Kinin B2 receptor regulates chemokines CCL2 and CCL5 expression and modulates leukocyte recruitment and pathology in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) in mice

BACKGROUND: Kinins are important mediators of inflammation and act through stimulation of two receptor subtypes, B1 and B2. Leukocyte infiltration contributes to the pathogenesis of autoimmune inflammation in the central nervous system (CNS), occurring not only in multiple sclerosis (MS) but also in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). We have previously shown that the chemokines CCL2 and CCL5 play an important role in the adhesion of leukocytes to the brain microcirculation in EAE. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the relevance of B2 receptors to leukocyte-endothelium interactions in the cerebral microcirculation, and its participation in CNS inflammation in the experimental model of myelin-oligodendrocyte-glycoprotein (MOG)35-55-induced EAE in mice. METHODS: In order to evaluate the role of B2 receptor in the cerebral microvasculature we used wild-type (WT) and kinin B2 receptor knockout (B2-/-) mice subjected to MOG35-55-induced EAE. Intravital microscopy was used to investigate leukocyte recruitment on pial matter vessels in B2-/- and WT EAE mice. Histological documentation of inflammatory infiltrates in brain and spinal cords was correlated with intravital findings. The expression of CCL5 and CCL2 in cerebral tissue was assessed by ELISA. RESULTS: Clinical parameters of disease were reduced in B2-/- mice in comparison to wild type EAE mice. At day 14 after EAE induction, there was a significant decrease in the number of adherent leukocytes, a reduction of cerebral CCL5 and CCL2 expressions, and smaller inflammatory and degenerative changes in B2-/- mice when compared to WT. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that B2 receptors have two major effects in the control of EAE severity: (i) B2 regulates the expression of chemokines, including CCL2 and CCL5, and (ii) B2 modulates leukocyte recruitment and inflammatory lesions in the CNS

Cercosporin production by Cercospora coffeicola isolates: spectrophotometry and HPLC quantification and image analysis

Cercosporin has excellent properties of photosensitization that have been widely used in organophotocatalyst and photodynamic therapy as well as an antimicrobial agent. Therefore, there is a need to quantify it accurately with accessible methods. A comparative analysis of cercosporin quantification obtained by spectrophotometry (SPEC) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was performed for nineteen Cercospora coffeicola isolates from different coffee-producing municipalities in Brazil. Image analysis of cercosporin crystals was performed in isolates with either high or low production of the toxin. Our results show that SPEC and HPLC are equally valid for the cercosporin evaluation of C. coffeicola cultures grown in vitro. The isolates with high cercosporin production had a higher crystal number and size when compared to the one with low cercosporin productioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Review and application of Artificial Neural Networks models in reliability analysis of steel structures

This paper presents a survey on the development and use of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models in structural reliability analysis. The survey identifies the different types of ANNs, the methods of structural reliability assessment that are typically used, the techniques proposed for ANN training set improvement and also some applications of ANN approximations to structural design and optimization problems. ANN models are then used in the reliability analysis of a ship stiffened panel subjected to uniaxial compression loads induced by hull girder vertical bending moment, for which the collapse strength is obtained by means of nonlinear finite element analysis (FEA). The approaches adopted combine the use of adaptive ANN models to approximate directly the limit state function with Monte Carlo simulation (MCS), first order reliability methods (FORM) and MCS with importance sampling (IS), for reliability assessment. A comprehensive comparison of the predictions of the different reliability methods with ANN based LSFs and classical LSF evaluation linked to the FEA is provided

Search for the glueball candidates f0(1500) and fJ(1710) in gamma gamma collisions

Data taken with the ALEPH detector at LEP1 have been used to search for gamma gamma production of the glueball candidates f0(1500) and fJ(1710) via their decay to pi+pi-. No signal is observed and upper limits to the product of gamma gamma width and pi+pi- branching ratio of the f0(1500) and the fJ(1710) have been measured to be Gamma_(gamma gamma -> f0(1500)). BR(f0(1500)->pi+pi-) < 0.31 keV and Gamma_(gamma gamma -> fJ(1710)). BR(fJ(1710)->pi+pi-) < 0.55 keV at 95% confidence level.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02