Daytime lidar measurements of tidal winds in the mesospheric sodium layer at Urbana, Illinois

For more than 15 years lidar systems have been used to study the chemistry and dynamics of the mesospheric sodium layer. Because the layer is an excellent tracer of atmospheric wave motions, sodium lidar has proven to be particularly useful for studying the influence of gravity waves and tides on mesospheric dynamics. These waves, which originate in the troposphere and stratosphere, propagate through the mesosphere and dissipate their energy near the mesopause making important contributions to the momentum and turbulence budget in this region of the atmosphere. Recently, the sodium lidar was modified for daytime operation so that wave phenomena and chemical effects could be monitored throughout the complete diurnal cycle. The results of continuous 24 hour lidar observations of the sodium layer structure are presented alond with measurement of the semidiurnal tidal winds

Rate theory for correlated processes: Double-jumps in adatom diffusion

We study the rate of activated motion over multiple barriers, in particular the correlated double-jump of an adatom diffusing on a missing-row reconstructed Platinum (110) surface. We develop a Transition Path Theory, showing that the activation energy is given by the minimum-energy trajectory which succeeds in the double-jump. We explicitly calculate this trajectory within an effective-medium molecular dynamics simulation. A cusp in the acceptance region leads to a sqrt{T} prefactor for the activated rate of double-jumps. Theory and numerical results agree

The dick pic : harassment, curation, and desire

The combined rise of digital photography and social media has expanded what might be considered photo worthy. Among the pouting selfies and food stuffs of the day exists the ubiquitous dick pic. The mainstream media generally focuses on dick pics of the unsolicited kind, which, negatively positioned, are commonly associated with heterosexual harassment. Considering the ubiquity of dick pics across apps and platforms, research on the topic nevertheless remains scarce. In this article, we examine the dick pic as an online communicative form, first considering how it manifests the ability to harass and then moving beyond this dominant framing to analysis of contexts where such images are collated, expected, and sought after. Through this analysis of dick pics as figures and actors of harassment, curation, and desire, we demonstrate the simultaneous tenacity and flexibility of their meanings in connection with the dynamics of consent and non-consent, intimacy and distance, and complex circuits of desire. We further address the role of platforms, apps, and app stores, via their community standards and terms of use, in shaping the nature, and presence, of dick pics, and discuss the affective and communicative functions that these affordances serve (or fail to serve). Our analysis of three key modes of engagement with dick pics demonstrates the ambiguity and multiple valences of the phenomenon addressed

Genetic replacement of surfactant protein-C reduces respiratory syncytial virus induced lung injury

BACKGROUND: Individuals with deficiencies of pulmonary surfactant protein C (SP-C) develop interstitial lung disease (ILD) that is exacerbated by viral infections including respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). SP-C gene targeted mice (Sftpc -/-) lack SP-C, develop an ILD-like disease and are susceptible to infection with RSV. METHODS: In order to determine requirements for correction of RSV induced injury we have generated compound transgenic mice where SP-C expression can be induced on the Sftpc -/- background (SP-C/Sftpc -/-) by the administration of doxycycline (dox). The pattern of induced SP-C expression was determined by immunohistochemistry and processing by Western blot analysis. Tissue and cellular inflammation was measured following RSV infection and the RSV-induced cytokine response of isolated Sftpc +/+ and -/- type II cells determined. RESULTS: After 5 days of dox administration transgene SP-C mRNA expression was detected by RT-PCR in the lungs of two independent lines of bitransgenic SP-C/Sftpc -/- mice (lines 55.3 and 54.2). ProSP-C was expressed in the lung, and mature SP-C was detected by Western blot analysis of the lavage fluid from both lines of SP-C/Sftpc -/- mice. Induced SP-C expression was localized to alveolar type II cells by immunostaining with an antibody to proSP-C. Line 55.3 SP-C/Sftpc -/- mice were maintained on or off dox for 7 days and infected with 2.6x10(7) RSV pfu. On day 3 post RSV infection total inflammatory cell counts were reduced in the lavage of dox treated 55.3 SP-C/Sftpc -/- mice (p = 0.004). The percentage of neutrophils was reduced (p = 0.05). The viral titers of lung homogenates from dox treated 55.3 SP-C/Sftpc -/- mice were decreased relative to 55.3 SP-C/Sftpc -/- mice without dox (p = 0.01). The cytokine response of Sftpc -/- type II cells to RSV was increased over that of Sftpc +/+ cells. CONCLUSIONS: Transgenic restoration of SP-C reduced inflammation and improved viral clearance in the lungs of SP-C deficient mice. The loss of SP-C in alveolar type II cells compromises their response to infection. These findings show that the restoration of SP-C in Sftpc -/- mice in response to RSV infection is a useful model to determine parameters for therapeutic intervention

