Rapid rise in the population of older adults in India will lead to the need for increased health care services related to diagnosis, management, and long-term care for those with dementia and ...cognitive impairment. A direct approach for service provision through memory clinics can be an effective, successful, and sustaining means of delivering specialized health care services. We have established a memory clinic in Mumbai, India by employing the diverse clinical skills available in Indian academic institutions, diagnostic and research expertise of clinicians and psychologists, and the support of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Our project involved recruitment of patients, clinical and neuropsychological assessment, and standardized diagnostic procedures, demonstrating the feasibility of using research methods to develop a memory clinic. In this paper, we describe the development of a community-based memory clinic in urban India, including linguistic and cultural factors and present detailed results, including diagnostic characterization, on 194 subjects with various stages of cognitive deficits. Our findings support the feasibility of developing a memory clinic in a public hospital and successful use of research diagnostic criteria to categorize cognitive deficits observed in this population, which may be used to inform the development of other such clinics.
Predicting and understanding the mechanism of drug-induced toxicity is one of the primary goals of drug development. It has been hypothesized that inflammation may have a synergistic role in this ...process. Cell-based models provide an easily manipulated system to investigate this type of drug toxicity. Several groups have attempted to reproduce in vivo toxicity with combination treatment of pharmacological agents and inflammatory cytokines. Through this approach, synergistic cytotoxicity between the investigational agent pevonedistat (MLN4924) and TNF-α was identified. Pevonedistat is an inhibitor of the NEDD8-activating enzyme (NAE). Inhibition of NAE prevents activation of cullin-RING ligases, which are critical for proteasome-mediated protein degradation. TNF-α is a cytokine that is involved in inflammatory responses and cell death, among other biological functions. Treatment of cultured cells with the combination of pevonedistat and TNF-α, but not as single agents, resulted in rapid cell death. This cell death was determined to be mediated by caspase-8. Interestingly, the combination treatment of pevonedistat and TNF-α also caused an accumulation of the p10 protease subunit of caspase-8 that was not observed with cytotoxic doses of TNF-α. Under conditions where apoptosis was blocked, the mechanism of death switched to necroptosis. Trimerized MLKL was verified as a biomarker of necroptotic cell death. The synergistic toxicity of pevonedistat and elevated TNF-α was also demonstrated by in vivo rat studies. Only the combination treatment resulted in elevated serum markers of liver damage and single-cell hepatocyte necrosis. Taken together, the results of this work have characterized a novel synergistic toxicity driven by pevonedistat and TNF-α.
We present measurements of the fractional momentum loss (Sloss = delta pT / pT) of high-transverse-momentum-identified hadrons in heavy-ion collisions. Using pi0 in Au + Au and Cu + Cu collisions at ...√sNN = 62.4 and 200 GeV measured by the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and and charged hadrons in Pb + Pb collisions measured by the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, we studied the scaling properties of Sloss as a function of a number of variables: the number of participants, Npart, the number of quark participants, Nqp, the charged-particle density, dNch/dη, and the Bjorken energy density times the equilibration time, epsilonBjτ0. We also find that the pT, where Sloss has its maximum, varies both with centrality and collision energy. Above the maximum, Sloss tends to follow a power-law function with all four scaling variables. Finally, the data at √sNN = 200 GeV and 2.76 TeV, for sufficiently high particle densities, have a common scaling of Sloss with dNch/dη and εBjτ0, lending insight into the physics of parton energy loss.
