The Keck Cosmic Web Imager: a capable new integral field spectrograph for the W. M. Keck Observatory

The Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) is a new facility instrument being developed for the W. M. Keck Observatory and funded for construction by the Telescope System Instrumentation Program (TSIP) of the National Science Foundation (NSF). KCWI is a bench-mounted spectrograph for the Keck II right Nasmyth focal station, providing integral field spectroscopy over a seeing-limited field up to 20"x33" in extent. Selectable Volume Phase Holographic (VPH) gratings provide high efficiency and spectral resolution in the range of 1000 to 20000. The dual-beam design of KCWI passed a Preliminary Design Review in summer 2011. The detailed design of the KCWI blue channel (350 to 700 nm) is now nearly complete, with the red channel (530 to 1050 nm) planned for a phased implementation contingent upon additional funding. KCWI builds on the experience of the Caltech team in implementing the Cosmic Web Imager (CWI), in operation since 2009 at Palomar Observatory. KCWI adds considerable flexibility to the CWI design, and will take full advantage of the excellent seeing and dark sky above Mauna Kea with a selectable nod-and-shuffle observing mode. In this paper, models of the expected KCWI sensitivity and background subtraction capability are presented, along with a detailed description of the instrument design. The KCWI team is lead by Caltech (project management, design and implementation) in partnership with the University of California at Santa Cruz (camera optical and mechanical design) and the W. M. Keck Observatory (program oversight and observatory interfaces)

Discrete microfluidics for the isolation of circulating tumor cell subpopulations targeting fibroblast activation protein alpha and epithelial cell adhesion molecule

Circulating tumor cells consist of phenotypically distinct subpopulations that originate from the tumor microenvironment. We report a circulating tumor cell dual selection assay that uses discrete microfluidics to select circulating tumor cell subpopulations from a single blood sample; circulating tumor cells expressing the established marker epithelial cell adhesion molecule and a new marker, fibroblast activation protein alpha, were evaluated. Both circulating tumor cell subpopulations were detected in metastatic ovarian, colorectal, prostate, breast, and pancreatic cancer patients and 90% of the isolated circulating tumor cells did not co-express both antigens. Clinical sensitivities of 100% showed substantial improvement compared to epithelial cell adhesion molecule selection alone. Owing to high purity (>80%) of the selected circulating tumor cells, molecular analysis of both circulating tumor cell subpopulations was carried out in bulk, including next generation sequencing, mutation analysis, and gene expression. Results suggested fibroblast activation protein alpha and epithelial cell adhesion molecule circulating tumor cells are distinct subpopulations and the use of these in concert can provide information needed to navigate through cancer disease management challenges

The Role of Calcineurin/NFAT in SFRP2 Induced Angiogenesis—A Rationale for Breast Cancer Treatment with the Calcineurin Inhibitor Tacrolimus

Tacrolimus (FK506) is an immunosuppressive drug that binds to the immunophilin FKBPB12. The FK506-FKBP12 complex associates with calcineurin and inhibits its phosphatase activity, resulting in inhibition of nuclear translocation of nuclear factor of activated T-cells (NFAT). There is increasing data supporting a critical role of NFAT in mediating angiogenic responses stimulated by both vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and a novel angiogenesis factor, secreted frizzled-related protein 2 (SFRP2). Since both VEGF and SFRP2 are expressed in breast carcinomas, we hypothesized that tacrolimus would inhibit breast carcinoma growth. Using IHC (IHC) with antibodies to FKBP12 on breast carcinomas we found that FKBP12 localizes to breast tumor vasculature. Treatment of MMTV-neu transgenic mice with tacrolimus (3 mg/kg i.p. daily) (n = 19) resulted in a 73% reduction in the growth rate for tacrolimus treated mice compared to control (n = 15), p = 0.003; which was associated with an 82% reduction in tumor microvascular density (p<0.001) by IHC. Tacrolimus (1 µM) inhibited SFRP2 induced endothelial tube formation by 71% (p = 0.005) and inhibited VEGF induced endothelial tube formation by 67% (p = 0.004). To show that NFATc3 is required for SFRP2 stimulated angiogenesis, NFATc3 was silenced with shRNA in endothelial cells. Sham transfected cells responded to SFRP2 stimulation in a tube formation assay with an increase in the number of branch points (p<0.003), however, cells transfected with shRNA to NFATc3 showed no increase in tube formation in response to SFRP2. This demonstrates that NFATc3 is required for SFRP2 induced tube formation, and tacrolimus inhibits angiogenesis in vitro and breast carcinoma growth in vivo. This provides a rationale for examining the therapeutic potential of tacrolimus at inhibiting breast carcinoma growth in humans

A Study of Tennessee Newspapers\u27 Use of Traditional Headline “Rules”

This study determined the extent to which the established norms for writing headlines on news stories were actually being observed by newspapers. Secondarily, the research findings determined that there was a statistically significant difference in the degree of adherence to these guidelines between dailies and nondailies. The researchers developed and tested among Tennessee newspapers a list of quantitative indicators of news headline quality, according to traditional headline-writing guidelines. All of the daily and nondaily newspapers that were members of the Tennessee Press Association were selected for evaluation

Hexazinone dissipation in forest ecosystems and impacts onaquatic communities

Abstract: Hexazinone (active ingredient) was aerially applied as a pellet (Velpar ULW) and as a liquid,(Velpar L) to watersheds in the Piedmont of Alabama, U.S.A., at the rate of 6.72 kg.ha- ’ (three times the prescribed rate for this site). An untreated watershed served as a control. We determined hexazinone half-life in days for Velpar ULW (plants