The Adolescent and the Inner-City

The subject to be investigated in this paper is that of the inner-city adolescent, with special reference to the problem of delinquent behavior. The aim of this paper is to see what are the special problems of the adolescents as they grow up within the inner-city environment. Although the role of the church is considered, the major topics examined in the paper are the inner-city and adolescents

The Effect of Chemical Cross-Linking Agents on Starch and Starch-Latex Adhesive Mixtures in Coating Color Formulations

Various representative coatings were prepared, run, and resulting papers evaluated with great emphasis placed on keeping conditions constant throughout all experimental work. The study was limited to two types of starches; regular and cationic, and two types of insolubilizers; melamine formaldehyde and glyoxal. The effect of adding some latex to the adhesive mixture, with respect to water resistance, was also explored. Data received substantiated the superiority of glyoxal over melamine formaldehyde in producing wet-rub resistance in starch base coatings. Calculated results also proved the merit of using a cationic starch, in conjunction with the insolubilizing additives, rather than a regular starch. However, data also showed that neither melamine formaldehyde nor glyoxal alone in a starch paste ever surpassed a starch paste with small amounts of latex added, with respect to water resistance. Finally, representative samples of all test coatings made were printed on an offset printing press. Single-pass printing quality of all sheets, irregardless of the coating mixture, was excellent. Multi-pass printing was not explored. The water resistance of all of the samples was sufficient to produce excellent printing quality with no signs of sheet curl

Multivariate Statistical Methods that Enable Fast Raman Spectroscopy

Raman spectroscopy is a useful tool in investigating inter- and intra-molecular interactions as well as classifying and quantifying chemical species in a sample. Many materials of societal interest, such as proteins and pharmaceuticals, have distinctive Raman spectra with sharp features. However, the adoption of Raman spectra has been hindered by the low rate of Raman scattering, interference from fluorescence, and high spectrometer costs. This work demonstrates multivariate stastical methods that enable fast Raman measurements, despite the low rate of Raman scattering. These methods include a novel type of spectrometer, that uses computer-controlled optical filters to efficiently capture Raman photons and multiplex them onto either one or two photon counting detector(s). This method, referred to as optimal-binary compressive detection (OB-CD), allows for the collection of chemical information in 10’s of microseconds, rather than milliseconds as might be common for Raman spectroscopy performed using a multichannel detector. A method for orthogonalizing moderate amounts of fluorescence from Raman signal in OB-CD is presented. Fast imaging, with speeds as high as 2.5 frames-per-second, is demonstrated and algorithms for image denoising are discussed. Lastly, methods that enables Raman classification using minimal computation time and a technique for accurately processing Raman thermometry data are presented

MAGMA: analysis of two-channel microarrays made easy

The web application MAGMA provides a simple and intuitive interface to identify differentially expressed genes from two-channel microarray data. While the underlying algorithms are not superior to those of similar web applications, MAGMA is particularly user friendly and can be used without prior training. The user interface guides the novice user through the most typical microarray analysis workflow consisting of data upload, annotation, normalization and statistical analysis. It automatically generates R-scripts that document MAGMA's entire data processing steps, thereby allowing the user to regenerate all results in his local R installation. The implementation of MAGMA follows the model-view-controller design pattern that strictly separates the R-based statistical data processing, the web-representation and the application logic. This modular design makes the application flexible and easily extendible by experts in one of the fields: statistical microarray analysis, web design or software development. State-of-the-art Java Server Faces technology was used to generate the web interface and to perform user input processing. MAGMA's object-oriented modular framework makes it easily extendible and applicable to other fields and demonstrates that modern Java technology is also suitable for rather small and concise academic projects. MAGMA is freely available at www.magma-fgcz.uzh.ch

Volatility as an Asset Class – A Valuable Portfolio Diversifier in Volatile Times?

