Corporate Panel—Chapter 11 Cramdown Interest Rates: Till, Momentive, and the Proper Valuation Method

The Corporate Panel debated the appropriate way to determine chapter 11 cramdown interest rates

Spectrum and prognostic significance of arrhythmias on ambulatory Holter electrocardiogram in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

ObjectivesThe goal of this study was to assemble a profile and assess the significance of arrhythmias in a nontertiary-based hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) cohort.BackgroundHypertrophic cardiomyopathy is associated with arrhythmia-related consequences, particularly sudden death. Ventricular tachyarrhythmias on Holter electrocardiograms (ECG) have been reported as markers for sudden death in highly selected HCM populations.MethodsWe assessed the profile of ventricular and supraventricular ectopy and bradyarrhythmia on ambulatory 24-h Holter ECG and also related these findings to clinical outcome in 178 HCM patients.ResultsOf the 178 study patients, 157 (88%) had premature ventricular complexes (PVCs), including 21 (12%) with ≥500 PVCs, 74 (42%) had couplets, 67 (37%) had supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), and 56 (31%) had nonsustained ventricular tachycardia (NSVT). Mean number of PVCs was 330 ± 763 (range 1 to 5,435) and increased with age (p < 0.01); NSVT was associated with greater left ventricular hypertrophy (p = 0.01) and severe symptoms (New York Heart Association functional classes III and IV) (p = 0.04); SVT occurred more commonly in patients with outflow obstruction (p = 0.02). Over a follow-up of 5.5 ± 3.4 years, 11 (6%) patients died suddenly (annual mortality rate, 1.1%) including 5 patients with NSVT. For sudden death, NSVT on Holter ECG had negative and positive predictive values of 95% and 9%, and sensitivity and specificity of 45% and 69%, respectively.ConclusionsIn this nontertiary-based HCM cohort, ventricular and supraventricular tachyarrhythmias were particularly frequent and demonstrated a broad spectrum on ambulatory (Holter) ECG. Paradoxically, despite such a highly arrhythmogenic substrate, sudden death events proved to be relatively uncommon. Ventricular tachyarrhythmias had a low positive and relatively high negative predictive value for sudden death in this HCM population

Correction: Benchmarking tools for the alignment of functional noncoding DNA

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.AbstractIn follow-up studies to this work [1], we have identified an error in a single line of code responsible for parsing BLASTZ [2] alignments that affects our previously published results for this alignment tool. This error resulted in a reduction in overall alignment coverage, with a concomitant underestimation of alignment sensitivity and overestimation of alignment specificity. As BLASTZ is an important and widely used alignment tool, we present here the revised results of our performance evaluations for BLASTZ together with previously reported results for the other alignment tools studied, which have been subsequently verified (Figures 1-4). The general conclusions presented in [1] remain unchanged, although the following sections concerning BLASTZ performance must be modified in light of our recent findings. The true overall alignment coverage for BLASTZ with and without insertion/deletion evolution and with and without blocks of constraint is shown in Figure 1, and reveals increased overall coverage in the presence of constrained blocks for intermediate to high divergence distances (Figures 1C & 1D) relative to previous results ([1] Figures 3C & 3D). As a consequence, the true overall sensitivity for BLASTZ is increased for intermediate to high divergence distances, especially in the presence of insertion/deletion evolution and constrained blocks (Figure 2D) relative to previous results ([1] Figure 4D). The most important revisions to [1] concern BLASTZ performance in interspersed blocks of constrained sequences (Figures 3, 4). Figure 3 shows that the true constraint coverage, and therefore constraint sensitivity, of BLASTZ is much improved relative to previous results for intermediate to high divergence distances ([1], Figure 5). Thus BLASTZ has increased constraint coverage relative to overall coverage (cp. Figures 1C & 1D with 3A & 3B), indicating that BLASTZ local alignments preferentially occur in constrained sequences for intermediate to high divergence distances, overturning claims on page 6 of [1] to the contrary. Likewise, the claim that BLASTZ has a "dramatic decrease in constraint sensitivity in the presence of indel evolution" on page 10 of [1] is incorrect. The increase in overall coverage, however, decreases the constraint specificity of BLASTZ for intermediate to high divergence distances (Figure 4A & 4B) relative to previous results ([1] Figure 6A & 6B). This decrease in constraint specificity requires reconsideration of the use of BLASTZ local alignments as specific detectors of constrained noncoding sequences discussed page 10 of [1]. Revised performance statistics for BLASTZ are posted along with previous results at [3]. We apologize for any misconception or inconvenience this error may have caused. References: 1. Pollard DA, Bergman CM, Stoye J, Celniker SE, Eisen MB: Benchmarking tools for the alignment of functional noncoding DNA. BMC Bioinformatics 2004, 5:6. 2. Schwartz S, Kent WJ, Smit A, Zhang Z, Baertsch R, Hardison RC, Haussler D, Miller W: Human-mouse alignments with BLASTZ. Genome Res 2003, 13:103-7. 3. AlignmentBenchmarking [http://rana.lbl.gov/AlignmentBenchmarking]Peer Reviewe

