Mass of the B_c Meson in Three-Flavor Lattice QCD

We use lattice QCD to predict the mass of the $B_c$ meson. We use the MILC Collaboration's ensembles of lattice gauge fields, which have a quark sea with two flavors much lighter than a third. Our final result is $m_{B_c}=6304\pm12^{+18}_{- 0} MeV$. The first error bar is a sum in quadrature of statistical and systematic uncertainties, and the second is an estimate of heavy-quark discretization effects.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; shorten to fit in PRL; published versio

Predictions from Lattice QCD

In the past year, we calculated with lattice QCD three quantities that were unknown or poorly known. They are the $q^2$ dependence of the form factor in semileptonic $D\to Kl\nu$ decay, the decay constant of the $D$ meson, and the mass of the $B_c$ meson. In this talk, we summarize these calculations, with emphasis on their (subsequent) confirmation by experiments.Comment: v1: talk given at the International Conference on QCD and Hadronic Physics, Beijing, June 16-20, 2005; v2: poster presented at the XXIIIrd International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, Dublin, July 25-3

Artificial intelligence in cancer imaging: Clinical challenges and applications

Judgement, as one of the core tenets of medicine, relies upon the integration of multilayered data with nuanced decision making. Cancer offers a unique context for medical decisions given not only its variegated forms with evolution of disease but also the need to take into account the individual condition of patients, their ability to receive treatment, and their responses to treatment. Challenges remain in the accurate detection, characterization, and monitoring of cancers despite improved technologies. Radiographic assessment of disease most commonly relies upon visual evaluations, the interpretations of which may be augmented by advanced computational analyses. In particular, artificial intelligence (AI) promises to make great strides in the qualitative interpretation of cancer imaging by expert clinicians, including volumetric delineation of tumors over time, extrapolation of the tumor genotype and biological course from its radiographic phenotype, prediction of clinical outcome, and assessment of the impact of disease and treatment on adjacent organs. AI may automate processes in the initial interpretation of images and shift the clinical workflow of radiographic detection, management decisions on whether or not to administer an intervention, and subsequent observation to a yet to be envisioned paradigm. Here, the authors review the current state of AI as applied to medical imaging of cancer and describe advances in 4 tumor types (lung, brain, breast, and prostate) to illustrate how common clinical problems are being addressed. Although most studies evaluating AI applications in oncology to date have not been vigorously validated for reproducibility and generalizability, the results do highlight increasingly concerted efforts in pushing AI technology to clinical use and to impact future directions in cancer care

The Postpartum Specific Anxiety Scale: development and preliminary validation

Perinatal symptoms of anxiety are increasingly recognised due to their high prevalence and impact. Studies using pregnancy-specific anxiety measures have found that they may predict perinatal outcomes more effectively than general measures. However, no such measure exists to assess anxieties specific to the postpartum. This study aimed to develop and validate a measure (Postpartum Specific Anxiety Scale; PSAS) that accurately represents the specific anxieties faced by postpartum women, using a four-stage methodology: (1) 51 items were generated from interviews conducted with a group of 19 postpartum women at two time points, (2) the scale was reviewed and refined by a diverse expert panel, (3) an online pilot study (n = 146) was conducted to assess comprehensibility and acceptability and (4) an online sample of 1282 mothers of infants up to 6 months old completed the PSAS against a battery of convergent measures. A subsample (n = 262) repeated the PSAS 2 weeks later. The PSAS possessed good face and content validity and was comprehensible and acceptable to postpartum women. PSAS scores were significantly correlated with other measures indicating good convergent validity. Principal component analyses (PCA) revealed a simple four-factor structure. Reliability of the overall scale and individual PSAS factors proved to be good to excellent. A preliminary receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis also suggested that the PSAS may be a useful screening tool. The psychometric evidence suggests that the PSAS is an acceptable, valid, and reliable research tool to assess anxieties, which are specific to the postpartum period. Next steps in the iterative validation process are considered for both research and screening purposes

Identification of Biologically Relevant Compounds in Aboveground and Belowground Induced Volatile Blends

Plants under attack by aboveground herbivores emit complex blends of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Specific compounds in these blends are used by parasitic wasps to find their hosts. Belowground induction causes shifts in the composition of aboveground induced VOC blends, which affect the preference of parasitic wasps. To identify which of the many volatiles in the complex VOC blends may explain parasitoid preference poses a challenge to ecologists. Here, we present a case study in which we use a novel bioinformatics approach to identify biologically relevant differences between VOC blends of feral cabbage (Brassica oleracea L.). The plants were induced aboveground or belowground with jasmonic acid (JA) and shoot feeding caterpillars (Pieris brassicae or P. rapae). We used Partial Least Squares—Discriminant Analysis (PLSDA) to integrate and visualize the relation between plant-emitted VOCs and the preference of female Cotesia glomerata. Overall, female wasps preferred JA-induced plants over controls, but they strongly preferred aboveground JA-induced plants over belowground JA-induced plants. PLSDA revealed that the emission of several monoterpenes was enhanced similarly in all JA-treated plants, whereas homoterpenes and sesquiterpenes increased exclusively in aboveground JA-induced plants. Wasps may use the ratio between these two classes of terpenes to discriminate between aboveground and belowground induced plants. Additionally, it shows that aboveground applied JA induces different VOC biosynthetic pathways than JA applied to the root. Our bioinformatic approach, thus, successfully identified which VOCs matched the preferences of the wasps in the various choice tests. Additionally, the analysis generated novel hypotheses about the role of JA as a signaling compound in aboveground and belowground induced responses in plants

