Recent Advances Concerning Certain Class of Geophysical Flows

This paper is devoted to reviewing several recent developments concerning certain class of geophysical models, including the primitive equations (PEs) of atmospheric and oceanic dynamics and a tropical atmosphere model. The PEs for large-scale oceanic and atmospheric dynamics are derived from the Navier-Stokes equations coupled to the heat convection by adopting the Boussinesq and hydrostatic approximations, while the tropical atmosphere model considered here is a nonlinear interaction system between the barotropic mode and the first baroclinic mode of the tropical atmosphere with moisture. We are mainly concerned with the global well-posedness of strong solutions to these systems, with full or partial viscosity, as well as certain singular perturbation small parameter limits related to these systems, including the small aspect ratio limit from the Navier-Stokes equations to the PEs, and a small relaxation-parameter in the tropical atmosphere model. These limits provide a rigorous justification to the hydrostatic balance in the PEs, and to the relaxation limit of the tropical atmosphere model, respectively. Some conditional uniqueness of weak solutions, and the global well-posedness of weak solutions with certain class of discontinuous initial data, to the PEs are also presented.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1507.0523

Patient Perspectives with Abbreviated versus Standard Pre-Test HIV Counseling in the Prenatal Setting: A Randomized-Controlled, Non-Inferiority Trial

In the US, an unacceptably high percentage of pregnant women do not undergo prenatal HIV testing. Previous studies have found increased uptake of prenatal HIV testing with abbreviated pre-test counseling, however little is known about patient decision making, testing satisfaction and knowledge in this setting.A randomized-controlled, non-inferiority trial was conducted from October 2006 through February 2008 at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH), the public teaching hospital of the City and County of San Francisco. A total of 278 English- and Spanish-speaking pregnant women were randomized to receive either abbreviated or standard nurse-performed HIV test counseling at the initial prenatal visit. Patient decision making experience was compared between abbreviated versus standard HIV counseling strategies among a sample of low-income, urban, ethnically diverse prenatal patients. The primary outcome was the decisional conflict score (DCS) using O'Connor low-literacy scale and secondary outcomes included satisfaction with test decision, basic HIV knowledge and HIV testing uptake. We conducted an intention-to-treat analysis of 278 women--134 (48.2%) in the abbreviated arm (AA) and 144 (51.8%) in the standard arm (SA). There was no significant difference in the proportion of women with low decisional conflict (71.6% in AA vs. 76.4% in SA, p = .37), and the observed mean difference between the groups of 3.88 (95% CI: -0.65, 8.41) did not exceed the non-inferiority margin. HIV testing uptake was very high (97. 8%) and did not differ significantly between the 2 groups (99.3% in AA vs. 96.5% in SA, p = .12). Likewise, there was no difference in satisfaction with testing decision (97.8% in AA vs. 99.3% in SA, p = .36). However, women in AA had significantly lower mean HIV knowledge scores (78.4%) compared to women in SA (83.7%, p<0.01).This study suggests that streamlining the pre-test counseling process, while associated with slightly lower knowledge, does not compromise patient decision making or satisfaction regarding HIV testing.ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00503308

History of climate modeling

The history of climate modeling begins with conceptual models, followed in the 19th century by mathematical models of energy balance and radiative transfer, as well as simple analog models. Since the 1950s, the principal tools of climate science have been computer simulation models of the global general circulation. From the 1990s to the present, a trend toward increasingly comprehensive coupled models of the entire climate system has dominated the field. Climate model evaluation and intercomparison is changing modeling into a more standardized, modular process, presenting the potential for unifying research and operational aspects of climate science. WIREs Clim Change 2011 2 128–139 DOI: 10.1002/wcc.95 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs websitePeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79438/1/95_ftp.pd

Chicken TREM-B1, an Inhibitory Ig-Like Receptor Expressed on Chicken Thrombocytes

