Senior Recital

List of performers and performances

Preclinical evidence implicating corticotropin-releasing factor signaling in ethanol consumption and neuroadaptation

The results of many studies support the influence of the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) system on ethanol (EtOH) consumption and EtOH-induced neuroadaptations that are critical in the addiction process. This review summarizes the preclinical data in this area after first providing an overview of the components of the CRF system. This complex system involves hypothalamic and extra-hypothalamic mechanisms that play a role in the central and peripheral consequences of stressors, including EtOH and other drugs of abuse. In addition, several endogenous ligands and targets make up this system and show differences in their involvement in EtOH drinking and in the effects of chronic or repeated EtOH treatment. In general, genetic and pharmacological approaches paint a consistent picture of the importance of CRF signaling via type 1 CRF receptors (CRF1) in EtOH-induced neuroadaptations that result in higher levels of intake, encourage alcohol seeking during abstinence and alter EtOH sensitivity. Furthermore, genetic findings in rodents, non-human primates and humans have provided some evidence of associations of genetic polymorphisms in CRF-related genes with EtOH drinking, although additional data are needed. These results suggest that CRF1 antagonists have potential as pharmacotherapeutics for alcohol use disorders. However, given the broad and important role of these receptors in adaptation to environmental and other challenges, full antagonist effects may be too profound and consideration should be given to treatments with modulatory effects.The authors were supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs; NIH NIAAA grants P60AA010760, R24AA020245 and U01AA013519 and NIH NIDA grant P50DA018165, during the writing of this manuscript. The authors have no financial conflict of interest to disclose

Antiinflammatory Therapy with Canakinumab for Atherosclerotic Disease

Background: Experimental and clinical data suggest that reducing inflammation without affecting lipid levels may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Yet, the inflammatory hypothesis of atherothrombosis has remained unproved. Methods: We conducted a randomized, double-blind trial of canakinumab, a therapeutic monoclonal antibody targeting interleukin-1β, involving 10,061 patients with previous myocardial infarction and a high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level of 2 mg or more per liter. The trial compared three doses of canakinumab (50 mg, 150 mg, and 300 mg, administered subcutaneously every 3 months) with placebo. The primary efficacy end point was nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or cardiovascular death. RESULTS: At 48 months, the median reduction from baseline in the high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level was 26 percentage points greater in the group that received the 50-mg dose of canakinumab, 37 percentage points greater in the 150-mg group, and 41 percentage points greater in the 300-mg group than in the placebo group. Canakinumab did not reduce lipid levels from baseline. At a median follow-up of 3.7 years, the incidence rate for the primary end point was 4.50 events per 100 person-years in the placebo group, 4.11 events per 100 person-years in the 50-mg group, 3.86 events per 100 person-years in the 150-mg group, and 3.90 events per 100 person-years in the 300-mg group. The hazard ratios as compared with placebo were as follows: in the 50-mg group, 0.93 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.80 to 1.07; P = 0.30); in the 150-mg group, 0.85 (95% CI, 0.74 to 0.98; P = 0.021); and in the 300-mg group, 0.86 (95% CI, 0.75 to 0.99; P = 0.031). The 150-mg dose, but not the other doses, met the prespecified multiplicity-adjusted threshold for statistical significance for the primary end point and the secondary end point that additionally included hospitalization for unstable angina that led to urgent revascularization (hazard ratio vs. placebo, 0.83; 95% CI, 0.73 to 0.95; P = 0.005). Canakinumab was associated with a higher incidence of fatal infection than was placebo. There was no significant difference in all-cause mortality (hazard ratio for all canakinumab doses vs. placebo, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.83 to 1.06; P = 0.31). Conclusions: Antiinflammatory therapy targeting the interleukin-1β innate immunity pathway with canakinumab at a dose of 150 mg every 3 months led to a significantly lower rate of recurrent cardiovascular events than placebo, independent of lipid-level lowering. (Funded by Novartis; CANTOS ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01327846.

Search for Eccentric Black Hole Coalescences during the Third Observing Run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass $M>70$ $M_\odot$) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities $0 < e \leq 0.3$ at $0.33$ Gpc$^{-3}$ yr$^{-1}$ at 90\% confidence level.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figure

Open data from the third observing run of LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA and GEO

The global network of gravitational-wave observatories now includes five detectors, namely LIGO Hanford, LIGO Livingston, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO 600. These detectors collected data during their third observing run, O3, composed of three phases: O3a starting in April of 2019 and lasting six months, O3b starting in November of 2019 and lasting five months, and O3GK starting in April of 2020 and lasting 2 weeks. In this paper we describe these data and various other science products that can be freely accessed through the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center at https://gwosc.org. The main dataset, consisting of the gravitational-wave strain time series that contains the astrophysical signals, is released together with supporting data useful for their analysis and documentation, tutorials, as well as analysis software packages.Comment: 27 pages, 3 figure

Open data from the third observing run of LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO

The global network of gravitational-wave observatories now includes five detectors, namely LIGO Hanford, LIGO Livingston, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO 600. These detectors collected data during their third observing run, O3, composed of three phases: O3a starting in 2019 April and lasting six months, O3b starting in 2019 November and lasting five months, and O3GK starting in 2020 April and lasting two weeks. In this paper we describe these data and various other science products that can be freely accessed through the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center at https://gwosc.org. The main data set, consisting of the gravitational-wave strain time series that contains the astrophysical signals, is released together with supporting data useful for their analysis and documentation, tutorials, as well as analysis software packages

Morphism-Based Learning for Structured Data

In mathematics, morphism is a term that indicates structure-preserving mappings between mathematical structures of the same type. Linear transformations for linear spaces, homomorphisms for algebraic structures and continuous functions for topological spaces are examples. Many data researched in machine learning, on the other hand, can include mathematical structures in them. Strings are totally ordered sets, and trees can be understood not only as graphs but also as partially ordered sets with respect to an ancestor-to-descendent order and semigroups with respect to the binary operation to determine nearest common ancestor. In this paper, we propose a generic and theoretic framework to investigate similarity of structured data through structure-preserving one-to-one partial mappings, which we call morphisms. Through morphisms, useful and important methods studied in the literature can be abstracted into common concepts, although they have been studied separately. When we study new structures of data, we will be able to extend the legacy methods for the purpose of studying the new structure, if we can define morphisms properly. Also, this view reveals hidden relations between methods known in the literature and can let us understand them more clearly. For example, we see that the center star algorithm, which was originally developed to compute sequential multiple alignments, can be abstracted so that it not only applies to data structures other than strings but also can be used to solve problems of pattern extraction. The methods that we study in this paper include edit distance, multiple alignment, pattern extraction and kernel, but it is sure that there exist much more methods that can be abstracted within our framework

Curly hair and two brown eyes, make this world a paradise, [first line of chorus]

Performance Medium: Piano, Voice and Chord

Rona re a teny na bapriste

Music Festival Performance