Brigham Young and the Expansion of the Mormon Faith

Review of: Brigham Young and the Expansion of the Mormon Faith, by Thomas G. Alexander

Cryogenic VPH gratings for the CELT/TMT

Characterization of Volume Phase Holographic gratings at cryogenic temperatures have been conducted using a new test facility at Caltech. The new test bench includes a cryostat that allows large angles for incident and diffracted light. Gratings under tests are shielded from thermal background, and precisely and uniformly temperature controlled. Preliminary results are presented and show little temperature dependence of the efficiency function

Endothelial Dysfunction Criteria in Critically Ill Children: The PODIUM Consensus Conference

OBJECTIVES To review, analyze, and synthesize the literature on endothelial dysfunction in critically ill children with multiple organ dysfunction syndrome and to develop a consensus biomarker-based definition and diagnostic criteria. DATA SOURCES Electronic searches of PubMed and Embase were conducted from January 1992 to January 2020, using a combination of medical subject heading terms and key words to define concepts of endothelial dysfunction, pediatric critical illness, and outcomes. STUDY SELECTION Studies were included if they evaluated critically ill children with endothelial dysfunction, evaluated performance characteristics of assessment/scoring tools to screen for endothelial dysfunction, and assessed outcomes related to mortality, functional status, organ-specific outcomes, or other patient-centered outcomes. Studies of adults or premature infants (≤36 weeks gestational age), animal studies, reviews or commentaries, case series with sample size ≤10, and non-English language studies with the inability to determine eligibility criteria were excluded. DATA EXTRACTION Data were abstracted from each eligible study into a standard data extraction form along with risk of bias assessment. DATA SYNTHESIS We identified 62 studies involving 84 assessments of endothelial derived biomarkers indirectly linked to endothelial functions including leukocyte recruitment, inflammation, coagulation, and permeability. Nearly all biomarkers studied lacked specificity for vascular segment and organ systems. Quality assessment scores for the collected literature were low. CONCLUSIONS The Endothelial Subgroup concludes that there exists no single or combination of biomarkers to diagnose endothelial dysfunction in pediatric multiple organ dysfunction syndrome. Future research should focus on biomarkers more directly linked to endothelial functions and with specificity for vascular segment and organ systems

Partially Mixed Selectivity in Human Posterior Parietal Association Cortex

To clarify the organization of motor representations in posterior parietal cortex, we test how three motor variables (body side, body part, cognitive strategy) are coded in the human anterior intraparietal cortex. All tested movements were encoded, arguing against strict anatomical segregation of effectors. Single units coded for diverse conjunctions of variables, with different dimensions anatomically overlapping. Consistent with recent studies, neurons encoding body parts exhibited mixed selectivity. This mixed selectivity resulted in largely orthogonal coding of body parts, which “functionally segregate” the effector responses despite the high degree of anatomical overlap. Body side and strategy were not coded in a mixed manner as effector determined their organization. Mixed coding of some variables over others, what we term “partially mixed coding,” argues that the type of functional encoding depends on the compared dimensions. This structure is advantageous for neuroprosthetics, allowing a single array to decode movements of a large extent of the body

Cryogenic VPH gratings for the CELT/TMT

Characterization of Volume Phase Holographic gratings at cryogenic temperatures have been conducted using a new test facility at Caltech. The new test bench includes a cryostat that allows large angles for incident and diffracted light. Gratings under tests are shielded from thermal background, and precisely and uniformly temperature controlled. Preliminary results are presented and show little temperature dependence of the efficiency function

Identification of resistance determinants for a promising antileishmanial oxaborole series

Current treatment options for visceral leishmaniasis have several drawbacks, and clinicians are confronted with an increasing number of treatment failures. To overcome this, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) has invested in the development of novel antileishmanial leads, including a very promising class of oxaboroles. The mode of action/resistance of this series to Leishmania is still unknown and may be important for its further development and implementation. Repeated in vivo drug exposure and an in vitro selection procedure on both extracellular promastigote and intracellular amastigote stages were both unable to select for resistance. The use of specific inhibitors for ABC-transporters could not demonstrate the putative involvement of efflux pumps. Selection experiments and inhibitor studies, therefore, suggest that resistance to oxaboroles may not emerge readily in the field. The selection of a genome-wide cosmid library coupled to next-generation sequencing (Cos-seq) was used to identify resistance determinants and putative targets. This resulted in the identification of a highly enriched cosmid, harboring genes of chromosome 2 that confer a subtly increased resistance to the oxaboroles tested. Moderately enriched cosmids encompassing a region of chromosome 34 contained the cleavage and polyadenylation specificity factor (cpsf) gene, encoding the molecular target of several related benzoxaboroles in other organisms