Glyco-biomarkers: Potential determinants of cellular physiology and pathology

Once dismissed as just the icing on the cake, sugar molecules are emerging as vital components in life’s intricate machinery. Our understanding of their function within the context of the proteins and lipids to which they are attached has matured rapidly, and with it the far reaching clinical implications are becoming understood. Recent advances in high-throughput glycomic techniques, glyco biomarker profiling, glyco-bioinformatics and development of increasingly sophisticated glyco-arrays, combined with our increased understanding of the molecular details of glycosylation have facilitated the linkage between aberrant glycosylation and human diseases, and highlighted the possibility of using glyco-biomarkers as potential determinants of disease and its progression. The focus of this review is to give an insight into the biological significance of these glycomodifications, highlight some specific examples of glyco-biomarkers in relation to autoimmunity and in particular rheumatoid arthritis, and to explore the exciting possibility of exploiting these for diagnostic and prognostic strategies

Radial gradients and anisotropies of cosmic rays in the interplanetary medium

Radial gradients and anisotropies of cosmic rays in interplanetary mediu

Modern theory of Fermi acceleration: a new challenge to plasma physics

One of the main features of astrophysical shocks is their ability to accelerate particles to extremely high energies. The leading acceleration mechanism, the diffusive shock acceleration is reviewed. It is demonstrated that its efficiency critically depends on the injection of thermal plasma into acceleration which takes place at the subshock of the collisionless shock structure that, in turn, can be significantly smoothed by energetic particles. Furthermore, their inhomogeneous distribution provides free energy for MHD turbulence regulating the subshock strength and injection rate. Moreover, the MHD turbulence confines particles to the shock front controlling their maximum energy and bootstrapping acceleration. Therefore, the study of the MHD turbulence in a compressive plasma flow near a shock is a key to understanding of the entire process. The calculation of the injection rate became part of the collisionless shock theory. It is argued that the further progress in diffusive shock acceleration theory is impossible without a significant advance in these two areas of plasma physics.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, invited talk at APS/ICPP, Quebec 2000, to appear in Phys. of Plasma

Spectral universality of strong shocks accelerating charged particles

As a rule, the shock compression controls the spectrum of diffusively accelerated particles. We argue that this is not so if the backreaction of these particles on the shock structure is significant. We present a self-similar solution in which the accelerated particles change the flow structure near the shock so strongly that the total shock compression may become arbitrarily large. Despite this, the energy spectrum behind the shock is close to E^{-3/2} independently of anything at all.Comment: Submitted to ApJL, 4 pages, 1 figure, uses revtex and boxedep

Mathematical models of magnetospheric convection and its coupling to the ionosphere

Mathematical models of magnetospheric convection and its coupling to ionospher

Lipid Goals: Update on their Status

Goal: The goal of this lesson is to discuss current medical management of dyslipidemias, including available agents and goals of therapy, as well as potential future treatment strategies based on recently published literature

Magnetic Amplification by Magnetized Cosmic Rays in SNR Shocks

(Abridged) X-ray observations of synchrotron rims in supernova remnant (SNR) shocks show evidence of strong magnetic field amplification (a factor of ~100 between the upstream and downstream medium). This amplification may be due to plasma instabilities driven by shock-accelerated cosmic rays (CRs). One candidate is the cosmic ray current-driven (CRCD) instability (Bell 2004), caused by the electric current of large Larmor radii CRs propagating parallel to the upstream magnetic field. Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations have shown that the back-reaction of the amplified field on CRs would limit the amplification factor of this instability to less than ~10 in galactic SNRs. In this paper, we study the possibility of further amplification driven near shocks by "magnetized" CRs, whose Larmor radii are smaller than the length scale of the field that was previously amplified by the CRCD instability. We find that additional amplification can occur due to a new instability, driven by the CR current perpendicular to the field, which we term the "perpendicular current-driven instability" (PCDI). We derive the growth rate of this instability, and, using PIC simulations, study its non-linear evolution and saturation. We find that PCDI increases the amplification of the field (amplification factor up to ~45, not including the shock compression) and discuss its observational signatures. Our results strengthen the idea of CRs driving a significant part of the magnetic field amplification observed in SNR shocks.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures; submitted to Ap

