An elementary construction of Anick's fibration

Cohen, Moore, and Neisendorfer's work on the odd primary homotopy theory of spheres and Moore spaces, as well as the first author's work on the secondary suspension, predicted the existence of a p-local fibration S^2n-1 --> T --> \Omega S^2n+1 whose connecting map is degree p^r. In a long and complex monograph, Anick constructed such a fibration for p>= 5 and r>= 1. Using new methods we give a much more conceptual construction which is also valid for p=3 and r>= 1. We go on to establish several properties of the space T.Comment: 30 page

Passive Surveillance of \u3cem\u3eIxodes scapularis\u3c/em\u3e (Say), Their Biting Activity, and Associated Pathogens in Massachusetts

A passive surveillance of tick-borne pathogens was conducted over a 7-year period (2006–2012), in which a total of 3551 ticks were submitted to the University of Massachusetts for PCR testing. The vast majority of these ticks were Ixodes scapularis from Massachusetts (N = 2088) and hence were the focus of further analysis. Two TaqMan duplex qPCR assays were developed to test I. scapularis ticks for the presence of three human pathogens: Borrelia burgdorferi, Anaplasma phagocytophilum, and Babesia microti. I. scapularis submissions were concentrated from Cape Cod, the eastern half of the state outside of the Boston metropolitan area, parts of Franklin and Hampshire counties along the Quabbin Reservoir watershed, and southwestern Berkshire county. Differences in seasonal activity pattern were observed for different developmental stages of I. scapularis. The largest proportion of tick bite victims were age 9 years and under. Nymphal ticks were found more often on lower extremities of their hosts, while more adult ticks were found on the head. Overall infection rate of B. burgdorferi, A. phagocytophilum, and B. microti in human-biting ticks was 29.6%, 4.6%, and 1.8%, respectively. B. burgdorferi-infected ticks were widely distributed, but A. phagocytophilum- and B. microti-infected I. scapularis were found mainly in the eastern half of the state. We found that 1.8%, 1.0%, and 0.4% of ticks were coinfected by B. burgdorferi and A. phagocytophilum, B. burgdorferi and B. microti, and A. phagocytophilum and B. microti, respectively, and 0.3% of ticks had triple coinfection

Fish species associated with shipwreck and natural hard-bottom habitats from the middle to outer continental shelf of the Middle Atlantic Bight near Norfolk Canyon

Fish species of the Middle Atlantic Bight (MAB) continental shelf are well known; however, species occupying hard-bottom habitats, particularly on the outer shelf, are poorly documented. Reef-like habitats are relatively uncommon on the MAB shelf; therefore, shipwrecks may represent a significant habitat resource. During fall 2012 and spring 2013, 9 sites (depths: 42–126 m) near Norfolk Canyon were surveyed by using remotely operated vehicles. One site consisted of sand bottom, one consisted of predominantly natural hard bottom, and 7 sites included 8 large shipwrecks. Of 38 fish taxa identified, 33 occurred on hard bottom and 25 occurred on soft substrata. Fourteen fish taxa occurred almost exclusively on hard bottom, and 6 species were observed only on soft bottom. The most abundant taxa, especially on reef habitat, were the chain dogfish (Scyliorhinus retifer), a scorpionfish (Scorpaena sp.), the yellowfin bass (Anthias nicholsi), the red barbier (Baldwinella vivanus), the black sea bass (Centropristis striata), unidentified anthiine serranids, and the deepbody boarfish (Antigonia capros). Depth, location, and season did not significantly influence fish assemblages. Fish assemblages on natural and artificial hard-bottom habitat were similar but significantly different from soft-bottom assemblages. Deep-reef fishes of the southern MAB may be constrained by zoogeography, depth, and inadequate habitat— limitations that could increase their vulnerability

Targeted delivery of anti-inflammatory therapy to rheumatoid tissue by fusion proteins containing an IL-4-linked synovial targeting peptide

We provide first-time evidence that the synovial endothelium-targeting peptide (SyETP) CKSTHDRLC successfully delivers conjugated IL-4 to human rheumatoid synovium transplanted into SCID mice. SyETP, previously isolated by in vivo phage display and shown to preferentially localize to synovial xenografts, was linked by recombinant technology to hIL-4 via an MMP-cleavable sequence. Both IL-4 and the MMP-cleavable sequence were shown to be functional. IL-4-SyETP augmented production of IL-1ra by synoviocytes stimulated with IL-1[beta] in a dose-dependent manner. In vivo imaging confirmed increased retention of SyETP-linked-IL-4 in synovial grafts which was enhanced by increasing number of copies (one to three) in the constructs. Strikingly, SyETP delivered bioactive IL-4 in vivo as demonstrated by increased pSTAT6 in synovial grafts. Thus, this study provides proof of concept for peptide-tissue-specific targeted immunotherapy in rheumatoid arthritis. This technology is potentially applicable to other biological therapies providing enhanced potency to inflammatory sites and reducing systemic toxicity

