196,013 research outputs found

    Sterilizing immunity in the lung relies on targeting fungal apoptosis-like programmed cell death

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    Survivin' neutrophil surveillance Humans constantly inhale fungal spores. Why don't we suffer more invasive infections from ubiquitous fungal molds such as Aspergillus fumigatus ? Working in mice, Shlezinger et al. found that neutrophils phagocytosed germinating fungal spores deep in the lungs (see the Perspective by Wiesner and Klein). Once engulfed, the fungal cells underwent programmed cell death, likely induced by phagocyte NADPH oxidase. Fungal strains engineered to overexpress a fungal survivin homolog resisted cell death by inhibiting caspase-3 and -7. When a Survivin antagonist was applied, more fungal cells died. These findings may lead to therapies for immunocompromised patients threatened by invasive fungal lung infections. Science , this issue p. 1037 ; see also p. 973 </jats:p

    Fedrec: Federated Learning of Universal Receivers over Fading Channels

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    Wireless communications is often subject to channel fading. Various statistical models have been proposed to capture the inherent randomness in fading, and conventional model-based receiver designs rely on accurate knowledge of this underlying distribution, which, in practice, may be complex and intractable. In this work, we propose a neural network-based symbol detection technique for down-link fading channels, which is based on the maximum a-posteriori probability (MAP) detector. To enable training on a diverse ensemble of fading realizations, we propose a federated training scheme, in which multiple users collaborate to jointly learn a universal data-driven detector, hence the name FedRec. The performance of the resulting receiver is shown to approach the MAP performance in diverse channel conditions without requiring knowledge of the fading statistics, while inducing a substantially reduced communication overhead in its training procedure compared to centralized training

    Dectin-1/CARD9 induction of the TFEB and TFE3 gene network is dispensable for phagocyte anti-Aspergillus activity in the lung

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    : Myeloid phagocytes of the respiratory immune system, such as neutrophils, monocytes, and alveolar macrophages, are essential for immunity to Aspergillus fumigatus, the most common etiologic agent of mold pneumonia worldwide. Following the engulfment of A. fumigatus conidia, fusion of the phagosome with the lysosome is a critical process for killing conidia. TFEB and TFE3 are transcription factors that regulate lysosomal biogenesis under stress and are activated by inflammatory stimuli in macrophages, but it is unknown whether TFEB and TFE3 contribute to anti-Aspergillus immunity during infection. We found that lung neutrophils express TFEB and TFE3, and their target genes were upregulated during A. fumigatus lung infection. In addition, A. fumigatus infection induced nuclear accumulation of TFEB and TFE3 in macrophages in a process regulated by Dectin-1 and CARD9. Genetic deletion of Tfeb and Tfe3 impaired macrophage killing of A. fumigatus conidia. However, in a murine immune-competent Aspergillus infection model with genetic deficiency of Tfeb and Tfe3 in hematopoietic cells, we surprisingly found that lung myeloid phagocytes had no defects in conidial phagocytosis or killing. Loss of TFEB and TFE3 did not impact murine survival or clearance of A. fumigatus from the lungs. Our findings indicate that myeloid phagocytes activate TFEB and TFE3 in response to A. fumigatus, and while this pathway promotes macrophage fungicidal activity in vitro, genetic loss can be functionally compensated in the lung, resulting in no measurable defect in fungal control and host survival

    Dr. Duane M. Jackson, Morehouse College, July 2011

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    This video is a conversation with Dr. Duane M. Jackson. Dr. Jackson talks about his paper, "Recall and the Serial Position Effect: The Role of Primacy and Recency on Accounting Students' Performance." Jackie Daniel, AUC Woodruff Library, is the interviewer

    "Reflections on the subject of Emigration from Europe with a view to Settlement in the United States" By M. Carey.

