Cytomegalovirus-associated pulmonary exacerbation in patients with cystic fibrosis.

CMV is an unusual cause of pulmonary exacerbation in immunocompetent individuals with CF http://ow.ly/Rdds30hlnjV

A non-interleaving process calculus for multi-party synchronisation

We introduce the wire calculus. Its dynamic features are inspired by Milner's CCS: a unary prefix operation, binary choice and a standard recursion construct. Instead of an interleaving parallel composition operator there are operators for synchronisation along a common boundary and non-communicating parallel composition. The (operational) semantics is a labelled transition system obtained with SOS rules. Bisimilarity is a congruence with respect to the operators of the language. Quotienting terms by bisimilarity results in a compact closed category

ZNF804A risk allele is associated with relatively intact gray matter volume in patients with schizophrenia

ZNF804A rs1344706 is the first genetic risk variant to achieve genome wide significance for psychosis. Following earlier evidence that patients carrying the ZNF804A risk allele had relatively spared memory function compared to patient non-carriers, we investigated whether ZNF804A was also associated with variation in brain volume. In a sample of 70 patients and 38 healthy participants we used voxel based morphometry to compare homozygous (AA) carriers of the ZNF804A risk allele to heterozygous and homozygous (AC/CC) non-carriers for both whole brain volume and specific regions implicated in earlier ZNF804A studies-the dorsolateral pre-frontal cortex, the hippocampus, and the amygdala. For patients, but not for controls, we found that homozygous 'AA' risk carriers had relatively larger gray matter volumes than heterozygous/homozygous non-carriers (AC/CC), particularly for hippocampal volumes. These data are consistent with our earlier behavioral data and suggest that ZNF804A is delineating a schizophrenia subtype characterized by relatively intact brain volume. Establishing if this represents a discrete molecular pathogenesis with consequences for nosology and treatment will be an important next step in understanding ZNF084A's role in illness risk

Integrated Structure and Semantics for Reo Connectors and Petri Nets

In this paper, we present an integrated structural and behavioral model of Reo connectors and Petri nets, allowing a direct comparison of the two concurrency models. For this purpose, we introduce a notion of connectors which consist of a number of interconnected, user-defined primitives with fixed behavior. While the structure of connectors resembles hypergraphs, their semantics is given in terms of so-called port automata. We define both models in a categorical setting where composition operations can be elegantly defined and integrated. Specifically, we formalize structural gluings of connectors as pushouts, and joins of port automata as pullbacks. We then define a semantical functor from the connector to the port automata category which preserves this composition. We further show how to encode Reo connectors and Petri nets into this model and indicate applications to dynamic reconfigurations modeled using double pushout graph transformation

Choreographies with Secure Boxes and Compromised Principals

We equip choreography-level session descriptions with a simple abstraction of a security infrastructure. Message components may be enclosed within (possibly nested) "boxes" annotated with the intended source and destination of those components. The boxes are to be implemented with cryptography. Strand spaces provide a semantics for these choreographies, in which some roles may be played by compromised principals. A skeleton is a partially ordered structure containing local behaviors (strands) executed by regular (non-compromised) principals. A skeleton is realized if it contains enough regular strands so that it could actually occur, in combination with any possible activity of compromised principals. It is delivery guaranteed (DG) realized if, in addition, every message transmitted to a regular participant is also delivered. We define a novel transition system on skeletons, in which the steps add regular strands. These steps solve tests, i.e. parts of the skeleton that could not occur without additional regular behavior. We prove three main results about the transition system. First, each minimal DG realized skeleton is reachable, using the transition system, from any skeleton it embeds. Second, if no step is possible from a skeleton A, then A is DG realized. Finally, if a DG realized B is accessible from A, then B is minimal. Thus, the transition system provides a systematic way to construct the possible behaviors of the choreography, in the presence of compromised principals

Towards an embedding of Graph Transformation in Intuitionistic Linear Logic

Linear logics have been shown to be able to embed both rewriting-based approaches and process calculi in a single, declarative framework. In this paper we are exploring the embedding of double-pushout graph transformations into quantified linear logic, leading to a Curry-Howard style isomorphism between graphs and transformations on one hand, formulas and proof terms on the other. With linear implication representing rules and reachability of graphs, and the tensor modelling parallel composition of graphs and transformations, we obtain a language able to encode graph transformation systems and their computations as well as reason about their properties

Genetic polymorphisms of glutathione S-transferases GSTM1, GSTT1, GSTP1 and GSTA1 as risk factors for schizophrenia

Oxidative damage is thought to play a role in the predisposition to schizophrenia. We determined if the polymorphisms of the GSTP1, GSTM1, GSTT1 and GSTA1 genes, which affect the activity of these enzymes against oxidative stress, have a role as susceptibility genes for schizophrenia, analyzing 138 schizophrenic patients and 133 healthy controls. We found that the combination of the absence of GSTM1 gene with the of the GSTM1 gene with the polymorphism GSTA1*B/*B, and the presence of the GSTT1 gene, represents a risk factor for schizophrenia, indicating that the combination of different GST polymorphisms has a role in the predisposition to schizophrenia, probably affecting the capacity of the cell to detoxify the oxidized metabolites of catecholamines

Nuclear receptors in vascular biology

Nuclear receptors sense a wide range of steroids and hormones (estrogens, progesterone, androgens, glucocorticoid, and mineralocorticoid), vitamins (A and D), lipid metabolites, carbohydrates, and xenobiotics. In response to these diverse but critically important mediators, nuclear receptors regulate the homeostatic control of lipids, carbohydrate, cholesterol, and xenobiotic drug metabolism, inflammation, cell differentiation and development, including vascular development. The nuclear receptor family is one of the most important groups of signaling molecules in the body and as such represent some of the most important established and emerging clinical and therapeutic targets. This review will highlight some of the recent trends in nuclear receptor biology related to vascular biology