CONTRIBUTION OF BONE MARROW CELLS AND LACK OF EXPRESSION OF THYMOCYTES IN GENETIC CONTROLS OF IMMUNE RESPONSES FOR TWO IMMUNOPOTENT REGIONS WITHIN POLY-(PHE,GLU)-POLY-PRO--POLY-LYS IN INBRED MOUSE STRAINS

Previous cellular studies on the genetic regulation of immunological responsiveness for two immunopotent regions within the branched chain synthetic polypeptide (Phe, G)-Pro--L demonstrated a direct correlation between the number of detectable immunocompetent splenic precursor cells and the response patterns of SJL, DBA/1, and F1 mice (21). In order to establish the cellular origin(s) of the genetic defect, the present study first demonstrated that thymus and bone marrow cell cooperation was required for (Phe, G)- and Pro--L-specific immune responses. Secondly, limiting dilution experiments, in which several graded and limiting inocula of marrow cells were mixed with a non-limiting number of 108 thymocytes and injected into irradiated, syngeneic recipients, indicated that the low responsiveness of the SJL and DBA/1 strains to the (Phe, G) and Pro--L specificities, respectively, could be attributed to a reduced number of precursor cells found in bone marrow. About five times more marrow precursors were detected in SJL mice for Pro--L than for (Phe, G), whereas about five times as many precursor cells were estimated for (Phe, G) as for Pro--L in the DBA/1 strain. These differences are similar to those obtained using spleen cells from unimmunized SJL and DBA/1 donors (21), and indicate that these genetically determined variations in responsiveness can be accounted for by differences in the frequencies of monospecific populations of immunocompetent cells present in bone marrow. In contrast, limiting dilution transfers of thymocytes or thymus-derived cells with an excess of syngeneic marrow cells resulted in equally frequent (Phe, G) and Pro--L responses for both SJL ad DBA/1 strains. This finding in conjunction with the observation that the generation of (Phe, G)- and Pro--L-specific responses were associated in individual recipients injected with limiting inocula of thymocytes indicated that a single population of thymocytes was stimulated by (Phe,G)-Pro--L. Therefore, it is improbable that the thymic population of immunocompetent cells contributes to expression of these genetically controlled defects

Not So SuperDense Coding - Deterministic Dense Coding with Partially Entangled States

The utilization of a $d$-level partially entangled state, shared by two parties wishing to communicate classical information without errors over a noiseless quantum channel, is discussed. We analytically construct deterministic dense coding schemes for certain classes of non-maximally entangled states, and numerically obtain schemes in the general case. We study the dependency of the information capacity of such schemes on the partially entangled state shared by the two parties. Surprisingly, for $d>2$ it is possible to have deterministic dense coding with less than one ebit. In this case the number of alphabet letters that can be communicated by a single particle, is between $d$ and 2d. In general we show that the alphabet size grows in "steps" with the possible values $d, d+1, ..., d^2-2$. We also find that states with less entanglement can have greater communication capacity than other more entangled states.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Identifying Human Strategies for Generating Word-Level Adversarial Examples

Adversarial examples in NLP are receiving increasing research attention. One line of investigation is the generation of word-level adversarial examples against fine-tuned Transformer models that preserve naturalness and grammaticality. Previous work found that human- and machine-generated adversarial examples are comparable in their naturalness and grammatical correctness. Most notably, humans were able to generate adversarial examples much more effortlessly than automated attacks. In this paper, we provide a detailed analysis of exactly how humans create these adversarial examples. By exploring the behavioural patterns of human workers during the generation process, we identify statistically significant tendencies based on which words humans prefer to select for adversarial replacement (e.g., word frequencies, word saliencies, sentiment) as well as where and when words are replaced in an input sequence. With our findings, we seek to inspire efforts that harness human strategies for more robust NLP models

Emotional exhaustion and organizational commitment: Primary school teachers’ perspective

