Characterization of glycan determinants that mediate recognition of the major Wuchereria bancrofti circulating antigen by diagnostic antibodies

The Global Program to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (GPELF) relies heavily on a rapid diagnostic test (RDT) to a Wuchereria bancrofti circulating filarial antigen (Wb-CFA) to identify endemic areas and for determining when mass drug administration can stop. The antigen contains a carbohydrate epitope that is recognized by monoclonal antibody AD12. Og4C3, a monoclonal antibody that is used in a commercial ELISA for Wb-CFA recognizes the same moiety. Despite its diagnostic importance, little is known about the structure and function of this AD12 epitope . It is also present on other W. bancrofti glycoproteins and on glycoproteins of other filarial worms, but such antigens are not detected in the sera of individuals with most other filarial infections. We report here functional and biochemical analyses that shed light on the interaction between filarial glycoproteins and AD12 and/or Og4C3. Binding of these monoclonal antibodies to a mammalian glycan array suggests the reactive moiety has structural similarity to terminal β-d-glucuronic acid in a 1-3 linkage to other hexoses. However, sera collected from individuals with patent W. bancrofti infection had very low or undetectable serum antibodies to the GlcA-containing array glycans. Unlike other filarial glycoproteins, the Wb-CFA is relatively resistant to protease digestion by pronase and trypsin and completely resistant to the mucinase O-sialoglycoprotein endopeptidase (OSGE). The protease resistance of the Wb-CFA may contribute to its consistent detection in Wb-infected sera

Integration of Airborne Aerosol Prediction Systems and Vegetation Phenology to Track Pollen for Asthma Alerts in Public Health Decision Support Systems

The residual signal indicates that the pollen event may influence the seasonal signal to an extent that would allow detection, given accurate QA filtering and BRDF corrections. MODIS daily reflectances increased during the pollen season. The DREAM model (PREAM) was successfully modified for use with pollen and may provide 24-36 hour running pollen forecasts. Publicly available pollen forecasts are linked to general weather patterns and roughly-known species phenologies. These are too coarse for timely health interventions. PREAM addresses this key data gap so that targeting intervention measures can be determined temporally and geospatially. The New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) as part of its Environmental Public Health Tracking Network (EPHTN) would use PREAM a tool for alerting the public in advance of pollen bursts to intervene and reduce the health impact on asthma populations at risk

Integration of Airborne Aerosol Prediction Systems and Vegetation Phenology to Track Pollen for Asthma Alerts in Public Health Decision Support Systems

This slide presentation reviews the study that used a model to forecast pollen to assist in warning for asthma populations. Using MODIS daily reflectances to input to a model, PREAM, adapted from the Dust REgional Atmospheric Modeling (DREAM) system, a product of predicted pollen is produced. Using the pollen from Juniper the PREAM model was shown to be an assist in alerting the public of pollen bursts, and reduce the health impact on asthma populations

Current NASA Earth Remote Sensing Observations

This slide presentation reviews current NASA Earth Remote Sensing observations in specific reference to improving public health information in view of pollen sensing. While pollen sampling has instrumentation, there are limitations, such as lack of stations, and reporting lag time. Therefore it is desirable use remote sensing to act as early warning system for public health reasons. The use of Juniper Pollen was chosen to test the possibility of using MODIS data and a dust transport model, Dust REgional Atmospheric Model (DREAM) to act as an early warning system

Integration of Airborne Aerosol Prediction Systems and Vegetation Phenology to Track Pollen for Asthma Alerts in Public Health Decision Support Systems

No abstract availabl

Integrating Airborne Dust Forecasting and Remote Sensing into Air Quality and Public Health Decision Support Services

No abstract availabl

Perception of isolated chords: Examining frequency of occurrence, instrumental timbre, acoustic descriptors and musical training

This study investigated the perception of isolated chords using a combination of experimental manipulation and exploratory analysis. Twelve types of chord (five triads and seven tetrads) were presented in two instrumental timbres (piano and organ) to listeners who rated the chords for consonance, pleasantness, stability and relaxation. Listener ratings varied by chord, by timbre, and according to musical expertise, and revealed that musicians distinguished consonance from the other variables in a way that other listeners did not. To further explain the data, a principal component analysis and linear regression examined three potential predictors of the listener ratings. First, each chord’s frequency of occurrence was obtained by counting its appearances in selected works of music. Second, listeners rated their familiarity with the instrumental timbre in which the chord was played. Third, chords were described using a set of acoustic features derived using the Timbre Toolbox and MIR Toolbox. Results of the study indicated that listeners’ ratings of both consonance and stability were influenced by the degree of musical training and knowledge of tonal hierarchy. Listeners’ ratings of pleasantness and relaxation, on the other hand, depended more on the instrumental timbre and other acoustic descriptions of the chord

