The accumulation of eosinophils is a common feature of allergic airway inflammation and correlates with disease severity. In an ovalbumin (OVA)-induced murine model of allergic lung disease, CBA/Ca ...mice develop much lower levels of lung eosinophilia, lung oedema, mucus hypersecretion and airways obstruction than BALB/c and C57BL/6 strains. In this study these strains have been examined to identify mechanisms that control the recruitment and survival of eosinophils in the allergic lung. Following immunization with OVA, CBA/Ca mice developed a robust systemic allergic response, with high levels of total and OVA-specific IgE and increases in peripheral blood eosinophils. Lung eotaxin-1 levels and expression of CD18 on eosinophils recovered by bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) were least pronounced in CBA/Ca mice, whereas mRNA for L-selectin was highest in eosinophils from C57BL/6 mice. Apoptosis of BAL eosinophils
ex vivo was most pronounced in the CBA/Ca strain. BALB/c mice expressed the highest levels of the eosinophil growth and survival factor interleukin (IL)-5 in the lungs and BAL eosinophils from these animals expressed more of the anti-apoptotic proteins Bcl-x
L and Bcl-2 than cells from the other strains. A combination of lower levels of recruitment and rapid apoptosis may therefore limit the accumulation of eosinophils and pathology in the lungs of CBA/Ca mice. In addition, although the level of pathology that developed in C57BL/6 and BALB/c mice was similar, some of the underlying mechanisms are likely to differ.
This question - 'What are the characteristics of a professional teacher educator?' - was simply sent out as a survey to all teacher educators who engage with the Teacher Education Advancement Network ...(TEAN). The aim was to give respondents the opportunity to comment from their own perspectives, whatever they were, thus adding their voices to our search for the characteristics of professional teacher educators. The resulting data were collated and refined by the authors of this paper who then worked together to write the think piece. As a think piece it sets out to provoke a response from its readers and hopes that readers will 'think' and use it to share in dialogue with colleagues and continue to add their voices to this debate.
Cannabinoids induce a host of perceptual alterations and cognitive deficits in humans. However, the neural correlates of these deficits have remained elusive. The current study examined the acute, ...dose-related effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol ( Delta super(9)-THC) on psychophysiological indices of information processing in humans. Healthy subjects (n=26) completed three test days during which they received intravenous Delta super(9)-THC (placebo, 0.015 and 0.03 mg/kg) in a within-subject, double-blind, randomized, cross-over, and counterbalanced design. Psychophysiological data (electroencephalography) were collected before and after drug administration while subjects engaged in an event-related potential (ERP) task known to be a valid index of attention and cognition (a three-stimulus auditory 'oddball' P300 task). Delta super(9)-THC dose-dependently reduced the amplitude of both the target P300b and the novelty P300a. Delta super(9)-THC did not have any effect on the latency of either the P300a or P300b, or on early sensory-evoked ERP components preceding the P300 (the N100). Concomitantly, Delta super(9)-THC induced psychotomimetic effects, perceptual alterations, and subjective 'high' in a dose-dependent manner. Delta super(9)-THC -induced reductions in P3b amplitude correlated with Delta super(9)-THC-induced perceptual alterations. Lastly, exploratory analyses examining cannabis use status showed that whereas recent cannabis users had blunted behavioral effects to Delta super(9)-THC, there were no dose-related effects of Delta super(9)-THC on P300a/b amplitude between cannabis-free and recent cannabis users. Overall, these data suggest that at doses that produce behavioral and subjective effects consistent with the known properties of cannabis, Delta super(9)-THC reduced P300a and P300b amplitudes without altering the latency of these ERPs. Cannabinoid agonists may therefore disrupt cortical processes responsible for context updating and the automatic orientation of attention, while leaving processing speed and earlier sensory ERP components intact. Collectively, the findings suggest that CB1R systems modulate top-down and bottom-up processing.
