Mononuclear phagocyte system of the mouse defined by immunohistochemical localization of antigen F4/80. Identification of resident macrophages in renal medullary and cortical interstitium and the juxtaglomerular complex

Macrophages have been identified in mouse kidney by immunohistochemical localization of the macrophage-specific antigen F4/80. They constitute the majority of the renal medullary interstitial cell population and are also found in contact with cortical distal and proximal tubules and Bowman's capsule. They are a physical component of the juxtaglomerular complex

Are We Really Helping Communities? A Teaching Case to Challenge Dominant Narratives about Sources of Inequity

Students in service-learning courses often make well-intended but deficit-oriented comments about the communities with whom they are working. While service provides opportunities for student learning (e.g., developing civic commitments and academic skills and increasing awareness of discrimination), service can also reinforce deficit-oriented thinking. Further, students from marginalized backgrounds in service-learning classrooms can be negatively affected by deficit-oriented comments. Possible theories to confront such challenges include asset-based models of community development, critical service learning, and structural explanations for inequities. Teaching cases are a pedagogical device for supporting students in putting complex theories like these into practice. This article presents a teaching case—grounded in these critical theories—that can foster students’ abilities to develop responses to typical scenarios they might encounter at service-learning sites that are informed by structural understandings of social and racial inequities. Further, the case can be part of a classroom environment conducive to the learning of all students

Comparative functional genomics and the bovine macrophage response to strains of the Mycobacterium genus

Mycobacterial infections are major causes of morbidity and mortality in cattle and are also potential zoonotic agents with implications for human health. Despite the implementation of comprehensive animal surveillance programs, many mycobacterial diseases have remained recalcitrant to eradication in several industrialized countries. Two major mycobacterial pathogens of cattle are Mycobacterium bovis and Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP), the causative agents of bovine tuberculosis (BTB) and Johne's disease (JD), respectively. BTB is a chronic, granulomatous disease of the respiratory tract that is spread via aerosol transmission, while JD is a chronic granulomatous disease of the intestines that is transmitted via the fecal-oral route. Although these diseases exhibit differential tissue tropism and distinct complex etiologies, both M. bovis and MAP infect, reside, and replicate in host macrophages - the key host innate immune cell that encounters mycobacterial pathogens after initial exposure and mediates the subsequent immune response. The persistence of M. bovis and MAP in macrophages relies on a diverse series of immunomodulatory mechanisms, including the inhibition of phagosome maturation and apoptosis, generation of cytokine-induced necrosis enabling dissemination of infection through the host, local pathology, and ultimately shedding of the pathogen. Here, we review the bovine macrophage response to infection with M. bovis and MAP. In particular, we describe how recent advances in functional genomics are shedding light on the host macrophage-pathogen interactions that underlie different mycobacterial diseases. To illustrate this, we present new analyses of previously published bovine macrophage transcriptomics data following in vitro infection with virulent M. bovis, the attenuated vaccine strain M. bovis BCG, and MAP, and discuss our findings with respect to the differing etiologies of BTB and JD

Quelles solutions pour un aménagement plus durable dans la région du District de Nyon ?

La durabilité, mythe ou réalité ? Ce qui est sûr, c’est que nous vivions à crédit et que notre dette écologique ne cesse d’augmenter. Les initiatives durables sont une partie de la solution à ce problème et le moins que l’on puisse dire, c’est que les idées ne manquent pas ! Ce dossier vise à appliquer cette approche sur ce qui nous concerne tous, le quotidien. Le but est d’arriver à une société à 2000 watts qui permettrait à la planète de rester pérenne. Les solutions proposées dans ce travail tournent passablement autour de l’innovation dans les logements. En les compilant, j’ai élaboré un projet nommé « Link » qui a pour but de favoriser la collaboration et l’autonomie. Mais pour créer une nouvelle forme de logements, il faut pouvoir la construire et donc être propriétaire de biens fonciers. Sauf que l’accès à la propriété n’est pas le point fort de la Suisse. Heureusement, les initiatives durables sont soutenues par les administrations publiques. En pratique, il s’agira d’occuper un terrain communal d’utilité publique afin d’y implanter une coopérative d’habitations. La Commune de Gland dispose de parcelles constructibles favorables à un tel projet de logements dont voici les totaux du plan financier : Coûts de construction Financement Charges d’exploitation Revenu locatif Total: 5'188'000.- 5'188'000.- Total: 324’096.- 324’096.- Les montants correspondent à la création d’un immeuble de 13 appartements (51 pièces). En théorie, chaque coopérateur peut devenir copropriétaire de son logement moyennant un loyer de 6’354 CHF /pièce /année et un investissement initial de 10’541 CHF par pièce. Dans un tel quartier, la collaboration est de mise. Et pour éviter toutes interprétations divergentes, il est important de rédiger des statuts sociaux, une charte éthique mentionnant les engagements communs et des procédures sur l’utilisation des lieux. En d’autres termes, on fait du logement une entreprise sociale

GOexpress: an R/Bioconductor package for the identification and visualisation of robust gene ontology signatures through supervised learning of gene expression data

