Evidence for coordinated induction and repression of ecto-5'-nucleotidase (CD73) and the A2a adenosine receptor in a human B cell line

In the human B cell line P493-6 two mitogenic signals, the EpsteinBarr virus nuclear antigen 2 (EBNA2) and myc, can be independently regulated by means of an estrogen receptor fusion construct or an inducible expression vector, respectively. Shut off of EBNA2, either in the presence or absence of myc, leads to a significant increase in enzymatic activity and surface expression of ecto-5nucleotidase (CD73) as well as an increased adenosine receptor response in cyclic AMP formation. Shut off of myc expression has a small additional positive effect on CD73 activity. Among the four different subtypes of adenosine receptors, the A2a receptor exclusively is subject to regulation in this system, which is substantiated by pharmacologic data (specific agonists and inhibitors), as well as on the mRNA level. With upregulated CD73 and A2a, cells also respond to 5AMP with increased cyclic AMP formation. Turn on of EBNA2 has the reverse effect of repression of CD73 and A2a expression. The time course of both induction and repression of CD73 and A2a is rather slow

The dark and the bright sides of proactive work behaviour and situational constraints : longitudinal relationships with task conflicts

We investigated relationships of a job stressor (situational constraints) and specific proactive behaviours with change in task conflicts over time. We introduced two distinct types of proactive work behaviour (promotion- oriented initiative and prevention-oriented initiative) and examined their positive but also negative relationships with change in task conflicts. Study 1 supported the construct validity of promotion-oriented initiative and prevention-oriented initiative for 363 student assistants: Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that both types of proactive behaviour were distinct constructs and also distinct from active coping; patterns of correlations were similar to those of a prior concept of proactive behaviour. Study 2 was a longitudinal online survey with 197 employees over 3 weeks. Consistent with our hypotheses, situational constraints and promotion-oriented initiative predicted an increase in task conflicts, whereas prevention-oriented initiative predicted a decrease in task conflicts

Frontal and Lateral Submarine Lobe Fringes: Comparing Sedimentary Facies, Architecture and Flow Processes

Submarine lobe fringe deposits form heterolithic successions that may include a high proportion of hybrid beds. The identification of lobe fringe successions aids interpretation of paleogeographic setting and the degree of basin confinement. Here, for the first time, the sedimentological and architectural differences between frontal and lateral lobe fringe deposits are investigated. Extensive outcrop and core data from Fan 4, Skoorsteenberg Formation, Karoo Basin, South Africa, allow the rates and style of facies changes from axis to fringe settings of lobes and lobe complexes in both down-dip (frontal) and across-strike (lateral) directions to be tightly constrained over a 800 km2 study area. Fan 4 comprises three sand-prone divisions that form compensationally stacked lobe complexes, separated by thick packages of thin-bedded siltstone and sandstone intercalated with (muddy) siltstone, interpreted as the fringes of lobe complexes. Lobe-fringe facies associations comprise: i) thick-bedded structureless or planar laminated sandstones that pinch and swell, and are associated with underlying debrites; ii) argillaceous and mudclast-rich hybrid beds; and iii) current ripple-laminated sandstones and siltstones. Typically, frontal fringes contain high proportions of hybrid beds and transition from thick-bedded sandstones over length-scales of 1 to 2 km. In contrast, lateral fringe deposits tend to comprise current ripple-laminated sandstones that transition to thick-bedded sandstones in the lobe axis over several kilometers. Variability of primary flow processes are interpreted to control the documented differences in facies association. Preferential deposition of hybrid beds in frontal fringe positions is related to the dominantly downstream momentum of the high-density core of the flow. In contrast, the ripple-laminated thin beds in lateral fringe positions are interpreted to be deposited by more dilute low-density (parts of the) flows. The development of recognition criteria to distinguish between frontal and lateral lobe fringe successions is critical to improving paleogeographic reconstructions of submarine fans at outcrop and in the subsurface, and will help to reduce uncertainty during hydrocarbon field appraisal and development

Air and Space Traffic Needs of Upper Atmospheric Balloons

Large (typically 6 ft. in diameter at the surface) Instrumented (150 fttrain, 1.5 kg ( Fast (5 m/s rise rate (~1000 ft./min.)) Transmit data (403-405 MHz metAids) Typical ceiling of 30,000 m (~100,000 ft.) Total flight duration typically 2-2.5 hrs. Tracked to loss of signa

Mobilność uczonych i nauk między Czechami, Węgrami, Polską a Francją w XIV – XV wieku: wkład prozopografii do historii nauki

This article aims to trace the mobility of scholars and sciences between France and Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland in the 14th and 15th centuries, seen from the perspective of prosopography. These exchanges were concentrated in only three oldest French universities of Montpellier, Orléans and Paris, albeit with significant variations, and in the newly-founded universities north of the Alps in the 14th century, namely those in Prague and Kraków. Mobility was less important and intensive at the end of the Middle Ages because of the policy in favour of establishing national universities. The names of 143 scholars from Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland, who were enrolled in the 14th and 15th centuries in French universities, have been found so far. Several of them played important roles in the history of science in these countries. This article aims to trace the mobility of scholars and sciences between France and Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland in the 14th and 15th centuries, seen from the perspective of prosopography. These exchanges were concentrated in only three oldest French universities of Montpellier, Orléans and Paris, albeit with significant variations, and in the newly-founded universities north of the Alps in the 14th century, namely those in Prague and Kraków. Mobility was less important and intensive at the end of the Middle Ages because of the policy in favour of establishing national universities. The names of 143 scholars from Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland, who were enrolled in the 14th and 15th centuries in French universities, have been found so far. Several of them played important roles in the history of science in these countries.&nbsp