The control of Cu precipitation at low temperatures, e.g., bake hardening of Cu bearing steels, has recently attracted considerable attention due to the potential of achieving good formability and ...high strength. An Fe-l.5 wt pct Cu alloy, solution treated and 10 pct prestrained, exhibits a two-step age-hardening behavior, i.e., a smaller, but substantial hardening around 200 °C to 300 °C and a major hardening around 500 °C, while only the latter hardening occurs in undeformed specimens. The precipitation behavior of nanoscale Cu particles or bcc Cu clusters that plays a major role in age hardening was simulated by Cahn-Hilliard nonclassical nucleation theory and the Langer-Schwartz model. Simulation results are compared with the distribution of Cu particles observed under three-dimensional atom probe field ion microscope (3-D APFIM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM), and age hardening behavior as well. The increase in hardness in prestrained specimens at low temperatures (< or =400 °C) can be ascribed to Cu particles nucleated preferentially at dislocations or to Cu particles that were formed in the matrix as early as at dislocations presumably due to excess vacancies introduced by prestraining. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
We present azimuthal angular correlations between charged hadrons and energy deposited in calorimeter towers in central d+Au and minimum bias p+p collisions at sqrts_{NN}=200 GeV. The charged hadron ...is measured at midrapidity |η|<0.35, and the energy is measured at large rapidity (-3.7<η<-3.1, Au-going direction). An enhanced near-side angular correlation across |Δη|>2.75 is observed in d+Au collisions. Using the event plane method applied to the Au-going energy distribution, we extract the anisotropy strength v_{2} for inclusive charged hadrons at midrapidity up to p_{T}=4.5 GeV/c. We also present the measurement of v_{2} for identified π^{±} and (anti)protons in central d+Au collisions, and observe a mass-ordering pattern similar to that seen in heavy-ion collisions. These results are compared with viscous hydrodynamic calculations and measurements from p+Pb at sqrts_{NN}=5.02 TeV. The magnitude of the mass ordering in d+Au is found to be smaller than that in p+Pb collisions, which may indicate smaller radial flow in lower energy d+Au collisions.
The Andromeda Galaxy recurrent nova M31N 2008-12a had been observed in eruption 10 times, including yearly eruptions from 2008 to 2014. With a measured recurrence period of Prec = 351+/-13 days (we ...believe the true value to be half of this) and a white dwarf very close to the Chandrasekhar limit, M31N 2008-12a has become the leading pre-explosion supernova type Ia progenitor candidate. Following multi-wavelength follow-up observations of the 2013 and 2014 eruptions, we initiated a campaign to ensure early detection of the predicted 2015 eruption, which triggered ambitious ground- and space-based follow-up programs. In this paper we present the 2015 detection, visible to near-infrared photometry and visible spectroscopy, and ultraviolet and X-ray observations from the Swift observatory. The LCOGT 2 m (Hawaii) discovered the 2015 eruption, estimated to have commenced at August 28.28 +/- 0.12 UT. The 2013-2015 eruptions are remarkably similar at all wavelengths. New early spectroscopic observations reveal short-lived emission from material with velocities approx. 13,000 km/s, possibly collimated outflows. Photometric and spectroscopic observations of the eruption provide strong evidence supporting a red giant donor. An apparently stochastic variability during the early supersoft X-ray phase was comparable in amplitude and duration to past eruptions, but the 2013 and 2015 eruptions show evidence of a brief flux dip during this phase. The multi-eruption Swift/XRT spectra show tentative evidence of high-ionization emission lines above a high-temperature continuum. Following Henze et al. (2015a), the updated recurrence period based on all known eruptions is Prec 174 +/- 10 days, and we expect the next eruption of M31N 2008-12a to occur around 2016 mid-September.
Collisionless shocks in counter-streaming plasmas, created by the high-power laser system Gekko XII HIPER, are investigated. The shock structure and density are measured by optical diagnostics such ...as shadowgraphy, interferometry, and streaked interferometry. The plasma density and temperature are estimated from self-emission measurements with visible light by streaked optical pyrometer and gated optical imager. Brightness temperatures are calculated considering the efficiency of the detectors, and electron temperatures are estimated.
In the medium-sized heliotron device Heliotron J, edge density fluctuation has been measured simultaneously with a high-speed video camera and a Langmuir probe. Poloidally propagating, parallel ...elongating filamentary structures with 20- to 30-kHz frequency and ~14-cm poloidal wavelength were observed by a camera. However, the radial position of this density mode is not well known with only camera data because the camera lens axis is perpendicular to the torus plane. To identify the span of this density mode, plasma-surface interaction (PSI) between the probe and the plasma has been analyzed. As the probe scanned into the plasma, enhanced brightness due to PSI was clearly observed in camera images. By comparing this enhanced brightness among different probe positions, the outmost margin of the 20- to 30-kHz mode observed by the camera has been identified to be within 10 mm outside from the last closed flux surface. This conclusion is supported by the spectrum of the probe data.
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