Paper Session II-C - Warfighter-1: User Utility Activities

The Air Force Research Laboratory Integrated Space Technology Demonstrations (ISTD) program office has partnered with Orbital Science Corporation to complement the commercial OrbView satellite’s high-resolution panchromatic imaging and Multispectral imaging (MSI) systems with a high resolution hyperspectral imaging (HSI) spectrometer camera. The program is an advanced technology demonstration utilizing a commercially based space capability with unique functionality in a remote sensing technology. This leveraging of commercial industry to perform the Warfighter-1 contract utilizes the precepts of acquisition reform [1]. By exploiting the latest commercial technology and using streamlined acquisition practices in concert with traditional American know-how, the Air Force is acquiring the finest space systems for our warfighters with the best value for the United States. The HSI system will be able to detect targets from the spectral signature measured by the HSI camera. The Warfighter-1 program will also demonstrate the utility of the spectral information to theater military commanders and intelligence analysts by transmitting HSI data directly to a mobile ground station that receives and processes the data. This paper presents the details of the Warfighter-1 User Utility activities to demonstrate both the technology of HSI and the real-time tasking capabilities of the system

Radiocarbon Evidence for the Importance of Surface Vegetation on Fermentation and Methanogenesis in Contrasting Types of Boreal Peatlands

We found a consistent distribution pattern for radiocarbon in dissolved organic carbon (DOC), dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), and methane replicated across spatial and temporal scales in northern peatlands from Minnesota to Alaska. The 14C content of DOC is relatively modern throughout the peat column, to depths of 3 m. In sedge-dominated peatlands, the 14C contents of the products of respiration, CH4 and DIC, are essentially the same and are similar to that of DOC. In Sphagnum- and woody plant-dominated peatlands with few sedges, however, the respiration products are similar but intermediate between the 14C contents of the solid phase peat and the DOC. Preliminary data indicates qualitative differences in the pore water DOC, depending on the extent of sedge cover, consistent with the hypothesis that the DOC in sedge-dominated peatlands is more reactive than DOC in peatlands where Sphagnum or other vascular plants dominate. These data are supported by molecular level analysis of DOC by ultrahigh-resolution mass spectrometry that suggests more dramatic changes with depth in the composition of DOC in the sedge-dominated peatland pore waters relative to changes observed in DOC where Sphagnum dominates. The higher reactivity of DOC from sedge-dominated peatlands may be a function of either different source materials or environmental factors that are related to the abundance of sedges in peatlands

Novel role for the innate immune receptor toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) in the regulation of the wnt signaling pathway and photoreceptor apoptosis

Recent evidence has implicated innate immunity in regulating neuronal survival in the brain during stroke and other neurodegenerations. Photoreceptors are specialized light-detecting neurons in the retina that are essential for vision. In this study, we investigated the role of the innate immunity receptor TLR4 in photoreceptors. TLR4 activation by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) significantly reduced the survival of cultured mouse photoreceptors exposed to oxidative stress. With respect to mechanism, TLR4 suppressed Wnt signaling, decreased phosphorylation and activation of the Wnt receptor LRP6, and blocked the protective effect of the Wnt3a ligand. Paradoxically, TLR4 activation prior to oxidative injury protected photoreceptors, in a phenomenon known as preconditioning. Expression of TNFα and its receptors TNFR1 and TNFR2 decreased during preconditioning, and preconditioning was mimicked by TNFα antagonists, but was independent of Wnt signaling. Therefore, TLR4 is a novel regulator of photoreceptor survival that acts through the Wnt and TNFα pathways. © 2012 Yi et al

Protection of Visual Functions by Human Neural Progenitors in a Rat Model of Retinal Disease

BACKGROUND: A promising clinical application for stem and progenitor cell transplantation is in rescue therapy for degenerative diseases. This strategy seeks to preserve rather than restore host tissue function by taking advantage of unique properties often displayed by these versatile cells. In studies using different neurodegenerative disease models, transplanted human neural progenitor cells (hNPC) protected dying host neurons within both the brain and spinal cord. Based on these reports, we explored the potential of hNPC transplantation to rescue visual function in an animal model of retinal degeneration, the Royal College of Surgeons rat. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Animals received unilateral subretinal injections of hNPC or medium alone at an age preceding major photoreceptor loss. Principal outcomes were quantified using electroretinography, visual acuity measurements and luminance threshold recordings from the superior colliculus. At 90–100 days postnatal, a time point when untreated rats exhibit little or no retinal or visual function, hNPC-treated eyes retained substantial retinal electrical activity and visual field with near-normal visual acuity. Functional efficacy was further enhanced when hNPC were genetically engineered to secrete glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor. Histological examination at 150 days postnatal showed hNPC had formed a nearly continuous pigmented layer between the neural retina and retinal pigment epithelium, as well as distributed within the inner retina. A concomitant preservation of host cone photoreceptors was also observed. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Wild type and genetically modified human neural progenitor cells survive for prolonged periods, migrate extensively, secrete growth factors and rescue visual functions following subretinal transplantation in the Royal College of Surgeons rat. These results underscore the potential therapeutic utility of hNPC in the treatment of retinal degenerative diseases and suggest potential mechanisms underlying their effect in vivo

Spoken term detection ALBAYZIN 2014 evaluation: overview, systems, results, and discussion

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13636-015-0063-8Spoken term detection (STD) aims at retrieving data from a speech repository given a textual representation of the search term. Nowadays, it is receiving much interest due to the large volume of multimedia information. STD differs from automatic speech recognition (ASR) in that ASR is interested in all the terms/words that appear in the speech data, whereas STD focuses on a selected list of search terms that must be detected within the speech data. This paper presents the systems submitted to the STD ALBAYZIN 2014 evaluation, held as a part of the ALBAYZIN 2014 evaluation campaign within the context of the IberSPEECH 2014 conference. This is the first STD evaluation that deals with Spanish language. The evaluation consists of retrieving the speech files that contain the search terms, indicating their start and end times within the appropriate speech file, along with a score value that reflects the confidence given to the detection of the search term. The evaluation is conducted on a Spanish spontaneous speech database, which comprises a set of talks from workshops and amounts to about 7 h of speech. We present the database, the evaluation metrics, the systems submitted to the evaluation, the results, and a detailed discussion. Four different research groups took part in the evaluation. Evaluation results show reasonable performance for moderate out-of-vocabulary term rate. This paper compares the systems submitted to the evaluation and makes a deep analysis based on some search term properties (term length, in-vocabulary/out-of-vocabulary terms, single-word/multi-word terms, and in-language/foreign terms).This work has been partly supported by project CMC-V2 (TEC2012-37585-C02-01) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. This research was also funded by the European Regional Development Fund, the Galician Regional Government (GRC2014/024, “Consolidation of Research Units: AtlantTIC Project” CN2012/160)

Using naturally occurring tumours in dogs and cats to study telomerase and cancer stem cell biology

AbstractThe recently described cancer stem cell theory opens up many new challenges and opportunities to identify targets for therapeutic intervention. However, the majority of cancer related therapeutic studies rely upon rodent models of human cancer that rarely translate into clinical success in human patients. Naturally occurring cancers in dogs, cats and humans share biological features, including molecular targets, telomerase biology and tumour genetics. Studying cancer stem cell biology and telomere/telomerase dynamics in the cancer bearing pet population may offer the opportunity to develop a greater understanding of cancer biology in the natural setting and evaluate the development of novel therapies targeted at these systems