Evidence of endothelial dysfunction in the development of Alzheimer's disease : Is Alzheimer's a vascular disorder?

Acknowledgements Dr Soiza is funded by an NRS Career Research Fellowship. The authors are grateful to Alzheimer’s Research UK for providing funding.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A follow-up study of the 1951-1955 business graduates of the Attleboro High School, Attleboro, Massachusetts

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston UniversityThe purposes ef this thesis were to determine how well the present business pregram prepared the graduates for their work and to obtain information which might be helpful in improving the business education program by making a follow-up study of the 1950-1954 business graduates of the Attleboro High School

A comparison of pilot-scale supersonic direct steam injection to conventional steam infusion and tubular heating systems for the heat treatment of protein-enriched skim milk-based beverages

peer-reviewedDirect supersonic steam injection, direct steam infusion, and indirect tubular heating were each applied to protein-enriched skim milk-based beverages with 4, 6 and 8% (w/w) total protein, and the effect of final heat temperature on the physical properties of these beverages was investigated. Supersonic steam injection resulted in significantly lower levels of denaturation of β-lactoglobulin (34.5%), compared to both infusion (76.3%) and tubular (97.1%) heating technologies. Viscosity, particle size and accelerated physical stability of formulations did not differ significantly between the heating technologies, while noticeable colour differences due to heat treatment (mainly attributed to increasing b* value) were observed, particularly for tubular heating. Overall, the extent of protein denaturation in high-protein dairy products was significantly influenced by the particular heating technology applied. The application of supersonic steam injection technology, with rapid heating and high shear characteristics, may enable differenciated product characteristics for ready-to-drink ambient-delivery high-protein dairy beverages. Industrial relevance: The design and application of novel direct supersonic steam injection technology was comprehensively studied and found to provide significant benefits over direct steam infusion and indirect tubular heating technologies for skim milk-based protein beverages. This type of injection heating system resulted in heat-treated formulations with lower levels of denatured whey proteins, compared to tubular and infusion heating, offering an alternative opportunity to the industry in terms of producing shelf-stable dairy protein beverages

Dominating cliques in graphs

AbstractA set of vertices is a dominating set in a graph if every vertex not in the dominating set is adjacent to one or more vertices in the dominating set. A dominating clique is a dominating set that induces a complete subgraph. Forbidden subgraph conditions sufficient to imply the existence of a dominating clique are given. For certain classes of graphs, a polynomial algorithm is given for finding a dominating clique. A forbidden subgraph characterization is given for a class of graphs that have a connected dominating set of size three

Schumpeter's Bahnbrechen considered in the light of Native Title Legislation and Indigenous entrepreneurship

In Australia, the Native Title Act 1993 (NTAct) dramatically altered the business and property environment, constituting a Bahnbrechen or transformative regulatory change which created the benefit of native title recognition for Aboriginals. This Study provides an account of NTAct’s operation and many negative elements, along with its intriguingly positive impact upon entrepreneurial opportunity. It shows that the simple fact of the chaotic setting of a transformative regulatory change shakes things up in a way that impacts upon entrepreneurial opportunity, even while its policies are anti-entrepreneurial and disempowering

The Repressors of mTORC1 Signaling, REDD1 and REDD2, Are Induced in Immobilized Rat Skeletal Muscle

