Catalyzed Gasoline Particulate Filters Reduce Secondary Organic Aerosol Production from Gasoline Direct Injection Vehicles

The effects of photochemical aging on exhaust emissions from two light-duty vehicles with gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines equipped with and without catalyzed gasoline particle filters (GPFs) were investigated using a mobile environmental chamber. Both vehicles with and without the GPFs were exercised over the LA92 drive cycle using a chassis dynamometer. Diluted exhaust emissions from the entire LA92 cycle were introduced to the mobile chamber and subsequently photochemically reacted. It was found that the addition of catalyzed GPFs will significantly reduce tailpipe particulate emissions and also provide benefits in gaseous emissions, including nonmethane hydrocarbons (NMHC). Tailpipe emissions composition showed important changes with the use of GPFs by practically eliminating black carbon and increasing the fractional contribution of organic mass. Production of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) was reduced with GPF addition, but was also dependent on engine design which determined the amount of SOA precursors at the tailpipe. Our findings indicate that SOA production from GDI vehicles will be reduced with the application of catalyzed GPFs through the mitigation of reactive hydrocarbon precursors

Resistive exercise with or without super-imposed whole-body vibration acutely effects bone turnover

[Background] Exercise is one of the well-known constituents to improve bone mass and to retain bone strength. Only few studies have reached the effects of resistive exercise on sclerostin levels, a protein that is thought to play a key role in orchestrating bone’s mechanical adaptation. Sclerostin is produced and released by osteocytes and acts as an inhibitor of bone formation through inhibition of the Wnt/β-catenin-signaling pathway. The objective of this study was to evaluate acute and long-term effects of exercise on bone biochemical marker expression. More specifically, we aimed to understand differences in the responses to resistance exercise with or without whole-body vibration. [Methods] A six week training intervention was performed including 26 healthy males (26 years, SD=4) in in a randomized parallel design. Performing either resistive exercise (RE, n=13) or resistive vibration exercise (RVE, n=13) training, with weekly increasing vibration frequencies 20-40 Hz. Serum samples were collected both at the initial and final exercise session. Changes in carboxy-terminal cross-linked telopeptide of type I collagen (sCTX-I), as a marker of bone resorption, and of procollagen type I amino terminal propeptide (P1NP) as a specific marker of bone formation as well as serum sclerostin concentrations were measured via ELISA (sCTX-I and sclerostin) or RIA (P1NP) measurements. [Results] Serum markers of sCTX-I decreased by 15% within the first minutes following either training intervention, both regarding the initial and final training session. Subsequently, levels of sCTX-I returned back to pre-bout baseline after RE (time effect: P<0.001), and they depicted an overshoot by 18% after 75min. Serum levels of P1NP depicted an acute increase by 15% to exercise (P<0.001). P1NP levels were non-substantially increased in RE at the end of the 6 week intervention (P<0.001), but decreased by 10% in RVE, as compared to baseline (P< 0.001). Pre-bout levels of sclerostin were marginally lowered at the end of the 6 week training phase. After the exercise bouts, sclerostin levels increased within the first minutes both RE and RVE (time effect: P<0.001). Notably, sclerostin responses to the initial exercise bouts differed significantly between RE and RVE P=0.029. [Conclusion] The present findings suggest that in young healthy adults both conditions RE and RVE elicited an acute exercise-induced bone resorption without any acute change in bone formation. Results are compatible with the idea that this response was mediated by sclerosti

Evaluation of Iowa’s Anti-Bullying Law

Bullying is the most common form of youth aggression. Although 49 of all 50 states in the U.S. have an anti-bullying law in place to prevent bullying, little is known about the effectiveness of these laws. Our objective was to measure the effectiveness of Iowa’s anti-bullying law in preventing bullying and improving teacher response to bullying

A relocatable ocean model in support of environmental emergencies

During the Costa Concordia emergency case, regional, subregional, and relocatable ocean models have been used together with the oil spill model, MEDSLIK-II, to provide ocean currents forecasts, possible oil spill scenarios, and drifters trajectories simulations. The models results together with the evaluation of their performances are presented in this paper. In particular, we focused this work on the implementation of the Interactive Relocatable Nested Ocean Model (IRENOM), based on the Harvard Ocean Prediction System (HOPS), for the Costa Concordia emergency and on its validation using drifters released in the area of the accident. It is shown that thanks to the capability of improving easily and quickly its configuration, the IRENOM results are of greater accuracy than the results achieved using regional or subregional model products. The model topography, and to the initialization procedures, and the horizontal resolution are the key model settings to be configured. Furthermore, the IRENOM currents and the MEDSLIK-II simulated trajectories showed to be sensitive to the spatial resolution of the meteorological fields used, providing higher prediction skills with higher resolution wind forcing.MEDESS4MS Project; TESSA Project; MyOcean2 Projectinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Blueprint: #BlackInTheArts

The Black Musicians Coalition is pleased to present The Blueprint: #blackinthearts, an interdisciplinary Black History celebration that incorporates new and old aspects of Black art and the impact that it has on current music and art styles. The production features an original arrangement of the Black National Anthem and multiple choreographed dance numbers all by KSU students as well as performances by KSU SOM faculty member Tyrone Jackson. This event is brought together by a collaboration of student leaders from each school in the College of the Arts: Music, Theater, Dance and Visual Arts. The acts highlight the students’ contributions to their disciplinary fields as well as their experiences being Black and in the arts.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/2373/thumbnail.jp

Genetic and epigenetic characterization of posterior pituitary tumors

Pituicytoma (PITUI), granular cell tumor (GCT), and spindle cell oncocytoma (SCO) are rare tumors of the posterior pituitary. Histologically, they may be challenging to distinguish and have been proposed to represent a histological spectrum of a single entity. We performed targeted next-generation sequencing, DNA methylation profiling, and copy number analysis on 47 tumors (14 PITUI; 12 GCT; 21 SCO) to investigate molecular features and explore possibilities of clinically meaningful tumor subclassification. We detected two main epigenomic subgroups by unsupervised clustering of DNA methylation data, though the overall methylation differences were subtle. The largest group (n = 23) contained most PITUIs and a subset of SCOs and was enriched for pathogenic mutations within genes in the MAPK/PI3K pathways (12/17 [71%] of sequenced tumors: FGFR1 (3), HRAS (3), BRAF (2), NF1 (2), CBL (1), MAP2K2 (1), PTEN (1)) and two with accompanying TERT promoter mutation. The second group (n = 16) contained most GCTs and a subset of SCOs, all of which mostly lacked identifiable genetic drivers. Outcome analysis demonstrated that the presence of chromosomal imbalances was significantly associated with reduced progression-free survival especially within the combined PITUI and SCO group (p = 0.031). In summary, we observed only subtle DNA methylation differences between posterior pituitary tumors, indicating that these tumors may be best classified as subtypes of a single entity. Nevertheless, our data indicate differences in mutation patterns and clinical outcome. For a clinically meaningful subclassification, we propose a combined histo-molecular approach into three subtypes: one subtype is defined by granular cell histology, scarcity of identifiable oncogenic mutations, and favorable outcome. The other two subtypes have either SCO or PITUI histology but are segregated by chromosomal copy number profile into a favorable group (no copy number changes) and a less favorable group (copy number imbalances present). Both of the latter groups have recurrent MAPK/PI3K genetic alterations that represent potential therapeutic targets

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts