Evaluation of the effect of six different paint cross section preparation methods on the performances of Fourier Transformed Infrared microscopy in attenuated total reflection mode

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CD8+ T lymphocytes in bronchoalveolar lavage in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recently it was shown that in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) tissue infiltrating CD₈₊T lymphocytes (TLs) are associated with breathlessness and physiological indices of disease severity, as well as that CD₈₊TLs recovered by bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) relate to those infiltrating lung tissue. Since BAL is a far less invasive technique than tissue biopsy to study mechanisms in IPF we further investigated the usefulness offered by this means by studying the relationship between BAL macrophages, neutrophils, eosinophils, CD₃₊, CD₄₊, CD₈₊, CD_8+/38+TLs and CD₄₊/CD₈₊ratio with breathlessness and physiological indices.</p> <p>Patients and methods</p> <p>27 IPF patients, 63 ± 9 years of age were examined. Cell counts were expressed as percentages of total cells and TLs were evaluated by flow cytometry. FEV₁, FVC, TLC, RV, <it>D</it>LCO, PaO₂, and PaCO₂were measured in all. Breathlessness was assessed by the Medical Research Council (MRC) chronic dyspnoea scale.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>CD₈₊TLs correlated positively (r_s= 0.46, p = 0.02), while CD₄₊/CD₈₊ratio negatively (r_s= -0.54, p = 0.006) with the MRC grade. CD₈₊TLs correlated negatively with RV (r_s= -0.50, p = 0.017). CD_8+/38+TLs were negatively related to the FEV₁and FVC (r_s= -0.53, p = 0.03 and r_s= -0.59, p = 0.02, respectively). Neutrophils correlated positively with the MRC grade (r_s= 0.42, p = 0.03), and negatively with the <it>D</it>LCO (r_s= -0.54, p = 0.005), PaO₂(r_s= -0.44, p = 0.03), and PaCO₂(r_s= -0.52, p = 0.01).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>BAL CD₈₊TLs associations with physiological and clinical indices seem to indicate their implication in IPF pathogenesis, confirming our previous tissue study.</p

Reduced uptake of the proliferation-seeking radiotracer technetium-99m-labelled pentavalent dimercaptosuccinic acid in a 47-year-old woman with severe breast epithelial hyperplasia taking ibuprofen: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Recent studies have reported a risk reduction in the progression of benign breast disease to breast carcinoma through COX-2 pathways.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We present a case of severe epithelial hyperplasia in a 47-year-old woman with increased breast density submitted to scintimammography by the proliferation-imaging tracer Technetium-99m-labelled pentavalent dimercaptosuccinic acid, before and after an oral ibuprofen treatment for 4 weeks. The radiotracer uptake after ibuprofen intake was significantly reduced, both visually and by semi-quantitative analysis, based on a calculation of lesion-to-background ratios.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In proliferating breast lesions, scintigraphically displayed reduction in Technetium-99m-labelled pentavalent dimercaptosuccinic acid uptake may indicate inhibition by ibuprofen in the pathway of malignant epithelial cell transformation.</p

Desperately seeking niches: Grassroots innovations and niche development in the community currency field

The sustainability transitions literature seeks to explain the conditions under which technological innovations can diffuse and disrupt existing socio-technical systems through the successful scaling up of experimental ‘niches’; but recent research on ‘grassroots innovations’ argues that civil society is a promising but under-researched site of innovation for sustainability, albeit one with very different characteristics to the market-based innovation normally considered in the literature. This paper aims to address that research gap by exploring the relevance of niche development theories in a civil society context. To do this, we examine a growing grassroots innovation – the international field of community currencies – which comprises a range of new socio-technical configurations of systems of exchange which have emerged from civil society over the last 30 years, intended to provide more environmentally and socially sustainable forms of money and finance. We draw on new empirical research from an international study of these initiatives comprising primary and secondary data and documentary sources, elite interviews and participant observation in the field. We describe the global diffusion of community currencies, and then conduct a niche analysis to evaluate the utility of niche theories for explaining the development of the community currency movement. We find that some niche-building processes identified in the existing literature are relevant in a grassroots context: the importance of building networks, managing expectations and the significance of external ‘landscape’ pressures, particularly at the level of national-type. However, our findings suggest that existing theories do not fully capture the complexity of this type of innovation: we find a diverse field addressing a range of societal systems (money, welfare, education, health, consumerism), and showing increasing fragmentation (as opposed to consolidation and standardisation); furthermore, there is little evidence of formalised learning taking place but this has not hampered movement growth. We conclude that grassroots innovations develop and diffuse in quite different ways to conventional innovations, and that niche theories require adaptation to the civil society context

Performing Values Practices and Grassroots Organizing: The Case of Solidarity Economy Initiatives in Greece

This article discusses solidarity economy initiatives as instances of grassroots organizing, and explores how ‘values practices’ are performed collectively during times of crisis. In focusing on how power, discourse and subjectivities are negotiated in the everyday practices of grassroots exchange networks (GENs) in crisis-stricken Greece, the study unveils and discusses three performances of values practices, namely mobilization of values, re-articulation of social relations, and sustainable living. Based on these findings, and informed by theoretical analyses of performativity, we propose a framework for studying the production and reproduction of values in the context of GENs, and the role of values in organizing alternatives

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13