Biglycan : a multivalent proteoglycan providing structure and signals

Research over the past few years has provided fascinating results indicating that biglycan, besides being a ubiquitous structural component of the extracellular matrix (ECM), may act as a signaling molecule. Proteolytically released from the ECM, biglycan acts as a danger signal signifying tissue stress or injury. As a ligand of innate immunity receptors and activator of the inflammasome, biglycan stimulates multifunctional proinflammatory signaling linking the innate to the adaptive immune response. By clustering several types of receptors on the cell surface and orchestrating their downstream signaling events, biglycan is capable to autonomously trigger sterile inflammation and to potentiate the inflammatory response to microbial invasion. Besides operating in a broad biological context, biglycan also displays tissue-specific affinities to certain receptors and structural components, thereby playing a crucial role in bone formation, muscle integrity, and synapse stability at the neuromuscular junction. This review attempts to provide a concise summary of recent data regarding the involvement of biglycan in the regulation of inflammation and the musculoskeletal system, pointing out both a signaling and a structural role for this proteoglycan. The potential of biglycan as a novel therapeutic target or agent for the treatment of inflammatory diseases and skeletal muscular dystrophies is also addressed

Letter from Marian Young Taylor (Martha Deane) to Hubert Creekmore

Marian Young Taylor, who used the pseudonym Martha Deane for her WOR radio station, writes from New York City to Creekmore in Jackson, Mississippi, to thank Creekmore for appearing on her show. Includes envelope.https://egrove.olemiss.edu/creekmore/1157/thumbnail.jp

Effectiveness of Air Cleaning Systems in Crushing Zones of Dressing Mills

Body sensor networks (BSN) are an important research topic due to various advantages over conventional measurement equipment. One main advantage is the feasibility to deploy a BSN system for 24/7 health monitoring applications. The requirements for such an application are miniaturization of the network nodes and the use of wireless data transmission technologies to ensure wearability and ease of use. Therefore, the reliability of such a system depends on the quality of the wireless data transmission. At present, most BSNs use ZigBee or other IEEE 802.15.4 based transmission technologies. Here, we evaluated the performance of a wireless transmission system of a novel BSN for biomedical applications in the 433 MHz ISM band, called Integrated Posture and Activity NEtwork by Medit Aachen (IPANEMA) BSN. The 433 MHz ISM band is used mostly by implanted sensors and thus allows easy integration of such into the BSN. Multiple measurement scenarios have been assessed, including varying antenna orientations, transmission distances and the number of network participants. The mean packet loss rate (PLR) was 0.63% for a single slave, which is comparable to IEEE 802.15.4 BSNs in the proximity of Bluetooth or WiFi networks. Secondly, an enhanced version is evaluated during on-body measurements with five slaves. The mean PLR results show a comparable good performance for measurements on a treadmill (2.5%), an outdoor track (3.4%) and in a climate chamber (1.5%)

ALDI++: Automatic and parameter-less discord and outlier detection for building energy load profiles

Data-driven building energy prediction is an integral part of the process for measurement and verification, building benchmarking, and building-to-grid interaction. The ASHRAE Great Energy Predictor III (GEPIII) machine learning competition used an extensive meter data set to crowdsource the most accurate machine learning workflow for whole building energy prediction. A significant component of the winning solutions was the pre-processing phase to remove anomalous training data. Contemporary pre-processing methods focus on filtering statistical threshold values or deep learning methods requiring training data and multiple hyper-parameters. A recent method named ALDI (Automated Load profile Discord Identification) managed to identify these discords using matrix profile, but the technique still requires user-defined parameters. We develop ALDI++, a method based on the previous work that bypasses user-defined parameters and takes advantage of discord similarity. We evaluate ALDI++ against a statistical threshold, variational auto-encoder, and the original ALDI as baselines in classifying discords and energy forecasting scenarios. Our results demonstrate that while the classification performance improvement over the original method is marginal, ALDI++ helps achieve the best forecasting error improving 6% over the winning's team approach with six times less computation time.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, 3 table

Impact of age and race on outcomes of a program to prevent excess weight gain and disordered eating in adolescent girls

Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) prevents weight gain and reduces loss-of-control (LOC)-eating in adults. However, IPT was not superior to health-education (HE) for preventing excess weight gain and reducing LOC-eating over 1-year in adolescent girls at risk for excess weight gain and eating disorders. Limited data suggest that older and non-White youth may be especially responsive to IPT. In secondary analyses, we examined if age or race moderated weight and LOC-eating outcomes. The 113 participants (12–17 years; 56.6% White) from the original trial were re-contacted 3 years later for assessment. At baseline and follow-up visits through 3 years, we assessed BMI, adiposity by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, and LOC-eating presence. In linear mixed models, baseline age moderated 3-year BMI outcome; older girls in IPT had the lowest 3-year BMI gain compared to younger girls in IPT and all girls in HE, p = 0.04. A similar pattern was observed for adiposity. Race moderated 3-year LOC-eating; non-White girls in IPT were most likely to abstain from LOC-eating at 3 years compared to all other girls, p = 0.04. This hypothesis-generating analysis suggests future studies should determine if IPT is especially efficacious at reducing LOC-eating in older, non-White adolescents