Teaching is a noble profession to educate the youth of nations facing today’s global challenges. Teaching, at the same time, has become a highly challenging profession and occasionally a draining work, especially for those who are working in the remote areas. A high-level of teacher absenteeism in the primary schools of Southern Papua has blown some societal alarm for conducting studies focusing on emotional exhaustion as a latent predictor for low-performance. This study attempted to describe the eventual correlation between the emotional exhaustion and organizational commitment of teachers working in the primary schools of Merauke, Indonesia. A survey approach was employed to collect data from a total of 243 primary school teachers in Merauke, Papua, Indonesia. Data were examined statistically by employing Pearson’s correlation model. Results of analysis showed that the emotional exhaustion and commitment of primary school teachers in Merauke, Indonesia, are significantly negatively correlated. This result may be useful for the teachers to benefit from the information of how they may interact with all the school elements and the extent to which these emotions directly affect their organizational commitment. The result may also be advisable for the school leaders to take some tactical efforts of securing teachers’ emotion to promote a high-level of teachers’ organizational commitment and, in turn, improving students’ capabilities in reading, writing, and arithmetics

A20 deficiency sensitizes pancreatic beta cells to cytokine-induced apoptosis in vitro but does not influence type 1 diabetes development in vivo

SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

CELLULAR BASIS OF THE GENETIC CONTROL OF IMMUNE RESPONSES TO SYNTHETIC POLYPEPTIDES : I. DIFFERENCES IN FREQUENCY OF SPLENIC PRECURSOR CELLS SPECIFIC FOR A SYNTHETIC POLYPEPTIDE DERIVED FROM MULTICHAIN POLYPROLINE ([T, G]-PRO--L) IN HIGH AND LOW RESPONDER INBRED MOUSE STRAINS

SJL mice are high responders to the synthetic multichain polypeptide antigen (T,G)-Pro--L, whereas DBA/1 mice are low responders (10, 11). In order to determine whether the genetic control of immune response can be correlated with the number of antigen-sensitive precursor cells, spleen cell suspensions from normal and immunized SJL and DBA/1 donor mice were transplanted into lethally X-irradiated syngeneic recipients (incapable of immune response) along with (T, G)-Pro--L. Anti-(T, G)-Pro--L responses (donor-derived) were assayed in the sera of the hosts 12–16 days later. By transplanting graded and limiting numbers of spleen cells, inocula were found which contained one or a few antigen-sensitive precursors reactive with the immunogen. Using this method to estimate the relative numbers of such cells for the high responder SJL strain, one precursor was detected in ∼1.3 x 106 and ∼7.2 x 106 spleen cells from immunized and normal donors, respectively. In contrast, one precursor was detected in about 30 x 106 spleen cells from low responder DBA/1 mice, irrespective of whether the donors had been immunized. These results indicate that the genetic control of immunity to the synthetic polypeptide antigen investigated is directly correlated to the relative number of precursor cells reactive with the immunogen in high and low responder strains

ANTIGEN-SPECIFIC THYMUS CELL FACTORS IN THE GENETIC CONTROL OF THE IMMUNE RESPONSE TO POLY-(TYROSYL, GLUTAMYL)-POLY-D, L-ALANYL--POLY-LYSYL

The genetic control of the antibody response to a synthetic polypeptide antigen designated poly-L(Tyr, Glu)-poly-D,L-Ala--poly-L-Lys [(T, G)-A--L] has been studied in congenic high responder C3H.SW (H-2b) and low responder C3H/HeJ (H-2k) strains of mice. This response is controlled by the Ir-1 gene and is H-2 linked. The method employed was to study the ability of specifically primed or "educated" T cells of each strain to produce cooperative factors for (T, G)-A--L in vitro. Such factors have been shown to be capable of replacing the requirement for T cells in the thymus-dependent antibody response to (T, G)-A--L in vivo. The T-cell factors produced were tested for their ability to cooperate with B cells of either high or low responder origin by transfer together with bone marrow cells and (T, G)-A--L into heavily irradiated, syngeneic (for bone marrow donor) recipients. Direct anti-(T, G)-A--L plaque-forming cells were measured later in the spleens of the recipients. The results showed that (a) educated T cells of both high and low responder origin produced active cooperative factors to (T, G)-A--L, and no differences between the strains in respect to production of T-cell factors could be demonstrated; and (b) such factors, whether of high or low responder origin, cooperated efficiently with B cells of high responder origin only, and hardly at all with B cells of low responder origin. The conclusion was drawn that the cellular difference between the two strains lies in the responsiveness of their B cells to specific signals or stimuli received from T cells. As far as could be discerned by the methods used, no T-cell defect existed in low responder mice and the expression of the controlling Ir-1 gene was solely at the level of the B cells in this case

