Alveolar macrophages and Toll-like receptor 4 mediate ventilated lung ischemia reperfusion injury in mice.

BackgroundIschemia-reperfusion (I-R) injury is a sterile inflammatory process that is commonly associated with diverse clinical situations such as hemorrhage followed by resuscitation, transient embolic events, and organ transplantation. I-R injury can induce lung dysfunction whether the I-R occurs in the lung or in a remote organ. Recently, evidence has emerged that receptors and pathways of the innate immune system are involved in recognizing sterile inflammation and overlap considerably with those involved in the recognition of and response to pathogens.MethodsThe authors used a mouse surgical model of transient unilateral left pulmonary artery occlusion without bronchial involvement to create ventilated lung I-R injury. In addition, they mimicked nutritional I-R injury in vitro by transiently depriving cells of all nutrients.ResultsCompared with sham-operated mice, mice subjected to ventilated lung I-R injury had up-regulated lung expression of inflammatory mediator messenger RNA for interleukin-1β, interleukin-6, and chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand-1 and -2, paralleled by histologic evidence of lung neutrophil recruitment and increased plasma concentrations of interleukin-1β, interleukin-6, and high-mobility group protein B1 proteins. This inflammatory response to I-R required toll-like receptor-4 (TLR4). In addition, the authors demonstrated in vitro cooperativity and cross-talk between human macrophages and endothelial cells, resulting in augmented inflammatory responses to I-R. Remarkably, the authors found that selective depletion of alveolar macrophages rendered mice resistant to ventilated lung I-R injury.ConclusionsThe data reveal that alveolar macrophages and the pattern recognition receptor toll-like receptor-4 are involved in the generation of the early inflammatory response to lung I-R injury

Modelling of a geodesic lens antennas using a raytracing model

In order to meet the demands of low latency and high data rates, mobile networks are migrating to higher frequency bands. With increased frequency, both path and material losses increase as well creating a need for low loss and highly directive antennas. Fully metallic lens antennas offer an interesting solution to this problem. Lens antennas can provide a highly directive beam that can be steered using electronic switching, avoiding complex beam steering methods such as mechanical steering or phased arrays. Additionally, the fully metallic implementation of lenses mitigates material losses since no dielectric materials are needed. One possible way of realizing fully metallic lenses is by taking advantage of geodesic surfaces. These surfaces can mimic the refractive index of gradient-index dielectric lenses such as the Luneburg lens or the Maxwell-Fish Eye lens [M. Šabort & T. Tyc, “Spherical media and geodesic lenses in geometrical optics,” J. Opt., 2013]. Modeling these lenses in commercial full-wave simulation software is however time-consuming since lenses are typically large in terms of wavelength. It is, therefore, impractical to design such a lens using these simulation tools, especially if the lens is to be optimized for a certain performance, e.g. side-lobe levels or a desired beamwidth. A procedure that is efficient in terms of computational time while being sufficiently accurate is provided by the ray tracing technique. This technique has been widely used to study gradient-index dielectric lenses and is here applied to also deal with geodesic metallic lenses [R. F. Rinehart, “A family of designs for rapid scanning radar antennas,” Proc. IRE, vol. 40, no. 6, pp. 686–688, 1952]. A possible disadvantage of the design of lens antennas using geodesic surfaces, compared to e.g. metasurfaces, is the increased profile of the lens since the direction orthogonal to the beamforming plane is employed to generate the geodesic surface. A solution to this problem was long ago addressed in [K. S. Kunz, “Propagation of microwaves between a parallel pair of doubly curved conducting surfaces,” J. Appl. Phys., vol. 25, no. 5, pp. 642–653, 1954]. This author proposed to fold the geodesic surface so that the height profile was reduced without affecting the performance of the lens. Moreover, this folding can be applied any number of times to achieve the required compression. An important practical drawback caused by these foldings is the appearance of slope discontinuities at the folding locations. The profile in these regions should then be “smoothed” and, in doing so, the geodesic surface is being changed with the undesired risk of a degraded performance of the lens. To maintain the required performance of the lens, the profile used at the folding locations has to be optimized, but this task is rather impractical if carried out by means of full-wave commercial simulators. The raytracing technique is here a perfect candidate for a more efficient modeling. In summary, in this presentation a raytracing code will be presented capable of an efficient modeling a folded geodesic lens antennas. The results obtained by the code are then compared to results achieved by full-wave simulation software

Validation of a commercial antibody to detect endogenous human nicastrin by immunoblot

