Screening of a HUVEC cDNA library with transplant-associated coronary artery disease sera identifies RPL7 as a candidate autoantigen associated with this disease.

A HUVEC cDNA library was screened with sera from two patients who had developed transplant-associated coronary artery disease (TxCAD) following cardiac transplantation. A total of six positive clones were isolated from a primary screen of 40 000 genes. Subsequent DNA sequence analysis identified these to be lysyl tRNA synthetase, ribosomal protein L7, ribosomal protein L9, beta transducin and TANK. Another gene whose product could not be identified showed homology to a human cDNA clone (DKFZp566M063) derived from fetal kidney. Full-length constructs of selected genes were expressed as his-tag recombinant fusion proteins and used to screen a wider patient base by ELISA to determine prevalence and association with TxCAD. Of these ribosomal protein L7 showed the highest prevalence (55.6%) with TxCAD sera compared to 10% non-CAD

Working with Children with Learning Disabilities and/or who Communicate Non-verbally: Research experiences and their implications for social work education, increased participation and social inclusion

Social exclusion, although much debated in the UK, frequently focuses on children as a key 'at risk' group. However, some groups, such as disabled children, receive less consideration. Similarly, despite both UK and international policy and guidance encouraging the involvement of disabled children and their right to participate in decision-making arenas, they are frequently denied this right. UK based evidence suggests that disabled children's participation lags behind that of their non-disabled peers, often due to social work practitioners' lack of skills, expertise and knowledge on how to facilitate participation. The exclusion of disabled children from decision-making in social care processes echoes their exclusion from participation in society. This paper seeks to begin to address this situation, and to provide some examples of tools that social work educators can introduce into pre- and post-qualifying training programmes, as well as in-service training. The paper draws on the experiences of researchers using non-traditional qualitative research methods, especially non-verbal methods, and describes two research projects, focusing on the methods employed to communicate with and involve disabled children, the barriers encountered and lessons learnt. Some of the ways in which these methods of communication can inform social work education are explored alongside wider issues of how and if increased communication can facilitate greater social inclusion

Cloud thermodynamic phase inferred from merged POLDER and MODIS data

International audienceThe global spatial and diurnal distribution of cloud properties is a key issue for understanding the hydrological cycle, and critical for advancing efforts to improve numerical weather models and general circulation models. Satellite data provides the best way of gaining insight into global cloud properties. In particular, the determination of cloud thermodynamic phase is a critical first step in the process of inferring cloud optical and microphysical properties from satellite measurements. It is important that cloud phase be derived together with an estimate of the confidence of this determination, so that this information can be included with subsequent retrievals (optical thickness, effective particle radius, and ice/liquid water content). In this study, we combine three different and well documented approaches for inferring cloud phase into a single algorithm. The algorithm is applied to data obtained by the MODIS (MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) and POLDER3 (Polarization and Directionality of the Earth Reflectance) instruments. It is shown that this synergistic algorithm can be used routinely to derive cloud phase along with an index that helps to discriminate ambiguous phase from confident phase cases. The resulting product provides a semi-continuous confidence index ranging from confident liquid to confident ice instead of the usual discrete classification of liquid phase, ice phase, mixed phase (potential combination of ice and liquid particles), or simply unknown phase clouds. This approach is expected to be useful for cloud assimilation and modeling efforts while providing more insight into the global cloud properties derived from satellite data

Spatial variation of trace elements in the peri-urban soil of Madrid

Purpose The peri-urban region to the south east of Madrid contains a mixture of housing, manufacturing industry and farming, some of which disperse metals, in particular cadmium, copper, lead, and zinc, into the soil. We have mapped the concentrations of these elements and identified the major influences on their distributions. Material and methods We sampled the topsoil at 125 sites across 1,050 km2 of peri-urban land to the south east of the city on two grids, one nested inside the other. At each site, we measured the current contents of the four trace elements in the soil. We used robust geostatistical methods to model the complex spatial distributions of the data as mixtures of fixed and random effects. The empirical best linear unbiased predictor was used to map the elements. Site descriptors (lithology, land cover, cultivation, relief, erosion, and stoniness) were then included as covariates to identify significant effects on trace element concentrations. Results and discussion The complex spatial distributions of the elements seem to arise from several sources. The concentrations generally increase from southeast to northwest, i.e.;with increasing proximity to Madrid itself, the main potential source of pollution. This pattern is clear for lead and similar for copper and zinc, though with "hot spots" at or near industrial sites. The spatial pattern of cadmium is more complex and depends on varied lithology, industry, and land use such as irrigation and cultivation. In general, the concentrations of the four elements appear to decrease with increases in stoniness and erosion, and to be largest on the valley floors. Conclusions Robust geostatistical methods enabled us to analyze and map the complex patterns of spatial variation of trace elements in a peri-urban region of Madrid. They show that distance to the city center, lithology, manufacturing industry, and cultivation all play their parts in loading the soil with lead, copper, zinc, and cadmium. In the event, none of the metals has yet exceeded the legislative thresholds, but some concentrations are already substantially greater than would arise from natural sources, especially closest to Madrid itself. © 2013 The Author(s)

Structure, Deformations and Gravitational Wave Emission of Magnetars

Neutron stars can have, in some phases of their life, extremely strong magnetic fields, up to 10^15-10^16 G. These objects, named magnetars, could be powerful sources of gravitational waves, since their magnetic field could determine large deformations. We discuss the structure of the magnetic field of magnetars, and the deformation induced by this field. Finally, we discuss the perspective of detection of the gravitational waves emitted by these stars.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, prepared for 19th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (GR19), Mexico City, Mexico, July 5-9, 201

Wave nucleation rate in excitable systems in the low noise limit

Motivated by recent experiments on intracellular calcium dynamics, we study the general issue of fluctuation-induced nucleation of waves in excitable media. We utilize a stochastic Fitzhugh-Nagumo model for this study, a spatially-extended non-potential pair of equations driven by thermal (i.e. white) noise. The nucleation rate is determined by finding the most probable escape path via minimization of an action related to the deviation of the fields from their deterministic trajectories. Our results pave the way both for studies of more realistic models of calcium dynamics as well as of nucleation phenomena in other non-equilibrium pattern-forming processes