High-affinity CD8 variants enhance the sensitivity of pMHCI antigen recognition via low-affinity TCRs

CD8+ T cell-mediated recognition of peptide-major histocompatibility complex class I (pMHCI) molecules involves cooperative binding of the T cell receptor (TCR), which confers antigen specificity, and the CD8 coreceptor, which stabilizes the TCR/pMHCI complex. Earlier work has shown that the sensitivity of antigen recognition can be regulated in vitro by altering the strength of the pMHCI/CD8 interaction. Here, we characterized two CD8 variants with moderately enhanced affinities for pMHCI, aiming to boost antigen sensitivity without inducing non-specific activation. Expression of these CD8 variants in model systems preferentially enhanced pMHCI antigen recognition in the context of low-affinity TCRs. A similar effect was observed using primary CD4+ T cells transduced with cancer-targeting TCRs. The introduction of high-affinity CD8 variants also enhanced the functional sensitivity of primary CD8+ T cells expressing cancer-targeting TCRs, but comparable results were obtained using exogenous wild-type CD8. Specificity was retained in every case, with no evidence of reactivity in the absence of cognate antigen. Collectively, these findings highlight a generically applicable mechanism to enhance the sensitivity of low-affinity pMHCI antigen recognition, which could augment the therapeutic efficacy of clinically relevant TCRs.Immunobiology of allogeneic stem cell transplantation and immunotherapy of hematological disease

Did Revisions to the WIC Program Affect Household Expenditures on Whole Grains?

The food packages provided by the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program changed in 2009. This article examines purchases of whole grain products before and after the change. Nielsen Homescan panel data from 2008 to 2010 provide information on households’ food purchases, demographics, and self-reported WIC participation status. We estimate the effect of WIC participation and the 2009 package change on whole grains purchases using a difference-in-difference method, and find that participation in the WIC program was associated with more whole grain purchases during the observed period; the package change in 2009 roughly doubled the associated effect of WIC participation on the purchases of whole grain products. These results are consistent with recommendations in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and suggest that moderate innovations in the design of food assistance programs can lead to beneficial dietary choices

The Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 6, No. 1, Ed. 1 Friday, September 17, 1920

four pages : ill. ; page 19 x 15 in.A weekly student newspaper from the Rice Institute in Houston, Texas that includes campus news and commentaries along with advertising

Comparing production-biomass ratios of benthos and suprabenthos in macrofaunal marine crustaceans

Using available data from the literature, we compared the productionbiomass ratios (P/B) between the suprabenthic (= hyperbenthic) and the benthic (infaunaepifauna) species within the group of the macrofaunal marine crustaceans. This data set consists of 91 P/B estimates (26 for suprabenthos and 65 for infaunaepifauna) for 49 different species. Suprabenthic crustacean P/B was significantly higher than P/B of benthic crustacean (post-hoc Scheffé test; one-way analysis of covariance, ANCOVA; p < 103) and also of other (noncrustacean) benthic invertebrate (p < 104). Predictive multilinear regression (MLR) analysis for macrofaunal marine crustaceans showed P/B to depend significantly on mean annual temperature (T) and mean individual weight (W) (R2 = 0.367). Adding the variable swimming capacity increased goodness-of-fit to R2 = 0.528. The higher P/B of suprabenthic (= swimming) macrofauna in comparison with that of the benthic compartment seems to be related to the most apparent feature of the suprabenthos, its swimming capacity. The high P/Bs reported for suprabenthic species indicate how a nontrivial part of benthic production can be ignored if suprabenthos is not well sampled, therefore biasing the models of energy flow generated for trophic webs

Semantics of Plan Revision in Intelligent Agents

In this paper, we give an operational and denotational semantics for a 3APL meta-language, with which various 3APL interpreters can be programmed. We moreover prove equivalence of these two semantics. Furthermore, we relate this 3APL meta-language to object-level 3APL by providing a specific interpreter, the semantics of which will prove to be equivalent to object-level 3APL

Combining intelligent agents and animation

Abstract. This paper reviews FreeWill and other AI architectures that have contributed to the ideas, which underlie it. “FreeWill ” proposes and implements a cognitive architecture designed for easy creation of animated scenes with many autonomous agents interacting in various ways. The generation of animated human figures especially in crowd scenes has many applications in such domains as the special effects industry, computer games or for the simulation of the evacuation from crowded areas. Currently such scenes have to be created by human animators using dedicated software packages. This is both expensive and time-consuming. FreeWill combines and extends two existing architectures – Funge’s cognitive architecture and the recent SAC concept. Additionally it puts emphasis on strong design and provides easy co-operation of different software packages