493 research outputs found
San Juan County Agriculture Profile
This publication includes a report that gives agricultural facts and statistics pertaining to San Juan County
The magnitude of airway remodeling is not altered by distinct allergic inflammatory responses in BALB/c versus C57BL/6 mice but matrix composition differs
From Wiley via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: received 2020-10-20, rev-recd 2021-01-23, accepted 2021-02-11, pub-electronic 2021-03-19, pub-print 2021-07Article version: VoRPublication status: PublishedFunder: Medical Research Council; Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000265; Grant(s): MR/K01207X/1, MR/P02615X/1Funder: Wellcome Trust; Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100010269; Grant(s): 106898/A/15/ZFunder: Asthma UK; Id: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000362; Grant(s): MRFAUKā2015ā302Funder: Medical Research Foundation UK; Grant(s): MRFAUKā2015ā302Abstract: Allergic airway inflammation is heterogeneous with variability in immune phenotypes observed across asthmatic patients. Inflammation has been thought to directly contribute to airway remodeling in asthma, but clinical data suggest that neutralizing type 2 cytokines does not necessarily alter disease pathogenesis. Here, we utilized C57BL/6 and BALB/c mice to investigate the development of allergic airway inflammation and remodeling. Exposure to an allergen cocktail for up to 8 weeks led to type 2 and type 17 inflammation, characterized by airway eosinophilia and neutrophilia and increased expression of chitinaseālike proteins in both C57BL/6 and BALB/c mice. However, BALB/c mice developed much greater inflammatory responses than C57BL/6 mice, effects possibly explained by a failure to induce pathways that regulate and maintain Tācell activation in C57BL/6 mice, as shown by whole lung RNA transcript analysis. Allergen administration resulted in a similar degree of airway remodeling between mouse strains but with differences in collagen subtype composition. Increased collagen III was observed around the airways of C57BL/6 but not BALB/c mice while allergenāinduced loss of basement membrane collagen IV was only observed in BALB/c mice. This study highlights a model of type 2/type 17 airway inflammation in mice whereby development of airway remodeling can occur in both BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice despite differences in immune response dynamics between strains. Importantly, compositional changes in the extracellular matrix between genetic strains of mice may help us better understand the relationships between lung function, remodeling and airway inflammation
IL-17A both initiates, via IFNĪ³ suppression, and limits the pulmonary type-2 immune response to nematode infection
Nippostrongylus brasiliensis is a well-deļ¬ned model of type-2 immunity but the early lung-migrating phase is dominated by innate IL-17A production. In this study, we conļ¬rm previous observations that Il17a-KO mice infected with N. brasiliensis exhibit an impaired type-2 immune response. Transcriptional proļ¬ling of the lung on day 2 of N. brasiliensis infection revealed an increased Ifng signature in Il17a-KO mice conļ¬rmed by enhanced IFNĪ³ protein production in lung lymphocyte populations. Depletion of early IFNĪ³ rescued type-2 immune responses in the Il17a-KO mice demonstrating that IL-17A-mediated suppression of IFNĪ³ promotes type-2 immunity. Notably, later in infection, once the type-2 response was established, IL-17A limited the magnitude of the type-2 response. IL-17A regulation of type-2 immunity was lung-speciļ¬c and infection with Trichuris muris revealed that IL-17A promotes a type-2 immune response in the lung even when infection is restricted to the intestine. Together our data reveal IL-17A as a major regulator of pulmonary type-2 immunity such that IL-17A supports early development of a protective type-2 response by suppression of IFNĪ³ but subsequently limits excessive type-2 responses. A failure of this feedback loop may contribute to conditions such as severe asthma, characterised by combined elevation of IL-17 and type-2 cytokines
Absorption spectrum in the wings of the potassium second resonance doublet broadened by helium
We have measured the reduced absorption coefficients occurring in the wings
of the potassium 4S-5P doublet lines at 404.414 nm and at 404.720 nm broadened
by helium gas at pressures of several hundred Torr. At the experimental
temperature of 900 K, we have detected a shoulder-like broadening feature on
the blue wing of the doublet which is relatively flat between 401.8 nm and
402.8 nm and which drops off rapidly for shorter wavelengths, corresponding to
