Genes of Interest in Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia: Studies of Genome-Wide Expression Profiling Data from Lung and Peripheral Blood Samples

The goal of this study was to identify BPD markers by gene expression profiling in lung and peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) gene expression data. Studies of BPD are often focused on lung tissue, but rarely venture to find markers of the disease outside of the most affected tissue. Genes identified from these analyses can be used as markers of BPD, and may also be linked with causal mechanisms of the disease. First, we tested the biological relevance of BPD biomarkers previously identified in lung tissue by assessing their importance in normal lung development. Next, we identified sets of differentially expressed genes at 5±2 days (Near-birth) and 25±3 days (Near-diagnosis) post birth within a publicly-available microarray dataset utilizing RNA from the PBMCs from infants at high risk for a diagnosis of BPD. These lists provided markers of BPD including ARG1, MPO, OLFM4, CEACAM1, CEACAM6 and CEACAM8 that may provide further insight into the physiology of infants with BPD. Of these, ARG1, CEACAM1 and CEACAM6 were validated by qPCR using RNA samples from lung tissue. The identified genes and their associations with the inflammatory response and vascular development via the Urea cycle provide a basis for further investigation of these pathways within BPD pathogenesis. Another benefit of these markers has been explored: using PBMC gene expression to predict long-term outcome in the near-birth time point. These studies showed that a simple 3-fold cross-validation technique could provide a model with nearly 73% accurate classification of infants at less than 1 week after birth. These studies provide a strong motive for further analyses of these genes of interest and the predictive ability of biomarkers of BPD in PBMCs

Dynamic Line Rating Oncor Electric Delivery Smart Grid Program

Electric transmission lines are the lifeline of the electric utility industry, delivering its product from source to consumer. This critical infrastructure is often constrained such that there is inadequate capacity on existing transmission lines to efficiently deliver the power to meet demand in certain areas or to transport energy from high-generation areas to high-consumption regions. When this happens, the cost of the energy rises; more costly sources of power are used to meet the demand or the system operates less reliably. These economic impacts are known as congestion, and they can amount to substantial dollars for any time frame of reference: hour, day or year. There are several solutions to the transmission constraint problem, including: construction of new generation, construction of new transmission facilities, rebuilding and reconductoring of existing transmission assets, and Dynamic Line Rating (DLR). All of these options except DLR are capital intensive, have long lead times and often experience strong public and regulatory opposition. The Smart Grid Demonstration Program (SGDP) project co-funded by the Department of Energy (DOE) and Oncor Electric Delivery Company developed and deployed the most extensive and advanced DLR installation to demonstrate that DLR technology is capable of resolving many transmission capacity constraint problems with a system that is reliable, safe and very cost competitive. The SGDP DLR deployment is the first application of DLR technology to feed transmission line real-time dynamic ratings directly into the system operation’s State Estimator and load dispatch program, which optimizes the matching of generation with load demand on a security, reliability and economic basis. The integrated Dynamic Line Rating (iDLR)1 collects transmission line parameters at remote locations on the lines, calculates the real-time line rating based on the equivalent conductor temperature, ambient temperature and influence of wind and solar radiation on the stringing section, transmits the data to the Transmission Energy Management System, validates its integrity and passes it on to Oncor and ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) respective system operations. The iDLR system is automatic and transparent to ERCOT System Operations, i.e., it operates in parallel with all other system status telemetry collected through Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) employed across the company

Bibliotherapy: Its Use in Nursing Therapy

published or submitted for publicatio

The critical role of collagen VI in lung development and chronic lung disease

Type VI collagen (collagen VI) is an obligate extracellular matrix component found mainly in the basement membrane region of many mammalian tissues and organs, including skeletal muscle and throughout the respiratory system. Collagen VI is probably most recognized in medicine as the genetic cause of a spectrum of muscular dystrophies, including Ullrich Congenital Myopathy and Bethlem Myopathy. Collagen VI is thought to contribute to myopathy, at least in part, by mediating muscle fiber integrity by anchoring myoblasts to the muscle basement membrane. Interestingly, collagen VI myopathies present with restrictive respiratory insufficiency, thought to be due primarily to thoracic muscular weakening. Although it was recently recognized as one of the (if not the) most abundant collagens in the mammalian lung, there is a substantive knowledge gap concerning its role in respiratory system development and function. A few studies have suggested that collagen VI insufficiency is associated with airway epithelial cell survival and altered lung function. Our recent work suggested collagen VI may be a genomic risk factor for chronic lung disease in premature infants. Using this as motivation, we thoroughly assessed the role of collagen VI in lung development and in lung epithelial cell biology. Here, we describe the state-of-the-art for collagen VI cell and developmental biology within the respiratory system, and reveal its essential roles in normal developmental processes and airway epithelial cell phenotype and intracellular signaling

A character of the province of Maryland,

"Of this edition, two hundred and fifty copies have been printed, and the type distributed." This copy not numbered.Mode of access: Internet