Tar DNA Binding Protein-43 (TDP-43) Associates with Stress Granules: Analysis of Cultured Cells and Pathological Brain Tissue

Tar DNA Binding Protein-43 (TDP-43) is a principle component of inclusions in many cases of frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD-U) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). TDP-43 resides predominantly in the nucleus, but in affected areas of ALS and FTLD-U central nervous system, TDP-43 is aberrantly processed and forms cytoplasmic inclusions. The mechanisms governing TDP-43 inclusion formation are poorly understood. Increasing evidence indicates that TDP-43 regulates mRNA metabolism by interacting with mRNA binding proteins that are known to associate with RNA granules. Here we show that TDP-43 can be induced to form inclusions in cell culture and that most TDP-43 inclusions co-localize with SGs. SGs are cytoplasmic RNA granules that consist of mixed protein - RNA complexes. Under stressful conditions SGs are generated by the reversible aggregation of prion-like proteins, such as TIA-1, to regulate mRNA metabolism and protein translation. We also show that disease-linked mutations in TDP-43 increased TDP-43 inclusion formation in response to stressful stimuli. Biochemical studies demonstrated that the increased TDP-43 inclusion formation is associated with accumulation of TDP-43 detergent insoluble complexes. TDP-43 associates with SG by interacting with SG proteins, such as TIA-1, via direct protein-protein interactions, as well as RNA-dependent interactions. The signaling pathway that regulates SGs formation also modulates TDP-43 inclusion formation. We observed that inclusion formation mediated by WT or mutant TDP-43 can be suppressed by treatment with translational inhibitors that suppress or reverse SG formation. Finally, using Sudan black to quench endogenous autofluorescence, we also demonstrate that TDP-43 positive-inclusions in pathological CNS tissue co-localize with multiple protein markers of stress granules, including TIA-1 and eIF3. These data provide support for accumulating evidence that TDP-43 participates in the SG pathway

Pathogenesis of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis in girls - a double neuro-osseous theory involving disharmony between two nervous systems, somatic and autonomic expressed in the spine and trunk: possible dependency on sympathetic nervous system and hormones with implications for medical therapy

Anthropometric data from three groups of adolescent girls - preoperative adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS), screened for scoliosis and normals were analysed by comparing skeletal data between higher and lower body mass index subsets. Unexpected findings for each of skeletal maturation, asymmetries and overgrowth are not explained by prevailing theories of AIS pathogenesis. A speculative pathogenetic theory for girls is formulated after surveying evidence including: (1) the thoracospinal concept for right thoracic AIS in girls; (2) the new neuroskeletal biology relating the sympathetic nervous system to bone formation/resorption and bone growth; (3) white adipose tissue storing triglycerides and the adiposity hormone leptin which functions as satiety hormone and sentinel of energy balance to the hypothalamus for long-term adiposity; and (4) central leptin resistance in obesity and possibly in healthy females. The new theory states that AIS in girls results from developmental disharmony expressed in spine and trunk between autonomic and somatic nervous systems. The autonomic component of this double neuro-osseous theory for AIS pathogenesis in girls involves selectively increased sensitivity of the hypothalamus to circulating leptin (genetically-determined up-regulation possibly involving inhibitory or sensitizing intracellular molecules, such as SOC3, PTP-1B and SH2B1 respectively), with asymmetry as an adverse response (hormesis); this asymmetry is routed bilaterally via the sympathetic nervous system to the growing axial skeleton where it may initiate the scoliosis deformity (leptin-hypothalamic-sympathetic nervous system concept = LHS concept). In some younger preoperative AIS girls, the hypothalamic up-regulation to circulating leptin also involves the somatotropic (growth hormone/IGF) axis which exaggerates the sympathetically-induced asymmetric skeletal effects and contributes to curve progression, a concept with therapeutic implications. In the somatic nervous system, dysfunction of a postural mechanism involving the CNS body schema fails to control, or may induce, the spinal deformity of AIS in girls (escalator concept). Biomechanical factors affecting ribs and/or vertebrae and spinal cord during growth may localize AIS to the thoracic spine and contribute to sagittal spinal shape alterations. The developmental disharmony in spine and trunk is compounded by any osteopenia, biomechanical spinal growth modulation, disc degeneration and platelet calmodulin dysfunction. Methods for testing the theory are outlined. Implications are discussed for neuroendocrine dysfunctions, osteopontin, sympathoactivation, medical therapy, Rett and Prader-Willi syndromes, infantile idiopathic scoliosis, and human evolution. AIS pathogenesis in girls is predicated on two putative normal mechanisms involved in trunk growth, each acquired in evolution and unique to humans