Étude du mécanisme par lequel la thérapie à l'IL7 induit l'expansion homéostatique des lymphocytes T CD4+

Dans les cas de lymphopénie, les lymphocytes T résiduels prolifèrent exagérément dans un phénomène appelé «expansion homéostatique périphérique» (HPE), qui est efficace pour la régénération des T CD8+, mais inefficace pour les T CD4+. L’interleukine-7 (IL7) est une cytokine homéostatique utilisée afin d’augmenter les comptes lymphocytaires T des patients lymphopéniques. Toutefois, la raison de l’expansion préférentielle des lymphocytes T CD8+ par l’IL7 demeure toujours inconnue. Nous montrons que cette expansion est due au fait que l’IL7 induit une prolifération efficace des T CD8+ périphériques (CD8+PERI) ainsi que des émigrants thymiques CD8+ (CD8+RTEs). Par contre, l’effet prolifératif de l’IL7 est restreint presqu’uniquement aux CD4+RTEs même si les CD4+PERI survivent mieux que les CD4+RTEs. De plus faibles doses d’IL7 sont nécessaires aux CD4+RTEs afin de phosphoryler STAT5 ou de proliférer comparativement aux CD4+PERI et nous démontrons que les contacts TCR/CMHII sont nécessaires à la prolifération induite par l’IL7 des CD4+RTEs en périphérie. De fait, augmenter au Flt3 ligand le nombre de cellules dendritiques périphériques d’une souris donneuse, avant de transférer ses TPERI dans des souris receveuses traitées à l’IL7 induit une prolifération significative des CD4+PERI. Nos résultats indiquent donc que l’abondance des contacts TCR/CMHII reçus dans le thymus semble contrôler la sensibilité à l’IL7 des CD4+RTEs. Finalement, l’observation que les CD8+PERI et CD8+RTEs prolifèrent pareillement pendant la thérapie à l’IL7, alors que la prolifération des T CD4+ est largement restreinte aux RTEs expliquerait pourquoi, dans les cas de lymphopénie, la régénération des T CD4+ est aussi dépendante de la thymopoïèse.

Biochemical Genetics Of Selected Commercially Important Penaeid Prawns

‘Biochemical genetics of selected commercially important penaeid prawns‘ dloted was carried out by collecting samples from different important fishing ceatres of India and the practical work was carried out in the Research Centre of CMFRI laboratories attached with those places. On the whole, in crustacea little importance has been given so far in finding out tin genetic characteristics of different species, genetic variation within and between species and ontogenetic variations in lobsters, prawns and other crustaceans. Prawn is caunercially important group where very little attention had been given so far to find out the racial divergence which may exist in cufferent species. with the increased foreign exchange earning and consequent indiscriminate over exploitation of existing resources of prawns resulting in depletion of the marine rescurces, alternative ways and augmenting production has become essential. In this connection genetic manipulation of the broodstock will surely bring about the heterogenous characters to multiply production. In order to understand racial fragmentation of sane of the coumercially important prawns such as Pengeus ggdicus and Parggenagsis sgliferg the isozyme studies were carried out. Qatogenetic variation of g. indicus showed stage specific electrophoretic variation. Inter species variation studies was carried out for the closely aligned Penaeus species

Evaluation of the agricultural vocational training programmes conducted by the Krishi Vigyan Kendras (Farm Science Centres) in Indian Punjab

Krishin Vigyan Kendras-KVKs (Farm Science Centres) have been established by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research in 569 districts. The trust areas of KVKs are refinement and demonstration of technologies, and training of farmers and extension functionaries. Imparting vocational trainings in agriculture and allied fields for the rural youth is one of its mandates. The study was undertaken to do a formative and summative (outcome and impact) evaluation of the beekeeping and mushroom growing vocational training programmes in the Indian state of Punjab. One-group pre and post evaluation design was employed for conducting a formative and outcome evaluation. The knowledge tests were administered to 35 beekeeping and 25 mushroom cultivation trainees, before and after the training programmes organized in 2004. The trainees significantly gained in knowledge. A separate sample of 640 trainees, trained prior to 2004, was selected for finding the adoption status. Out of 640, a sample of 200 was selected by proportionate sampling technique out of three categories, namely: non-adopters, discontinued-adopters and continued-adopters for evaluating the long-term impact of these training programmes. Ex-post-facto one-shot case study design was applied for this impact analysis. The vocational training programmes have resulted in continued-adoption of beekeeping and mushroom cultivation enterprises by 20% and 51% trained farmers, respectively. Age and trainee occupation had significant influence on the adoption decision of beekeeping vocation, whereas education and family income significantly affected the adoption decision of mushroom cultivation. The continued adopters of beekeeping and mushroom growing had increased their family income by 49% and 24%, respectively. These training programmes are augmenting the dwindling farm income of the farmers in Indian Punjab.

