Studies on Recombination within the Mouse H-2 Complex

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65671/1/j.1399-0039.1972.tb00141.x.pd

A Quantum Planner for Robot Motion

The possibility of integrating quantum computation in a traditional system appears to be a viable route to drastically improve the performance of systems endowed with artificial intelligence. An example of such processing consists of implementing a teleo-reactive system employing quantum computing. In this work, we considered the navigation of a robot in an environment where its decisions are drawn from a quantum algorithm. In particular, the behavior of a robot is formalized through a production system. It is used to describe the world, the actions it can perform, and the conditions of the robot's behavior. According to the production rules, the planning of the robot activities is processed in a recognize-act cycle with a quantum rule processing algorithm. Such a system aims to achieve a significant computational speed-up

Studies on Recombination within the Mouse H-2 Gene Complex. III. Further Serological Analyses of the H-2 t Haplotypes *

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66398/1/j.1399-0039.1975.tb00655.x.pd

Thyroid disorders in antenatal women in a rural hospital in central India

Background: Thyroid disorders are one of the most common endocrine disorders in pregnancy. Thyroid disorders are known to be associated with abnormal maternal and fetal outcomes and are often overlooked in pregnant women because of nonspecific symptoms and hypermetabolic state of pregnancy.Methods: 514 women between 12 to 18 weeks of pregnancy from October 2013 to September 2015were recruited in the study. Serum thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) testing was done. Free T4 and free T3 were tested in subjects with a deranged TSH value. Subjects were followed up till delivery, and maternal and fetal complications arising out of thyroid dysfunction were studied.Results: The occurrence of subclinical hypothyroidism was 9.54%, overt hypothyroidism was 2.34% and hyperthyroidism was 0.58%.  When compared to subjects with euthyroidism, anemia and preterm delivery were the most significant maternal complications in subjects with hypothyroidism (p=0.0001 and 0.0001, respectively) whereas miscarriage, IUD/stillbirth, LBW and intrauterine growth restriction were significant fetal complications observed in subjects with hypothyroidism, with p<0.0001, p=0.002, 0.025, 0.009 respectively. NICU admissions were 2.58 times more in subjects with thyroid disorders as compared to euthyroid subjects.Conclusions: The occurrence of thyroid disorders was high in our study with associated adverse maternal and fetal outcomes. Routine screening for thyroid dysfunction is recommended to prevent adverse fetal and maternal outcomes. Serum TSH is a sufficient and cost-effective screening tool.

Measuring Relations Between Concepts In Conceptual Spaces

The highly influential framework of conceptual spaces provides a geometric way of representing knowledge. Instances are represented by points in a high-dimensional space and concepts are represented by regions in this space. Our recent mathematical formalization of this framework is capable of representing correlations between different domains in a geometric way. In this paper, we extend our formalization by providing quantitative mathematical definitions for the notions of concept size, subsethood, implication, similarity, and betweenness. This considerably increases the representational power of our formalization by introducing measurable ways of describing relations between concepts.Comment: Accepted at SGAI 2017 (http://www.bcs-sgai.org/ai2017/). The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71078-5_7. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1707.05165, arXiv:1706.0636

