RANTES/CCL5 and risk for coronary events: Results from the MONICA/KORA Augsburg case-cohort, Athero-express and CARDIoGRAM studies

Background: The chemokine RANTES (regulated on activation, normal T-cell expressed and secreted)/CCL5 is involved in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease in mice, whereas less is known in humans. We hypothesised that its relevance for atherosclerosis should be reflected by associations between CCL5 gene variants, RANTES serum concentrations and protein levels in atherosclerotic plaques and risk for coronary events. Methods and Findings: We conducted a case-cohort study within the population-based MONICA/KORA Augsburg studies. Baseline RANTES serum levels were measured in 363 individuals with incident coronary events and 1,908 non-cases (mean follow-up: 10.2±

The Impact of Brand Quality on Shareholder Wealth

This study examines the impact of brand quality on three components of shareholder wealth: stock returns, systematic risk, and idiosyncratic risk. The study finds that brand quality enhances shareholder wealth insofar as unanticipated changes in brand quality are positively associated with stock returns and negatively related to changes in idiosyncratic risk. However, unanticipated changes in brand quality can also erode shareholder wealth because they have a positive association with changes in systematic risk. The study introduces a contingency theory view to the marketing-finance interface by analyzing the moderating role of two factors that are widely followed by investors. The results show an unanticipated increase (decrease) in current-period earnings enhances (depletes) the positive impact of unanticipated changes in brand quality on stock returns and mitigates (enhances) their deleterious effects on changes in systematic risk. Similarly, brand quality is more valuable for firms facing increasing competition (i.e., unanticipated decreases in industry concentration). The results are robust to endogeneity concerns and across alternative models. The authors conclude by discussing the nuanced implications of their findings for shareholder wealth, reporting brand quality to investors, and its use in employee evaluation

Lightweight defect localization for java

Abstract. A common method to localize defects is to compare the coverage of passing and failing program runs: A method executed only in failing runs, for instance, is likely to point to the defect. Some failures, though, come to be only through a specific sequence of method calls, such as multiple deallocation of the same resource. Such sequences can be collected from arbitrary Java programs at low cost; comparing object-specific sequences predicts defects better than simply comparing coverage. In a controlled experiment, our technique pinpointed the defective class in 36 % of all test runs.

Estimation of nighttime dip-equatorial E-region current density using measurements and models

The existence of the possible ionospheric current during nighttime over low-equatorial latitudes is one of the unresolved issues in ionospheric physics and geomagnetism. A detailed investigation is carried out to estimate the same over Indian longitudes using in situ measurements from Thumba (View the MathML source8.5°N, 76.9°E76.9°E), empirical plasma drift model (Fejer et al., 2008) and equatorial electrojet model developed by Anandarao (1976). This investigation reveals that the nighttime E-region current densities vary from ∼ 0.3 to ∼ 0.7 A/km2 during pre-midnight to early morning hours on geomagnetically quiet conditions. The nighttime current densities over the dip equator are estimated using three different methods (discussed in methodology section) and are found to be consistent with one another within the uncertainty limits. Altitude structures in the E-region current densities are also noticed which are shown to be associated with altitudinal structures in the electron densities. The horizontal component of the magnetic field induced by these nighttime ionospheric currents is estimated to vary between ∼ 2 and ∼ 6 nT during geomagnetically quiet periods. This investigation confirms the existence of nighttime ionospheric current and opens up a possibility of estimating base line value for geomagnetic field fluctuations as observed by ground-based magnetometer.by Kuldeep Pandey, R. Sekar, B. G. Anandarao, S. P. Gupta and D. Chakrabart

The Interaction of Phospholipase A2 with a Phospholipid Bilayer: Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics Simulations

A number of membrane-active enzymes act in a complex environment formed by the interface between a lipid bilayer and bulk water. Although x-ray diffraction studies yield structures of isolated enzyme molecules, a detailed characterization of their interactions with the interface requires a measure of how deeply such a membrane-associated protein penetrates into a lipid bilayer. Here, we apply coarse-grained (CG) molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to probe the interaction of porcine pancreatic phospholipase A2 (PLA2) with a lipid bilayer containing palmitoyl-oleoyl-phosphatidyl choline and palmitoyl-oleoyl-phosphatidyl glycerol molecules. We also used a configuration from a CG-MD trajectory to initiate two atomistic (AT) MD simulations. The results of the CG and AT simulations are evaluated by comparison with available experimental data. The membrane-binding surface of PLA2 consists of a patch of hydrophobic residues surrounded by polar and basic residues. We show this proposed footprint interacts preferentially with the anionic headgroups of the palmitoyl-oleoyl-phosphatidyl glycerol molecules. Thus, both electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions determine the location of PLA2 relative to the bilayer. From a general perspective, this study demonstrates that CG-MD simulations may be used to reveal the orientation and location of a membrane-surface-bound protein relative to a lipid bilayer, which may subsequently be refined by AT-MD simulations to probe more detailed interactions