Eight new state records of aleyrodine whiteflies found in Clark County, Nevada and three newly described taxa (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae, Aleyrodinae)

Eight new state records and the three newly described species are the subject of this publication. Whiteflies (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha: Aleyrodidae: Aleyrodinae) were collected from 2003 through 2009 within the Las Vegas area of Clark County, Nevada to determine the occurrence of newly established species and host range and distribution. Prior to 2003 the following ten whiteflies were known to be established in Nevada: Aleuroglandulus subtilis Bondar, Aleuroplatus berbericolus Quaintance and Baker, Aleyrodes spiraeoides Quaintance, Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius), Dialeurodes citri (Ashmead), Siphoninus phillyreae (Haliday), Tetraleurodes mori (Quaintance), Trialeurodes abutiloneus (Haldeman), Trialeurodes packardi (Morrill), and Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Westwood). Based on collections made after 2003, eleven additional whitefly species were found in Nevada. Of these the following eight were described species from California and other western U.S. states: Aleuroparadoxus arctostaphyli Russell, Aleuroplatus gelatinosus (Cockerell), Aleuropleurocelus ceanothi (Sampson), Aleuropleurocelus nigrans (Bemis), Tetraleurodes quercicola Nakahara, Trialeurodes corollis (Penny), Trialeurodes eriodictyonis Russell, and Trialeurodes glacialis (Bemis). Three new species are described and illustrated: Aleuropleurocelus nevadensis Dooley sp. nov., Tetraleurodes quercophyllae Dooley sp. nov., and Trialeurodes pseudoblongifoliae Dooley sp. nov

Identifying Documents In-Scope of a Collection from Web Archives

Web archive data usually contains high-quality documents that are very useful for creating specialized collections of documents, e.g., scientific digital libraries and repositories of technical reports. In doing so, there is a substantial need for automatic approaches that can distinguish the documents of interest for a collection out of the huge number of documents collected by web archiving institutions. In this paper, we explore different learning models and feature representations to determine the best performing ones for identifying the documents of interest from the web archived data. Specifically, we study both machine learning and deep learning models and "bag of words" (BoW) features extracted from the entire document or from specific portions of the document, as well as structural features that capture the structure of documents. We focus our evaluation on three datasets that we created from three different Web archives. Our experimental results show that the BoW classifiers that focus only on specific portions of the documents (rather than the full text) outperform all compared methods on all three datasets.Comment: 10 page

Textstrukturen und weibliche Subjektivität in Texten von Leslie Kaplan

Zu Beginn der 80er Jahre macht sich in Frankreich eine innovative Prosaliteratur bemerkbar, die sich sowohl von der vorangegangenen theorieorientierten Avantgarde als auch vom konventionellen Roman unterscheidet. Die Autorin Leslie Kaplan hat diese von der Literaturkritik provisorisch als autre roman bezeichnete Strömung maßgeblich mitgeprägt. Ihre frühen Texte stehen mit ihrer experimentellen, nicht-narrativen Form noch deutlich unter dem Einfluss der theoriefreudigen 70er Jahre. Allmählich vollzieht sie jedoch die für die innovative Literatur der 80er als charakteristisch geltende \u27Rückkehr zum Erzählen\u27. Die Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, welche Impulse Leslie Kaplan aus den feministischen Debatten der 70er Jahre bezieht. Untersucht werden die literaturästhetischen Erklärungen der Autorin, sowie die drei frühen Texte L\u27excès-l\u27usine (1982), Le criminel (1985) und Le Pont de Brooklyn (1987). Mit ihrem literarischen Programm eines \u27Schreibens ohne Machtausübung\u27 knüpft Kaplan implizit an die Diskussionen und Erkenntnisse der feministischen Kritik an, so eine These der Arbeit. Die literarischen Texte Kaplans kreisen um den Entwurf weiblicher Subjektivität, was ebenfalls ein zentrales Thema der Neuen Frauenliteratur war. Weibliche Subjektivität ist in den drei Texten als Offenheit entworfen. In L\u27excès-l\u27usine ist Offenheit noch negativ konstruiert als eine schmerzhafte Selbstauflösung, in Le criminel als ein Schwanken zwischen lustvoller Selbstentgrenzung und bedrohlichem Selbstverlust und in Le Pont de Brooklyn schließlich uneingeschränkt positiv als Aufgeschlossenheit und Fähigkeit, sich selbst in Frage zu stellen. Die Konstruktion einer nicht-hierarchischen Erzählstruktur erscheint dabei als Voraussetzung für den Entwurf von freien, selbstbestimmten weiblichen Figuren

Rifapentine Population Pharmacokinetics and Dosing Recommendations for Latent Tuberculosis Infection.