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    "Reflections on the subject of Emigration from Europe with a view to Settlement in the United States: containing bried sketches of the moral and political character of those states. By M. Carey, member of the American philosophical, and of the American Antiquarian Society, and author of The Olive Branch, Cindiciae Hibernicae, essays on banking, on political economy, and on internal improvement. To which are now added the English editor's comments on the subject; together with Important Advice to Emigrants, and Cautions Against Impositions Practiced in the Outports

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods

    Dr. Glendon Swarthout

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    Hosted by Roger M. Busfield, MSU Assistant Professor of Speech and Theater, Meet the Author is designed to introduce a general audience to a contemporary author and their work through in-depth interviews. This episode features a conversation between Dr. Glendon Swarthout, prolific author and English professor at MSU, and assistant professors Sam S. Baskett and Theodore B. Strandness

    Simulation of thermal plant optimization and hydraulic aspects of thermal distribution loops for large campuses

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    Following an introduction, the author describes Texas A&M University and its utilities system. After that, the author presents how to construct simulation models for chilled water and heating hot water distribution systems. The simulation model was used in a $2.3 million Ross Street chilled water pipe replacement project at Texas A&M University. A second project conducted at the University of Texas at San Antonio was used as an example to demonstrate how to identify and design an optimal distribution system by using a simulation model. The author found that the minor losses of these closed loop thermal distribution systems are significantly higher than potable water distribution systems. In the second part of the report, the author presents the latest development of software called the Plant Optimization Program, which can simulate cogeneration plant operation, estimate its operation cost and provide optimized operation suggestions. The author also developed detailed simulation models for a gas turbine and heat recovery steam generator and identified significant potential savings. Finally, the author also used a steam turbine as an example to present a multi-regression method on constructing simulation models by using basic statistics and optimization algorithms. This report presents a survey of the author??s working experience at the Energy Systems Laboratory (ESL) at Texas A&M University during the period of January 2002 through March 2004. The purpose of the above work was to allow the author to become familiar with the practice of engineering. The result is that the author knows how to complete a project from start to finish and understands how both technical and nontechnical aspects of a project need to be considered in order to ensure a quality deliverable and bring a project to successful completion. This report concludes that the objectives of the internship were successfully accomplished and that the requirements for the degree of Degree of Engineering have been satisfied

    Beam Focusing for Near-Field Multiuser MIMO Communications

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    Large antenna arrays and high-frequency bands are two key features of future wireless communication systems. The combination of large-scale antennas with high transmission frequencies often results in the communicating devices operating in the near-field (Fresnel) region. In this paper, we study the potential of beam focusing, feasible in near-field operation, in facilitating high-rate multi-user downlink multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. As the ability to achieve beam focusing is dictated by the transmit antenna, we study near-field signalling considering different antenna structures, including fully-digital architectures, hybrid phase shifter-based precoders, and the emerging dynamic metasurface antenna (DMA) architecture for massive MIMO arrays. We first provide a mathematical model to characterize near-field wireless channels as well as the transmission pattern for the considered antenna architectures. Then, we formulate the beam focusing problem for the goal of maximizing the achievable sum-rate in multi-user networks. We propose efficient solutions based on the sum-rate maximization task for fully-digital, (phase shifters based-) hybrid and DMA architectures. Simulation results show the feasibility of the proposed beam focusing scheme for both single- and multi-user scenarios. In particular, the designed focused beams provide a new degree of freedom to mitigate interference in both angle and distance domains, which is not achievable using conventional far-field beam steering, allowing reliable communications for uses even residing at the same angular direction

    Near-Field Wireless Power Transfer for 6G Internet of Everything Mobile Networks: Opportunities and Challenges

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    Radiating wireless power transfer (WPT) brings forth the possibility to cost-efficiently charge wireless devices without requiring a wiring infrastructure. As such, it is expected to play a key role in the deployment of limited-battery communicating devices, as part of the 6G-enabled Internet of Everything (IoE) vision. To date, radiating WPT technologies are mainly studied and designed assuming that the devices are located in the far-field region of the power radiating antenna, resulting in relatively low energy transfer efficiency. However, with the transition of 6G systems to mmWave frequencies combined with the use of large-scale antennas, future WPT devices are likely to operate in the radiating near-field (Fresnel) region. In this article, we provide an overview of the opportunities and challenges that arise from radiating near-field WPT. In particular, we discuss the possibility to realize beam focusing in near-field radiating conditions, and highlight its possible implications for WPT in future IoE networks. Furthermore, we overview some of the design challenges and research directions that arise from this emerging paradigm, including its simultaneous operation with wireless communications, radiating waveform considerations, hardware aspects, and operation with typical antenna architectures
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