Mechanisms, Measurement, and Significance of Lung Macrophage Function.

Macrophages exist throughout the body. They have critical roles in the peritoneal cavity, bone marrow, skin, spleen, liver, and elsewhere. Their migratory patterns, phagocytic behavior, immunologic roles, and secretory potential are pivotal to both defense mechanisms and to the pathogenesis of disease. Macrophages have been implicated recently in such diverse disease processes as arthritis, AIDS, and juvenile onset diabetes. It is important to recognize the existence of other lung macrophages besides alveolar macrophages. Macrophages exist in small and large airways above and below the mucus. They may release chemotactic factors and a variety of mediators. They ingest and degrade antigens and are microbicidal. Interstitial macrophages are in direct contact with the extracellular matrix as well as other cells in pulmonary connective tissue such as fibroblasts. Thus, release of mediators or enzymes by interstitial macrophages can have a profound effect. Pulmonary intravascular macrophages are resident cells within the pulmonary capillaries of some species. They avidly remove particles and pathogens from circulating blood and secrete inflammatory mediators. Finally, pleural macrophages are involved in the fate and consequences of inhaled particles, especially fibers. A key attribute of macrophages is motility. Movement is an essential step in phagocytosis. There can be no particle binding or ingestion unless macrophage-particle contact occurs. To what extent and by what mechanisms do alveolar macrophages move on the alveolar epithelium? We have used optical methods as well as magnetometry to describe macrophage motility. Lung macrophages express an array of contractile proteins that are responsible for spreading, migration, phagocytosis, and the controlled intracellular motions of phagosomes and lysosomes. We have used magnetometric probing of cytoplasmic motion and rheology for both in vivo studies of macrophage function in animals and humans as well as in vitro studies of macrophages. The cytoskeleton of macrophages and resulting motile events are key in understanding the role of macrophages in relation to particle phagocytosis, translocation, and solubilization

Material Loss

Our science fiction prototype will take us into the future...the year 2041. Nothing seems to be out of order on the world stage. Same old problems, just a different day. However, the globe has embraced a wide range of emerging disruptive technologies that today seem to be in the realm of science fiction. And, as it has always been thought-out history, any technology that can be used to better the world, can also be used to do harm to people. In our future, nefarious actors have figured out ways to use these technologies to disrupt the entire world order.https://digitalcommons.usmalibrary.org/aci_books/1045/thumbnail.jp

Information Disorder Machines

Weaponized narrative is an attack that seeks to undermine an opponent’s civilization, identity, and will. By generating confusion, complexity, and political and social schisms, it confounds response on the part of the defender. A fast-moving information deluge is an ideal environment for this kind of adversarial attack. A firehose of narrative attacks gives the targeted populace little time to process and evaluate. It is cognitively disorienting and confusing – especially if the opponents barely realize what’s occurring. Opportunities abound for emotional manipulation undermining the opponent’s will to resist. The following report captures the goals, subject matter expert inputs, raw data, and findings of Arizona State University’s Threatcasting Lab Workshop exploring the future of Weaponized Narrative. The findings exposed multiple threat areas and the coming of information disorder machines (IDMs) that could harm individuals, organizations, and even the entire United States of America. To empower people and organizations to disrupt, mitigate and recover from these potential threats the findings in this report identify not only specific threats but also provide recommendations through which organizations and individuals can disrupt, mitigate, and recover from the future of effects of IDMs.https://digitalcommons.usmalibrary.org/aci_books/1038/thumbnail.jp

The Future of Work

Welcome to the future, where technology will transform every aspect of how and where we work. But what kind of future will it be? What will physical spaces look like where we live, work, and play? How will we work side by side with robots? What jobs will people do and will they be meaningful? How do we make sure that the future involves everyone? In this collaboration with CISCO, all these questions and more are addressed, and contended with.https://digitalcommons.usmalibrary.org/aci_books/1032/thumbnail.jp

The inefficiency of re-weighted sampling and the curse of system size in high order path integration

Computing averages over a target probability density by statistical re-weighting of a set of samples with a different distribution is a strategy which is commonly adopted in fields as diverse as atomistic simulation and finance. Here we present a very general analysis of the accuracy and efficiency of this approach, highlighting some of its weaknesses. We then give an example of how our results can be used, specifically to assess the feasibility of high-order path integral methods. We demonstrate that the most promising of these techniques -- which is based on re-weighted sampling -- is bound to fail as the size of the system is increased, because of the exponential growth of the statistical uncertainty in the re-weighted average

Threatcasting: a framework and process to model future operating enviornments

Threatcasting, a new foresight methodology, draws from futures studies and military strategic thinking to provide a novel method to model the future. The methodology fills gaps in existing military futures thinking and provides a process to specify actionable steps as well as progress indicators. Threatcasting also provides an ability to anticipate future threats and develop strategies to reduce the impact of any event. This technical note provides a detailed explanation of the Threatcasting methodology. It provides the reader with its connections to the current body of work within the foresight community and then explains the four phase methodology through the use of a real-life example.https://digitalcommons.usmalibrary.org/aci_books/1040/thumbnail.jp

MARSIS remote sounding of localized density structures in the dayside Martian ionosphere:a study of controlling parameters

Enhanced topside electron densities in the dayside Martian ionosphere have been repetitively observed in areas of near-radial crustal magnetic fields, for periods of tens of days, indicating their long-term spatial and temporal stability despite changing solar wind conditions. We perform a statistical study of these density structures using the ionospheric mode of the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) onboard Mars Express. We estimate the apparent extents of these structures relative to the altitude of the surrounding ionosphere. The apex of the density structures often lies higher than the surrounding ionosphere (median vertical extent of 18 km), which indicates upwellings. These structures are much wider than they are high, with latitudinal scales of several degrees. The radar reflector regions are observed above both moderate and strong magnetic anomalies, and their precise locations and latitudinal extents match quite well with the locations and latitudinal extents of magnetic structures of given magnetic polarity (oblique to vertical fields), which happen to be regions where the field lines are open part of the time. The majority of the density structures occur in regions where ionospheric plasma is dominant, indicating closed field regions shielded from shocked solar wind plasm

A study of the effects of micro-gravity on seed germination

This study will identify characteristics of seed germination dependent upon gravity. To accomplish this objective, four different seed types will be germinated in space and then be compared to a control group germinated on Earth. Both the experimental and control groups will be analyzed on the cellular level for the size of cells, structural anomalies, and gravitational effects. The experiment will be conducted in a Get Away Special Canister (GAS Can no. 608) owned by the U.S. Space and Rocket Center and designed for students. The GAS Can will remain in the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle with minimal astronaut interaction