Activation of executioner caspases is a predictor of progression-free survival in glioblastoma patients: a systems medicine approach.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and aggressive primary brain tumor in adults. GBM cells are highly resistant to apoptosis induced by antitumor drugs and radiotherapy resulting in cancer progression. We assessed whether a systems medicine approach, analysing the ability of tumor cells to execute apoptosis could be utilized to predict the response of GBM patients to treatment. Concentrations of the key proapoptotic proteins procaspase-3, procaspase-9, Smac and Apaf-1 and the antiapopotic protein XIAP were determined in a panel of GBM cell lines and GBM patient tumor resections. These values were used as input for APOPTO-CELL, a systems biological based mathematical model built to predict cellular susceptibility to undergo caspase activation. The modeling was capable of accurately distinguishing between GBM cells that die or survive in response to treatment with temozolomide in 10 of the 11 lines analysed. Importantly the results obtained using GBM patient samples show that APOPTO-CELL was capable of stratifying patients according to their progression-free survival times and predicted the ability of tumor cells to support caspase activation in 16 of the 21 GBM patients analysed. Calculating the susceptibility to apoptosis execution may be a potent tool in predicting GBM patient therapy responsiveness and may allow for the use of APOPTO-CELL in a clinical setting

Citing on-line language resources

Although the possibility of referring or citing on-line data from publications is seen at least theoretically as an important means to provide immediate testable proof or simple illustration of a line of reasoning, the practice has not been wide-spread yet and no extensive experience has been gained about the possibilities and problems of referring to raw data-sets. This paper makes a case to investigate the possibility and need of persistent data visualization services that facilitate the inspection and evaluation of the cited data

The Ethnographic Use of Facebook in Everyday Life

New social media have become indispensable to people all over the world as platforms for communication, with Facebook being the most popular. Hence, platforms such as Facebook are also becoming crucial tools for ethnographers because much social life now exists ‘online’. What types of field relations stem from such social media-driven ethnography? And what kinds of data do these relations present to the ethnographer? These questions must be considered in order to understand the challenges Facebook and other social media pose to ethnographic methodology. This article focuses on how Facebook may play an important role even in ethnographic work concerned with questions other than how Facebook works as a social medium. Most importantly it allows the ethnographer to keep up-to-date with the field. I argue that ethnography is already in possession of the methodological tools critically to assess the validity and value of data gathered or produced via Facebook including issues such as authenticity which are also pertinent to digital ethnography

Isolation of Lactoferrin and its Concentration in Sows’ Colostrum and Milk During a 21-Day Lactation

Levels of lactoferrin, an Fe-binding protein with bacteriostatic properties, were determined in the colostrum and milk of Yorkshire sows during a 21-d lactation. Lactoferrin levels averaged 1,100 to 1,300 μg/ml near the time of farrowing, then declined sharply during the first week of lactation. Concentration of lactoferrin showed considerable variation among sows, but not among teat positions (anterior to posterior). A method for isolating high purity swine lactoferrin is described

Generating spatial referring expressions in a social robot: Dynamic vs. non-ambiguous

Generating spatial referring expressions is key to allowing robots to communicate with people in an environment. The focus of most algorithms for generation is to create a non-ambiguous description, and how best to deal with the combination explosion this can create in a complex environment. However, this is not how people naturally communicate. Humans tend to give an under-specified description and then rely on a strategy of repair to reduce the number of possible locations or objects until the correct one is identified, what we refer to here as a dynamic description. We present here a method for generating these dynamic descriptions for Human Robot Interaction, using machine learning to generate repair statements. We also present a study with 61 participants in a task on object placement. This task was presented in a 2D environment that favored a non-ambiguous description. In this study we demonstrate that our dynamic method of communication can be more efficient for people to identify a location compared to one that is non-ambiguous