Eicosanoids and Respiratory Viral Infection: Coordinators of Inflammation and Potential Therapeutic Targets

Viruses are frequent causes of respiratory infection, and viral respiratory infections are significant causes of hospitalization, morbidity, and sometimes mortality in a variety of patient populations. Lung inflammation induced by infection with common respiratory pathogens such as influenza and respiratory syncytial virus is accompanied by increased lung production of prostaglandins and leukotrienes, lipid mediators with a wide range of effects on host immune function. Deficiency or pharmacologic inhibition of prostaglandin and leukotriene production often results in a dampened inflammatory response to acute infection with a respiratory virus. These mediators may, therefore, serve as appealing therapeutic targets for disease caused by respiratory viral infection

Phase-conjugated pilots for fibre nonlinearity compensation in CO-OFDM transmission

In this paper, we demonstrate a novel fiber nonlinearity compensation technique for coherent optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (CO-OFDM) systems based on the transmission of phase-conjugated pilots (PCPs). In this scheme, a portion of OFDM subcarriers (up to 50%) is transmitted with its phase conjugates, which is used at the receiver to estimate the nonlinear distortions in the respective subcarriers and other subcarriers, which are not accompanied by PCPs. Simulation and experimental results show that by varying the PCP overhead, a performance improvement up to 4 dB can be achieved. In addition, the proposed technique can be effectively applied in both single polarization and polarization-division multiplexed systems, in both single channel and wavelength-division multiplexing systems, thus, offering highest flexibility in implementations

Clearance of chikungunya virus infection in lymphoid tissues is promoted by treatment with an agonistic anti-CD137 antibody

CD137, a member of the tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily of cell surface proteins, acts as a costimulatory receptor on T cells, natural killer cells, B cell subsets, and some dendritic cells. Agonistic anti-CD137 monoclonal antibody (MAb) therapy has been combined with other chemotherapeutic agents in human cancer trials. Based on its ability to promote tumor clearance, we hypothesized that anti-CD137 MAb might activate immune responses and resolve chronic viral infections. We evaluated anti-CD137 MAb therapy in a mouse infection model of chikungunya virus (CHIKV), an alphavirus that causes chronic polyarthritis in humans and is associated with reservoirs of CHIKV RNA that are not cleared efficiently by adaptive immune responses. Analysis of viral tropism revealed that CHIKV RNA was present preferentially in splenic B cells and follicular dendritic cells during the persistent phase of infection, and animals lacking B cells did not develop persistent CHIKV infection in lymphoid tissue. Anti-CD137 MAb treatment resulted in T cell-dependent clearance of CHIKV RNA in lymphoid tissue, although this effect was not observed in musculoskeletal tissue. The clearance of CHIKV RNA from lymphoid tissue by anti-CD137 MAb was associated with reductions in the numbers of germinal center B cells and follicular dendritic cells. Similar results were observed with anti-CD137 MAb treatment of mice infected with Mayaro virus, a related arthritogenic alphavirus. Thus, anti-CD137 MAb treatment promotes resolution of chronic alphavirus infection in lymphoid tissues by reducing the numbers of target cells for infection and persistence

Demonstration of phase-conjugated subcarrier coding for fiber nonlinearity compensation in CO-OFDM transmission

In this paper, we demonstrate through computer simulation and experiment a novel subcarrier coding scheme combined with pre-electrical dispersion compensation (pre-EDC) for fiber nonlinearity mitigation in coherent optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CO-OFDM) systems. As the frequency spacing in CO-OFDM systems is usually small (tens of MHz), neighbouring subcarriers tend to experience correlated nonlinear distortions after propagation over a fiber link. As a consequence, nonlinearity mitigation can be achieved by encoding and processing neighbouring OFDM subcarriers simultaneously. Herein, we propose to adopt the concept of dual phase conjugated twin wave for CO-OFDM transmission. Simulation and experimental results show that this simple technique combined with 50% pre-EDC can effectively offer up to 1.5 and 0.8 dB performance gains in CO-OFDM systems with BPSK and QPSK modulation formats, respectively

Exile Vol. IX No. 1

FICTION The Locust Season by Patterson Bouic 5-11 The Breughel by Hugh K. Duffield II 15-22 Then I Raised My Hand by Les Overlock 25-28 Berry Stew by Barbara Thiele 32-35 The Spectator by Sue Burton 36-37 ESSAY Dialogue by Paul Pottinger 38-40 POETRY Poem by Judith Pistor 11 Poem by Albert Werder 12-13 Salvage by Mary McCarthy 14 Poem by Barbara Thiele 23 Teatime by Hugh K. Duffield II 23 Aeschylus and the Turtle by Robert Hoyt 29 Turning by Sarah Conway 29 A Lucrezia by Christine Cooper 30 GRAPHICS Pen and Wash by Patricia Thomas 4 Pen and Ink by Elizabeth Surbeck 12 Action Drawing by Elizabeth Surbeck 14 Pen and Wash by Beverly Erbacher 24 Wash by Barbara Purdy 31 Expressionistic Head by Ramona Gibbs 3

Experimental demonstration of data-dependent pilot-aided phase noise estimation for CO-OFDM

We demonstrate a novel phase noise estimation scheme for CO-OFDM, in which pilot subcarriers are deliberately correlated to the data subcarriers. This technique reduces the overhead by a factor of 2