Summary
Drug‐induced liver injury (DILI) is often caused by innate and adaptive host immune responses. Characterization of inflammatory infiltrates in the liver may improve understanding of the ...underlying pathogenesis of DILI. This study aimed to enumerate and characterize leucocytes infiltrating liver tissue from subjects with acute DILI (n = 32) versus non‐DILI causes of acute liver injury (n = 25). Immunostains for CD11b/CD4 (Kupffer and T helper cells), CD3/CD20 (T and B cells) and CD8/CD56 T cytotoxic and natural killer (NK) cells were evaluated in biopsies from subjects with acute DILI, either immunoallergic (IAD) or autoimmune (AID) and idiopathic autoimmune (AIH) and viral hepatitis (VH) and correlated with clinical and pathological features. All biopsies showed numerous CD8+ T cells and macrophages. DILI cases had significantly fewer B lymphocytes than AIH and VH and significantly fewer NK cells than VH. Prominent plasma cells were unusual in IAD (three of 10 cases), but were associated strongly with AIH (eight of nine) and also observed in most with AID (six of nine). They were also found in five of 10 cases with VH. Liver biopsies from subjects with DILI were characterized by low counts of mature B cells and NK cells in portal triads in contrast to VH. NK cells were found only in cases of VH, whereas AIH and VH both showed higher counts of B cells than DILI. Plasma cells were associated most strongly with AIH and less so with AID, but were uncommon in IAD.
A concept for detecting the presence of special nuclear material (235U or 239Pu) concealed in intermodal cargo containers is described. It is based on interrogation with a pulsed beam of 7MeV ...neutrons that produce fission events and their β-delayed neutron emission or β-delayed high-energy γ radiation between beam pulses provide the detection signature. Fission product β-delayed γ-rays above 3MeV are nearly 10 times more abundant than β-delayed neutrons and are distinct from natural radioactivity and from nearly all of the induced activity in a normal cargo. Detector backgrounds and potential interferences with the fission signature radiation have been identified and quantified.
Maintenance of homeostatic immune surveillance and development of effective adaptive immune responses require precise regulation of spatial and temporal lymphocyte trafficking throughout the body to ...ensure pathogen clearance and memory generation. Dysregulation of lymphocyte activation and migration can lead to impaired adaptive immunity, recurrent infections, and an array of autoimmune diseases and chronic inflammation. Central to the recruitment of T cells, integrins are cell surface receptors that regulate adhesion, signal transduction, and migration. With 24 integrin pairs having been discovered to date, integrins are defined not only by the composition of the heterodimeric pair but by cell-type specific expression and their ligands. Furthermore, integrins not only facilitate adhesion but also induce intracellular signaling and have recently been uncovered as mechanosensors providing additional complexity to the signaling pathways. Among several leukocyte-specific integrins, lymphocyte function-associated antigen-1 (LFA-1 or α
β
; CD11a/CD18) is a key T cell integrin, which plays a major role in regulating T cell activation and migration. Adhesion to LFA-1's ligand, intracellular adhesion receptor 1 (ICAM-1) facilitates firm endothelium adhesion, prolonged contact with antigen-presenting cells, and binding to target cells for killing. While the downstream signaling pathways utilized by LFA-1 are vastly conserved they allow for highly disparate responses. Here, we summarize the roles of LFA-1 and ongoing studies to better understand its functions and regulation.
Because traditional electric power distribution systems have been designed assuming the primary substation is the sole source of power and short-circuit capacity, DR interconnection results in ...operating situations that do not occur in a conventional system. This paper discusses several system issues which may be encountered as DR penetrates into distribution systems. The voltage issues covered are the DR impact on system voltage, interaction of DR and capacitor operations, and interaction of DR and voltage regulator and LTC operations. Protection issues include fuse coordination, feeding faults after utility protection opens, impact of DR on interrupting rating of devices, faults on adjacent feeders, fault detection, ground source impacts, single phase interruption on three phase line, recloser coordination and conductor burndown. Loss of power grid is also discussed, including vulnerability and overvoltages due to islanding and coordination with reclosing. Also covered separately are system restoration and network issues.
Combinations of climatic zones and human activities (A and B denote types of conservation and exploitation activities respectively) well correspond to the nine water-sediment co-varying trends (S, D, ...and I represent stable, decrease and increase trends respectively) in the world’s large rivers distributed globally.