This article examines the feasibility of usingvolatility as an asset class to diversify equity portfolios. Especiallyexchange-traded volatility products targeted at retail investorspromise convenient but effective equity hedging. This study looksunder the surface of these seemingly simple products, andbacktests them in extensive portfolio diversification studies. Weapply a wide range of test settings, including different volatilityweights, product maturities, time periods, rebalancing patterns,and dynamic allocation strategies while adopting the perspectiveof U.S. equity investors over the volatile period from 2006 to2011. We find that volatility exposures of up to 10%,implemented through mid-term volatility products or with astraightforward dynamic allocation strategy based on detectingtrends in implied volatility, would have benefited equityportfolios in most scenarios

CDCOCA: A statistical method to define complexity dependence of co-occuring chromosomal aberrations

Background Copy number alterations (CNA) play a key role in cancer development and progression. Since more than one CNA can be detected in most tumors, frequently co-occurring genetic CNA may point to cooperating cancer related genes. Existing methods for co-occurrence evaluation so far have not considered the overall heterogeneity of CNA per tumor, resulting in a preferential detection of frequent changes with limited specificity for each association due to the high genetic instability of many samples. Method We hypothesize that in cancer some linkage-independent CNA may display a non-random co-occurrence, and that these CNA could be of pathogenetic relevance for the respective cancer. We also hypothesize that the statistical relevance of co-occurring CNA may depend on the sample specific CNA complexity. We verify our hypotheses with a simulation based algorithm CDCOCA (complexity dependence of co-occurring chromosomal aberrations). Results Application of CDCOCA to example data sets identified co-occurring CNA from low complex background which otherwise went unnoticed. Identification of cancer associated genes in these co-occurring changes can provide insights of cooperative genes involved in oncogenesis. Conclusions We have developed a method to detect associations of regional copy number abnormalities in cancer data. Along with finding statistically relevant CNA co-occurrences, our algorithm points towards a generally low specificity for co-occurrence of regional imbalances in CNA rich samples, which may have negative impact on pathway modeling approaches relying on frequent CNA events

PhyloDetect: a likelihood-based strategy for detecting microorganisms with diagnostic microarrays

Motivation: Detection and identification of microbes using diagnostic arrays is still subject of ongoing research. Existing significance-based algorithms consider an organism detected even if a significant number of the microarray probes that match the organism are called absent in a hybridization. Further, they do generate redundant results if the target organisms show high sequence similarity and the microarray probes cannot discriminate all of them. Results: We propose a new analysis strategy that considers organism similarities and calls organisms only present if the probes that match the organism but are absent in a hybridization can be explained by random events. In our strategy, we first identify the groups of target organisms that are actually distinguishable by the array. Subsequently, these organism groups are placed in a hierarchical tree such that groups matching only less specific probes are closer to the tree root, and groups that are discriminated only by few probes are close to each other. Finally, we compute for each group a likelihood score that is based on a hypothesis test with the null hypothesis that the group was actually present in the hybridized sample. We have validated our strategy using datasets from two different array types and implemented it as an easy-to-use web application. Availability: http://www.fgcz.ethz.ch/PhyloDetect Contact: [email protected] Supplementary information: Example data is available at http://www.fgcz.ethz.ch/PhyloDetec

Effects of a male meiotic driver on male and female transcriptomes in the house mouse

Not all genetic loci follow Mendel's rules, and the evolutionary consequences of this are not yet fully known. Genomic conflict involving multiple loci is a likely outcome, as restoration of Mendelian inheritance patterns will be selected for, and sexual conflict may also arise when sexes are differentially affected. Here, we investigate effects of the t haplotype, an autosomal male meiotic driver in house mice, on genome-wide gene expression patterns in males and females. We analysed gonads, liver and brain in adult same-sex sibling pairs differing in genotype, allowing us to identify t-associated differences in gene regulation. In testes, only 40% of differentially expressed genes mapped to the approximately 708 annotated genes comprising the t haplotype. Thus, much of the activity of the t haplotype occurs in trans, and as upregulation. Sperm maturation functions were enriched among both cis and trans acting t haplotype genes. Within the t haplotype, we observed more downregulation and differential exon usage. In ovaries, liver and brain, the majority of expression differences mapped to the t haplotype, and were largely independent of the differences seen in the testis. Overall, we found widespread transcriptional effects of this male meiotic driver in the house mouse genome

