A study of the TNF/LTA/LTB locus and susceptibility to severe malaria in highland papuan children and adults

Background: Severe malaria (SM) syndromes caused by Plasmodium falciparum infection result in major morbidity and mortality each year. However, only a fraction of P. falciparum infections develop into SM, implicating host genetic factors as important determinants of disease outcome. Previous studies indicate that tumour necrosis factor (TNF) and lymphotoxin alpha (LT alpha) may be important for the development of cerebral malaria (CM) and other SM syndromes

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over 20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo

Systemic Immune Activation in HIV Infection Is Associated with Decreased MDC Responsiveness to TLR Ligand and Inability to Activate Naive CD4 T-Cells

HIV infection is characterized by ineffective anti-viral T-cell responses and impaired dendritic cell (DC) functions, including response to Toll-Like Receptor (TLR) ligands. Because TLR responsiveness may affect a host's response to virus, we examined TLR ligand induced Myeloid and Plasmacytoid DC (MDC and PDC) activation of naïve T-cells in HIV+ subjects.Freshly purified MDC and PDC obtained from HIV+ subjects and healthy controls were cultured in the presence and absence of TLR ligands (poly I∶C or R-848). We evaluated indices of maturation/activation (CD83, CD86, and HLA-DR expression), cytokine secretion (IFN-alpha and IL-6), and ability to activate allogeneic naïve CD4 T-cells to secrete IFN-gamma and IL-2.MDC from HIV+ subjects had increased spontaneous IL-6 production and increased CD83 and CD86 expression when compared to MDC of controls. MDC IL-6 expression was associated with plasma HIV level. At the same time, poly I∶C induced HLA-DR up-regulation on MDC was reduced in HIV+ persons when compared to controls. The latter finding was associated with impaired ability of MDC from HIV+ subjects to activate allogeneic naïve CD4 T-cells. PDC from HIV+ persons had increased spontaneous and TLR ligand induced IL-6 expression, and increased HLA-DR expression at baseline. The latter was associated with an intact ability of HIV PDC to activate allogeneic naïve CD4 T-cells.These results have implications for the ability of the HIV+ host to form innate and adaptive responses to HIV and other pathogens

S-glutathionylation activates STIM1 and alters mitochondrial homeostasis

Oxidant stress induces constitutive calcium entry by tacking glutathiones onto the Orai CRAC channel activator STIM1

The effects of covariate adjustment in generalized linear models

Results from classical linear regression regarding the effects of covariate adjustment, with respect to the issues of confounding, the precision with which an exposure effect can be estimated, and the efficiency of hypothesis tests for no treatment effect in randomized experiments, are often assumed to apply more generally to other types of regression models. In this paper results pertaining to several generalized linear models involving a dichotomous response variable are given, demonstrating that with respect to the issues of confounding and precision, for models having a linear or log link function the results of classical linear regression do generally apply, whereas for other models, including those having a logit, probit, log-log, complementary log-log, or generalized logistic link function, the results of classical linear regression do not always apply. It is also shown, however, that for any link function, covariate adjustment results in improved efficiency of hypothesis tests for no treatment effect in randomized experiments, and hence that the classical linear regression results regarding efficiency do apply for all models having a dichotomous response variable. Copyright © 1998 by Marcel Dekker, Inc

Initial studies of condensing metal vapors carried by expanding inert gases

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/7649/5/bab9904.0001.001.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/7649/4/bab9904.0001.001.tx