COMP3016 Web Technology - Strand 3 "History" Lecture 1

Lecture 1: The Pioneers and History of Hypertext (pre-WWW) Contains Powerpoint Lecture slides and Hypertext Research Papers: Bush: As We may Think; Engelbart: NLS and A Framework for Augmenting Human Intelligence; Nelson: Xanalogical Structure; Conklin: A Survey of Hypertext; Halasz 1987: Reflections on NoteCards: Seven Issues for the Next Generation of Hypermedia Systems; Berners-Lee 1994 The World-Wide Web.

Labour market, international trade, and unemployment in a less developed country

This paper constructs a trade general equilibrium model for a less developed country with three sectors. One is the informal and un-tradable sector characterized by áexible wages, while the other two sectors are tradable, export and import sectors. The model imposes a binding minimum wage over the unskilled labour and e¢ cient wage distortions on the skilled labour. Comparative statics is driven to analyze the e§ects on the labour market as consequence of opening the economy, raising the minimum wage and the introduction of an augmenting productivity in the export sector.

Internal structure of chlorosomes from brown-colored Chlorobium species and the role of carotenoids in their assembly

Chlorosomes are the main light harvesting complexes of green photosynthetic bacteria. Recently, a lamellar model was proposed for the arrangement of pigment aggregates in Chlorobium tepidum chlorosomes, which contain bacteriochlorophyll (BChl) c as the main pigment. Here we demonstrate that the lamellar organization is also found in chlorosomes from two brown-colored species (Chl. phaeovibrioides and Chl. phaeobacteroides) containing BChl e as the main pigment. This suggests that the lamellar model is universal among green sulfur bacteria. In contrast to green-colored Chl. tepidum, chlorosomes from the brown-colored species often contain domains of lamellar aggregates that may help them to survive in extremely low light conditions. We suggest that carotenoids are localized between the lamellar planes and drive lamellar assembly by augmenting hydrophobic interactions. A model for chlorosome assembly, which accounts for the role of carotenoids and secondary BChl homologs, is presented

Mobile Incubation in Waved Albatross (Phoebastria irrorata): Associated Hatching Failure and Artificial Mitigation

Waved albatrosses often relocate their eggs during incubation by placing the egg between the tarsi and shuffling forward. This behavior frequently results in eggs becoming lodged between rocks, accounting for at least 10%, and perhaps as much as 80%, of breeding failures. Because albatross populations worldwide are currently threatened, artificial means of augmenting reproductive success may be necessary to mitigate losses caused by anthropogenic effects. We characterize the frequency and extent of egg movement; test several hypotheses related to microhabitat, timing, and incubation location to explain the behavior; and investigate the utility of repositioning lodged eggs in a location in which breeding birds might resume incubation. Egg rescue increased both the likelihood of continued incubation as well as the hatching rate in our experiment, and provides an efficient, low-cost management option for this species.

Vision 2020 - A whole life-cycle information management system for built environments

A whole life-cycle information management vision is proposed, the organizational requirements for the realization of the scenario is investigated. Preliminary interviews with construction professionals are reported. Discontinuities at information transfer throughout life-cycle of built environments are resulting from lack of coordination and multiple data collection/storage practices. A more coherent history of these activities can improve the work practices of various teams by augmenting decision making processes and creating organizational learning opportunities. Therefore, there is a need for unifying these fragmented bits of data to create a meaningful, semantically rich and standardized information repository for built environment. The proposed vision utilizes embedded technologies and distributed building information models. Two diverse construction project types (large one-off design, small repetitive design) are investigated for the applicability of the vision. A functional prototype software/hardware system for demonstrating the practical use of this vision is developed and discussed. Plans for case-studies for validating the proposed model at a large PFI hospital and housing association projects are discussed.

In vitro study on gas generation and prebiotic effects of some carbohydrates and their mixtures

This study was carried out to examine the effect or inulin (IN), fructooligosaccharide (FOS), polydextrose (POL) and isomaltooligosaccharides (ISO), alone and in combination, on gas production, gas composition and prebiotic effects. Static batch culture fermentation was performed with faecal samples from three healthy volunteers to study the volume and composition of gas generated and changes in bacterial populations. Four carbohydrates alone or mixed with one another (50:50) were examined. Prebiotic index (PI) was calculated and used to compare the prebiotic effect. The high amount of gas produced by IN was reduced by mixing it with FOS. No reduction in gas generation was observed when POL and ISO mixed with other substrates. It was found that the mixture of IN and FOS was effective in reducing the amount of gas produced while augmenting or maintaining their potential to Support the growth of bifidobacteria in Faecal batch culture as the highest PI was achieved with FOS alone and a mixture of FOS and IN. It was also found that high volume of gas was generated in presence of POL and ISO and they had lower prebiotic effect. The results of this study imply that a Mixture of prebiotics could prove effective in reducing the amount of gas generated by the gut microflora. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Immersive open surgery simulation

Realistic medical simulation has great potential for augmenting or complimenting traditional medical training or surgery planning, and Virtual Reality (VR) is a key enabling technology for delivering this goal. Although, medical simulators are now widely used in medical institutions, the majority of them are still reliant on desktop monitor displays, and many are restricted in their modelling capability to minimally invasive or endoscopic surgery scenarios. Whilst useful, such models lack the realism and interaction of the operating theatre. In this paper, we describe how we are advancing the technology by simulating open surgery procedures in an Immersive Projection Display CAVE environment thereby enabling medical practitioners to interact with their virtual patients in a more realistic manner.

