29 research outputs found

    Value Added -- A Tax New to the United States

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    Deontology of Bookkeeping

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    Mast cell lineage diversion of T lineage precursors by the essential T cell transcription factor GATA-3

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    GATA-3 is essential for T cell development from the earliest stages. However, abundant GATA-3 can drive T lineage precursors to a non–T cell fate, depending on Notch signaling and developmental stage. Here, overexpression of GATA-3 blocked the survival of pro–T cells when Notch-Delta signals were present but enhanced viability in their absence. In fetal thymocytes at the double-negative 1 (DN1) stage and DN2 stage but not those at the DN3 stage, overexpression of GATA-3 rapidly induced respecification to the mast cell lineage with high frequency by direct transcriptional 'reprogramming'. Normal DN2 thymocytes also showed mast cell potential when interleukin 3 and stem cell factor were added in the absence of Notch signaling. Our results suggest a close relationship between the pro–T cell and mast cell programs and a previously unknown function for Notch in T lineage fidelity

    Using near-term forecasts and uncertainty partitioning to improve predictions of low-frequency cyanobacterial events

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    Near-term ecological forecasts provide resource managers advance notice of changes in ecosystem services, such as fisheries stocks, timber yields, or water and air quality. Importantly, ecological forecasts can identify where uncertainty enters the forecasting system, which is necessary to refine and improve forecast skill and guide interpretation of forecast results. Uncertainty partitioning identifies the relative contributions to total forecast variance (uncertainty) introduced by different sources, including specification of the model structure, errors in driver data, and estimation of initial state conditions. Uncertainty partitioning could be particularly useful in improving forecasts of high-density cyanobacterial events, which are difficult to predict and present a persistent challenge for lake managers. Cyanobacteria can produce toxic or unsightly surface scums and advance warning of these events could help managers mitigate water quality issues. Here, we calibrate fourteen Bayesian state-space models to evaluate different hypotheses about cyanobacterial growth using data from eight summers of weekly cyanobacteria density samples in an oligotrophic (low nutrient) lake that experiences sporadic surface scums of the toxin-producing cyanobacterium, Gloeotrichia echinulata. We identify dominant sources of uncertainty for near-term (one-week to four-week) forecasts of G. echinulata densities over two years. Water temperature was an important predictor in calibration and at the four-week forecast horizon. However, no environmental covariates improved over a simple autoregressive (AR) model at the one-week horizon. Even the best fit models exhibited large variance in forecasted cyanobacterial densities and often did not capture rare peak density occurrences, indicating that significant explanatory variables in calibration are not always effective for near-term forecasting of low-frequency events. Uncertainty partitioning revealed that model process specification and initial conditions uncertainty dominated forecasts at both time horizons. These findings suggest that observed densities result from both growth and movement of G. echinulata, and that imperfect observations as well as spatial misalignment of environmental data and cyanobacteria observations affect forecast skill. Future research efforts should prioritize long-term studies to refine process understanding and increased sampling frequency and replication to better define initial conditions. Our results emphasize the importance of ecological forecasting principles and uncertainty partitioning to refine and understand predictive capacity across ecosystems.Accepted manuscrip

    Germline variation at 8q24 and prostate cancer risk in men of European ancestry

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    Chromosome 8q24 is a susceptibility locus for multiple cancers, including prostate cancer. Here we combine genetic data across the 8q24 susceptibility region from 71,535 prostate cancer cases and 52,935 controls of European ancestry to define the overall contribution of germline variation at 8q24 to prostate cancer risk. We identify 12 independent risk signals for prostate cancer (p < 4.28 × 10−15), including three risk variants that have yet to be reported. From a polygenic risk score (PRS) model, derived to assess the cumulative effect of risk variants at 8q24, men in the top 1% of the PRS have a 4-fold (95%CI = 3.62–4.40) greater risk compared to the population average. These 12 variants account for ~25% of what can be currently explained of the familial risk of prostate cancer by known genetic risk factors. These findings highlight the overwhelming contribution of germline variation at 8q24 on prostate cancer risk which has implications for population risk stratification

    Fine-mapping of prostate cancer susceptibility loci in a large meta-analysis identifies candidate causal variants

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    Prostate cancer is a polygenic disease with a large heritable component. A number of common, low-penetrance prostate cancer risk loci have been identified through GWAS. Here we apply the Bayesian multivariate variable selection algorithm JAM to fine-map 84 prostate cancer susceptibility loci, using summary data from a large European ancestry meta-analysis. We observe evidence for multiple independent signals at 12 regions and 99 risk signals overall. Only 15 original GWAS tag SNPs remain among the catalogue of candidate variants identified; the remainder are replaced by more likely candidates. Biological annotation of our credible set of variants indicates significant enrichment within promoter and enhancer elements, and transcription factor-binding sites, including AR, ERG and FOXA1. In 40 regions at least one variant is colocalised with an eQTL in prostate cancer tissue. The refined set of candidate variants substantially increase the proportion of familial relative risk explained by these known susceptibility regions, which highlights the importance of fine-mapping studies and has implications for clinical risk profiling. © 2018 The Author(s).Prostate cancer is a polygenic disease with a large heritable component. A number of common, low-penetrance prostate cancer risk loci have been identified through GWAS. Here we apply the Bayesian multivariate variable selection algorithm JAM to fine-map 84 prostate cancer susceptibility loci, using summary data from a large European ancestry meta-analysis. We observe evidence for multiple independent signals at 12 regions and 99 risk signals overall. Only 15 original GWAS tag SNPs remain among the catalogue of candidate variants identified; the remainder are replaced by more likely candidates. Biological annotation of our credible set of variants indicates significant enrichment within promoter and enhancer elements, and transcription factor-binding sites, including AR, ERG and FOXA1. In 40 regions at least one variant is colocalised with an eQTL in prostate cancer tissue. The refined set of candidate variants substantially increase the proportion of familial relative risk explained by these known susceptibility regions, which highlights the importance of fine-mapping studies and has implications for clinical risk profiling. © 2018 The Author(s).Peer reviewe
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