Enhancing Interest in STEM at NW Indiana Middle and High Schools through Balloon Launches and Tracking

Our vision with this project is to develop and implement a research project led by undergraduates from Valparaiso University (VU) that would involve the participation of local middle and high school students in innovative balloon payloads . Under the guidance of Dr. Gary Morris, two VU undergraduate students will develop their designs, then present and test their system at local schools to help instill excitement about STEM in curious young minds. All students (college, middle, and high school) gain knowledge, experience, and confidence in STEM-related areas. The primary goal of this project is to provide competency-building education and research opportunities that develop qualified undergraduate and graduate students who are prepared for employment in STEM disciplines at NASA, in industry, and in higher education. Assessments will be administered to participants in balloon workshops to determine their interest in STEM careers both prior to and following each event. This data will be analyzed by the participating VU students and presented in a final report

Associations between genetic risk for trait aggression and alcohol use predicting alcohol-related aggression

A propensity for aggression and/or alcohol use may be associated with alcoholrelated aggression. Previous research has shown genetic overlap between alcohol use and aggression, but has not looked at how alcohol-related aggression may be uniquely influenced by genetic risk for aggression and/or alcohol use. The current study examined the associations of genetic risk for trait aggression, antisocial behavior, and alcohol use with alcohol-related aggression using a polygenic risk score (PRS) approach. Using genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics, PRSs were created for trait aggression, antisocial behavior, alcohol consumption, and alcohol dependence. These four PRSs were used to predict alcohol-related aggression in two independent samples, the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) Family Alcoholism Study (n=1164) and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health; n=4291). Results indicated significant associations of PRSs for trait aggression, antisocial behavior, and alcohol consumption predicting alcohol-related aggression in the UCSF study sample with the most significant results pertaining to verbal aggression. PRSs for alcohol consumption were also associated with hitting a family member, and PRSs for alcohol dependence were associated with hitting anyone else in the UCSF study sample. No significant associations were observed in the Add Health study sample. Together, these results provide preliminary evidence that genetic influence for alcohol use and aggression uniquely predict different aspects of alcohol-related aggression.Includes bibliographical references

The ESCAPE project : Energy-efficient Scalable Algorithms for Weather Prediction at Exascale

In the simulation of complex multi-scale flows arising in weather and climate modelling, one of the biggest challenges is to satisfy strict service requirements in terms of time to solution and to satisfy budgetary constraints in terms of energy to solution, without compromising the accuracy and stability of the application. These simulations require algorithms that minimise the energy footprint along with the time required to produce a solution, maintain the physically required level of accuracy, are numerically stable, and are resilient in case of hardware failure. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) led the ESCAPE (Energy-efficient Scalable Algorithms for Weather Prediction at Exascale) project, funded by Horizon 2020 (H2020) under the FET-HPC (Future and Emerging Technologies in High Performance Computing) initiative. The goal of ESCAPE was to develop a sustainable strategy to evolve weather and climate prediction models to next-generation computing technologies. The project partners incorporate the expertise of leading European regional forecasting consortia, university research, experienced high-performance computing centres, and hardware vendors. This paper presents an overview of the ESCAPE strategy: (i) identify domain-specific key algorithmic motifs in weather prediction and climate models (which we term Weather & Climate Dwarfs), (ii) categorise them in terms of computational and communication patterns while (iii) adapting them to different hardware architectures with alternative programming models, (iv) analyse the challenges in optimising, and (v) find alternative algorithms for the same scheme. The participating weather prediction models are the following: IFS (Integrated Forecasting System); ALARO, a combination of AROME (Application de la Recherche a l'Operationnel a Meso-Echelle) and ALADIN (Aire Limitee Adaptation Dynamique Developpement International); and COSMO-EULAG, a combination of COSMO (Consortium for Small-scale Modeling) and EULAG (Eulerian and semi-Lagrangian fluid solver). For many of the weather and climate dwarfs ESCAPE provides prototype implementations on different hardware architectures (mainly Intel Skylake CPUs, NVIDIA GPUs, Intel Xeon Phi, Optalysys optical processor) with different programming models. The spectral transform dwarf represents a detailed example of the co-design cycle of an ESCAPE dwarf. The dwarf concept has proven to be extremely useful for the rapid prototyping of alternative algorithms and their interaction with hardware; e.g. the use of a domain-specific language (DSL). Manual adaptations have led to substantial accelerations of key algorithms in numerical weather prediction (NWP) but are not a general recipe for the performance portability of complex NWP models. Existing DSLs are found to require further evolution but are promising tools for achieving the latter. Measurements of energy and time to solution suggest that a future focus needs to be on exploiting the simultaneous use of all available resources in hybrid CPU-GPU arrangements