Marker Characterization Of Ecp-Induced Monocyte-Derived Dendritic Cells

Extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) in the treatment of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, GVHD and autoimmune conditions continues to spur the question of how ECP is capable of inducing immunogenicity and tolerance. We previously demonstrated that ECP treatment leads to large-scale conversion of peripheral blood monocytes into functionally competent leukocytes with dendritic cell phenotypes, which may play key roles in the immunomodulatory capabilities of ECP. To characterize this population of cells on a molecular level, we assessed for differential surface expression of selected gene-products on monocytes after treatment with a model-ECP apparatus. Five gene-products (CXCL16, SIRPa, ICAM1, TNFR1, PLAUR) showed significant increases in surface expression after model-ECP treatment as compared to PBMC (p \u3c0.01 for all). To identify transcription factors (TFs) expressed by ECP-treated monocytes but not peripheral blood monocytes, rtPCR was performed. Interactions with platelets during ECP passage was also assessed by using model-ECP plates coated with low- and high-density platelets. Seven TFs demonstrated increases in mRNA after passage through the model-ECP plate (ΔRQ range 1.35- 6.78). Increased platelet density induced directional changes in expression (RQ \u3c 0.5) for VDR, NFkB2, CDKN1A and BCL3. In summary, passage through the ECP plate apparatus caused activation of novel surface molecules and transcription factors that define and characterize a unique subset of physiologically-induced DCs

Generalized analysis of a dust collapse in effective loop quantum gravity: fate of shocks and covariance

Based on modifications inspired from loop quantum gravity (LQG), spherically symmetric models have recently been explored to understand the resolution of classical singularities and the fate of the spacetime beyond. While such phenomenological studies have provided useful insights, questions remain on whether such models exhibit some of the desired properties such as consistent LTB conditions, covariance and compatibility with the improved dynamics of loop quantum cosmology in the cosmological and LTB sectors. We provide a systematic procedure to construct effective spherically symmetric models encoding LQG modifications as a $1+1$ field theory models encoding these properties following the analysis in our companion paper. As concrete examples of our generalized strategy we obtain and compare with different phenomenological models which have been investigated recently and demonstrate resolution of singularity by quantum geometry effects via a bounce. These include models with areal gauge fixing, a polymerized vacuum solution, polymerized junction conditions and an Oppenheimer-Snyder dust collapse model. An important insight from our approach is that the dynamical equations care about the $\det(e)$ part rather than the square root of the determinant of the spatial metric. As a result, shock solutions which have been argued to exist in some models are found to be absent even if one considers coordinate transformations.Comment: 25 pages,1 figur

Dual-modality impairment of implicit learning of letter-strings versus color-patterns in patients with schizophrenia

BACKGROUND: Implicit learning was reported to be intact in schizophrenia using artificial grammar learning. However, emerging evidence indicates that artificial grammar learning is not a unitary process. The authors used dual coding stimuli and schizophrenia clinical symptom dimensions to re-evaluate the effect of schizophrenia on various components of artificial grammar learning. METHODS: Letter string and color pattern artificial grammar learning performances were compared between 63 schizophrenic patients and 27 comparison subjects. Four symptom dimensions derived from a Chinese Positive and Negative Symptom Scale ratings were correlated with patients' artificial grammar implicit learning performances along the two stimulus dimensions. Patients' explicit memory performances were assessed by verbal paired associates and visual reproduction subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scales Revised Version to provide a contrast to their implicit memory function. RESULTS: Schizophrenia severely hindered color pattern artificial grammar learning while the disease affected lexical string artificial grammar learning to a lesser degree after correcting the influences from age, education and the performance of explicit memory function of both verbal and visual modalities. Both learning performances correlated significantly with the severity of patients' schizophrenic clinical symptom dimensions that reflect poor abstract thinking, disorganized thinking, and stereotyped thinking. CONCLUSION: The results of this study suggested that schizophrenia affects various mechanisms of artificial grammar learning differently. Implicit learning, knowledge acquisition in the absence of conscious awareness, is not entirely intact in patients with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia affects implicit learning through an impairment of the ability of making abstractions from rules and at least in part decreasing the capacity for perceptual learning

