The Burden of Globalization: Diasporic Dimensions in Peter Bacho’s Cebu and Elaine Castillo’s America Is Not the Heart

This paper explores the experience of diasporic mobility in contemporary Philippine-American fiction. In novels such as Cebu by Peter Bacho and America Is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo, issues of culture and identity are not only foregrounded but also resignified as diasporic people encounter different situations where their sexuality, religion, gender, language and economic status realign along diverse ways and affect their lives in the new country. In a global community where diasporic experiences are provisional, one is able to explore more attentively how mobility changes, and continues to change, its nature and disrupt stable constructs of identity

Airway expression of Transient Receptor Potential (TRP) Vanniloid-1 and Ankyrin-1 channels is not increased in patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis

Dry cough is a common symptom described in patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) and impairs quality of life. The exact mechanisms causing cough in IPF remain unclear, however evidence suggests altered cough neurophysiology and sensitisation plays a role; IPF patients have an enhanced cough reflex sensitivity to inhaled capsaicin. The Transient Receptor Potential Vanniloid-1 channel (TRPV-1) has a role in the cough reflex and airway expression is increased in patients with chronic cough. The Ankyrin-1 receptor (TRPA-1) is often coexpressed. It was hypothesised that, like chronic cough patients, IPF patients have increased airway TRP receptor expression. Bronchial biopsies were obtained from 16 patients with IPF, 11 patients with idiopathic chronic cough and 8 controls without cough. All other causes of cough were rigorously excluded. Real-time quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction was used to detect TRPV-1 and TRPA-1 mRNA expression with Immunohistochemistry demonstrating protein expression. Mean TRPV-1 and TRPA-1 gene expression was higher in IPF patients compared with controls, but the difference did not reach statistical significance. Immunostaining supported these findings. This study suggests that structural up-regulation of central airway TRP receptors is not the key mechanism for cough in IPF patients. It is probable that IPF cough results from altered neuronal sensitivity at multiple levels of the cough pathway

Magnetic Properties of disordered CoCu alloys:A first principles approach

Crystalline Co$_{x}$Cu$_{1-x}$ alloys show interesting magnetic behavior over the entire concentration regime. We here present a fully self- consistent first principles electronic structure studies of the electronic structure and magnetic properties of the system.We present results for the variation of density of states, magnetic moment,spin susceptibility and Curie temperature.Comment: 7 pages,6 postscript figures,uses own style file

A perturbative approach to non-Markovian stochastic Schr\"odinger equations

In this paper we present a perturbative procedure that allows one to numerically solve diffusive non-Markovian Stochastic Schr\"odinger equations, for a wide range of memory functions. To illustrate this procedure numerical results are presented for a classically driven two level atom immersed in a environment with a simple memory function. It is observed that as the order of the perturbation is increased the numerical results for the ensembled average state $\rho_{\rm red}(t)$ approach the exact reduced state found via Imamo\=glu's enlarged system method [Phys. Rev. A. 50, 3650 (1994)].Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure

Sequential mechanisms underlying concentration invariance in biological olfaction

Concentration invariance—the capacity to recognize a given odorant (analyte) across a range of concentrations—is an unusually difficult problem in the olfactory modality. Nevertheless, humans and other animals are able to recognize known odors across substantial concentration ranges, and this concentration invariance is a highly desirable property for artificial systems as well. Several properties of olfactory systems have been proposed to contribute to concentration invariance, but none of these alone can plausibly achieve full concentration invariance. We here propose that the mammalian olfactory system uses at least six computational mechanisms in series to reduce the concentration-dependent variance in odor representations to a level at which different concentrations of odors evoke reasonably similar representations, while preserving variance arising from differences in odor quality. We suggest that the residual variance then is treated like any other source of stimulus variance, and categorized appropriately into “odors” via perceptual learning. We further show that naïve mice respond to different concentrations of an odorant just as if they were differences in quality, suggesting that, prior to odor categorization, the learning-independent compensatory mechanisms are limited in their capacity to achieve concentration invariance

Intravascular histiocytosis presenting with extensive vulvar necrosis

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73547/1/j.1600-0560.2008.01185.x.pd

Money Follows the Person: Transitioning Nursing Home Residents into the Community

Introduction. Research has shown that admission to nursing homes (NH) is associated with decline in several measures of well-being; transitioning out of a NH into the community is a positive predictor for quality of life. Currently, the State of Vermont offers several housing options for Medicaid eligible NH residents; however, there are very few opportunities to fully integrate into the communityhttps://scholarworks.uvm.edu/comphp_gallery/1090/thumbnail.jp

Myosin-binding protein C displaces tropomyosin to activate cardiac thin filaments and governs their speed by an independent mechanism

Myosin-binding protein C (MyBP-C) is an accessory protein of striated muscle thick filaments and a modulator of cardiac muscle contraction. Defects in the cardiac isoform, cMyBP-C, cause heart disease. cMyBP-C includes 11 Ig- and fibronectin-like domains and a cMyBP-C-specific motif. In vitro studies show that in addition to binding to the thick filament via its C-terminal region, cMyBP-C can also interact with actin via its N-terminal domains, modulating thin filament motility. Structural observations of F-actin decorated with N-terminal fragments of cMyBP-C suggest that cMyBP-C binds to actin close to the low Ca(2+) binding site of tropomyosin. This suggests that cMyBP-C might modulate thin filament activity by interfering with tropomyosin regulatory movements on actin. To determine directly whether cMyBP-C binding affects tropomyosin position, we have used electron microscopy and in vitro motility assays to study the structural and functional effects of N-terminal fragments binding to thin filaments. 3D reconstructions suggest that under low Ca(2+) conditions, cMyBP-C displaces tropomyosin toward its high Ca(2+) position, and that this movement corresponds to thin filament activation in the motility assay. At high Ca(2+), cMyBP-C had little effect on tropomyosin position and caused slowing of thin filament sliding. Unexpectedly, a shorter N-terminal fragment did not displace tropomyosin or activate the thin filament at low Ca(2+) but slowed thin filament sliding as much as the larger fragments. These results suggest that cMyBP-C may both modulate thin filament activity, by physically displacing tropomyosin from its low Ca(2+) position on actin, and govern contractile speed by an independent molecular mechanism