Gender Differences in Travel Constraints and Changed Travel Pattern after a Senior Travel Program Introduces: A Case Study of the Florence County Senior Travel Program

The purposes of this study were to explore pleasure travel constraints among adults aged 50 and over and investigate the gender differences of pleasure travel constraints. Moreover, this study investigated whether there were changed pleasure travel patterns among a specific group of older adults since an organized tour opportunity is available in their resident county, Florence County, South Carolina. The findings of this study indicated that female travelers perceived more travel constraints, however, they had a higher level of travel interest than males. Comparing the proportion of changed pleasure travel patterns with the FCPRD travel program, most of female travelers chose to participate in the FCPRD travel programs. As the FCPRD organized travel program was introduced, female travelers appeared to take more opportunities to travel than males

Major niche transitions in Pooideae correlate with variation in photoperiodic flowering and evolution of CCT domain genes

The external cues that trigger timely flowering vary greatly across tropical and temperate plant taxa, the latter rely- ing on predictable seasonal fluctuations in temperature and photoperiod. In the grass family (Poaceae) for example, species of the subfamily Pooideae have become specialists of the northern temperate hemisphere, generating the hypothesis that their progenitor evolved a flowering response to long days from a short-day or day-neutral ancestor. Sampling across the Pooideae, we found support for this hypothesis, and identified several secondary shifts to day- neutral flowering and one to short-day flowering in a tropical highland clade. To explain the proximate mechanisms for the secondary transition back to short-day-regulated flowering, we investigated the expression of CCT domain genes, some of which are known to repress flowering in cereal grasses under specific photoperiods. We found a shift in CONSTANS 1 and CONSTANS 9 expression that coincides with the derived short-day photoperiodism of our exem- plar species Nassella pubiflora. This sets up the testable hypothesis that trans- or cis-regulatory elements of these CCT domain genes were the targets of selection for major niche shifts in Pooideae grasses.Major niche transitions in Pooideae correlate with variation in photoperiodic flowering and evolution of CCT domain genespublishedVersio

Exercise-Induced Changes in the Cortical Bone of Growing Mice Are Bone and Gender Specific

Fracture risk and mechanical competence of bone are functions of bone mass and tissue quality, which in turn are dependent on the bone's mechanical environment. Male mice have a greater response to non-weight-bearing exercise than females, resulting in larger, stronger bones compared with control animals. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that short-term weight-bearing running during growth (21 days starting at 8 weeks of age; 30 min/day; 12 m/min; 5° incline; 7 days/week) would similarly have a greater impact on cross-sectional geometry and mechanical competence in the femora and tibiae of male mice versus females. Based on the orientation of the legs during running and the proximity of the tibia to the point of impact, this response was hypothesized to be greatest in the tibia. Exercise-related changes relative to controls were assayed by four-point bending tests, while volumetric bone mineral density and cross-sectional geometry were also assessed. The response to running was bone- and gender-specific, with male tibiae demonstrating the greatest effects. In male tibiae, periosteal perimeter, endocortical perimeter, cortical area, medial–lateral width and bending moment of inertia increased versus control mice suggesting that while growth is occurring in these mice between 8 and 11 weeks of age, exercise accelerated this growth resulting in a greater increase in bone tissue over the 3 weeks of the study. Exercise increased tissue-level strain-to-failure and structural post-yield deformation in the male tibiae, but these post-yield benefits came at the expense of decreased yield deformation, structural and tissue-level yield strength and tissue-level ultimate strength. These results suggest that exercise superimposed upon growth accelerated growth-related increases in tibial cross-sectional dimensions. Exercise also influenced the quality of this forming bone, significantly impacting structural and tissue-level mechanical properties

Pseudohypericin is necessary for the Light-Activated Inhibition of Prostaglandin E2 pathways by a 4 component system mimicking an Hypericum perforatum fraction

Hypericum perforatum (Hp) has been used medicinally to treat a variety of conditions including mild-to-moderate depression. Recently, several anti-inflammatory activities of Hp have been reported. An ethanol extract of Hp was fractionated with the guidance of an anti-inflammatory bioassay (lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced prostaglandin E2 production (PGE2)), and four constituents were identified. When combined together at concentrations detected in the Hp fraction to make a 4 component system, these constituents (0.1 μM chlorogenic acid, 0.08 μM amentoflavone, 0.07 μM quercetin, and 0.03 μM pseudohypericin) explained the majority of the activity of the fraction when activated by light, but only partially explained the activity of this Hp fraction in dark conditions. One of the constituents, light-activated pseudohypericin, was necessary, but not sufficient to explain the reduction in LPS-induced PGE2 of the 4 component system. The Hp fraction and the 4 component system inhibited lipoxygenase and cytosolic phospholipase A2, two enzymes in the PGE2-mediated inflammatory response. The 4 component system inhibited the production of the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and the Hp fraction inhibited the antiinflammatory cytokine interleukin-10 (IL-10). Thus, the Hp fraction and selected constituents from this fraction showed evidence of blocking pro-inflammatory mediators but not enhancing inflammation-suppressing mediators.