RAGE Signaling in Skeletal Biology

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) and several of its ligands have been implicated in the onset and progression of pathologies associated with aging, chronic inflammation, and cellular stress. In particular, the role of RAGE and its ligands in bone tissue during both physiological and pathological conditions has been investigated. However, the extent to which RAGE signaling regulates bone homeostasis and disease onset remains unclear. Further, RAGE effects in the different bone cells and whether these effects are cell-type specific is unknown. The objective of the current review is to describe the literature over RAGE signaling in skeletal biology as well as discuss the clinical potential of RAGE as a diagnostic and/or therapeutic target in bone disease. RECENT FINDINGS: The role of RAGE and its ligands during skeletal homeostasis, tissue repair, and disease onset/progression is beginning to be uncovered. For example, detrimental effects of the RAGE ligands, advanced glycation end products (AGEs), have been identified for osteoblast viability/activity, while others have observed that low level AGE exposure stimulates osteoblast autophagy, which subsequently promotes viability and function. Similar findings have been reported with HMGB1, another RAGE ligand, in which high levels of the ligand are associated with osteoblast/osteocyte apoptosis, whereas low level/short-term administration stimulates osteoblast differentiation/bone formation and promotes fracture healing. Additionally, elevated levels of several RAGE ligands (AGEs, HMGB1, S100 proteins) induce osteoblast/osteocyte apoptosis and stimulate cytokine production, which is associated with increased osteoclast differentiation/activity. Conversely, direct RAGE-ligand exposure in osteoclasts may have inhibitory effects. These observations support a conclusion that elevated bone resorption observed in conditions of high circulating ligands and RAGE expression are due to actions on osteoblasts/osteocytes rather than direct actions on osteoclasts, although additional work is required to substantiate the observations. Recent studies have demonstrated that RAGE and its ligands play an important physiological role in the regulation of skeletal development, homeostasis, and repair/regeneration. Conversely, elevated levels of RAGE and its ligands are clearly related with various diseases associated with increased bone loss and fragility. However, despite the recent advancements in the field, many questions regarding RAGE and its ligands in skeletal biology remain unanswered

Maximal violation of Bell inequalities by position measurements

We show that it is possible to find maximal violations of the CHSH-Bell inequality using only position measurements on a pair of entangled non-relativistic free particles. The device settings required in the CHSH inequality are done by choosing one of two times at which position is measured. For different assignments of the "+" outcome to positions, namely to an interval, to a half line, or to a periodic set, we determine violations of the inequalities, and states where they are attained. These results have consequences for the hidden variable theories of Bohm and Nelson, in which the two-time correlations between distant particle trajectories have a joint distribution, and hence cannot violate any Bell inequality.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

Pool boiling of water from mechanically polished and chemically etched stainless steel surfaces

Nucleate boiling heat transfer from mechanically polished, chemically etched stainless steel boiling plat

Preliminary investigation of pressure influence on multiphase heat transfer report no. ii

Pressure and surface condition in multiphase boiling heat transfe

A Study of Finite State Machine Coding Styles for Implementation in FPGAs

Finite State Machines (FSM), are one of the more complex structures found in almost all digital systems today. Hardware Description Languages are used for high-level digital system design. VHDL (VHSIC Hardware Description Language) provides the capability of different coding styles for FSMs. Therefore, a choice of a coding style is needed to achieve specific performance goals and to minimize resource utilization for implementation in a re-configurable computing environment such as an FPGA. This paper is a study of the tradeoffs that can be made by changing coding styles. A comparative study on three different FSM coding styles is shown to address their impact on performance and resource utilization for the most commonly used encoding methods for FPGA designs. The results show that a particular coding style leads to a savings in resource utilization with a significant performance improvement over the others while the others pose a consistent performance regardless of the resource utilization outcome