absorption from the X doublet Sigma+ state to the C doublet Sigma+ state of the
K-He quasimolecule. The accurate measurements of the line profiles in the
present work will sharply constrain future calculations of potential energy
surfaces and transition dipole moments correlating to the asymptotes He-K(5p),
He-K(5s), and He-K(3d).Comment: 2 figure
IL-13 deficiency exacerbates lung damage and impairs epithelial-derived type 2 molecules during nematode infection
Acknowledgements This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust (203128/Z/16/Z, 110126/Z/ 15/Z, and 106898/A/15/Z) and the Medical Research Council UK (MR/ K01207X/2). TE Sutherland was supported by Medical Research Founda- tion UK joint funding with Asthma UK (MRFAUK-2015-302). We thank Andrew McKenzie (Cambridge) for providing the Il13 tm3.1Anjm mice. We further thank the Flow Cytometry, Bioimaging, Genomic Technologies, BioMS, and Bio- logical Services core facilities at the University of Manchester.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Results from the Supernova Photometric Classification Challenge
We report results from the Supernova Photometric Classification Challenge
(SNPCC), a publicly released mix of simulated supernovae (SNe), with types (Ia,
Ibc, and II) selected in proportion to their expected rate. The simulation was
realized in the griz filters of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) with realistic
observing conditions (sky noise, point-spread function and atmospheric
transparency) based on years of recorded conditions at the DES site.
Simulations of non-Ia type SNe are based on spectroscopically confirmed light
curves that include unpublished non-Ia samples donated from the Carnegie
Supernova Project (CSP), the Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS), and the Sloan
Digital Sky Survey-II (SDSS-II). A spectroscopically confirmed subset was
provided for training. We challenged scientists to run their classification
algorithms and report a type and photo-z for each SN. Participants from 10
groups contributed 13 entries for the sample that included a host-galaxy
photo-z for each SN, and 9 entries for the sample that had no redshift
information. Several different classification strategies resulted in similar
performance, and for all entries the performance was significantly better for
the training subset than for the unconfirmed sample. For the spectroscopically
unconfirmed subset, the entry with the highest average figure of merit for
classifying SNe~Ia has an efficiency of 0.96 and an SN~Ia purity of 0.79. As a
public resource for the future development of photometric SN classification and
photo-z estimators, we have released updated simulations with improvements
based on our experience from the SNPCC, added samples corresponding to the
Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) and the SDSS, and provided the answer
keys so that developers can evaluate their own analysis.Comment: accepted by PAS
The MANGO study: a prospective investigation of oxygen enhanced and blood-oxygen level dependent MRI as imaging biomarkers of hypoxia in glioblastoma
BackgroundGlioblastoma (GBM) is the most aggressive type of brain cancer, with a 5-year survival rate of ~5% and most tumours recurring locally within months of first-line treatment. Hypoxia is associated with worse clinical outcomes in GBM, as it leads to localized resistance to radiotherapy and subsequent tumour recurrence. Current standard of care treatment does not account for tumour hypoxia, due to the challenges of mapping tumour hypoxia in routine clinical practice. In this clinical study, we aim to investigate the role of oxygen enhanced (OE) and blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD) MRI as non-invasive imaging biomarkers of hypoxia in GBM, and to evaluate their potential role in dose-painting radiotherapy planning and treatment response assessment.MethodsThe primary endpoint is to evaluate the quantitative and spatial correlation between OE and BOLD MRI measurements and [18F]MISO values of uptake in the tumour. The secondary endpoints are to evaluate the repeatability of MRI biomarkers of hypoxia in a test-retest study, to estimate the potential clinical benefits of using MRI biomarkers of hypoxia to guide dose-painting radiotherapy, and to evaluate the ability of MRI biomarkers of hypoxia to assess treatment response. Twenty newly diagnosed GBM patients will be enrolled in this study. Patients will undergo standard of care treatment while receiving additional OE/BOLD MRI and [18F]MISO PET scans at several timepoints during treatment. The ability of OE/BOLD MRI to map hypoxic tumour regions will be evaluated by assessing spatial and quantitative correlations with areas of hypoxic tumour identified via [18F]MISO PET imaging.DiscussionMANGO (Magnetic resonance imaging of hypoxia for radiation treatment guidance in glioblastoma multiforme) is a diagnostic/prognostic study investigating the role of imaging biomarkers of hypoxia in GBM management. The study will generate a large amount of longitudinal multimodal MRI and PET imaging data that could be used to unveil dynamic changes in tumour physiology that currently limit treatment efficacy, thereby providing a means to develop more effective and personalised treatments
