1,226 research outputs found
Antibody responses to nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae in adults: A longitudinal household study
Background. Natural immunity to Streptococcus pneumoniae is thought to be induced by exposure to S. pneumoniae or cross-reactive antigens. No longitudinal studies of carriage of and immune responses to S. pneumoniae have been conducted using sophisticated immunological laboratory techniques.Methods. We enrolled 121 families with young children into this study. Nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs were collected monthly for 10 months from all family members and were cultured in a standard fashion. Cultured S. pneumoniae isolates were serotyped. At the beginning (month 0) and end (month 10) of the study, venous blood was collected from family members 118 years old. Serotype-specific antipolysaccharide immunoglobulin G (IgG) and functional antibody and antibodies to pneumolysin, pneumococcal surface protein A (PspA), and pneumococcal surface antigen A (PsaA) were measured in paired serum samples.Results. Levels of anticapsular IgG increased significantly after carriage of serotypes 9V, 14, 18C, 19F, and 23F by an individual or family member. For serotype 14, a higher level of anticapsular IgG at the beginning of the study was associated with reduced odds of carriage (P = .0006). There was a small (similar to 20%) but significant increase in titers of antibodies to PsaA and pneumolysin but no change in titers of antibody to PspA.Conclusions. Adults respond to NP carriage by mounting anticapsular and weak antiprotein antibody responses, and naturally induced anticapsular IgG can prevent carriage
Can proprioception really be improved by exercises?
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/41912/1/167-9-3-128_s001670100208.pd
A Vehicular Traffic Flow Model Based on a Stochastic Acceleration Process
A new vehicular traffic flow model based on a stochastic jump process in
vehicle acceleration and braking is introduced. It is based on a master
equation for the single car probability density in space, velocity and
acceleration with an additional vehicular chaos assumption and is derived via a
Markovian ansatz for car pairs. This equation is analyzed using simple driver
interaction models in the spatial homogeneous case. Velocity distributions in
stochastic equilibrium, together with the car density dependence of their
moments, i.e. mean velocity and scattering and the fundamental diagram are
presented.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figure
Toll-Like Receptor (TLR) and Nucleosome-binding Oligomerization Domain (NOD) gene polymorphisms and endometrial cancer risk
Background: Endometrial cancer is the most common gynaecological malignancy in women of developed countries. Many risk factors implicated in endometrial cancer trigger inflammatory events; therefore, alterations in immune response may predispose an individual to disease. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and nucleosome-binding oligomerization domain (NOD) genes are integral to the recognition of pathogens and are highly polymorphic. For these reasons, the aim of the study was to assess the frequency of polymorphic variants in TLR and NOD genes in an Australian endometrial cancer population. Methods: Ten polymorphisms were genotyped in 191 endometrial cancer cases and 291 controls using real-time PCR: NOD1 (rs2075822, rs2907749, rs2907748), NOD2 (rs5743260, rs2066844, rs2066845), TLR2 (rs5743708), TLR4 (rs4986790) and TLR9 (rs5743836, rs187084). Results: Haplotype analysis revealed that the combination of the variant alleles of the two TLR9 polymorphisms, rs5743836 and rs187084, were protective for endometrial cancer risk: OR 0.11, 95% CI (0.03-0.44), p = 0.002. This result remained highly significant after adjustment for endometrial cancer risk factors and Bonferroni correction for multiple testing. There were no other associations observed for the other polymorphisms in TLR2, TLR4, NOD1 and NOD2. Conclusions: The variant 'C' allele of rs5743836 causes greater TLR9 transcriptional activity compared to the 'T' allele, therefore, higher TLR9 activity may be related to efficient removal of microbial pathogens within the endometrium. Clearly, the association of these TLR9 polymorphisms and endometrial cancer risk must be further examined in an independent population. The results point toward the importance of examining immune response in endometrial tumourgenesis to understand new pathways that may be implicated in disease
Genetic variants in MUTYH are not associated with endometrial cancer risk
Hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC), also known as Lynch syndrome, is an autosomal dominant inherited predisposition to a number of epithelial cancers, most notably colorectal and endometrial cancer. Outside of the context of Lynch syndrome there is little evidence for an autosomal dominant or recessive condition that predisposes to endometrial cancer. Recently, genetic variants in MUTYH have been associated with a recessive form of colorectal cancer, known as MUTYH associated polyposis or MAP. MUTYH is involved in base excision repair of DNA lesions and as such a breakdown in the fidelity of this process would necessarily not be predicted to result in a specific disease. At present there is little information about the role of MUTYH in other types of cancer and only one report indicating a possible relationship with endometrial cancer
Pattern of activation of pelvic floor muscles in men differs with verbal instructions
AimsTo investigate the effect of instruction on activation of pelvic floor muscles (PFM) in men as quantified by transperineal ultrasound imaging (US) and to validate these measures with invasive EMG recordings
A new hammer to crack an old nut : interspecific competitive resource capture by plants is regulated by nutrient supply, not climate
Peer reviewedPublisher PD
XMM-Newton and Suzaku analysis of the Fe K complex in the Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 509
We report on partially overlapping XMM-Newton (~260 ks) and Suzaku (~100 ks)
observations of the iron K band in the nearby, bright Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 509.
The source shows a resolved neutral Fe K line, most probably produced in the
outer part of the accretion disc. Moreover, the source shows further emission
blue-ward of the 6.4 keV line due to ionized material. This emission is well
reproduced by a broad line produced in the accretion disc, while it cannot be
easily described by scattering or emission from photo-ionized gas at rest. The
summed spectrum of all XMM-Newton observations shows the presence of a narrow
absorption line at 7.3 keV produced by highly ionized outflowing material. A
spectral variability study of the XMM-Newton data shows an indication for an
excess of variability at 6.6-6.7 keV. These variations may be produced in the
red wing of the broad ionized line or by variation of a further absorption
structure. The Suzaku data indicate that the neutral Fe Kalpha line intensity
is consistent with being constant on long timescales (of a few years) and they
also confirm as most likely the interpretation of the excess blueshifted
emission in terms of a broad ionized Fe line. The average Suzaku spectrum
differs from the XMM-Newton one for the disappearance of the 7.3 keV absorption
line and around 6.7 keV, where the XMM-Newton data alone suggested variability.Comment: MNRAS in pres
On the relevance of earnings components in valuation and forecasting
Pre-print also submitted to SSRN Archive. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1007/s11156-013-0347-yThis paper articulates the links between relevance of an earnings component in forecasting (abnormal) earnings and its relevance in valuation in a nonlinear framework. The analysis shows that forecasting relevance does not imply valuation relevance even though valuation irrelevance is implied by forecasting irrelevance. Firstly, I consider an accounting information system where earnings components "add up" to a fully informative earnings number. Secondly, I analyze two accounting systems where a "core" earnings component is the relevant earnings construct for valuation and the second earnings component is irrelevant but may be predictable and relevant in forecasting other accounting items. I find that dividend displacement effect on earnings and the dynamics of individual earnings components are critical in this analysis
First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data
Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of
continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a
fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters
obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signalto-
noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch
between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have
been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a
fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of
11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGO’s first observing run. Although we have found several initial
outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal.
Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of
the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for
the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the
spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried
out so far
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