THE USE OF SELECTIVE ANNEALING FOR SUPERPLASTIC FORMING OF MG AZ31 ALLOY

A recent study on the Post-Formed properties of Superplastically Formed Magnesium AZ31B has shown that the heating time prior to testing has a major effect on the Post Forming properties of the superplastically material. To this point, there has been very little examination into the effect of pre-heating or annealing on superplastic forming (SPF) properties. In this work, the effects of annealing prior to the SPF of Mg AZ31 alloy were examined. Both high temperature SPF tensile and bulge specimens were formed after annealing. Multiple annealing temperatures were examined to produce specimens with grain sizes ranging from 8 andamp;igrave;m to 15 andamp;igrave;m for comparison with traditional SPF results. The results show that the effect of annealing can be suitable for the improvement of thinning and possibly the forming time of superplastically formed Magnesium alloys through the control of the microstructure

New Records of Alien Species in the Ohio Vascular Flora

Author Institution: Department of Botany, Miami University ; Division of Natural Areas and Preserves, Ohio Department of Natural ResourcesExamination of specimens of vascular plants from various herbaria, as well as field collections, have revealed 70 taxa not previously reported for Ohio, or previously reported without documentation. This paper documents these new taxa, 44% of which are escapes of woody landscape plants. The specimens cited represent 55 genera in 30 families. Of these, the following genera are first reports for the state: Achyranthes, Albizia, Carthamus, Cercidiphyllum, Cotoneaster, Dactyloctenium, Fontanesia, Gaillardia, Guizotia, Gypsophila, Stenosiphon, Tripsacum, and Zinnia. Cercidiphyllaceae is the only family reported as new for the state. Some taxa cited in this paper represent first reports as escapes for North America. These are Cotoneaster divaricatus (Rosaceae), Fontanesia fortunei (Oleaceae), Magnolia X soulangeana (Magnoliaceae), Magnolia stellata (Magnoliaceae), Viburnum buddleifolium (Caprifoliaceae), and Viburnum x rhytidiphylloides (Caprifoliaceae)

State Mandated Prenatal Human Immunodeficiency Virus Screening at a Large Community Hospital

Purpose: To describe the initial experience of state mandated prenatal HIV screening at a large community hospital.Methods: HIV screening was provided to all pregnant women as of October 1, 1999. All HIV-positive women identified received aggressive antiretroviral therapy to reduce the likelihood for vertical transmission. Neonates were screened for HIV at zero, six, and 12 months of age.Results: Seven pregnant women (0.3%) and two additional family members tested positive for HIV. All seven infants born to the identified HIV-positive women have tested negative for infection. We estimated that six of nine cases of HIV infection identified would have been missed under a policy of voluntary HIV screening.Conclusions: Universal screening for HIV in pregnancy is achievable and desirable and provides the best opportunity to minimize the number of new neonatal HIV infections

Trehalose Uptake through P2X7 Purinergic Channels Provides Dehydration Protection

The tetra-anionic form of ATP (ATP4-) is known to induce monovalent and divalent ion fluxes in cells that express purinergic P2X7 receptors (Steinberg et al., 1987; Sung et al., 1985), and with sustained application of ATP it has been shown that dyes as large as 831 daltons can permeate the cell membrane (Steinberg et al, 1987). The current study explores the kinetics of loading α,α-trehalose (342 daltons) into ATP stimulated J774.A1 cells, which are known to express the purinergic P2X7 receptor (Steinberg et al., 1987). Cells that were incubated at 37 ̊C in a 50 mM phosphate buffer (pH 7.0) contailing 225 mM trehalose and 5 mM ATP, were shown to load trehalose linearly over time. Concentrations of ~50 mM were reached within 90 min of incubation. Cells incubated in the same solution at 4 ̊C loaded minimally, consistent with the inactivity of the receptor at low temperatures. However, extended incubation at 37 oC (\u3e60 min) resulted in zero next-day survival, with adverse effects appearing even with incubation periods as short as 30 min. By using a two-step protocol with a short time period at 37 oC to allow pore formation, followed by an extended loading period on ice, cells could be loaded with up to 50 mM trehalose while maintaining good next day recovery (49% ± 12 % by Trypan Blue exclusion, 56 ± 20% by Alamar BlueTM assay). Cells porated by this method and allowed an overnight recovery period exhibited improved dehydration tolerance suggesting a role for ATP poration in the anhydrous preservation of cells

Intrinsic Disorder Is a Common Feature of Hub Proteins from Four Eukaryotic Interactomes

Recent proteome-wide screening approaches have provided a wealth of information about interacting proteins in various organisms. To test for a potential association between protein connectivity and the amount of predicted structural disorder, the disorder propensities of proteins with various numbers of interacting partners from four eukaryotic organisms (Caenorhabditis elegans, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Drosophila melanogaster, and Homo sapiens) were investigated. The results of PONDR VL-XT disorder analysis show that for all four studied organisms, hub proteins, defined here as those that interact with ≥10 partners, are significantly more disordered than end proteins, defined here as those that interact with just one partner. The proportion of predicted disordered residues, the average disorder score, and the number of predicted disordered regions of various lengths were higher overall in hubs than in ends. A binary classification of hubs and ends into ordered and disordered subclasses using the consensus prediction method showed a significant enrichment of wholly disordered proteins and a significant depletion of wholly ordered proteins in hubs relative to ends in worm, fly, and human. The functional annotation of yeast hubs and ends using GO categories and the correlation of these annotations with disorder predictions demonstrate that proteins with regulation, transcription, and development annotations are enriched in disorder, whereas proteins with catalytic activity, transport, and membrane localization annotations are depleted in disorder. The results of this study demonstrate that intrinsic structural disorder is a distinctive and common characteristic of eukaryotic hub proteins, and that disorder may serve as a determinant of protein interactivity