Ultrasound-mediation of self-illuminating reporters improves imaging resolution in optically scattering media

In vivo imaging of self-illuminating bio-and chemiluminescent reporters is used to observe the physiology of small animals. However, strong light scattering by biological tissues results in poor spatial resolution of the optical imaging, which also degrades the quantitative accuracy. To overcome this challenging problem, focused ultrasound is used to modulate the light from the reporter at the ultrasound frequency. This produces an ultrasound switchable light ‘beacon’ that reduces the influence of light scattering in order to improve spatial resolution. The experimental results demonstrate that apart from light modulation at the ultrasound frequency (AC signal at 3.5 MHz), ultrasound also increases the DC intensity of the reporters. This is shown to be due to a temperature rise caused by insonification that was minimized to be within acceptable mammalian tissue safety thresholds by adjusting the duty cycle of the ultrasound. Line scans of bio-and chemiluminescent objects embedded within a scattering medium were obtained using ultrasound modulated (AC) and ultrasound enhanced (DC) signals. Lateral resolution is improved by a factor of 12 and 7 respectively, as compared to conventional CCD imaging. Two chemiluminescent sources separated by ~10mm at ~20 mm deep inside a 50 mm thick chicken breast have been successfully resolved with an average signal-to-noise ratio of approximately 8-10 dB

Quantitative Accuracy of Low-Count SPECT Imaging in Phantom and In Vivo Mouse Studies

We investigated the accuracy of a single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) system in quantifying a wide range of radioactivity concentrations using different scan times in both phantom and animal models. A phantom containing various amounts of In-111 or Tc-99m was imaged until the activity had decayed close to background levels. Scans were acquired for different durations, employing different collimator pinhole sizes. VOI analysis was performed to quantify uptake in the images and the values compared to the true activity. The phantom results were then validated in tumour-bearing mice. The use of an appropriate calibration phantom and disabling of a background subtraction feature meant that absolute errors were within 12% of the true activity. Furthermore, a comparison of in vivo imaging and biodistribution studies in mice showed a correlation of 0.99 for activities over the 200 kBq to 5 MBq range. We conclude that the quantitative information provided by the NanoSPECT camera is accurate and allows replacement of dissection studies for assessment of radiotracer biodistribution in mouse models

Relationship of dysglycemia to acute myocardial infarct size and cardiovascular outcome as determined by cardiovascular magnetic resonance

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Improved outcomes for normoglycemic patients suffering acute myocardial infarction (AMI) over the last decade have not been matched by similar improvements in mortality for diabetic patients despite similar levels of baseline risk and appropriate medical therapy. Two of the major determinants of poor outcome following AMI are infarct size and left ventricular (LV) dysfunction.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Ninety-three patients with first AMI were studied. 22 patients had diabetes mellitus (DM) based on prior history or admission blood glucose ≥11.1 mmol/l. 13 patients had dysglycemia (admission blood glucose ≥7.8 mmol/l but <11.1 mmol/l) and 58 patients had normoglycemia (admission blood glucose <7.8 mmol/l). Patients underwent cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging at index presentation and median follow-up of 11 months. Cine imaging assessed LV function and late gadolinium contrast-enhanced imaging was used to quantify infarct size. Clinical outcome data were collected at 18 months median follow-up.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Patients with dysglycemia and DM had larger infarct sizes by CMR than normoglycemic patients; at baseline percentage LV scar (mean (SD)) was 23.0% (10.9), 25.6% (12.9) and 15.8% (10.3) respectively (p = 0.001), and at 11 months percentage LV scar was 17.6% (8.9), 19.1% (9.6) and 12.4% (7.8) (p = 0.017). Patients with dysglycemia and DM also had lower event-free survival at 18 months (p = 0.005).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Patients with dysglycemia or diabetes mellitus sustain larger infarct sizes than normoglycemic patients, as determined by CMR. This may, in part, account for their adverse prognosis following AMI.</p

Development and validation of a robust automated analysis of plasma phospholipid fatty acids for metabolic phenotyping of large epidemiological studies.

A fully automated, high-throughput method was developed to profile the fatty acids of phospholipids from human plasma samples for application to a large epidemiological sample set (n > 25,000). We report here on the data obtained for the quality-control materials used with the first 860 batches, and the validation process used. The method consists of two robotic systems combined with gas chromatography, performing lipid extraction, phospholipid isolation, hydrolysis and derivatization to fatty-acid methyl esters, and on-line analysis. This is the first report showing that fatty-acid profiling is an achievable strategy for metabolic phenotyping in very large epidemiological and genetic studies.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are