Three Physical Measurements of Male White-Tailed Deer in West Virginia Correlated with Soil Fertility and Population Density

Differences in the physical size of male white-tailed deer from varying parts of West Virginia were known to exist a considerable number of years before any sophisticated attempts were made to explain them. Prior to 1940, the state\u27s deer herd had been making a slow, but increasingly steady, comeback from a period of extreme scarcity around the turn of the century. To supplement the original remaining stock, shown in Figure 1, page 2, a deer restocking program was initiated in 1923. In 1937, federal legislation, in the form of the Federal Aid to Wildlife Restoration Act, gave added support to the restocking program. State legislation had also contributed to the increase in the number of deer by passage of what is now commonly known as bucks-only regulations

Asymptotic Expansions for the Sojourn Time Distribution in the M/G/1M/G/1-PS Queue

We consider the $M/G/1$ queue with a processor sharing server. We study the conditional sojourn time distribution, conditioned on the customer's service requirement, as well as the unconditional distribution, in various asymptotic limits. These include large time and/or large service request, and heavy traffic, where the arrival rate is only slightly less than the service rate. Our results demonstrate the possible tail behaviors of the unconditional distribution, which was previously known in the cases $G=M$ and $G=D$ (where it is purely exponential). We assume that the service density decays at least exponentially fast. We use various methods for the asymptotic expansion of integrals, such as the Laplace and saddle point methods.Comment: 45 page

Genome modeling system: A knowledge management platform for genomics

In this work, we present the Genome Modeling System (GMS), an analysis information management system capable of executing automated genome analysis pipelines at a massive scale. The GMS framework provides detailed tracking of samples and data coupled with reliable and repeatable analysis pipelines. The GMS also serves as a platform for bioinformatics development, allowing a large team to collaborate on data analysis, or an individual researcher to leverage the work of others effectively within its data management system. Rather than separating ad-hoc analysis from rigorous, reproducible pipelines, the GMS promotes systematic integration between the two. As a demonstration of the GMS, we performed an integrated analysis of whole genome, exome and transcriptome sequencing data from a breast cancer cell line (HCC1395) and matched lymphoblastoid line (HCC1395BL). These data are available for users to test the software, complete tutorials and develop novel GMS pipeline configurations. The GMS is available at https://github.com/genome/gms

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Brain Damage Among Mentally Disordered Sex Offenders.

The incidence and nature of structural brain dysfunction was investigated in a pilot study sample of individuals currently assigned the Nebraska Penal Code designation of mentally disordered sexual offender. It was hypothesized that the sexual offenders would show a significantly higher incidence of dysfunction than a psychosocially normal group as evidenced by computed tomography scan measures, regional cerebral blood flow, and neuropsychological instruments. The hypothesis was tested by two different methods. One method used a 160 by 160 printout of density numbers generated by computer from computed tomography scans administered to the sexual offenders. The second method used mean blood flow data generated from a Harshaw TASC-5 Regional Cerebral Blood Flow analysis system. Additionally, the Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Test Battery was administered as a measure of the behavioral correlates of brain dysfunction. Preliminary analyses indicate that 50% of the sexual offenders tested showed brain dysfunction as demonstrated by decreased density measures, decreased blood flow, and performance deficits on the Luria Battery. The implications of these findings, if confirmed, are substantial on issues of criminal responsibility, sentencing, treatment, and rehabilitation of the sex offender. Case reports of the patients studied are presented

On the long-time behavior of ferroelectric and ferromagnetic systems

Mathematics Technical Repor