Biphasic activation of complement and fibrinolysis during the human nasal allergic response

Complement, coagulation and fibrinolysis contribute to the pathology of many respiratory diseases. Here we detail the biphasic activation of these pathways following nasal allergen challenge. Understanding these mechanisms may lead to therapeutic insight in common respiratory diseases

Intensively managed irrigated hard red winter wheat production

Hard red winter wheat will produce grain yields comparable to soft white winter wheat in intensively managed irrigated fields. Planting should be early enough in the fall for the plants to initiate tillers and crown roots before winter dormancy. Seeding about 80 pounds of seed per acre will provide an optimum stand and yield. Narrower row spacing, such as 4 to 7 inches, will produce higher grain yields than wider row spacings such as 12 to 18 inches. The bulk of the nitrogen and sulfur fertilizer, 100 to 150 pounds N and 20 pounds S per acre, should be applied during late tillering. From 30 to 50 pounds N per acre should be applied during heading or flowering to insure a marketable protein content in the grain. Applying more S than needed for normal plant nutrition has no effect in increasing grain protein. Soil sampling for nitrate and sulfate sulfur just before spring growth starts is recommended. Soil testing after the wheat has resumed growth in the spring is of questionable value for predicting the need for N and S fertilization. Tissue tests are not reliable in predicting the need for N and S fertilization except where major deficiencies exist.Published December 1987. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalo

Blood-based biomarkers for Alzheimer disease: mapping the road to the clinic.

Biomarker discovery and development for clinical research, diagnostics and therapy monitoring in clinical trials have advanced rapidly in key areas of medicine - most notably, oncology and cardiovascular diseases - allowing rapid early detection and supporting the evolution of biomarker-guided, precision-medicine-based targeted therapies. In Alzheimer disease (AD), breakthroughs in biomarker identification and validation include cerebrospinal fluid and PET markers of amyloid-β and tau proteins, which are highly accurate in detecting the presence of AD-associated pathophysiological and neuropathological changes. However, the high cost, insufficient accessibility and/or invasiveness of these assays limit their use as viable first-line tools for detecting patterns of pathophysiology. Therefore, a multistage, tiered approach is needed, prioritizing development of an initial screen to exclude from these tests the high numbers of people with cognitive deficits who do not demonstrate evidence of underlying AD pathophysiology. This Review summarizes the efforts of an international working group that aimed to survey the current landscape of blood-based AD biomarkers and outlines operational steps for an effective academic-industry co-development pathway from identification and assay development to validation for clinical use.I recieved an honorarium from Roche Diagnostics for my participation in the advisory panel meeting leading to this pape

Modeling 25 years of spatio-temporal surface water and inundation dynamics on large river basin scale using time series of Earth observation data

The usage of time series of Earth observation (EO) data for analyzing and modeling surface water extent (SWE) dynamics across broad geographic regions provides important information for sustainable management and restoration of terrestrial surface water resources, which suffered alarming declines and deterioration globally. The main objective of this research was to model SWE dynamics from a unique, statistically validated Landsat-based time series (1986-2011) continuously through cycles of flooding and drying across a large and heterogeneous river basin, the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) in Australia. We used dynamic linear regression to model remotely sensed SWE as a function of river flow and spatially explicit time series of soil moisture (SM), evapotranspiration (ET), and rainfall (P). To enable a consistent modeling approach across space, we modeled SWE dynamics separately for hydrologically distinct floodplain, floodplain-lake, and non-floodplain areas within eco-hydrological zones and 10km × 10km grid cells. We applied this spatial modeling framework to three sub-regions of the MDB, for which we quantified independently validated lag times between river gauges and each individual grid cell and identified the local combinations of variables that drive SWE dynamics. Based on these automatically quantified flow lag times and variable combinations, SWE dynamics on 233 (64%) out of 363 floodplain grid cells were modeled with a coefficient of determination (r2) greater than 0.6. The contribution of P, ET, and SM to the predictive performance of models differed among the three sub-regions, with the highest contributions in the least regulated and most arid sub-region. The spatial modeling framework presented here is suitable for modeling SWE dynamics on finer spatial entities compared to most existing studies and applicable to other large and heterogeneous river basins across the world