Role of T-lymphocytes and pro-inflammatory mediators in the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the fourth leading cause of death in the US and a major worldwide healthcare problem. The pathophysiologic mechanisms that drive development and progression of this disease are complex and only poorly understood. While tobacco smoking is the primary risk factor, other disease processes also appear to play a role. Components of the innate immune system (eg, macrophages and neutrophils) have long been believed to be important in the development of COPD. More recent evidence also suggests involvement of the adaptive immune system in pathogenesis of this disease. Here we will review the literature supporting the participation of T-cells in the development of COPD, and comment on the potential antigenic stimuli that may account for these responses. We will further explore the prospective contributions of T-cell derived mediators that could contribute to the inflammation, alveolar wall destruction, and small airway fibrosis of advanced COPD. A better understanding of these complex immune processes will lead to new insights that could result in improved preventative and/or treatment strategies

GBTrans: A commensal search for radio pulses with the Green Bank twenty metre telescope

We describe GBTrans, a real-time search system designed to find fast radio bursts (FRBs) using the 20-m radio telescope at the Green Bank Observatory. The telescope has been part of the Skynet educational program since 2015. We give details of the observing system and report on the non-detection of FRBs from a total observing time of 503 days. Single pulses from four known pulsars were detected as part of the commensal observing. The system is sensitive enough to detect approximately half of all currently known FRBs and we estimate that our survey probed redshifts out to about 0.3 corresponding to an effective survey volume of around 124,000~Mpc$^3$. Modeling the FRB rate as a function of fluence, $F$, as a power law with $F^{-\alpha}$, we constrain the index $\alpha < 2.5$ at the 90% confidence level. We discuss the implications of this result in the context of constraints from other FRB surveys.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

The Fading Radio Emission from SN 1961V: Evidence for a Type II Peculiar Supernova?

Using the Very Large Array (VLA), we have detected radio emission from the site of SN 1961V in the Sc galaxy NGC 1058. With a peak flux density of 0.063 +/- 0.008 mJy/beam at 6 cm and 0.147 +/- 0.026 mJy/beam at 18 cm, the source is non-thermal, with a spectral index of -0.79 +/- 0.23. Within errors, this spectral index is the same value reported for previous VLA observations taken in 1984 and 1986. The radio emission at both wavelengths has decayed since the mid 1980's observations with power-law indices of beta(20cm) = -0.69 +/- 0.23 and beta(6cm) = -1.75 +/- 0.16. We discuss the radio properties of this source and compare them with those of Type II radio supernovae and luminous blue variables.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures; To appear in the Astronomical Journa

Network robustness and fragility: Percolation on random graphs

Recent work on the internet, social networks, and the power grid has addressed the resilience of these networks to either random or targeted deletion of network nodes. Such deletions include, for example, the failure of internet routers or power transmission lines. Percolation models on random graphs provide a simple representation of this process, but have typically been limited to graphs with Poisson degree distribution at their vertices. Such graphs are quite unlike real world networks, which often possess power-law or other highly skewed degree distributions. In this paper we study percolation on graphs with completely general degree distribution, giving exact solutions for a variety of cases, including site percolation, bond percolation, and models in which occupation probabilities depend on vertex degree. We discuss the application of our theory to the understanding of network resilience.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Two-Photon Accessed Excited State Absorption in bis(terpyridyl Osmium)-(Porphinato)Zinc

Two-photon absorption properties of a (terpyridyl)osmium-(porphinato)zinc (OsPZnOs) are studied in bulk and waveguides. Integration of OsPZnOs (d\u3e1300GM) in waveguides showed enhanced nonlinear performance and potential for photonic applications

Preliminary heavy-light decay constants from the MILC collaboration

Preliminary results from the MILC collaboration for $f_B$, $f_{B_s}$, $f_D$, $f_{D_s}$ and their ratios are presented. We compute in the quenched approximation at $\beta=6.3$, 6.0 and 5.7 with Wilson light quarks and static and Wilson heavy quarks. We attempt to quantify systematic errors due to finite volume, finite lattice spacing, large $am$, and fitting and extrapolation uncertainties. The hopping parameter approach of Henty and Kenway is used to treat the heavy quarks; the sources are Coulomb gauge gaussians.Comment: 3 pages, compressed postscript (uufiles), talk given at Lattice '9

Near IR Nonlinear Optics of an Organic Supermolecule

Two-photon accessed excited state absorption is shown to be an important mechanism in the near-IR nonlinear response of an organic supermolecule. This mechanism also provides an enhanced nonlinear absorption in an optical waveguide configuration