Nicastrin (NCSTN) is a transmembrane glycoprotein that is part of the gamma-secretase complex. Gamma-secretase is a protease complex that cleaves type-I single-pass transmembrane proteins. There are many potential substrates for this complex, including NOTCH receptors and amyloid precursor proteins (APP). There are a number of commercial antibodies to nicastrin, but they do not agree on expected peptide size. We confirmed the specificity of a C-terminal binding rabbit anti-human antibody from Sigma-Aldrich (#N1660) using wildtype HEK293 cells and HEK293 cells deleted for nicastrin. The wildtype cells showed a prominent band at approximately 110 kDa. We confirmed this larger than expected sized was due to glycosylation by treating the lysate with peptide-N-glycosidase F (PNGase F), which reduced the band to less than 75 kDa. These data suggest that this polyclonal is specific for nicastrin and can detect endogenous levels of protein

Rubidium and zirconium abundances in massive Galactic asymptotic giant branch stars revisited

Luminous Galactic OH/IR stars have been identified as massive (>4-5 M_s) AGB stars experiencing HBB and Li production. Their Rb abundances and [Rb/Zr] ratios derived from hydrostatic model atmospheres, are significantly higher than predictions from AGB nucleosynthesis models, posing a problem to our understanding of AGB evolution and nucleosynthesis. We report new Rb and Zr abundances in the full sample of massive Galactic AGB stars, previously studied with hydrostatic models, by using more realistic extended model atmospheres. We use a modified version of the spectral synthesis code Turbospectrum and consider the presence of a circumstellar envelope and radial wind. The Rb and Zr abundances are determined from the 7800 A Rb I resonant line and the 6474 A ZrO bandhead, respectively, and we explore the sensitivity of the derived abundances to variations of the stellar (Teff) and wind (M_loss, beta and vexp) parameters in the extended models. The Rb and Zr abundances derived from the best spectral fits are compared with the most recent AGB nucleosynthesis theoretical models. The new Rb abundances are much lower (even 1-2 dex) than those derived with the hydrostatic models, while the Zr abundances are similar. The Rb I line profile and Rb abundance are very sensitive to the M_loss rate but much less sensitive to variations of the wind velocity-law and the vexp(OH). We confirm the earlier preliminary results based on a smaller sample of massive O-rich AGB stars, that the use of extended atmosphere models can solve the discrepancy between the AGB nucleosynthesis theoretical models and the observations of Galactic massive AGB stars. The Rb abundances, however, are still strongly dependent of the M_loss, which is unknown in these AGB stars. Accurate M_loss rates in these massive Galactic AGB stars are needed in order to break the models degeneracy and get reliable Rb abundances in these stars.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, 14 pages, 12 figures, 4 table

Application of the multimodal transfer matrix method in dielectric periodic structures with higher symmetries

The Multimodal Transfer Matrix Method (MMTMM) is a hybrid method to compute the propagation constants of periodic structures that combines in-house/commercial software and later post-processing [1], [2]. Its main advantage over commercial eigensolvers is the possibility to find the attenuation constant not only due to material losses but also to electromagnetic bandgaps and/or radiation. However, thanks to the use of commercial software, any complex structure with different materials and/or arbitrary geometry can be analyzed, as opposed to other quasi-analytical and numerical approaches found in the literature such as circuit models [3] or mode matching [4]. The MMTMM models the unit cell of a periodic structure as a multiport network where each pair of ports accounts for a propagative/evanescent/leaky mode in the structure. This means that the coupling between higher order modes is considered in the simulation, which is more accurate in general, and essential in other cases, such as in the study of higher-symmetric periodic structures. In this work, we propose the use of the MMTMM to obtain the attenuation constant, as well as having a fundamental understanding of two periodic dielectric structures with higher symmetries. A periodic structure possesses a higher symmetry if it is invariant after more than one geometrical operator [5]. Two main spatial higher symmetries can be found in the literature: glide and twist. A glide-symmetric structure is invariant after a mirroring and a translation of half of the period. Differently, a periodic structure possesses twist symmetry after a number N of rotations and translations. The first structure under study is a glide-symmetric dielectric-filled corrugated waveguide. As previously reported in [6], this structure allows for the propagation of backward modes below the hollow waveguide cut-off frequency. This backward mode was analyzed with a convergence study of the MMTMM to investigate the waveguide modes that contribute to its propagation. The second structure under study is a twist-symmetric dielectric waveguide. In [7], it was reported that the employed three-fold configuration of this structure allows for the propagation of circularly-polarized modes that makes it polarization selective in a specific frequency band. This polarization selection band is characterized with the MMTMM to estimate the losses of both left and right-handed modes

External sector and exchange political in Colombia 1999 - 2002: of the external imbalance to the precarious balance (in Spanish)