Identification of FAM111A as an SV40 Host Range Restriction and Adenovirus Helper Factor

The small genome of polyomaviruses encodes a limited number of proteins that are highly dependent on interactions with host cell proteins for efficient viral replication. The SV40 large T antigen (LT) contains several discrete functional domains including the LXCXE or RB-binding motif, the DNA binding and helicase domains that contribute to the viral life cycle. In addition, the LT C-terminal region contains the host range and adenovirus helper functions required for lytic infection in certain restrictive cell types. To understand how LT affects the host cell to facilitate viral replication, we expressed full-length or functional domains of LT in cells, identified interacting host proteins and carried out expression profiling. LT perturbed the expression of p53 target genes and subsets of cell-cycle dependent genes regulated by the DREAM and the B-Myb-MuvB complexes. Affinity purification of LT followed by mass spectrometry revealed a specific interaction between the LT C-terminal region and FAM111A, a previously uncharacterized protein. Depletion of FAM111A recapitulated the effects of heterologous expression of the LT C-terminal region, including increased viral gene expression and lytic infection of SV40 host range mutants and adenovirus replication in restrictive cells. FAM111A functions as a host range restriction factor that is specifically targeted by SV40 LT

VirusMINT: a viral protein interaction database

Understanding the consequences on host physiology induced by viral infection requires complete understanding of the perturbations caused by virus proteins on the cellular protein interaction network. The VirusMINT database (http://mint.bio.uniroma2.it/virusmint/) aims at collecting all protein interactions between viral and human proteins reported in the literature. VirusMINT currently stores over 5000 interactions involving more than 490 unique viral proteins from more than 110 different viral strains. The whole data set can be easily queried through the search pages and the results can be displayed with a graphical viewer. The curation effort has focused on manuscripts reporting interactions between human proteins and proteins encoded by some of the most medically relevant viruses: papilloma viruses, human immunodeficiency virus 1, Epstein–Barr virus, hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, herpes viruses and Simian virus 40

Parenteral artemisinins are associated with reduced mortality and neurologic deficits and improved long-term behavioral outcomes in children with severe malaria

Background: In 2011, the World Health Organization recommended injectable artesunate as the first-line therapy for severe malaria (SM) due to its superiority in reducing mortality compared to quinine. There are limited data on long-term clinical and neurobehavioral outcomes after artemisinin use for treatment of SM. Methods: From 2008 to 2013, 502 Ugandan children with two common forms of SM, cerebral malaria and severe malarial anemia, were enrolled in a prospective observational study assessing long-term neurobehavioral and cognitive outcomes following SM. Children were evaluated a week after hospital discharge, and 6, 12, and 24 months of follow-up, and returned to hospital for any illness. In this study, we evaluated the impact of artemisinin derivatives on survival, post-discharge hospital readmission or death, and neurocognitive and behavioral outcomes over 2 years of follow-up. Results: 346 children received quinine and 156 received parenteral artemisinin therapy (artemether or artesunate). After adjustment for disease severity, artemisinin derivatives were associated with a 78% reduction in in-hospital mortality (adjusted odds ratio, 0.22; 95% CI, 0.07-0.67). Among cerebral malaria survivors, children treated with artemisinin derivatives also had reduced neurologic deficits at discharge (quinine, 41.7%; artemisinin derivatives, 23.7%, p=0.007). Over a 2-year follow-up, artemisinin derivatives as compared to quinine were associated with better adjusted scores (negative scores better) in internalizing behavior and executive function in children irrespective of the age at severe malaria episode. After adjusting for multiple comparisons, artemisinin derivatives were associated with better adjusted scores in behavior and executive function in children <6 years of age at severe malaria exposure following adjustment for child age, sex, socioeconomic status, enrichment in the home environment, and the incidence of hospitalizations over follow-up. Children receiving artesunate had the greatest reduction in mortality and benefit in behavioral outcomes and had reduced inflammation at 1-month follow-up compared to children treated with quinine. Conclusions: Treatment of severe malaria with artemisinin derivatives, particularly artesunate, results in reduced in-hospital mortality and neurologic deficits in children of all ages, reduced inflammation following recovery, and better long-term behavioral outcomes. These findings suggest artesunate has long-term beneficial effects in children surviving severe malaria

Edgetic perturbation models of human inherited disorders

Cellular functions are mediated through complex systems of macromolecules and metabolites linked through biochemical and physical interactions, represented in interactome models as ‘nodes' and ‘edges', respectively. Better understanding of genotype-to-phenotype relationships in human disease will require modeling of how disease-causing mutations affect systems or interactome properties. Here we investigate how perturbations of interactome networks may differ between complete loss of gene products (‘node removal') and interaction-specific or edge-specific (‘edgetic') alterations. Global computational analyses of ∼50 000 known causative mutations in human Mendelian disorders revealed clear separations of mutations probably corresponding to those of node removal versus edgetic perturbations. Experimental characterization of mutant alleles in various disorders identified diverse edgetic interaction profiles of mutant proteins, which correlated with distinct structural properties of disease proteins and disease mechanisms. Edgetic perturbations seem to confer distinct functional consequences from node removal because a large fraction of cases in which a single gene is linked to multiple disorders can be modeled by distinguishing edgetic network perturbations. Edgetic network perturbation models might improve both the understanding of dissemination of disease alleles in human populations and the development of molecular therapeutic strategies