New methods in conformal partial wave analysis

We report on progress concerning the partial wave analysis of higher correlation functions in conformal quantum field theory.Comment: 16 page

Neural hypersensitivity to pleasant touch in women remitted from anorexia nervosa.

Interoception, or the sensing and integration of bodily state signals, has been implicated in anorexia nervosa (AN), given that the hallmark symptoms involve food restriction and body image disturbance. Here we focus on brain response to the anticipation and experience of affective interoceptive stimuli. Women remitted from AN (RAN; N = 18) and healthy comparison women (CW; N = 26) underwent a pleasant affective touch paradigm consisting of gentle strokes with a soft brush administered to the forearm or palm during functional neuroimaging. RAN had a lower brain response relative to CW during anticipation of touch, but a greater response when experiencing touch in the right ventral mid-insula. In RAN, this reduced anticipatory response was associated with higher levels of harm avoidance. Exploratory analyses in RAN also suggested that lower response during touch anticipation was associated with greater body dissatisfaction and higher perceived touch intensity ratings. This reduced responsivity to the anticipation of pleasant affective interoceptive stimuli in association with higher harm avoidance, along with an elevated response to the experience of touch, suggests an impaired ability in AN to predict and interpret incoming physiological stimuli. Impaired interoception may thus impact one's sense of self, thereby supporting observations of disturbed body image and avoidance of affective and social stimuli. Therapeutic approaches that help AN to better anticipate and interpret salient affective stimuli or improve tolerance of interoceptive experiences may be an important addition to current interventions

GeoCLEF 2006: the CLEF 2006 Ccross-language geographic information retrieval track overview

After being a pilot track in 2005, GeoCLEF advanced to be a regular track within CLEF 2006. The purpose of GeoCLEF is to test and evaluate cross-language geographic information retrieval (GIR): retrieval for topics with a geographic specification. For GeoCLEF 2006, twenty-five search topics were defined by the organizing groups for searching English, German, Portuguese and Spanish document collections. Topics were translated into English, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Japanese. Several topics in 2006 were significantly more geographically challenging than in 2005. Seventeen groups submitted 149 runs (up from eleven groups and 117 runs in GeoCLEF 2005). The groups used a variety of approaches, including geographic bounding boxes, named entity extraction and external knowledge bases (geographic thesauri and ontologies and gazetteers)

Biomarker Discovery In Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Using Epithelial Lining Fluid:A Proteomic Approach

RATIONALE Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is the third most frequent disease worldwide with increasing mortality. Cigarette smoking is the principle risk factor and 15-20% of smokers develop COPD. Epithelial Lining Fluid (ELF) covers the internal part of the airways and can be collected during bronchoscopy. ELF appears to be well-suited for proteomic analysis, since it contains a higher concentration of proteins (150-300 μg /mL) than other lung fluids and can be obtained from different locations of the lungs. No comprehensive proteomic analysis of human ELF has been performed to date, which makes ELF a highly interesting fluid for biomarker discovery in COPD. AIM To discover proteins that change in abundance in ELF from COPD patients versus healthy controls using a quantitative proteomics approach. METHODS The ELF proteome from COPD patients and healthy controls was studied by 1D polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in the presence of SDS followed by in-gel tryptic digestion to establish the methodology and assess the feasibility of such an approach. Approximately 40 gel slices were obtained from each lane of the gel (corresponding to one patient). Digested samples were analyzed by nanoChip-LC-MS/MS using an ion trap. We performed a quantitative pilot study of ELF from 4 COPD patients and 4 healthy controls (table 1) to test for statistically significant differences in protein levels. ELF samples were digested by trypsin, labeled with stable isotope-containing reagents (iTRAQ®, 8-plex) and processed by strong cation-exchange chromatography followed by nanoLC-MS/MS. In order to validate the results, a second quantitative analysis of an independent sample set (4 COPD vs 4 healthy) using the same methodological approach was done. RESULTS The 1D electrophoretic approach resulted in more than 300 identified proteins. Most of the identified proteins were present in both COPD and healthy samples, although some proteins were only identified either in healthy control or in COPD samples. The quantitative studies showed that a number of proteins was significantly different between ELF of COPD patients and controls, including 4 up-regulated proteins in common in both studies. CONCLUSIONS This is the first study in ELF of COPD patients and healthy controls in which such a large number of proteins has been identified. The obtained results show the feasibility of this proteomic approach and the possibility to discover proteins that are differentially expressed in ELF of COPD patients and controls. We are currently validating these proteins further by western blot and immunohistochemistry

Meta-Inflammation and Metabolic Reprogramming of Macrophages in Diabetes and Obesity:The Importance of Metabolites

Diabetes mellitus type II and obesity are two important causes of death in modern society. They are characterized by low-grade chronic inflammation and metabolic dysfunction (meta-inflammation), which is observed in all tissues involved in energy homeostasis. A substantial body of evidence has established an important role for macrophages in these tissues during the development of diabetes mellitus type II and obesity. Macrophages can activate into specialized subsets by cues from their microenvironment to handle a variety of tasks. Many different subsets have been described and in diabetes/obesity literature two main classifications are widely used that are also defined by differential metabolic reprogramming taking place to fuel their main functions. Classically activated, pro-inflammatory macrophages (often referred to as M1) favor glycolysis, produce lactate instead of metabolizing pyruvate to acetyl-CoA, and have a tricarboxylic acid cycle that is interrupted at two points. Alternatively activated macrophages (often referred to as M2) mainly use beta-oxidation of fatty acids and oxidative phosphorylation to create energy-rich molecules such as ATP and are involved in tissue repair and downregulation of inflammation. Since diabetes type II and obesity are characterized by metabolic alterations at the organism level, these alterations may also induce changes in macrophage metabolism resulting in unique macrophage activation patterns in diabetes and obesity. This review describes the interactions between metabolic reprogramming of macrophages and conditions of metabolic dysfunction like diabetes and obesity. We also focus on different possibilities of measuring a range of metabolites intra-and extracellularly in a precise and comprehensive manner to better identify the subsets of polarized macrophages that are unique to diabetes and obesity. Advantages and disadvantages of the currently most widely used metabolite analysis approaches are highlighted. We further describe how their combined use may serve to provide a comprehensive overview of the metabolic changes that take place intracellularly during macrophage activation in conditions like diabetes and obesity