RATIONALE: Rifapentine has been investigated at various doses, frequencies, and dosing algorithms but clarity on the optimal dosing approach is lacking. OBJECTIVES: In this individual participant data meta-analysis of rifapentine pharmacokinetics, we characterize rifapentine population pharmacokinetics, including autoinduction, and determine optimal dosing strategies for short-course rifapentine-based regimens for latent tuberculosis infection. METHODS: Rifapentine pharmacokinetic studies were identified though a systematic review of literature. Individual plasma concentrations were pooled, and non-linear mixed effects modeling was performed. A subset of data was reserved for external validation. Simulations were performed under various dosing conditions including current weight-based methods and alternative methods driven by identified covariates. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We identified 9 clinical studies with a total of 863 participants with pharmacokinetic data (n=4301 plasma samples). Rifapentine population pharmacokinetics were described successfully with a one-compartment distribution model. Autoinduction of clearance was driven by rifapentine plasma concentration. The maximum effect was a 72% increase in clearance and was reached after 21 days. Drug bioavailability decreased by 27% with HIV infection, decreased by 28% with fasting, and increased by 49% with a high-fat meal. Body weight was not a clinically relevant predictor of clearance. Pharmacokinetic simulations showed that current weight-based dosing leads to lower exposures in low weight individuals, which can be overcome with flat dosing. In HIV-positive patients, 30% higher doses are required to match drug exposure in HIV-negative patients. CONCLUSIONS: Weight-based dosing of rifapentine should be removed from clinical guidelines and higher doses for HIV-positive patients should be considered to provide equivalent efficacy

PenQuest Volume 4, Number 1

Table of Contents for this Volume: Poetry by Brad Ross Untitled by Bruce Abbey it\u27s back by Leslie M. Brown De-thinging the Thingumbob by Michael R. McMahon Untitled by Mark Davis Fractures by Peggy De Broux Until I Knew by Lori Loper Untitled by Mark Davis The Local Art of Darkness by Michael R. McMahon Home by Peggy de Broux Untitled by Bruce Abbey Hooked by Robert M. Hart Parable of the Balloon (Demonstrated by the Poet to his Dog) by Michael R. McMahon Flight by Brad Ross The Stucco Room by Peggy de Broux Growing Up In America by E. R. Sukovich I Hear Them Scratching by Brad Ross It\u27s In The Bag by Susan Torode Untitled by Mark Davis Lawrence at Seventeen Coming Home by Brad Ross Untitled by Brad Ross Jere\u27s Antiques by Susan Torode Untitled by Bruce Abbey Simpson\u27s, for lunch, of course by Joni E. Dooley Untitled by Mark Davis Moments For an autobiography by Jocelyn W. Griffo Untitled by Bruce Abbe

The utility of ductal lavage in breast cancer detection and risk assessment

Ductal lavage (DL) permits noninvasive retrieval of epithelial cells from the breast. Clinical development of this technique has been fueled largely by its potential, as yet unproven, to improve detection of breast cancer and definition of individual risk for development of breast cancer. Early studies demonstrate the feasibility of performing this technique, provide data on cellular yield and findings, and demonstrate the ability to measure molecular markers in DL fluid. However, the sensitivity and specificity of DL for the detection of breast cancer remains unknown, as does the significance of atypia, particularly mild atypia, when found in DL fluid. Although DL appears safe and the device is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, DL is still best utilized in the setting of clinical trials designed to resolve issues of sensitivity, specificity, and localization

A novel subset of memory B cells is enriched in autoreactivity and correlates with adverse outcomes in SLE

We previously reported that some systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients have a population of circulating memory B cells with >2-fold higher levels of CD19. We show here that the presence of CD19hi B cells correlates with long-term adverse outcomes. These B cells do not appear anergic, as they exhibit high basal levels of phosphorylated Syk and ERK1/2, signal transduce in response to BCR crosslinking, and can become plasma cells (PCs) in vitro. Autoreactive anti-Smith (Sm) B cells are enriched in this population and the degree of enrichment correlates with the log of the serum anti-Sm titer, arguing that they undergo clonal expansion before PC differentiation. PC differentiation may occur at sites of inflammation, as CD19hi B cells have elevated CXCR3 levels and chemotax in response to its ligand CXCL9. Thus, CD19hi B cells are precursors to anti-self PCs, and identify an SLE patient subset likely to experience poor clinical outcomes

The Long Non-coding RNA Flatr Anticipates Foxp3 Expression in Regulatory T Cells

Mammalian genomes encode a plethora of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA). These transcripts are thought to regulate gene expression, influencing biological processes from development to pathology. Results from the few lncRNA that have been studied in the context of the immune system have highlighted potentially critical functions as network regulators. Here we explored the nature of the lncRNA transcriptome in regulatory T cells (Tregs), a subset of CD4+ T cells required to establish and maintain immunological self-tolerance. The identified Treg lncRNA transcriptome showed distinct differences from that of non-regulatory CD4+ T cells, with evidence of direct shaping of the lncRNA transcriptome by Foxp3, the master transcription factor driving the distinct mRNA profile of Tregs. Treg lncRNA changes were disproportionally reversed in the absence of Foxp3, with an enrichment for colocalisation with Foxp3 DNA binding sites, indicating a direct coordination of transcription by Foxp3 independent of the mRNA coordination function. We further identified a novel lncRNA Flatr, as a member of the core Treg lncRNA transcriptome. Flatr expression anticipates Foxp3 expression during in vitro Treg conversion, and Flatr-deficient mice show a mild delay in in vitro and peripheral Treg induction. These results implicate Flatr as part of the upstream cascade leading to Treg conversion, and may provide clues as to the nature of this process

Pharmacokinetics of Mycophenolic Acid in Patients with Lupus Nephritis

Lupus nephritis is associated with urinary protein excretion, hypoalbuminemia, and renal function declines, which may impact the pharmacokinetics (PK) of mycophenolic acid (MPA)