CONTRIBUTION OF DIFFERENT CELL TYPES TO THE GENETIC CONTROL OF IMMUNE RESPONSES AS A FUNCTION OF THE CHEMICAL NATURE OF THE POLYMERIC SIDE CHAINS (POLY-L-PROLYL AND POLY-DL-ALANYL) OF SYNTHETIC IMMUNOGENS

Genetic regulation of immunological responsiveness was studied at the cellular level by comparing the limiting dilutions of immunocompetent cells from spleen, thymus, and bone marrow of high and low responders as a function of the poly-L-prolyl and poly-DL-alanyl side chains of two synthetic polypeptide immunogens. The spleens of immunized and unimmunized high responder DBA/1 mice were found to contain respectively, 18- and 7-fold more limiting precursor cells specific for (Phe, G)-A--L than the spleens of SJL low responder donors. These results, using a synthetic polypeptide built on multichain poly-DL-alanine, confirm the findings reported for polypeptides built on multichain poly-L-proline (1, 2), that there is a direct correlation between immune response potential and the relative number of immunocompetent precursors stimulated. Cell cooperation between thymocytes and bone marrow cells was demonstrated for both (T, G)-Pro--L and (Phe, G)-A--L. Limiting dilutions of thymus and bone marrow cells in the presence of an excess amount of the complementary cell type indicated an eightfold lower number of detected (T, G)-Pro--L-specific precursors in DBA/1 (low responder) marrow when compared with SJL (high responder) marrow. No differences were observed in the frequency of relevant high and low responder thymocytes for the (T, G)-Pro--L immunogen. These results are similar to those reported for the (Phe, G)-Pro--L (3). In contrast to the cellular studies reported for the Pro--L series of immunogens, the marrow and thymus cell dilution experiments for (Phe, G)-A--L revealed genetically associated differences in both the marrow and thymus populations of immunocytes from high (DBA/1) and low (SJL) responders. In addition to a fivefold difference in limiting marrow cell precursors (similar to that seen in the Pro--L studies), a striking difference was observed between the helper cell activity of high responder DBA/1 and low responder SJL thymocytes. This difference was indicated by the observation that low responder thymocyte dilutions followed the predictions of the Poisson model, whereas dilutions of high responder thymocytes did not conform to Poisson statistics. Transfers of allogeneic thymus and marrow cell mixtures from DBA/1 and SJL donors confirmed the syngeneic dilution studies showing that the genetic defect of immune responsiveness to (Phe, G)-A--L is expressed at both the thymus and marrow immunocompetent cell level. The parameters presently known for genetic control of immune responses specific for (Phe, G) (Ir-1 gene) and for Pro--L (Ir-3 gene) have been compared. The Ir-1 and Ir-3 genes are not only distinct by genetic linkage tests (to H-2) (5, 6, 9), but they are also seen to be different by cellular studies. Furthermore, expression of low responsiveness within a given cell population was shown to depend on the chemical structure of the whole immunogenic macromolecule

Online influence, offline violence: Language Use on YouTube surrounding the 'Unite the Right' rally

The media frequently describes the 2017 Charlottesville ‘Unite the Right’ rally as a turning point for the alt-right and white supremacist movements. Social movement theory suggests that the media attention and public discourse concerning the rally may have engendered changes in social identity performance and visibility of the alt-right, but this has yet to be empirically tested. The presence of the movement on YouTube is of particular interest, as this platform has been referred to as a breeding ground for the alt-right. The current study investigates whether there are differences in language use between 7142 alt-right and progressive YouTube channels, in addition to measuring possible changes as a result of the rally. To do so, we create structural topic models and measure bigram proportions in video transcripts, spanning approximately 2 months before and after the rally. We observe differences in topics between the two groups, with the ‘alternative influencers’, for example, discussing topics related to race and free speech to a larger extent than progressive channels. We also observe structural breakpoints in the use of bigrams at the time of the rally, suggesting there are changes in language use within the two groups as a result of the rally. While most changes relate to mentions of the rally itself, the alternative group also shows an increase in promotion of their YouTube channels. In light of social movement theory, we argue that language use on YouTube shows that the Charlottesville rally indeed triggered changes in social identity performance and visibility of the alt-right