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Water and sediment transport from rivers to oceans is of primary importance in global geochemical cycle. Against the background of global change, this study examines the changes in water and sediment fluxes and their drivers for 4307 large rivers worldwide (basin area ≥1000 km2) based on the longest available records. Here we find that 24% of the world’s large rivers experienced significant changes in water flux and 40% in sediment flux, most notably declining trends in water and sediment fluxes in Asia’s large rivers and an increasing trend in suspended sediment concentrations in the Amazon River. In particular, nine binary patterns of changes in water-sediment fluxes are interpreted in terms of climate change and human impacts. The change of precipitation is found significantly correlated to the change of water flux in 71% of the world’s large rivers, while dam operation and irrigation rather control the change of sediment flux in intensively managed catchments. Globally, the annual water flux from rivers to sea of the recent years remained stable compared with the long-time average annual value, while the sediment flux has decreased by 20.8%.
A Monte Carlo model has been developed for interrogation of fissionable material embedded in thick cargos when high-energy β-delayed γ-rays are detected following neutron-induced fission. The model ...includes the principal structural components of the laboratory, the neutron source and collimator assembly in which it resides, the assembly that represents cargo of given characteristics, a target of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and large external plastic scintillators for photon detection. The ability of this model to reproduce experimental measurements was tested by comparing simulations with measurements of the number of induced fissions and the number of detected photons when the HEU target was irradiated with 14.25-MeV neutrons in the absence of any cargo and while embedded in assemblies of plywood and iron pipes. The simulations agreed with experimental measurements within a factor of about 2 for irradiation of the bare target and when the areal density of intervening cargo was 33
g
cm
−2 (wood) and 61
g
cm
−2 (steel pipes). This suggests that the model can permit exploration of a large range in parameter space with reasonable fidelity.
Hemipterans as plant pathogens Kaloshian, I; Walling, L.L
Annual review of phytopathology,
01/2005, Letnik:
43, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Integration of the tools of genetics, genomics, and biochemistry has provided new approaches for identifying genes responding to herbivory. As a result, a picture of the complexity of plant-defense ...signaling to different herbivore feeding guilds is emerging. Plant responses to hemipteran insects have substantial overlap with responses mounted against microbial pathogens, as seen in changes in RNA profiles and emission of volatiles. Responses to known defense signals and characterization of the signaling pathways controlled by the first cloned insect R gene (Mi-1) indicate that perception and signal transduction leading to resistance may be similar to plant-pathogen interactions. Additionally, novel signaling pathways are emerging as important components of plant defense to insects. The availability of new tools and approaches will further enhance our understanding of the nature of defense in plant-hemipteran interactions.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Hemipteran and dipteran insects have behavioral,cellular and chemical strategies for evading or coping with the host plant defenses making these insects particularly destructive pests worldwide. A ...critical component of a host plant's defense to herbivory is innate immunity. Here we review the status of our understanding of the receptors that contribute to perception of hemipteran and dipteran pests and highlight the gaps in our knowledge in these early events in immune signaling. We also highlight recent advances in identification of the effectors that activate pattern-triggered immunity and those involved in effector-triggered immunity.
Sediment fingerprinting techniques provide a means of assembling valuable reliable information on the principal sources of sediment problems at catchment scale. However, there is a need to refine ...existing approaches to take account of a variety of sources of uncertainty and to incorporate prior information. To address this need, a modified mass balance model incorporating a Monte Carlo approach for representing the uncertainty surrounding source and sediment sampling, as well as weightings to take account of the within-source variability and discriminatory power of individual tracer properties and prior information on bank erosion, was used to apportion recent sediment sources in sub-catchments of the Somerset Levels, south west UK. Sensitivity tests confirmed that the precision of source apportionment was improved by incorporating the weightings and prior information into the mixing model. Estimates of the overall mean contributions from individual source types, bounded by 95% confidence limits, were assessed to be 42
±
2% (pasture topsoils), 22
±
2% (cultivated topsoils), 22
±
1% (channel banks/subsurface sources), 12
±
2% (damaged road verges) and 2
±
1% (STWs). Respective estimates of net sediment delivery to watercourses, provided by integrating the source ascription results with estimated sediment yield ranges and sub-catchment or land use areas, ranged between 33–829
kg
ha
−
1
yr
−
1
, 30–1995
kg
ha
−
1
yr
−
1
, 2–315
kg
ha
−
1
yr
−
1
, 0–217
kg
ha
−
1
yr
−
1
, and 0–28
kg
ha
−
1
yr
−
1
. Sediment fingerprinting should always include uncertainty analysis but on the understanding that the latter will be conditional on the assumptions used.