88,524 research outputs found
Intercellular Calcium Signaling Induced by ATP Potentiates Macrophage Phagocytosis
No full textSummary: Extracellular ATP is a signaling molecule exploited by the immune cells for both autocrine regulation and paracrine communication. By performing live calcium imaging experiments, we show that triggered mouse macrophages are able to propagate calcium signals to resting bystander cells by releasing ATP. ATP-based intercellular communication is mediated by P2X4 and P2X7 receptors and is a feature of pro-inflammatory macrophages. In terms of functional significance, ATP signaling is required for efficient phagocytosis of pathogen-derived molecules and apoptotic cells and may represent a target for macrophage regulation by CD39-expressing cells. These results highlight a cell-to-cell communication mechanism tuning innate immunity. : Exchange of information is critical for an efficient immune response. Here, Zumerle et al. show that macrophages exploit ATP release as a paracrine communication mechanism to propagate calcium signals to neighboring cells. Signal propagation relies on P2X4 and P2X7 receptors and sustains macrophage phagocytosis. Keywords: macrophage, adenosine triphosphate, calcium, phagocytosis, P2X receptor
The bladder epicheck test as a non-invasive tool based on the identification of DNA methylation in bladder cancer cells in the urine: A review of published evidence
No full textRecently, there has been a great effort to develop tests based on non-invasive urinary biomarkers (NMIBCs). These tests are based on the fact that NMIBCs are heterogeneous at the molecular level and can be divided into different molecular groups useful to predict prognosis and response to treatment. The assessment of epigenetic alterations, such as DNA methylation, represents a promising cancer biomarker. DNA methylation is an epigenetic modification that affects gene expression without modifying the DNA sequence. Several studies have highlighted the presence of methylated loci in the context of bladder cancer, indicating its potential application as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker. One of the novel assays based on a DNA methylation profile, the Bladder EpiCheck, analyzes DNA from spontaneous urine, detecting disease-specific DNA methylation patterns in bladder cancer patients. This test, due to its non-invasive nature and highly promising performance could, in future, become an invaluable tool in the follow-up of bladder cancer patients. Potential new applications could include diagnosis and surveillance of upper-tract disease, for the replacement of invasive testing and ureteroscopy
Variations on the Author
No full text“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Reliability Of Functional Connectivity Measures In Resting-State Test-Retest FMRI Data
No full textThe statistical link between spontaneous fluctuations occurring in different pans of the brain can provide insights into its functional organization. Here, we used high-quality resting-state IMRI (rs-fMRI) data acquired with a test-retest paradigm to assess the reliability of several functional connectivity (IC) metrics, some of which rarely used in the current literature. After applying time/frequency methods to generate EC matrices, we restricted our focus on individual edges through different statistical measures, including but not limited to the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). We found that full correlation and magnitude square coherence yielded more reproducible measurements than the other metrics, as revealed by ICC values. These results have important implications when choosing metrics for quantifying FC in rs-fMRI studies, adding novel information to the current panorama of information on the test-retest reliability topic
[Newspaper Clipping: Author Claims Evidence of Second JFK Assassin #1]
No full textNewspaper article titled "Author Claims Evidence of Second JFK Assassin." The article states that author Richard J. Whalen concluded "that there is circumstantial evidence to support the theory of a second assassin in the shooting of President John F. Kennedy.
Procedural music generation for videogames conditioned through video emotion recognition
No full textVideogames have consistently become one of the main forms of entertainment in recent years. Being a type of product that comprises several technological and artistical aspects, such as computer graphics, video and audio design, music composition, etc., a significant amount of research effort from various scientific fields has been devoted towards videogame-related problems. More recently, open-world videogames, characterized by nonlinear storylines and multiple gameplay scenarios and possibilities, have become increasingly popular. In such games, the music has to consider an enormous amount of events and variations, consequently it is extremely hard for human composers to write by themselves the score for every potential situation. Therefore, following the improvements in deep learning techniques, we propose a method for procedural music generation for videogames conditioned on emotions, especially suitable to open-world games. Specifically, we propose a pipeline where emotions, as represented on the valence-arousal plane, are extracted from gameplay videos, following the assumption that these values have a correspondence with the ones felt by the player. We then use the emotion-related information to condition a music transformer architecture in order to generate MIDI tracks, whose emotional content follows that of the game. We perform a perceptual experiment with human players in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique and to further investigate the applicability of this procedure to the videogame music generation research problem
Also By The Same Author: AKTiveAuthor, a Citation Graph Approach to Name Disambiguation
No full textThe desire for definitive data and the semantic web drive for inference over heterogeneous data sources requires co-reference resolution to be performed on those data. In particular, name disambiguation is required to allow accurate publication lists, citation counts and impact measures to be determined. This paper describes a graph-based approach to author disambiguation on large-scale citation networks. Using self-citation, co-authorship and document source analyses, AKTiveAuthor clusters papers, achieving precision of 0.997 and recall of 0.818 over a test group of eight surname clusters
John F. Kennedy telegram to Roosevelt
No full textJersey Homesteads (later the Borough of Roosevelt) was established in the 1930s as an agro-industrial cooperative community. It was established specifically for urban Jewish garment workers, many of whom had emigrated from Europe. President John F. Kennedy sent a telegram to the citizens of Roosevelt, New Jersey, apologizing for not being able to attend the memorial dedication in honor of former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (Jersey Homesteads became Roosevelt in 1945 in honor of the president.) President Kennedy expressed his gratitude to the people of Roosevelt for constructing the memorial, and commented that it will serve as a constant reminder of Roosevelt's good works
Logarithmic variance profiles and the corresponding f-1 spectra of temperature fluctuations in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection
No full textWe report experimental results for the temperature variance 2(z) and the corresponding frequency spectra P(f) in turbulent Rayleigh-Bénard convection (RBC) in a cylindrical sample of aspect ratioT= D/L = 1:00 (D = 1:12 m is the diameter and L = 1:12 m the height). The measurements were conducted in the Rayleigh-number range 1011 < Ra < 1:35 1014 and Pr ' 0:8. For Ra = 1:35x1014, 2(z) could be described well by a logarithmic dependence on the vertical position z in a range of z 1 < z < z 2 with z 1 ' 70 and z 2 = 0:1L. Here L=(2Nu) is the thickness of a thin thermal sublayer adjacent to the horizontal plate where the heat flux (denoted by the Nusselt number Nu) is carried mostly by thermal diffusion. In the log layer, we found that the temperature spectra had a significant frequency range over which P(f) f with close to 1. As Ra decreased, increased so that the log layer became thinner. At Ra = 2:05 1011, z 2 < z 1 and therefore there was no range for a log layer. Correspondingly, the temperature spectrum near the horizontal plate did not have the f1 scaling form either
Maine author Franklin F. Gould recalls his first glimpse of the outside world
No full textMaine author Franklin F. Gould recalls his first glimpse of the outside world as he relates how, as a young farm boy in the late 1800\u27s, he drove his father\u27s horses on an errand to an icebound river
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