Embedding generalized LTB models in polymerized spherically symmetric spacetimes

We generalize the existing works on the way (generalized) LTB models can be embedded into polymerized spherically symmetric models in several aspects. We re-examine such an embedding at the classical level and show that a suitable LTB condition can only be treated as a gauge fixing in the non-marginally bound case, while in the marginally bound case it must be considered as an additional first class constraint. A novel aspect of our formalism, based on the effective equations of motion, is to derive compatible dynamics LTB conditions for polymerized models by using holonomy and inverse triad corrections simultaneously, whereas in earlier work these were only considered separately. Further, our formalism allows to derive compatible LTB conditions for a vast of class of polymerized models available in the current literature. Within this broader class of polymerizations there are effective models contained for which the classical LTB condition is a compatible one. Our results show that there exist a class of effective models for which the dynamics decouples completely along the radial direction. It turns out that this subsector is strongly linked to the property that in the temporally gauge fixed model, the algebra of the geometric contribution to the Hamiltonian constraint and the spatial diffeomorphism constraint is closed. We finally apply the formalism to existing models from the literature and compare our results to the existing ones.Comment: 31 pages,1 figur

How Do Stressed Workers Make Travel Mode Choices That Are Good For Their Health, Safety, and Productivity?

It is well recognized in transportation and psychology research that commuting stress has consequences for commuters\u27 travel safety, home environment, and work performance. Little research has addressed questions involving the possible interdependence between work stress, family stress, and commuting stress: Do workers having many demands from work and family life get more stressed out from a stressful commute? Or do stressed workers try to cope with work and non-work stress by choosing more relaxing travel modes? This proposal integrates the perspectives from transportation, psychology, and health science by focusing on the relations between commuting stress, commuting mode choice, and consequences of such choice for commuters\u27 health. To fill the gaps in the transportation and psychology literature, our proposal addresses two key research questions:1) Under what life and work circumstances are commuting workers more likely to commute via car vs. public transit vs. bicycle vs. on foot? 2) What are the different implications of choosing different commuting modes for commuters’ mental and physical health and work outcomes? In Study 1, we used nationally representative census data and we devised a series of multinomial, logistic regression models to predict the probability of choosing each commute mode to address research question 1. In Study 2, we used cortisol and survey data collected daily over a workweek to address research question 2. Findings from this research shed light on possible intervention opportunities that help commuting workers cope with various sources of life stress while making more informed decisions on travel mode choice. We contend that commuting workers, their employers, and transportation agencies and planners can all take part in these interventions that can benefit commuting workers’ productivity and well-being, organizational bottom line as well as performance and safety of the transportation system

ClpAP Is an Auxiliary Protease for DnaA Degradation in Caulobacter Crescentus

The Clp family of proteases is responsible for controlling both stress responses and normal growth. In Caulobacter crescentus, the ClpXP protease is essential and drives cell cycle progression through adaptor-mediated degradation. By contrast, the physiological role for the ClpAP protease is less well understood with only minor growth defects previously reported for ΔclpA cells. Here, we show that ClpAP plays an important role in controlling chromosome content and cell fitness during extended growth. Cells lacking ClpA accumulate aberrant numbers of chromosomes upon prolonged growth suggesting a defect in replication control. Levels of the replication initiator DnaA are elevated in ΔclpA cells and degradation of DnaA is more rapid in cells lacking the ClpA inhibitor ClpS. Consistent with this observation, ClpAP degrades DnaA in vitro while ClpS inhibits this degradation. In cells lacking Lon, the protease previously shown to degrade DnaA in Caulobacter, ClpA overexpression rescues defects in fitness and restores degradation of DnaA. Finally, we show that cells lacking ClpA are particularly sensitive to inappropriate increases in DnaA activity. Our work demonstrates an unexpected effect of ClpAP in directly regulating replication through degradation of DnaA and expands the functional role of ClpAP in Caulobacter