This article analyzes the conditions allowing the external equilibrium in Colombia during the period 1999 - 2002 associated with the performance of the external sector and the exchange rate policies. The main hypothesis in that the equilibrium achieved is precarious due to the poor level of economic growth, the substantial reduction of imports and the drop of saving rate. Following this, the analysis of the exchange policy allows arguing that the adjustment implemented in the last year of the exchange rate band regime, ended up lowering the external activities. Additionally, the adoption of a free market regime has achieve a greater level of autonomy of the monetary policy as well as a short term break between the exchange rate and international reserves. En este articulo se analizan las condiciones que permitieron alcanzar el equilibrio externo en Colombia en el periodo 1999 - 2002, asociadas con el desempeño del sector externo y con la evolución de la politica cambiaria. La hipotesis principal señala que el equilibrio logrado fue precario, debido al escaso nivel de crecimiento economico, la reduccion sustancial de las importaciones y las bajas tasas de ahorro. Seguidamente un analisis de la evolución de la politica cambiaria en el cuatrienio permite argumentar, en primera instancia, como la politica de ajuste implementada en el ultimo año del regimen de banda termino por acelerar aun mas el deterioro de la actividad. En segunda instancia, la adopcion del esquema de libre mercado ha permitido logar hasta el momento un mayor grado de autonomia de la politica monetaria y una disociacion de corto plazo entre el tipo de cambio y las reservas internacionalesEquilibrio externo; Deficit en cuenta corriente; Politica de ajuste; Politica cambiaria; Regimen de tipo de cambio flexible

Momentum distribution in heavy deformed nuclei: role of effective mass

The impact of nuclear deformation on the momentum distributions (MD) of occupied proton states in $^{238}$U is studied with a phenomenological Woods-Saxon (WS) shell model and the self-consistent Skyrme-Hartree-Fock (SHF) scheme. Four Skyrme parameterizations (SkT6, SkM*, SLy6, SkI3) with different effective masses are used. The calculations reveal significant deformation effects in the low-momentum domain of $K^{\pi}=1/2^{\pm}$ states, mainly of those lying near the Fermi surface. For other states, the deformation effect on MD is rather small and may be neglected. The most remarkable result is that the very different Skyrme parameterizations and the WS potential give about identical MD. This means that the value of effective mass, being crucial for the description of the spectra, is not important for the spatial shape of the wave functions and thus for the MD. In general, it seems that, for the description of MD at $0\le k \le 300$ MeV/c, one may use any single-particle scheme (phenomenological or self-consistent) fitted properly to the global ground state properties.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

Analysis of Activities with ICT in Secondary Education Classrooms

MetNum es punto de encuentro en el campus virtual Moodle, para los alumnos de Métodos Numéricos de la I.T.Informática de la Universidad de Málaga. Como herramientas básicas de Moodle nos planteamos en este campus virtual la utilización de cuestionarios, lecciones, glosarios, tareas, wikis, libros y foros como medio de incentivar y encauzar el trabajo diario de los alumnos. Destacamos que se ha desarrollado PDTeXInT: un entorno para el diseño de tutoriales interactivos para la presentación de material matemático. PDTeXInT permite acercar de forma amistosa y formato portable los contenidos teóricos junto con ejercicios de autoevaluación, como método para mejorar el proceso de aprendizaje.An cases study has made in two Secondary Education Centres of Tenerife, integrated into the Project Medusa of the Canary Government (http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/educacion/ medusa). The results obtained from the observations of many classrooms developed teaching activities supported in the use of digital resources are presented here. The central objective was to identify what kind of activities have been developed in the pedagogical use of ICT, to what extent these activities are favoring informational and digital skills in students, and how they organized and developed them

EDUCAJUDO: educational and health innovation for the elderly. Learning to fall (YOKO-UKEMI)

El envejecimiento de la población española es una realidad incipiente debido al aumento de la esperanza de vida. Sin embargo, el proceso de envejecimiento puede convertir a las personas mayores en frágiles y dependientes. Una de las causas de fragilidad es el alto número de caídas que sufren las personas mayores y las consecuencias que conllevan. El objetivo del presente trabajo es presentar un diseño de intervención para aplicar el Judo en esta población como elemento educativo en la enseñanza del control de la caída, para minimizar los daños producidos por el impacto del cuerpo contra el suelo. La intervención va dirigida a sujetos sanos y prefrágiles de cualquier sexo. Para llevar a cabo la enseñanza de las caídas en las personas mayores se plantean dos secuencias de aprendizaje: una asistida autónoma con implementos y otra asistida colaborativa con compañero (con o sin implementos)