Mice expressing HLA-DQ6α8β transgenes develop polychondritis spontaneously

Relapsing polychondritis (RP) is a human autoimmune disease of unknown etiology in which cartilaginous sites are destroyed by cyclic inflammatory episodes beginning, most commonly, during the fourth or fifth decade of life. We have previously described collagen-induced polychondritis that closely mirrors RP occurring in young (6–8 weeks old) HLA-DQ6αβ8αβ transgenic Aβ0 mice, following immunization with heterologous type II collagen (CII). We present evidence here that transgenic strains expressing the DQ6α8β transgene develop spontaneous polychondritis (SP) at the mouse equivalent of human middle age (4.5–6 months and 40–50 years old, respectively) and display polyarthritis, auricular chondritis and nasal chondritis – three of the most common sites affected in RP. Auricular chondritis in SP, like RP but unlike CII-induced polychondritis, exhibited a relapsing/remitting phenotype, requiring several inflammatory cycles before the cartilage is destroyed. Elevated serum levels of total IgG corresponded with the onset of disease in SP, as in RP and CII-induced polychondritis. No CII-specific immune response was detected in SP, however – more closely mirroring RP, in which as few as 30% of RP patients have been reported to have CII-specific IgG. CII-induced polychondritis displays a strong CII-specific immune response. SP also demonstrated a strong female preponderance, as some workers have reported in RP but has not observed in CII-induced polychondritis. These characteristics of SP allow for the examination of the immunopathogenesis of polychondritis in the absence of an overwhelming CII-specific immune response and the strong adjuvant-induced immunostimulatory influence in CII-induced polychondritis. This spontaneous model of polychondritis provides a new and unique tool to investigate both the initiatory events as well as the immunopathogenic mechanisms occurring at cartilaginous sites during the cyclic inflammatory assaults of polychondritis

A global workspace theory model for trust estimation in human-robot interaction

Successful and genuine social connections between humans are based on trust, even more when the people involved have to collaborate to reach a shared goal. With the advent of new findings and technologies in the field of robotics, it appears that this same key factor that regulates relationships between humans also applies with the same importance to human-robot interactions (HRI). Previous studies have proven the usefulness of a robot able to estimate the trustworthiness of its human collaborators and in this position paper we discuss a method to extend an existing state-of-the-art trust model with considerations based on social cues such as emotions. The proposed model follows the Global Workspace Theory (GWT) principles to build a novel system able to combine multiple specialised expert systems to determine whether the partner can be considered trustworthy or not. Positive results would demonstrate the usefulness of using constructive biases to enhance the teaming skills of social robots

Formulation and Evaluation of Drug Loaded Nanoparticles for Rheumatoid Arthritis

The development of dosage form is often necessary to achieve the desired release pattern and effective therapeutic response to improve patient compliance. During the last two decades, advanced drug delivery research and development activity has surged because of the afore mentioned medical and economic driving forces. Nanotechnology is emerging as a promising tool for the twenty first century. Pharmaceutical nanotechnology is the application of nanoscience to pharmacy. A concept of novel drug delivery approach using design of nanomedicine has been now well established in current pharmaceutical scenario. Pharmaceutical nanotechnology has provided fine-tuned diagnosis and treatment of disease at molecular level using various nanomedicine like liposomes, dendrimer, polymeric micelles, nanospheres, niosomes; and more recently, carbon nanotubes and quantum dots etc. Nanoparticles based drug delivery systems have created great impact on practically every branch of medicine including cardiology, ophthalmology, endocrinology, oncology, pulmonology, immunology and also on highly specialized areas like gene delivery, targeting to brain, tumor targeting, oral vaccine formulations and other areas. The pharmaceutical nanotechnology market especially in diagnostic and carrier for drug has been rapidly growing over last two decades. Some pharmaceutical nanotechnology based products liposome, nanoparticles, polymer micelles, dendrimer, monoclonal antibody, modified nanosystems have been approved by US-FDA and have entered the market. However, some unknown health risk, unpredictable and undefined safety issues and some clinical as well as regulatory issues still pose formidable challenges. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a common inflammatory disease characterized by progressive bone and cartilage destruction resulting in severe functional limitations, shortened lifespan, and increased mortality rates. RA affects approximately 1% of the general population worldwide. Recent advances and new treatment approaches have significantly delayed disease progression and improved quality of life for many patients. Unlike conventional drugs, the nanocarrier system may increase the solubility of certain drugs and protect them against degradation in the circulation, further increasing their local bioavailability and reducing unwanted off-target side effects. Therefore this study was undertaken to develop nanotechnology based strategies for the treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis