Investigation and study of a multi-aperture antenna system final report, 1 jan. - 1 apr. 1964

Multiple aperture adaptive antenna system for telemetry reception from remote space vehicle

Landscape preservation under post‐European settlement alluvium in the south‐eastern Australian tablelands, inferred from portable OSL reader data

Human land‐use changes leading to widespread erosion and gully incision have been well studied, but the effects that erosion and sediment mixing, which accompany the deposition of post‐(European) settlement alluvium (PSA), have in valley bottoms and wetlands receive considerably less attention. PSA overlying pre‐disturbance swampy meadow (SM) wetland sediments is commonly exposed along incised stream channel gully walls throughout the south‐eastern Australian Tablelands, providing an ideal setting in which to assess and understand better how PSA deposition affects valley bottoms and the wetland environments that often occupy them. Portable optically stimulated luminescence (pOSL) reader data were measured on bulk sediment samples from SM‐PSA stratigraphies at 16 locations throughout the south‐eastern Australian Tablelands to assess the effects of erosion and sediment mixing at the SM‐PSA boundary. Trends of pOSL data with depth at each profile were used in conjunction with visual profile descriptions to identify the stratigraphic boundary between SM and PSA sediment and to infer the degree of valley bottom erosion and sediment mixing during PSA deposition. At most sites, SM sediments experienced minimal, if any, disturbance during PSA deposition, and we refer to these as non‐eroded sites. Many sites, however, experienced a significant degree of erosion and sediment mixing – eroded sites – often corresponding to visually diffuse sedimentary boundaries between the two stratigraphic units. Our findings demonstrate that SM landscapes in the Tablelands can be preserved with minimal disturbance under PSA at non‐eroded sites and are preserved beneath a mixing zone at all eroded sites. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134129/1/esp3942.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134129/2/esp3942_am.pd

Influences of Neural Pathway Integrity on Children's Response to Reading Instruction

As the education field moves toward using responsiveness to intervention to identify students with disabilities, an important question is the degree to which this classification can be connected to a student's neurobiological characteristics. A few functional neuroimaging studies have reported a relationship between activation and response to instruction; however, whether a similar correlation exists with white matter (WM) is not clear. To investigate this issue, we acquired high angular resolution diffusion images from a group of first grade children who differed in their levels of responsiveness to a year-long reading intervention. Using probabilistic tractography, we calculated the strength of WM connections among nine cortical regions of interest and correlated these estimates with participants’ scores on four standardized reading measures. We found eight significant correlations, four of which were connections between the insular cortex and angular gyrus. In each of the correlations, a relationship with children's response to intervention was evident

Transcriptional implications of intragenic DNA methylation in the oestrogen receptor alpha gene in breast cancer cells and tissues

Background DNA methylation variability regions (MVRs) across the oestrogen receptor alpha (ESR1) gene have been identified in peripheral blood cells from breast cancer patients and healthy individuals. In contrast to promoter methylation, gene body methylation may be important in maintaining active transcription. This study aimed to assess MVRs in ESR1 in breast cancer cell lines, tumour biopsies and exfoliated epithelial cells from expressed breast milk (EBM), to determine their significance for ESR1 transcription. Methods DNA methylation levels in eight MVRs across ESR1 were assessed by pyrosequencing bisulphite-converted DNA from three oestrogen receptor (ER)-positive and three ER-negative breast cancer cell lines. DNA methylation and expression were assessed following treatment with DAC (1 μM), or DMSO (controls). ESR1 methylation levels were also assayed in DNA from 155 invasive ductal carcinoma biopsies provided by the Breast Cancer Campaign Tissue Bank, and validated with DNA methylation profiles from the TCGA breast tumours (n = 356 ER-pos, n = 109 ER-neg). DNA methylation was profiled in exfoliated breast epithelial cells from EBM using the Illumina 450 K (n = 36) and pyrosequencing in a further 53 donor samples. ESR1 mRNA levels were measured by qRT-PCR. Results We show that ER-positive cell lines had unmethylated ESR1 promoter regions and highly methylated intragenic regions (median, 80.45%) while ER-negative cells had methylated promoters and lower intragenic methylation levels (median, 38.62%). DAC treatment increased ESR1 expression in ER-negative cells, but significantly reduced methylation and expression of ESR1 in ER-positive cells. The ESR1 promoter was unmethylated in breast tumour biopsies with high levels of intragenic methylation, independent of ER status. However, ESR1 methylation in the strongly ER-positive EBM DNA samples were very similar to ER-positive tumour cell lines. Conclusion DAC treatment inhibited ESR1 transcription in cells with an unmethylated ESR1 promoter and reduced intragenic DNA methylation. Intragenic methylation levels correlated with ESR1 expression in homogenous cell populations (cell lines and exfoliated primary breast epithelial cells), but not in heterogeneous tumour biopsies, highlighting the significant differences between the in vivo tumour microenvironment and individual homogenous cell types. These findings emphasise the need for care when choosing material for epigenetic research and highlights the presence of aberrant intragenic methylation levels in tumour tissue

Single molecule experiments in biophysics: exploring the thermal behavior of nonequilibrium small systems

Biomolecules carry out very specialized tasks inside the cell where energies involved are few tens of k_BT, small enough for thermal fluctuations to be relevant in many biomolecular processes. In this paper I discuss a few concepts and present some experimental results that show how the study of fluctuation theorems applied to biomolecules contributes to our understanding of the nonequilibrium thermal behavior of small systems.Comment: Proceedings of the 22nd Statphys Conference 2004 (Bangalore,India). Invited contributio

Proximal hyperspectral sensing and data analysis approaches for field-based plant phenomics

Field-based plant phenomics requires robust crop sensing platforms and data analysis tools to successfully identify cultivars that exhibit phenotypes with high agronomic and economic importance. Such efforts will lead to genetic improvements that maintain high crop yield with concomitant tolerance to environmental stresses. The objectives of this study were to investigate proximal hyperspectral sensing with a field spectroradiometer and to compare data analysis approaches for estimating four cotton phenotypes: leaf water content (Cw), specific leaf mass (Cm), leaf chlorophyll a+b content (Cab), and leaf area index (LAI). Field studies tested 25 Pima cotton cultivars grown under well-watered and water-limited conditions in central Arizona from 2010 to 2012. Several vegetation indices, including the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the normalized difference water index (NDWI), and the physiological (or photochemical) reflectance index (PRI) were compared with partial least squares regression (PLSR) approaches to estimate the four phenotypes. Additionally, inversion of the PROSAIL plant canopy reflectance model was investigated to estimate phenotypes based on 3.68 billion PROSAIL simulations on a supercomputer. Phenotypic estimates from each approach were compared with field measurements, and hierarchical linear mixed modeling was used to identify differences in the estimates among the cultivars and water levels. The PLSR approach performed best and estimated Cw,Cm,Cab, and LAI with root mean squared errors (RMSEs) between measured and modeled values of 6.8%, 10.9%, 13.1%, and 18.5%, respectively. Using linear regression with the vegetation indices, no index estimated Cw,Cm,Cab, and LAI with RMSEs better than 9.6%, 16.9%, 14.2%, and 28.8%, respectively. PROSAIL model inversion could estimate Cab and LAI with RMSEs of about 16% and 29%, depending on the objective function. However, the RMSEs for Cw and Cm from PROSAIL model inversion were greater than 30%. Compared to PLSR, advantages to the physically-based PROSAIL model include its ability to simulate the canopy's bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) and to estimate phenotypes from canopy spectral reflectance without a training data set. All proximal hyperspectral approaches were able to identify differences in phenotypic estimates among the cultivars and irrigation regimes tested during the field studies. Improvements to these proximal hyperspectral sensing approaches could be realized with a high-throughput phenotyping platform able to rapidly collect canopy spectral reflectance data from multiple view angles

A matched study of surgically treated stage IB adenosquamous carcinoma and adenocarcinoma of the uterine cervix

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72055/1/j.1525-1438.1993.03040245.x.pd

Instability and `Sausage-String' Appearance in Blood Vessels during High Blood Pressure

A new Rayleigh-type instability is proposed to explain the `sausage-string' pattern of alternating constrictions and dilatations formed in blood vessels under influence of a vasoconstricting agent. Our theory involves the nonlinear elasticity characteristics of the vessel wall, and provides predictions for the conditions under which the cylindrical form of a blood vessel becomes unstable.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures submitted to Physical Review Letter

Results of a randomized, double-blind phase II clinical trial of NY-ESO-1 vaccine with ISCOMATRIX adjuvant versus ISCOMATRIX alone in participants with high-risk resected melanoma.

BACKGROUND: To compare the clinical efficacy of New York Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma-1 (NY-ESO-1) vaccine with ISCOMATRIX adjuvant versus ISCOMATRIX alone in a randomized, double-blind phase II study in participants with fully resected melanoma at high risk of recurrence. METHODS: Participants with resected stage IIc, IIIb, IIIc and IV melanoma expressing NY-ESO-1 were randomized to treatment with three doses of NY-ESO-1/ISCOMATRIX or ISCOMATRIX adjuvant administered intramuscularly at 4-week intervals, followed by a further dose at 6 months. Primary endpoint was the proportion free of relapse at 18 months in the intention-to-treat (ITT) population and two per-protocol populations. Secondary endpoints included relapse-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS), safety and NY-ESO-1 immunity. RESULTS: The ITT population comprised 110 participants, with 56 randomized to NY-ESO-1/ISCOMATRIX and 54 to ISCOMATRIX alone. No significant toxicities were observed. There were no differences between the study arms in relapses at 18 months or for median time to relapse; 139 vs 176 days (p=0.296), or relapse rate, 27 (48.2%) vs 26 (48.1%) (HR 0.913; 95% CI 0.402 to 2.231), respectively. RFS and OS were similar between the study arms. Vaccine recipients developed strong positive antibody responses to NY-ESO-1 (p≤0.0001) and NY-ESO-1-specific CD4+ and CD8+ responses. Biopsies following relapse did not demonstrate differences in NY-ESO-1 expression between the study populations although an exploratory study demonstrated reduced (NY-ESO-1)+/Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) class I+ double-positive cells in biopsies from vaccine recipients performed on relapse in 19 participants. CONCLUSIONS: The vaccine was well tolerated, however, despite inducing antigen-specific immunity, it did not affect survival endpoints. Immune escape through the downregulation of NY-ESO-1 and/or HLA class I molecules on tumor may have contributed to relapse