Supernova Simulations and Strategies For the Dark Energy Survey
We present an analysis of supernova light curves simulated for the upcoming
Dark Energy Survey (DES) supernova search. The simulations employ a code suite
that generates and fits realistic light curves in order to obtain distance
modulus/redshift pairs that are passed to a cosmology fitter. We investigated
several different survey strategies including field selection, supernova
selection biases, and photometric redshift measurements. Using the results of
this study, we chose a 30 square degree search area in the griz filter set. We
forecast 1) that this survey will provide a homogeneous sample of up to 4000
Type Ia supernovae in the redshift range 0.05<z<1.2, and 2) that the increased
red efficiency of the DES camera will significantly improve high-redshift color
measurements. The redshift of each supernova with an identified host galaxy
will be obtained from spectroscopic observations of the host. A supernova
spectrum will be obtained for a subset of the sample, which will be utilized
for control studies. In addition, we have investigated the use of combined
photometric redshifts taking into account data from both the host and
supernova. We have investigated and estimated the likely contamination from
core-collapse supernovae based on photometric identification, and have found
that a Type Ia supernova sample purity of up to 98% is obtainable given
specific assumptions. Furthermore, we present systematic uncertainties due to
sample purity, photometric calibration, dust extinction priors, filter-centroid
shifts, and inter-calibration. We conclude by estimating the uncertainty on the
cosmological parameters that will be measured from the DES supernova data.Comment: 46 pages, 30 figures, resubmitted to ApJ as Revision 2 (final author
revision), which has subtle editorial differences compared to the published
paper (ApJ, 753, 152). Note that this posting includes PDF only due to a bug
in either the latex macros or the arXiv submission system. The source files
are available in the DES document database:
http://des-docdb.fnal.gov/cgi-bin/ShowDocument?docid=624
Reframing Kurtzās Painting: Colonial Legacies and Minority Rights in Ethnically Divided Societies
Minority rights constitute some of the most normatively and economically important human rights. Although the political science and legal literatures have proffered a number of constitutional and institutional design solutions to address the protection of minority rights, these solutions are characterized by a noticeable neglect of, and lack of sensitivity to, historical processes. This Article addresses that gap in the literature by developing a causal argument that explains diverging practices of minority rights protections as functions of colonial governmentsā variegated institutional practices with respect to particular ethnic groups. Specifically, this Article argues that in instances where colonial governments politicize and institutionalize ethnic hegemony in the pre-independence period, an institutional legacy is created that leads to lower levels of minority rights protections. Conversely, a uniform treatment and depoliticization of ethnicity prior to independence ultimately minimizes ethnic cleavages post-independence and consequently causes higher levels of minority rights protections. Through a highly structured comparative historical analysis of Botswana and Ghana, this Article builds on a new and exciting research agenda that focuses on the role of long-term historio-structural and institutional influences on human rights performance and makes important empirical contributions by eschewing traditional methodologies that focus on single case studies that are largely descriptive in their analyses. Ultimately, this Article highlights both the strength of a historical approach to understanding current variations in minority rights protections and the varied institutional responses within a specific colonial government
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