Background: Identification of gene expression profiles that differentiate experimental groups is critical for discovery and analysis of key molecular pathways and also for selection of robust diagnostic or prognostic biomarkers. While integration of differential expression statistics has been used to refine gene set enrichment analyses, such approaches are typically limited to single gene lists resulting from simple two-group comparisons or time-series analyses. In contrast, functional class scoring and machine learning approaches provide powerful alternative methods to leverage molecular measurements for pathway analyses, and to compare continuous and multi-level categorical factors. Results: We introduce GOexpress, a software package for scoring and summarising the capacity of gene ontology features to simultaneously classify samples from multiple experimental groups. GOexpress integrates normalised gene expression data (e.g., from microarray and RNA-seq experiments) and phenotypic information of individual samples with gene ontology annotations to derive a ranking of genes and gene ontology terms using a supervised learning approach. The default random forest algorithm allows interactions between all experimental factors, and competitive scoring of expressed genes to evaluate their relative importance in classifying predefined groups of samples. Conclusions: GOexpress enables rapid identification and visualisation of ontology-related gene panels that robustly classify groups of samples and supports both categorical (e.g., infection status, treatment) and continuous (e.g., time-series, drug concentrations) experimental factors. The use of standard Bioconductor extension packages and publicly available gene ontology annotations facilitates straightforward integration of GOexpress within existing computational biology pipelines.Department of Agriculture, Food and the MarineEuropean Commission - Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)Science Foundation IrelandUniversity College Dubli

Simultaneous Etching and Oxidation of Vicinal Si(100) Surfaces: Atomistic Lattice-Gas Modeling of Morphological Evolution

Exposure of a vicinal Si(100) surface to oxygen at about 10−8Torr for temperatures between about 500 and 700°C produces etching-mediated step recession in competition with oxide island formation. Furthermore, the oxide islands can locally pin the receding steps and thus produce complex surface morphologies. An atomistic lattice-gas model is developed to describe these processes which accounts for the complex interplay between the oxygen surface chemistry and the silicon surface and step dynamics. The oxygen related-processes include dissociative adsorption, diffusion, oxide formation, and etching via SiO desorption. The silicon surface processes include: conversion of single vacancies formed by etching to divacancies and Si adatoms, anisotropic diffusion and aggregation (primarily at step edges) of these divacancies and Si adatoms, and Si ad-dimer attachment-detachment dynamics at steps which reflects anisotropic energetics. Kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of this model allows characterization of the evolving step morphologies. Steps retain some qualitative features of their equilibrium structure, i.e., alternating rough SB steps and smooth SA steps, although etching tends to produce step pairing, and pinning produces protruding “finger” morphologies. These morphological features are seen in scanning tnneling microscopy studies. We also comment on other aspects of evolution such as a mixed pit nucleation and step flow mode, and compare behavior with step flow type growth during Si molecular beam epitaxy

Transmission in double quantum dots in the Kondo regime: Quantum-critical transitions and interference effects

We study the transmission through a double quantum-dot system in the Kondo regime. An exact expression for the transmission coefficient in terms of fully interacting many-body Green's functions is obtained. By mapping the system into an effective Anderson impurity model, one can determine the transmission using numerical renormalization-group methods. The transmission exhibits signatures of the different Kondo regimes of the effective model, including an unusual Kondo phase with split peaks in the spectral function, as well as a pseudogapped regime exhibiting a quantum critical transition between Kondo and unscreened phases.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; Submitted to Physica E (EP2DS-17 proceedings, oral presentation), updated Ref

Limitations to Contingency Measures: Reflections from COVID-19 Surges in the UK

Alfandre et al. (2021) helpfully outlines the case for attending to contingency planning as well as to crisis measures during a pandemic. The authors provides a helpful framework for reflecting on the experiences of healthcare staff during COVID-19 to develop a more robust contingency phase. We do so, ourselves, in the context of the United Kingdom, particularly London where the prevalence of COVID-19 stretched resources despite considerable and continuing efforts to increase capacity as the depth of the crisis was understood. Recognizing the inevitable increase in cases once community transmission took hold, the UK government’s strategy was to keep case load manageably within the capacity of the National Health Service (NHS). All public health interventions were modeled and planned accordingly with insufficient regard to contingencies

Topical Application of Imiquimod as a Treatment for Chromoblastomycosis

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Rituximab in the treatment of inflammatory myopathies: a review

Several uncontrolled studies have encouraged the use of rituximab (RTX) in patients with myositis. Unfortunately, the first placebo-phase trial to assess the efficacy of RTX in refractory myositis did not show a significant difference between the two treatment groups, and doubts have been expressed about its study design. In this review we present an up-to-date overview of the reported experiences of RTX therapy in myositis. A PubMed search was performed to find all the available cases of refractory myositis patients treated with RTX up to July 2015. The following terms were assessed: inflammatory myopathies OR anti-synthetase syndrome OR polymyositis OR dermatomyositis AND RTX. A total of 48 studies were included. We identified 458 patients with myositis treated with RTX. We found a rate of response to RTX of 78.3%. RTX can play a role in the management of patients with myositis, at least in those with positive myositis-specific autoantibodies