Sewing sound quantum flesh onto classical bones

Semiclassical transformation theory implies an integral representation for stationary-state wave functions $\psi_m(q)$ in terms of angle-action variables ($\theta,J$). It is a particular solution of Schr\"{o}dinger's time-independent equation when terms of order $\hbar^2$ and higher are omitted, but the pre-exponential factor $A(q,\theta)$ in the integrand of this integral representation does not possess the correct dependence on $q$. The origin of the problem is identified: the standard unitarity condition invoked in semiclassical transformation theory does not fix adequately in $A(q,\theta)$ a factor which is a function of the action $J$ written in terms of $q$ and $\theta$. A prescription for an improved choice of this factor, based on succesfully reproducing the leading behaviour of wave functions in the vicinity of potential minima, is outlined. Exact evaluation of the modified integral representation via the Residue Theorem is possible. It yields wave functions which are not, in general, orthogonal. However, closed-form results obtained after Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization bear a striking resemblance to the exact analytical expressions for the stationary-state wave functions of the various potential models considered (namely, a P\"{o}schl-Teller oscillator and the Morse oscillator).Comment: RevTeX4, 6 page

The Vitamin A Content of Sour Cream Butter, Sweet Cream Butter, and Margarines

Nineteen samples of margarine were obtained from Illinois, Ohio and Nebraska. They were analyzed chemically and the vitamin A content of each one was compared with that of either sour-cream or sweet-cream butter. The fat content of the butter samples varied from 80.2 to 81.5 per cent, while the fat content of the margarine samples varied from 78 .3 to 89.2 per cent. From the results it was evident that these samples of margarine were very poor sources of vitamin A when compared with butter. One of the margarine samples caused an average gain of 10 grams per rat and another caused an average gain of 25 grams per rat when fed at the rate of 1 cc. daily for eight weeks. In every other case the rats fed margarine showed a final loss in weight and most of them did not survive the experiment. Butter was fed at a daily rate equal to one-tenth or one-twentieth of the quantity of margarine fed in all cases but one, and the rats survived and gained, the smallest gain averaging 45 grams and the largest 111 grams during the eight-weeks period

The Vitamin A Content of Sour Cream Butter, Sweet Cream Butter, and Margarines

Nineteen samples of margarine were obtained from Illinois, Ohio and Nebraska. They were analyzed chemically and the vitamin A content of each one was compared with that of either sour-cream or sweet-cream butter. The fat content of the butter samples varied from 80.2 to 81.5 per cent, while the fat content of the margarine samples varied from 78 .3 to 89.2 per cent. From the results it was evident that these samples of margarine were very poor sources of vitamin A when compared with butter. One of the margarine samples caused an average gain of 10 grams per rat and another caused an average gain of 25 grams per rat when fed at the rate of 1 cc. daily for eight weeks. In every other case the rats fed margarine showed a final loss in weight and most of them did not survive the experiment. Butter was fed at a daily rate equal to one-tenth or one-twentieth of the quantity of margarine fed in all cases but one, and the rats survived and gained, the smallest gain averaging 45 grams and the largest 111 grams during the eight-weeks period

The Vitamin E Content of Certain Dairy Feeds

A study was made of the vitamin E content of each of the ingredients of our dairy herd ration, excepting the salt, lime, and bone meal. Female rats which were able to conceive but unable to reproduce when fed a diet deficient in vitamin E were fed the various feeds as a source of vitamin E during a second breeding period. The presence of vitamin E in a feed was thus shown by the ability of the female to cast a litter. The vitamin E content of bran, shorts, linseed oil meal, hominy feed, white corn, yellow corn, cottonseed meal, kafir, beet pulp, corn gluten feed, corn gluten meal, and alfalfa was examined. Twenty to twenty-five per cent of the bran, shorts, linseed oil meal, hominy feed, white corn, yellow corn, cottonseed meal, kafir, or alfalfa furnished sufficient vitamin E to allow the rats to cast litters. On the other hand, forty per cent of the corn gluten meal, the corn gluten feed, or the beet pulp furnished very little vitamin E. There was no significant difference in the vitamin E content of the white and yellow corn used