Lichen flora of the West Yorkshire conurbation - Supplement VII (1999-2004)

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Optimizing Wildlife Monitoirng Strategies in a Dynamic Setting (Poster)

Long term, broadly distributed datasets are ideal for effective wildlife management.  However, collecting and utilizing these data present a variety of challenges to management agencies.  Idaho Department of Fish and Game is currently trying to optimize their use of monitoring resources for mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) throughout Idaho.  Three areas are being investigated for their potential to accomplish this goal: cost effectiveness, data utilization, and efficiency in data collection.  An analysis of the cost effectiveness of monitoring methods is currently being conducted.  This analysis varies the amount of each type of data available to the population model used to estimate abundance.  The precision, credible interval width (CRI), associated with the estimate is used as the measure of effectiveness, mean 95% CRIs range from 9278 - 9804.  This measure of precision is then combined with the cost of the collection technique to compare the cost effectiveness of different monitoring methods.  Further research will focus on a weighting scheme that weights data types by both sampling precision and reliability.  Thereby allowing managers to fully utilize all available data sources based on relative quality within the framework of the population model.  A third line of research focuses on increasing the efficiency of monitoring effort through an alternative sampling design derived from seasonal nutrition.  The previous lines of research will then be combined to solve a dynamic programming problem to determine the optimal methods for monitoring population abundance while accounting for changes in the availability of monitoring resources over space and time

Metacognitive Awareness of Facial Affect in Higher-Functioning Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Higher-functioning participants with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) viewed a series of face stimuli, made decisions regarding the affect of each face, and indicated their confidence in each decision. Confidence significantly predicted accuracy across all participants, but this relation was stronger for participants with typical development than participants with ASD. In the hierarchical linear modeling analysis, there were no differences in face processing accuracy between participants with and without ASD, but participants with ASD were more confident in their decisions. These results suggest that individuals with ASD have metacognitive impairments and are overconfident in face processing. Additionally, greater metacognitive awareness was predictive of better face processing accuracy, suggesting that metacognition may be a pivotal skill to teach in interventions

Contrasting phenotypes of putative proprioceptive and nociceptive trigeminal neurons innervating jaw muscle in rat

BACKGROUND: Despite the clinical significance of muscle pain, and the extensive investigation of the properties of muscle afferent fibers, there has been little study of the ion channels on sensory neurons that innervate muscle. In this study, we have fluorescently tagged sensory neurons that innervate the masseter muscle, which is unique because cell bodies for its muscle spindles are in a brainstem nucleus (mesencephalic nucleus of the 5(th )cranial nerve, MeV) while all its other sensory afferents are in the trigeminal ganglion (TG). We examine the hypothesis that certain molecules proposed to be used selectively by nociceptors fail to express on muscle spindles afferents but appear on other afferents from the same muscle. RESULTS: MeV muscle afferents perfectly fit expectations of cells with a non-nociceptive sensory modality: Opiates failed to inhibit calcium channel currents (I(Ca)) in 90% of MeV neurons, although I(Ca )were inhibited by GABA(B )receptor activation. All MeV afferents had brief (1 msec) action potentials driven solely by tetrodotoxin (TTX)-sensitive Na channels and no MeV afferent expressed either of three ion channels (TRPV1, P2X3, and ASIC3) thought to be transducers for nociceptive stimuli, although they did express other ATP and acid-sensing channels. Trigeminal masseter afferents were much more diverse. Virtually all of them expressed at least one, and often several, of the three putative nociceptive transducer channels, but the mix varied from cell to cell. Calcium currents in 80% of the neurons were measurably inhibited by μ-opioids, but the extent of inhibition varied greatly. Almost all TG masseter afferents expressed some TTX-insensitive sodium currents, but the amount compared to TTX sensitive sodium current varied, as did the duration of action potentials. CONCLUSION: Most masseter muscle afferents that are not muscle spindle afferents express molecules that are considered characteristic of nociceptors, but these putative muscle nociceptors are molecularly diverse. This heterogeneity may reflect the mixture of metabosensitive afferents which can also signal noxious stimuli and purely nociceptive afferents characteristic of muscle

Adoptively transferred human lung tumor specific cytotoxic T cells can control autologous tumor growth and shape tumor phenotype in a SCID mouse xenograft model