Transcriptomic profiling of canine decidualization and effects of antigestagens on decidualized dog uterine stromal cells

Maternal-stroma derived decidual cells, the only cell population in the canine placenta expressing the nuclear progesterone (P4) receptor (PGR), are crucial for the maintenance of canine pregnancy. Decreased circulating progesterone (P4) levels, or blockage of PGR function with antigestagens, terminate canine pregnancy. As an in vitro model for canine decidualization, dog uterine stromal (DUS) cells can be decidualized in vitro with cAMP. The antigestagens aglepristone and mifepristone ablate the expression of decidualization markers in DUS cells (e.g., PGR, PRLR, IGF1 or PTGES). Here, the transcriptome profile of DUS cells was investigated to acquire deeper insights into decidualization-associated changes. Additionally, effects mediated by antigestagens (competitive PGR blockers) in decidualized cells were assessed. Decidualization led to the upregulation of 1841 differentially expressed genes (DEGs, P and FDR < 0.01) involved in cellular proliferation and adhesion, mesenchymal-epithelial transition, extracellular matrix organization, and vaso- and immunomodulation. The 1475 DEGs downregulated after decidualization were mostly associated with apoptosis and cell migration. In decidualized DUS cells, aglepristone modulated 1400 DEGs and mifepristone 1558 DEGs. Interestingly, around half of the identified DEGs were modulated by only one of the antigestagens. In all cases, however, PGR-blockage was mainly associated with an inversion of several decidualization-induced effects. Comparison between antigestagen-mediated effects and transcriptional changes in the canine placenta at term allowed the identification of 191 DEGs associated with diminished cell proliferation and adhesion, and vascular and immune modulation. This study emphasizes the importance of P4/PGR signaling for decidual cell function, providing new insights into the maintenance of canine pregnancy

Nematode microRNAs can Individually Regulate Interferon Regulatory Factor 4 and mTOR in Differentiating T Helper 2 Lymphocytes and Modulate Cytokine Production in Macrophages

Parasitic nematodes are masterful immunomodulators. This class of pathogens has evolved a spectrum of sophisticated strategies to regulate and evade host immune responses, mediated through the release of various molecules. In this context, the release of microRNAs (miRNAs), short post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression, has been of particular interest in the host-parasite interplay. Evidence that parasite-derived miRNAs modulate host innate and adaptive immune responses has become increasingly compelling. However, since miRNAs are usually contained in extracellular vesicles containing other mediators, it is difficult to assign an observed effect on host cells to miRNAs specifically. Here, the effects of some abundantly secreted miRNAs by nematodes used as models of gastrointestinal infections (Heligmosomoides polygyrus bakeri, Trichuris muris and Ascaris suum) were evaluated, addressing the potential of parasite miRNAs to impair in vitro differentiation of two important types of immune cells in the context of helminth infections, Th2 lymphocytes and macrophages. Mimicking a continuous exposure to low concentrations of nematode miRNAs, the interferon gamma signaling, the IL-2/STAT5 signaling, and the mTOR signaling pathways were identified as downregulated by Hpo-miR-71-5p. Interferon regulatory factor 4 (Irf4) was validated as a target of Hpo-miR-71-5p, while Mtor is targeted by Asu-miR-791-3p, abundant in the T. muris secretions. By trend, Hpo-miR-71-5p impacts mildly but consistently on the amounts of inflammatory cytokines in unpolarized macrophages but leads to slightly increased IL-10 level in alternatively activated cells. In addition, our data suggests that transfected miRNAs remain for days in recipient cells, and that Hpo-miR-71-5p can incorporate into mouse Argonaute protein complexes. Nematode miRNAs can impair both innate and adaptive arms of host immunity. Hpo-miR-71-5p in particular, absent in mammals, interacts with host genes and pathways with crucial involvement in anthelmintic immune responses. This report brings new insights into the dynamics of miRNA-driven immunomodulation and highlights putative targeted pathways. Although the absolute repression is subtle, it is expected that the dozens of different miRNAs released by nematodes may have a synergistic effect on surrounding host cells