The spectral and chemical measurement of pollutants on snow near South Pole, Antarctica

Remote sensing of light-absorbing particles (LAPs), or dark colored impurities, such as black carbon (BC) and dust on snow, is a key remaining challenge in cryospheric surface characterization and application to snow, ice, and climate models. We present a quantitative data set of in situ snow reflectance, measured and modeled albedo, and BC and trace element concentrations from clean to heavily fossil fuel emission contaminated snow near South Pole, Antarctica. Over 380 snow reflectance spectra (350–2500 nm) and 28 surface snow samples were collected at seven distinct sites in the austral summer season of 2014–2015. Snow samples were analyzed for BC concentration via a single particle soot photometer and for trace element concentration via an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. Snow impurity concentrations ranged from 0.14 to 7000 part per billion (ppb) BC, 9.5 to 1200 ppb sulfur, 0.19 to 660 ppb iron, 0.013 to 1.9 ppb chromium, 0.13 to 120 ppb copper, 0.63 to 6.3 ppb zinc, 0.45 to 82 parts per trillion (ppt) arsenic, 0.0028 to 6.1 ppb cadmium, 0.062 to 22 ppb barium, and 0.0044 to 6.2 ppb lead. Broadband visible to shortwave infrared albedo ranged from 0.85 in pristine snow to 0.62 in contaminated snow. LAP radiative forcing, the enhanced surface absorption due to BC and trace elements, spanned from \u3c1 W m­–2 for clean snow to ~70 W m­–2 for snow with high BC and trace element content. Measured snow reflectance differed from modeled snow albedo due to specific impurity-dependent absorption features, which we recommend be further studied and improved in snow albedo models

Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities for Hydrologic Modeling to Support Decision Making

Ecosystem characteristics and processes provide significant value to human health and well- being, and there is growing interest in quantifying those values. Of particular interest are water-related eco- system services and the incorporation of their value into local and regional decision making. This presents multiple challenges and opportunities to the hydrologic-modeling community. To motivate advances in water-resources research, we first present three common decision contexts that draw upon an ecosystem- service framework: scenario analysis, payments for watershed services, and spatial planning. Within these contexts, we highlight the particular challenges to hydrologic modeling, and then present a set of opportu- nities that arise from ecosystem-service decisions. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations regarding how we can prioritize our work to support decisions based on ecosystem-service valuation

Chronic viral infection promotes sustained Th1-derived immunoregulatory IL-10 via BLIMP-1

During the course of many chronic viral infections, the antiviral T cell response becomes attenuated through a process that is regulated in part by the host. While elevated expression of the immunosuppressive cytokine IL-10 is involved in the suppression of viral-specific T cell responses, the relevant cellular sources of IL-10, as well as the pathways responsible for IL-10 induction, remain unclear. In this study, we traced IL-10 production over the course of chronic lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) infection in an IL-10 reporter mouse line. Using this model, we demonstrated that virus-specific T cells with reduced inflammatory function, particularly Th1 cells, display elevated and sustained IL-10 expression during chronic LCMV infection. Furthermore, ablation of IL-10 from the T cell compartment partially restored T cell function and reduced viral loads in LCMV-infected animals. We found that viral persistence is needed for sustained IL-10 production by Th1 cells and that the transcription factor BLIMP-1 is required for IL-10 expression by Th1 cells. Restimulation of Th1 cells from LCMV-infected mice promoted BLIMP-1 and subsequent IL-10 expression, suggesting that constant antigen exposure likely induces the BLIMP-1/IL-10 pathway during chronic viral infection. Together, these data indicate that effector T cells self-limit their responsiveness during persistent viral infection via an IL-10-dependent negative feedback loop.This work was supported by an Australian NHMRC Overseas Biomedical Postdoctoral Fellowship (to I.A. Parish); a Yale School of Medicine Brown-Coxe Postdoctoral Fellowship (to I.A. Parish); the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (SKA2010, to P.A. Lang); a CIHR grant (to P.S. Ohashi); and by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and NIH grant RO1AI074699 (to S.M. Kaech). P.S. Ohashi holds a Canada Research Chair in Autoimmunity and Tumor immunity

Using Visual Modeling Tools to Reach Students with Learning Disabilities

Teachers can use electronic visual modeling tools to help students with learning disabilities visualize and understand mathematical concepts such as proportions, dilations, and scale factors. In this article, the authors describe strategies for using static and dynamic visuals for supporting the memory and processing of students with learning disabilities as they engage in challenging mathematics