Effects of hypertension and diabetes on sentence comprehension in aging

Objectives. To assess the impact of hypertension and diabetes mellitus on sentence comprehension in older adults. Method. Two hundred and ninety-five adults aged 55 to 84 (52% men) participated in this study. Self-report mail survey combined with medical evaluations were used to determine eligibility. Multiple sources were used to determine whether hypertension and diabetes were present or absent and controlled or uncontrolled. Sentence comprehension was evaluated with two tasks: embedded sentences (ES) and sentences with multiple negatives (MN). Outcome measures were percent accuracy and mean reaction time of correct responses on each task. Results. Regression models adjusted for age, gender, and education showed that the presence of hypertension impaired comprehension on the multiple negatives task (p \u3c .01), whereas the presence of diabetes impaired the comprehension of embedded sentences (p \u3c .05). Uncontrolled diabetes significantly impaired accurate comprehension of sentences with multiple negatives (p \u3c .05). No significant patterns were found for reaction time. Discussion. The presence of hypertension and diabetes adversely affected sentence comprehension, but the relative contribution of each was different. These findings support the researchers’ earlier speculations on the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the effects of hypertension and diabetes on language and cognition in aging. Uncontrolled disease status demonstrated more complicated age-related effects on sentence processing, highlighting the clinical importance for cognitive aging of identifying and managing vascular risk factors

The use of gas proportional counters to distinguish protons from pions in the cosmic radiation at energies of near or greater than 100 GeV

Several possible methods to distinguish protons and pions in the cosmic radiation at energies of over 100 GeV are discussed. One of these methods based on multiple sampling of ionization losses in an array of gas proportional counters together with a measurement of energy in an ionization calorimeter or momentum in a magnet spectrograph is discussed in greater detail.Fluctuations in ionization losses ("Landau" fluctuations) make the method difficult but not impossible. Experimental results on Landau fluctuations with a variety of incident particles and energies are presented and it is shown that they are in better agreement with the theory of Blunck and Leisegang than with that of Landau.Artificial events in which the sampled ionization losses obeyed the Landau and Blunck and Leisegang distributions are generated on a computer by a Monte Carlo program. Based on an analysis of a sample of 20000 such events by likelihood ratio method the attainable proton-pion separation in the cosmic radiation at 100 GeV energy is presented.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/33382/1/0000780.pd

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Remote sensing time series observations of Lake Michigan Water Quality Parameters

Remote sensing provides a method to accurately assess water quality for current and historical conditions in large lakes such as Lake Michigan. Satellite sensors such as SeaWiFS and MODIS collect data that span large geographic areas and have been in operation for more than a decade, with some satellite programs that have existed since the 1970s. This remote sensing “time machine” allows scientist to analyze a time series of data and determine how water quality conditions have changed, particularly in light of a changing climate. Augmentation of remotely sensed data with sound in-situ measurements allows scientists to gain a deeper understanding of changes in the Great Lakes. This presentation reviews a variety of methods/products produced by Michigan Tech Research Institute that aid in the assessment of changes in water quality. Using remote sensing derived data, ancillary observations (meteorological, stream-flow, etc…) that help describe the time series analysis, and in-situ measurements the water quality and water characteristics of Lake Michigan over time can be accurately assessed. Remote sensing analysis outputs included retrieving color-producing agent (CPA) products (chlorophyll, suspended minerals, and dissolved organic carbon concentrations), sediment plume extents, optical water parameters, and in areas such as Green Bay, harmful algal bloom extents