Cannabinoids induce a host of perceptual alterations and cognitive deficits in humans. However, the neural correlates of these deficits have remained elusive. The current study examined the acute, ...dose-related effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ-THC) on psychophysiological indices of information processing in humans. Healthy subjects (n=26) completed three test days during which they received intravenous Δ-THC (placebo, 0.015 and 0.03mg/kg) in a within-subject, double-blind, randomized, cross-over, and counterbalanced design. Psychophysiological data (electroencephalography) were collected before and after drug administration while subjects engaged in an event-related potential (ERP) task known to be a valid index of attention and cognition (a three-stimulus auditory 'oddball' P300 task). Δ-THC dose-dependently reduced the amplitude of both the target P300b and the novelty P300a. Δ-THC did not have any effect on the latency of either the P300a or P300b, or on early sensory-evoked ERP components preceding the P300 (the N100). Concomitantly, Δ-THC induced psychotomimetic effects, perceptual alterations, and subjective 'high' in a dose-dependent manner. Δ-THC -induced reductions in P3b amplitude correlated with Δ-THC-induced perceptual alterations. Lastly, exploratory analyses examining cannabis use status showed that whereas recent cannabis users had blunted behavioral effects to Δ(9)-THC, there were no dose-related effects of Δ-THC on P300a/b amplitude between cannabis-free and recent cannabis users. Overall, these data suggest that at doses that produce behavioral and subjective effects consistent with the known properties of cannabis, Δ-THC reduced P300a and P300b amplitudes without altering the latency of these ERPs. Cannabinoid agonists may therefore disrupt cortical processes responsible for context updating and the automatic orientation of attention, while leaving processing speed and earlier sensory ERP components intact. Collectively, the findings suggest that CB1R systems modulate top-down and bottom-up processing.
Best Free Reference Websites Rosener, Ashley; Victor, Paul
Reference and user services quarterly,
09/2016, Letnik:
56, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Welcome to the eighteenth annual “Best Free Reference Websites” list. It is hard to believe that this project has been around since the late 1990s. In 1998, the Machine-Assisted Reference Section ...(MARS) of RUSA appointed an ad hoc task force to develop a method of recognizing outstanding reference websites. The task force became a formal committee at the 2001 ALA Annual Conference, and is now named the ETS Best Free Reference Websites Committee.
Welcome to the seventeenth annual Best Free Reference Web sites list. It is hard to believe that this project has been around since the late 1990's. In 1998, the Machine-Assisted Reference Section ...(MARS) of RUSA (now ETS, the Emerging Technologies Section) appointed an ad hoc task force to develop a method of recognizing outstanding reference Web sites. As in the past, the 2015 list of winning sites will appear in this year's Fall issue of RUSQ. A link to this year's list of winners can also be found on the ETS webpage along with a link to the "Best Free Reference Web sites Combined Index," which provides, in alphabetical order, all entries from the current and previous sixteen lists. Succinct and insightful annotations for the Best Free Reference Web sites List entries were written by committee members in the years the particular Web sites were selected for the lists.
Emerging evidence suggests cancer stem cells (CSCs) may initiate new tumors in anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC), one of the most aggressive solid tumors in humans. However, the involvement of CSCs ...in human tumorigenesis has not been previously studied in authenticated ATC cell lines. Here we demonstrate a functional role of CSCs in four new validated human ATC cell lines (THJ-11T, THJ-16T, THJ-21T and THJ-29T). We identified and enriched CSCs using a spheroid-forming assay. About 3 to 9% of cells from four ATC cell lines formed thyrospheres. The thyrospheres expressed the stem cell markers NANOG and Oct4 and possessed the ability to self-renew. Injection of these thyrospheres into the thyroids of NOD/SCID Il2rg-/- mice resulted in the formation of metastatic tumors that recapitulated the clinical features of human ATC. To our knowledge, this is the first in vivo characterization of thyroid CSCs using validated human ATC cell lines. The availability of disease-specific thyrospheres and our orthotopic tumor models will enable the elucidation of disease mechanisms and the environmental niche of CSCs. They may also be useful for preclinical therapeutic screening and for monitoring the effects of biological therapies on ATC.
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