Opportunities to enhance pollinator biodiversity in solar parks

Renewable power capacity is increasing globally in response to energy decarbonisation, with solar photovoltaic (PV) projected to be the dominant renewable. A significant proportion of solar PV is deployed as ground-mounted solar parks with potential implications for the hosting ecosystem. Given their relatively rapid introduction, the impacts on land use and the local environment are poorly understood. However, if deployed and managed strategically, solar parks could offer unique opportunities to enhance the local environment and benefit biodiversity, with implications for ecosystem components such as pollinators. With a focus on north-west Europe, we systematically review the available evidence on how land management practices relevant to solar parks can enhance pollinator biodiversity. We assessed 185 articles for the quantity and agreement of evidence for 27 management interventions and assigned a confidence score to each finding. We show that a range of interventions applied to solar parks could increase their ability to enhance pollinator biodiversity. We then use our assessment to synthesise ten evidence-based recommendations on how to improve solar park management for pollinators by providing foraging and reproductive resources, undergoing considered management practices, increasing landscape heterogeneity and connectivity and providing microclimatic variation. Ensuring beneficial management of rapidly growing solar parks contributes to their wider environmental sustainability, with positive implications for both pollinator conservation and the energy sector in general

Using cognitive decline in novel trial designs for primary prevention and early disease-modifying therapy trials of Alzheimer's disease

Background: Ideally putative disease-modifying therapies for Alzheimer's disease (AD) should be tested in patients who have minimal morbidity. Current barriers to such trials in early disease include the lack of disease-specific early biomarkers, insensitivity of quantitative cognitive outcome measures, and expensive trial designs requiring large sample sizes and long duration. This paper describes principles and progress towards a novel trial design that overcomes these problems, utilizing wide-scale cognitive performance screening to define pre-trial cognitive decline trajectories which can serve as trial outcome measures to assess AD disease-modifying efficacy. Methods: Theoretical principles important for the detection of intra-individual cognitive decline and a practical example are described. Results: Serial evaluations of community-based volunteers demonstrate how a screening tool method to detect subtle cognitive decline can predict in vivo amyloid pathology as a trigger for etiological evaluation. Trajectories of decline appear consistent over at least two years, suggesting they could be used as a trial inclusion criterion and ameliorable outcome measure together with other AD biomarkers. Informative trial durations could be 6-12 months, or extend to incorporate staggered random withdrawal or start designs, with as few as 20 individuals per treatment arm. Conclusions: This trial methodology offers significant advantages over current AD trial designs, including treatment at earlier stages of disease, shorter trial duration, obviation of informed consent difficulties, smaller sample sizes, reduced cost and - given adequate screening programs - sufficient subjects for multiple simultaneous trials. Importantly, it allows the rapid evaluation of putative treatments that may only be efficacious in pre-dementia states

Literature 1780-1830: the Romantic period

If Jerome McGann has been the most influential critic of Romantic poetry over the last twenty-five years, Marilyn Butler runs him a close second. Published in 2006 was an important collection of essays in her honour (Repossessing the Romantic Past, edited by Heather Glen and Paul Hamilton), and the years work on Romantic poetry as a whole shows just how pervasive her influence has been. Butlers careful juxtaposition of major canonical pieces within a wider matrix of the minor, marginal, or non-literary, is well continued in a year which includes a massive increase in Southey studies, an important collection of essays on Robert Bloomfield, and work which opens up a series of contexts to poetry on forgery, plagiarism, visual art and encounters with Native Americans. Inevitably, the scope of a tribute to Butler exceeds the scope of a section covering only poetry, and this study is further discussed in other sections of this chapter. There are essays on everything from Maria Edgeworth to Mizra Abu Taleb Khan, but Shelley and Coleridge also feature. Michael Rossington skilfully reconstructs Shelleys Marlow coterie and the contours of the debate over the meaning of English republicanism. Shelleys Charles the First, Rossington argues, was composed in a spirit of republicanism which moved beyond the religious debates of the seventeenth century towards a Europeanizing, analytically detached republic. Paul Hamilton reopens the case of Coleridges philosophy, arguing that his Christianity strongly affected his approach to Continental philosophy. Coleridge offers a conception of discourse that, for Hamilton, troubles current divisions of writing into political, aesthetic, and scientific categories