Non-thermal Origin of the EUV and Soft X-rays from the Coma Cluster - Cosmic Rays in Equipartition with the Thermal Medium

The role of cosmic rays (CR) in the formation and evolution of clusters of galaxies has been much debated. It may well be related to other fundamental questions, such as the mechanism which heats and virializes the intracluster medium (ICM), and the frequency at which the ICM is shocked. There is now compelling evidence both from the cluster soft excess (CSE) and the `hard-tail' emissions at energies above 10 keV, that many clusters are luminous sources of inverse-Compton (IC) emission. This is the first direct measurement of cluster CR: the technique is free from our uncertainties in the ICM magnetic field, and is not limited to the small subset of clusters which exhibit radio halos. The CSE emitting electrons fall within a crucial decade of energy where they have the least spectral evolution, and where most of the CR pressure resides. However their survival times do not date them back to the relic CR population. By using the CSE data of the Coma cluster, we demonstrate that the CR are energetically as important as the thermal ICM: the two components are in pressure equiparition. Thus, contrary to previous expectations, CR are a dominant component of the ICM, and their origin and effects should be explored. The best-fit CR spectral index is in agreement with the Galactic value.Comment: ApJ accepted; 10 pages LaTeX; 2 figures and 1 table in PostScrip

Proceedings of the Symposium on the Study of the Sun and Interplanetary Medium in Three Dimensions

A series of papers are presented from a symposium attended by over 200 European and American scientists to examine the importance of exploring the interplanetary medium and the sun by out-of-the-ecliptic space missions. The likely scientific returns of these missions in the areas of solar, interplanetary, and cosmic ray physics is examined. Theoretical models of the solar wind and its interaction with interplanetary magnetic fields are given

Advanced Shipboard Communications Demonstrations with ACTS

For ships at sea, satellites provide the only option for high data rate (HDR), long haul communications. Furthermore the demand for HDR satellite communications (SATCOM) for military and commercial ships, and other offshore platforms is increasing. Presently the bulk of this maritime HDR SATCOM connectivity is provided via C-band and X-band. However, the shipboard antenna sizes required to achieve a data rate of, say T1 (1.544 Mbps) with present C-/X-band SATCOM systems range from seven to ten feet in diameter. This limits the classes of ships to which HDR services can be provided to those which are large enough to accommodate the massive antennas. With its high powered K/Ka-band spot beams, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration\u27s (NASA) Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) was able to provide T1 and higher rate services to ships at sea using much smaller shipboard antennas. This paper discusses three shipboard HDR SATCOM demonstrations that were conducted with ACTS between 1996 and 1998. The first demonstration involved a 2 Mbps link provided to the seismic survey ship M/V Geco Diamond equipped with a 16-inch wide, 4.5-inch tall, mechanically steered slotted waveguide array antenna developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In this February 1996 demonstration ACTS allowed supercomputers ashore to process Geco Diamond\u27s voluminous oceanographic seismic data in near real time. This capability allowed the ship to adjust its search parameters on a daily basis based on feedback from the processed data, thereby greatly increasing survey efficiency. The second demonstration was conducted on the US Navy cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59) with the same antenna used on Geco Diamond. Princeton conducted a six-month (January-July 1997) Western Hemisphere solo deployment during which time T1 connectivity via ACTS provided the ship with a range of valuable tools for operational, administrative and quality-of-life tasks. In one instance, video teleconferencing (VTC) via ACTS allowed the ship to provide life-saving emergency medical aid, assisted by specialists ashore, to a fellow mariner - the Master of a Greek cargo ship. The third demonstration set what is believed to be the all-time SATCOM data rate record to a ship at sea, 45 Mbps in October 1998. This Lake Michigan (Chicago area) demonstration employed one of ACTS\u27 fixed beams and involved the smallest of the three vessels, the 45-foot Bayliner M/V Entropy equipped with a modified commercial-off-the-shelf one-meter antenna. A variety of multi-media services were provided to Entropy through a stressing range of sea states. These three demonstrations provided a preview of the capabilities that could be provided to future mariners on a more routine basis when K/Ka-band SATCOM systems are widely deployed