Triggering receptors expressed on myeloid cells (TREM) form a multigene family of immunoregulatory Ig-like receptors and play important roles in the regulation of innate and adaptive immunity. In chickens, three members of the TREM family have been identified on chromosome 26. One of them is TREM-B1 which possesses two V-set Ig-domains, an uncharged transmembrane region and a long cytoplasmic tail with one ITSM and two ITIMs indicating an inhibitory function. We generated specific monoclonal antibodies by immunizing a Balb/c mouse with a TREM-B1-FLAG transfected BWZ.36 cell line and tested the hybridoma supernatants on TREM-B1-FLAG transfected 2D8 cells. We obtained two different antibodies specific for TREM-B1, mab 7E8 (mouse IgG1) and mab 1E9 (mouse IgG2a) which were used for cell surface staining. Single and double staining of different tissues, including whole blood preparations, revealed expression on thrombocytes. Next we investigated the biochemical properties of TREM-B1 by using the specific mab 1E9 for immunoprecipitation of either lysates of surface biotinylated peripheral blood cells or stably transfected 2D8 cells. Staining with streptavidin coupled horse radish peroxidase revealed a glycosylated monomeric protein of about 50 kDa. Furthermore we used the stably transfected 2D8 cell line for analyzing the cytoplasmic tyrosine based signaling motifs. After pervanadate treatment, we detected phosphorylation of the tyrosine residues and subsequent recruitment of the tyrosine specific protein phosphatase SHP-2, indicating an inhibitory potential for TREM-B1. We also showed the inhibitory effect of TREM-B1 in chicken thrombocytes using a CD107 degranulation assay. Crosslinking of TREM-B1 on activated primary thrombocytes resulted in decreased CD107 surface expression of about 50-70%

Climate Change and the Future of California's Endemic Flora

The flora of California, a global biodiversity hotspot, includes 2387 endemic plant taxa. With anticipated climate change, we project that up to 66% will experience >80% reductions in range size within a century. These results are comparable with other studies of fewer species or just samples of a region's endemics. Projected reductions depend on the magnitude of future emissions and on the ability of species to disperse from their current locations. California's varied terrain could cause species to move in very different directions, breaking up present-day floras. However, our projections also identify regions where species undergoing severe range reductions may persist. Protecting these potential future refugia and facilitating species dispersal will be essential to maintain biodiversity in the face of climate change

Annex to Quirke et al. Quality assurance in pathology in colorectal cancer screening and diagnosis: annotations of colorectal lesions

Multidisciplinary, evidence-based European Guidelines for quality assurance in colorectal cancer screening and diagnosis have recently been developed by experts in a pan-European project coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The full guideline document includes a chapter on pathology with pan-European recommendations which take into account the diversity and heterogeneity of health care systems across the EU. The present paper is based on the annex to the pathology chapter which attempts to describe in greater depth some of the issues raised in the chapter in greater depth, particularly details of special interest to pathologists. It is presented here to make the relevant discussion known to a wider scientific audience

Stretching Actin Filaments within Cells Enhances their Affinity for the Myosin II Motor Domain

To test the hypothesis that the myosin II motor domain (S1) preferentially binds to specific subsets of actin filaments in vivo, we expressed GFP-fused S1 with mutations that enhanced its affinity for actin in Dictyostelium cells. Consistent with the hypothesis, the GFP-S1 mutants were localized along specific portions of the cell cortex. Comparison with rhodamine-phalloidin staining in fixed cells demonstrated that the GFP-S1 probes preferentially bound to actin filaments in the rear cortex and cleavage furrows, where actin filaments are stretched by interaction with endogenous myosin II filaments. The GFP-S1 probes were similarly enriched in the cortex stretched passively by traction forces in the absence of myosin II or by external forces using a microcapillary. The preferential binding of GFP-S1 mutants to stretched actin filaments did not depend on cortexillin I or PTEN, two proteins previously implicated in the recruitment of myosin II filaments to stretched cortex. These results suggested that it is the stretching of the actin filaments itself that increases their affinity for the myosin II motor domain. In contrast, the GFP-fused myosin I motor domain did not localize to stretched actin filaments, which suggests different preferences of the motor domains for different structures of actin filaments play a role in distinct intracellular localizations of myosin I and II. We propose a scheme in which the stretching of actin filaments, the preferential binding of myosin II filaments to stretched actin filaments, and myosin II-dependent contraction form a positive feedback loop that contributes to the stabilization of cell polarity and to the responsiveness of the cells to external mechanical stimuli