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The anti-tumor efficacy of human immune effector cells, such as cytolytic T lymphocytes (CTLs), has been difficult to study in lung cancer patients in the clinical setting. Improved experimental models for the study of lung tumor-immune cell interaction as well as for evaluating the efficacy of adoptive transfer of immune effector cells are needed.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To address questions related to the <it>in vivo </it>interaction of human lung tumor cells and immune effector cells, we obtained an HLA class I ⁺lung tumor cell line from a fresh surgical specimen, and using the infiltrating immune cells, isolated and characterized tumor antigen-specific, CD8⁺CTLs. We then established a SCID mouse-human tumor xenograft model with the tumor cell line and used it to study the function of the autologous CTLs provided via adoptive transfer.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The tumor antigen specific CTLs isolated from the tumor were found to have an activated memory phenotype and able to kill tumor cells in an antigen specific manner <it>in vitro</it>. Additionally, the tumor antigen-specific CTLs were fully capable of homing to and killing autologous tumors <it>in vivo</it>, and expressing IFN-γ, each in an antigen-dependent manner. A single injection of these CTLs was able to provide significant but temporary control of the growth of autologous tumors <it>in vivo </it>without the need for IL-2. The timing of injection of CTLs played an essential role in the outcome of tumor growth control. Moreover, immunohistochemical analysis of surviving tumor cells following CTL treatment indicated that the surviving tumor cells expressed reduced MHC class I antigens on their surface.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These studies confirm and extend previous studies and provide additional information regarding the characteristics of CTLs which can be found within a patient's tumor. Moreover, the <it>in vivo </it>model described here provides a unique window for observing events that may also occur in patients undergoing adoptive cellular immunotherapy as effector cells seek and destroy areas of tumor growth and for testing strategies to improve clinical effectiveness.</p

Proton therapy for atypical meningiomas

We report clinical outcomes of proton therapy in patients with World Health Organization grade 2 (atypical) meningiomas. Between 2005 and 2013, 22 patients with atypical meningiomas were treated to a median dose of 63 Gy (RBE) using proton therapy, as an adjuvant therapy after surgery (n = 12) or for recurrence or progression of residual tumor (n = 10). Six patients had presumed radiation-induced meningiomas, but none had received prior radiotherapy for their meningioma. The median follow-up time after radiation was 39 months (range 7–104) and all patients remain alive at last follow-up. The 5-year estimate of local control was 71.1 % (95 % CI 49.3–92.9 %). The 5-year estimate of local control was 87.5 % following a radiation dose >60 Gy (RBE), compared to 50.0 % for ≤60 Gy (RBE) (p = 0.038). The 5-year estimate of neuraxis dissemination was 5 % (95 % CI 0–14.6 %) and 6.2 % (95 % CI 0–18.2 %) for metastases outside of the central nervous system. Radiation necrosis was observed in one patient with a history of prior cranial irradiation. Fractionated proton therapy was associated with favorable tumor control rates for grade 2 meningiomas. Prospective studies are needed to define the optimal radiation dose for high-grade meningiomas

Foundation Models and Fair Use

Existing foundation models are trained on copyrighted material. Deploying these models can pose both legal and ethical risks when data creators fail to receive appropriate attribution or compensation. In the United States and several other countries, copyrighted content may be used to build foundation models without incurring liability due to the fair use doctrine. However, there is a caveat: If the model produces output that is similar to copyrighted data, particularly in scenarios that affect the market of that data, fair use may no longer apply to the output of the model. In this work, we emphasize that fair use is not guaranteed, and additional work may be necessary to keep model development and deployment squarely in the realm of fair use. First, we survey the potential risks of developing and deploying foundation models based on copyrighted content. We review relevant U.S. case law, drawing parallels to existing and potential applications for generating text, source code, and visual art. Experiments confirm that popular foundation models can generate content considerably similar to copyrighted material. Second, we discuss technical mitigations that can help foundation models stay in line with fair use. We argue that more research is needed to align mitigation strategies with the current state of the law. Lastly, we suggest that the law and technical mitigations should co-evolve. For example, coupled with other policy mechanisms, the law could more explicitly consider safe harbors when strong technical tools are used to mitigate infringement harms. This co-evolution may help strike a balance between intellectual property and innovation, which speaks to the original goal of fair use. But we emphasize that the strategies we describe here are not a panacea and more work is needed to develop policies that address the potential harms of foundation models

Investigating the structure of the oxide on Ni-Cr-Mo alloys while presenting a method for analysis of complex oxides using QUASES

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is a technique that is widely used to studythin oxide films because of its extremely high surface sensitivity. Utilizing theQUASES (Quantitative Analysis of Surfaces by Electron Spectroscopy) software pack-age developed by Sven Tougaard (University of Southern Denmark), a user canobtain additional information that is not extracted in conventional XPS analysis, spe-cifically the composition as a function of depth. Presented here is the QUASES analy-sis of four Ni-Cr-Mo alloys performed while testing various inelastic mean free path(IMFP) determination methods in the context of providing a framework for the analy-sis of complex oxides in QUASES. Ni-Cr-Mo alloys are often used to replace conven-tional materials under aggressive conditions, because of their exceptional corrosionresistance. Their corrosion resistance is conferred by the formation of an inert sur-face oxide film that protects the underlying metal. Using the QUASES software, thethickness of the air-formed oxide on four Ni-Cr-Mo alloys was found to lie within therange of 2.5–3.6 nm. They were found to be composed of an inner Cr2O3layer andan outer Cr (OH)3layer, with a transition zone where the two coexisted. OxidizedMo species, MoO2and MoO3, were found in trace amounts at the boundarybetween the Cr2O3-only and mixed Cr2O3/Cr (OH)3regions of the oxide. We alsodetermined that using 20% reduced IMFP values gave results similar to thoseobtained using electron effective attenuation length (EAL) values. Auger depth pro-files showed comparable trends to the QUASES models