Heterogeneity of Microglial Activation in the Innate Immune Response in the Brain

The immune response in the brain has been widely investigated and while many studies have focused on the proinflammatory cytotoxic response, the brain’s innate immune system demonstrates significant heterogeneity. Microglia, like other tissue macrophages, participate in repair and resolution processes after infection or injury to restore normal tissue homeostasis. This review examines the mechanisms that lead to reduction of self-toxicity and to repair and restructuring of the damaged extracellular matrix in the brain. Part of the resolution process involves switching macrophage functional activation to include reduction of proinflammatory mediators, increased production and release of anti-inflammatory cytokines, and production of cytoactive factors involved in repair and reconstruction of the damaged brain. Two partially overlapping and complimentary functional macrophage states have been identified and are called alternative activation and acquired deactivation. The immunosuppressive and repair processes of each of these states and how alternative activation and acquired deactivation participate in chronic neuroinflammation in the brain are discussed

Vitamin D3 Deficiency Differentially Affects Functional and Disease Outcomes in the G93A Mouse Model of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neuromuscular disease characterized by motor neuron death in the central nervous system. Vitamin D supplementation increases antioxidant activity, reduces inflammation and improves motor neuron survival. We have previously demonstrated that vitamin D3 supplementation at 10× the adequate intake improves functional outcomes in a mouse model of ALS

The supernatural characters and powers of sacred trees in the Holy Land

This article surveys the beliefs concerning the supernatural characteristics and powers of sacred trees in Israel; it is based on a field study as well as a survey of the literature and includes 118 interviews with Muslims and Druze. Both the Muslims and Druze in this study attribute supernatural dimensions to sacred trees which are directly related to ancient, deep-rooted pagan traditions. The Muslims attribute similar divine powers to sacred trees as they do to the graves of their saints; the graves and the trees are both considered to be the abode of the soul of a saint which is the source of their miraculous powers. Any violation of a sacred tree would be strictly punished while leaving the opportunity for atonement and forgiveness. The Druze, who believe in the transmigration of souls, have similar traditions concerning sacred trees but with a different religious background. In polytheistic religions the sacred grove/forest is a centre of the community's official worship; any violation of the trees is regarded as a threat to the well being of the community. Punishments may thus be collective. In the monotheistic world (including Christianity, Islam and Druze) the pagan worship of trees was converted into the worship/adoration of saints/prophets; it is not a part of the official religion but rather a personal act and the punishments are exerted only on the violating individual

How length of light exposure shapes the development of riverine algal biomass in temperate rivers?

The impact of cumulative daily solar radiation (CDSR) on the biomass of river phytoplankton (Chl-a) in the growing season was studied using a large dataset of rivers in the Carpathian Basin. The amount of solar radiation was cumulated over the range of 1–60 days. The CDSR–Chl-a relationship could be described by linear regression and appeared to be significant for almost all watercourses with the exception of rivers with short water residence time. To determine the most relevant time period of CDSR impacting phytoplankton biomass, the slopes of regressions were plotted against the accumulating number of days of light exposure (1–60). Two characteristic shapes were obtained: unimodal for rhithral rivers with hard substrate and steady increase for lowland potamal rivers with fine substrate. In both cases, there is an increasing tendency in the slope values with water residence time (WRT). It was demonstrated that CDSR has a pronounced impact on river phytoplankton biomass even in cases when WRT was shorter than the cumulated solar radiation period. These results indicate that development of phytoplankton within the river channel is a complex process in which meroplankton dynamics may have significant impacts. Our results have two implications: First, CDSR cannot be neglected in predictive modelling of riverine phytoplankton biomass. Second, climate models forecast increased drought with subsequently increased CDSR in several regions globally, which may trigger a rise in phytoplankton biomass in light-limited rivers with high nutrient concentrations

Lawson criterion for ignition exceeded in an inertial fusion experiment

For more than half a century, researchers around the world have been engaged in attempts to achieve fusion ignition as a proof of principle of various fusion concepts. Following the Lawson criterion, an ignited plasma is one where the fusion heating power is high enough to overcome all the physical processes that cool the fusion plasma, creating a positive thermodynamic feedback loop with rapidly increasing temperature. In inertially confined fusion, ignition is a state where the fusion plasma can begin "burn propagation" into surrounding cold fuel, enabling the possibility of high energy gain. While "scientific breakeven" (i.e., unity target gain) has not yet been achieved (here target gain is 0.72, 1.37 MJ of fusion for 1.92 MJ of laser energy), this Letter reports the first controlled fusion experiment, using laser indirect drive, on the National Ignition Facility to produce capsule gain (here 5.8) and reach ignition by nine different formulations of the Lawson criterion

The decision rule approach to optimization under uncertainty: methodology and applications

Dynamic decision-making under uncertainty has a long and distinguished history in operations research. Due to the curse of dimensionality, solution schemes that naïvely partition or discretize the support of the random problem parameters are limited to small and medium-sized problems, or they require restrictive modeling assumptions (e.g., absence of recourse actions). In the last few decades, several solution techniques have been proposed that aim to alleviate the curse of dimensionality. Amongst these is the decision rule approach, which faithfully models the random process and instead approximates the feasible region of the decision problem. In this paper, we survey the major theoretical findings relating to this approach, and we investigate its potential in two applications areas