Innate immunity and neuroinflammation

Copyright © 2013 Abhishek Shastri et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Inflammation of central nervous system (CNS) is usually associated with trauma and infection. Neuroinflammation occurs in close relation to trauma, infection, and neurodegenerative diseases. Low-level neuroinflammation is considered to have beneficial effects whereas chronic neuroinflammation can be harmful. Innate immune system consisting of pattern-recognition receptors, macrophages, and complement system plays a key role in CNS homeostasis following injury and infection. Here, we discuss how innate immune components can also contribute to neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration

Chondrocalcinosis is common in the absence of knee involvement

Introduction: We aimed to describe the distribution of radiographic chondrocalcinosis (CC) and to examine whether metacarpophalangeal joint (MCPJ) calcification and CC at other joints occurs in the absence of knee involvement. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study embedded in the Genetics of Osteoarthritis and Lifestyle study (GOAL). All participants (n = 3,170) had radiographs of the knees, hands, and pelvis. These were scored for radiographic changes of osteoarthritis (OA), for CC at knees, hips, symphysis pubis, and wrists, and for MCPJ calcification. The prevalence of MCPJ calcification and CC overall, at each joint, and in the presence or absence of knee involvement, was calculated. Results: The knee was the commonest site of CC, followed by wrists, hips, and symphysis pubis. CC was more likely to be bilateral at knees and wrists but unilateral at hips. MCPJ calcification was usually bilateral, and less common than CC at knees, hips, wrists, and symphysis pubis. Unlike that previously reported, CC commonly occurred without any knee involvement; 44.4% of wrist CC, 45.9% of hip CC, 45.5% of symphysis pubis CC, and 31.3% of MCPJ calcification occurred in patients without knee CC. Those with meniscal or hyaline articular cartilage CC had comparable ages (P = 0.21), and neither preferentially associated with fibrocartilage CC at distant joints. Conclusions: CC visualized on a plain radiograph commonly occurs at other joints in the absence of radiographic knee CC. Therefore, knee radiographs alone are an insufficient screening test for CC. This has significant implications for clinical practice, for epidemiologic and genetic studies of CC, and for the definition of OA patients with coexistent crystal deposition

L-functions for holomorphic forms on GSp(4) x GL(2) and their special values

We provide an explicit integral representation for L-functions of pairs (F,g) where F is a holomorphic genus 2 Siegel newform and g a holomorphic elliptic newform, both of squarefree levels and of equal weights. When F,g have level one, this was earlier known by the work of Furusawa. The extension is not straightforward. Our methods involve precise double-coset and volume computations as well as an explicit formula for the Bessel model for GSp(4) in the Steinberg case; the latter is possibly of independent interest. We apply our integral representation to prove an algebraicity result for a critical special value of L(s, F \times g). This is in the spirit of known results on critical values of triple product L-functions, also of degree 8, though there are significant differences.Comment: 48 pages, typos corrected, some changes in Sections 6 and 7, other minor change

Absolute convergence of the twisted Arthur-Selberg trace formula

We show that the distributions occurring in the geometric and spectral side of the twisted Arthur-Selberg trace formula extend to non-compactly supported test functions. The geometric assertion is modulo a hypothesis on root systems proven when the group is split. The result extends the work of Finis-Lapid (and M\"uller, spectral side) to the twisted setting. We use the absolute convergence to give a geometric interpretation of sums of residues of certain Rankin-Selberg L-functions.Comment: Accepted to be published in Mathematische Zeitschrift. Removed proof of RCL for base change; Section 8 now requires Assumption 8.1. Also, minor correction

“Capitalism in its current form is incomplete because it misinterprets human beings as robots driven only by self-interest” – Muhammud Yunus

During a recent visit to LSE, microfinance pioneer Muhammud Yunus spoke to Abhishek Sundar about the weaknesses of capitalism today and the mission of microfinance to lift people out of poverty, regardless of where they live