database, programming and security, with plans in place for use in additional advanced computer science and information systems courses.