Please view abstract in the attached PDF file

Compact, Portable Fabry-Pérot Reference Cavities

Lasers locked to optical cavities produce electromagnetic waves with exceptional frequency stability. The optical signals from optical-cavity stabilized lasers have applications in precision spectroscopy and optical atomic frequency standards. These signals can be used in gravitational wave detection and tests of fundamental physics, such as models for weakly interacting dark matter candidates. Using femtosecond frequency combs, the stability of the optical cavities can be transferred to the microwave regime. These microwave sources have some of the lowest phase noise of any microwave source. These microwave signals can be used for radar, better communications technology, and GPS. The pursuit of portable vacuum-gap reference cavities arises from the need for rigid, compact, and robust laser frequency stabilization solutions in demanding and unpredictable environments. Many applications, such as portable optical atomic clocks, earthquake detection using undersea optical fiber, and low phase noise microwave generation, require sub- 10-13 instability in the optical domain, but the size, weight, and infrastructure demands of large or cryogenic cavity systems are incompatible with these applications. To address these challenges, I designed and developed three compact optical cavities. These designs represent promising steps towards achieving high stability performance while overcoming the limitations of traditional cavity systems, thereby opening up new possibilities for practical applications that require precise and portable laser frequency references. The first design involves a series of two cavities with 6.3 mm long spacers made of ULE. These cavities were specifically tailored for low phase noise microwave generation. These cavities offer compactness while aiming to maintain high stability levels (1-2 x 10-14). One of the two cavities has 25.4 mm diameter ULE mirrors and is referred to as the ULE-ULE cavity. The other cavity has 12.7 mm diameter FS mirrors and is referred to as the FS-ULE cavity. High-bandwidth locking of the FS-ULE cavity demonstrates thermal noise limited laser noise to nearly 10 kHz. The ULE-ULE cavity was brought to a telecom fiber launch site and demonstrated remote operation. Both the FS-ULE cavity and the ULE-ULE cavity were used in a novel measurement of the cavity holding force sensitivity. The acceleration sensitivity of the FS-ULE cavity is better than 6&nbsp; x 10-10g-1 along all mechanical axes. The second design targets a portable Yb lattice clock. The spacer is made of ultra-low expansion (ULE) glass and is 25 mm long and 50 mm in diameter. The fused silica (FS) mirrors are 25.4 mm in diameter and 6.35 mm long with 10.2 m radius of curvature and crystalline coatings. This cavity has a thermal noise limited fractional frequency instability of &asymp; 10-15. The design is highly symmetric, and the acceleration sensitivity is better than 2x10-10 per g along all mechanical axes. Preliminary phase noise measurements of a laser locked to the cavity show more than 90dB suppression of the free running laser noise, and thermal noise limited performance between 1 and 10 Hz. Preliminary measurements of the ADEV show that the laser lock is likely suffering from residual amplitude modulation (RAM) noise and drifting due to temperature. Further efforts are expected to improve the long-term stability of the cavity.</p

Characterization of best linear unbiased estimates generated from national genetic evaluations of reproductive performance, survival, and milk yield in dairy cows

peer-reviewedGenetic evaluations decompose an observed phenotype into its genetic and nongenetic components; the former are termed BLUP with the solutions for the systematic environmental effects in the statistical model termed best linear unbiased estimates (BLUE). Geneticists predominantly focus on the BLUP and rarely consider the BLUE. The objective of this study, however, was to define and quantify the association between 8 herd-level characteristics and BLUE for 6 traits in dairy herds, namely (1) age at first calving, (2) calving to first service interval (CFS), (3) number of services, (4) calving interval (CIV), (5) survival, and (6) milk yield. Phenotypic data along with the fixed and random effects solutions were generated from the Irish national multi-breed dairy cow fertility genetic evaluations on 3,445,557 cows; BLUE for individual contemporary groups were collapsed into mean herd-year estimates. Data from 5,707 spring-calving herds between the years 2007 and 2016 inclusive were retained; association analyses were undertaken using linear mixed multiple regression models. Pearson coefficient correlations were used to quantify the relationships among individual trait herd-year BLUE, and transition matrices were used to understand the dynamics of mean herd BLUE estimates over years. Based on the mean annual trends in raw, BLUP, and BLUE, it was estimated that BLUE were associated with at least two-thirds of the improvement in CIV and milk production over the past 10 yr. Milk recording herds calved heifers for the first time on average 15 d younger, had an almost 2 d longer CFS but 2.3 d shorter CIV than non-milk-recording herds. Larger herd sizes were associated with worse BLUE for both CFS and CIV. Expanding herds and herds that had the highest proportion of cows born on the farm itself, on average, calved heifers younger and had shorter CIV. By separating the raw performance of a selection of herds into their respective BLUE and BLUP, it was possible to identify herds with inferior management practices that were being compensated by superior genetics; similarly, herds were identified with superior BLUE, but because of their inferior genetic merit, were not reaching their full potential. This suggests that BLUE could have a pivotal role in a tailored decision support tool that would enable producers to focus on the most limiting factor hindering them from achieving their maximum performance