Vertex splitting and connectivity augmentation in hypergraphs

We consider problems of splitting and connectivity augmentation in hypergraphs. In a hypergraph G = (V +s, E), to split two edges su, sv, is to replace them with a single edge uv. We are interested in doing this in such a way as to preserve a defined level of connectivity in V . The splitting technique is often used as a way of adding new edges into a graph or hypergraph, so as to augment the connectivity to some prescribed level. We begin by providing a short history of work done in this area. Then several preliminary results are given in a general form so that they may be used to tackle several problems. We then analyse the hypergraphs G = (V + s, E) for which there is no split preserving the local-edge-connectivity present in V. We provide two structural theorems, one of which implies a slight extension to Mader’s classical splitting theorem. We also provide a characterisation of the hypergraphs for which there is no such “good” split and a splitting result concerned with a specialisation of the local-connectivity function. We then use our splitting results to provide an upper bound on the smallest number of size-two edges we must add to any given hypergraph to ensure that in the resulting hypergraph we have λ(x, y) ≥ r(x, y) for all x, y in V, where r is an integer valued, symmetric requirement function on V*V. This is the so called “local-edge-connectivity augmentation problem” for hypergraphs. We also provide an extension to a Theorem of Szigeti, about augmenting to satisfy a requirement r, but using hyperedges. Next, in a result born of collaborative work with Zoltán Király from Budapest, we show that the local-connectivity augmentation problem is NP-complete for hypergraphs. Lastly we concern ourselves with an augmentation problem that includes a locational constraint. The premise is that we are given a hypergraph H = (V,E) with a bipartition P = {P1, P2} of V and asked to augment it with size-two edges, so that the result is k-edge-connected, and has no new edge contained in some P(i). We consider the splitting technique and describe the obstacles that prevent us forming “good” splits. From this we deduce results about which hypergraphs have a complete Pk-split. This leads to a minimax result on the optimal number of edges required and a polynomial algorithm to provide an optimal augmentation.

View-based modelling of human visual navigation errors

View-based and Cartesian representations provide rival accounts of visual navigation in humans, and here we explore possible models for the view-based case. A visual “homing” experiment was undertaken by human participants in immersive virtual reality. The distributions of end-point errors on the ground plane differed significantly in shape and extent depending on visual landmark configuration and relative goal location. A model based on simple visual cues captures important characteristics of these distributions. Augmenting visual features to include 3D elements such as stereo and motion parallax result in a set of models that describe the data accurately, demonstrating the effectiveness of a view-based approach.

Predicting stock index volatility: can market volume help?

This paper explores a number of statistical models for predicting the daily stock return volatility of an aggregate of all stocks traded on the NYSE. An application of linear and non-linear Granger causality tests highlights evidence of bidirectional causality, although the relationship is stronger from volatility to volume than the other way around. The out-of-sample forecasting performance of various linear, GARCH, EGARCH, GJR and neural network models of volatility are evaluated and compared. The models are also augmented by the addition of a measure of lagged volume to form more general ex-ante forecasting models. The results indicate that augmenting models of volatility with measures of lagged volume leads only to very modest improvements, if any, in forecasting performance.

Computerised therapies for anxiety and depression in children and young people: a systematic review and meta-anaylsis

One quarter of children and young people (CYP) experience anxiety and/or depression before adulthood, but treatment is sometimes unavailable or inadequate. Self-help interventions may have a role in augmenting treatment and this work aimed to systematically review the evidence for computerised anxiety and depression interventions in CYP aged 5–25 years old. Databases were searched for randomised controlled trials and 27 studies were identified. For young people (12–25 years) with risk of diagnosed anxiety disorders or depression, computerised CBT (cCBT) had positive effects for symptoms of anxiety (SMD −0.77, 95% CI −1.45 to −0.09, k = 6, N = 220) and depression (SMD −0.62, 95% CI −1.13 to −0.11, k = 7, N = 279). In a general population study of young people, there were small positive effects for anxiety (SMD −0.15, 95% CI −0.26 to −0.03; N = 1273) and depression (SMD −0.15, 95% CI −0.26 to −0.03; N = 1280). There was uncertainty around the effectiveness of cCBT in children (5–11 years). Evidence for other computerised interventions was sparse and inconclusive. Computerised CBT has potential for treating and preventing anxiety and depression in clinical and general populations of young people. Further program development and research is required to extend its use and establish its benefit in children.

littleBits go LARGE: making electronics more accessible to people with learning disabilities

The “littleBits go LARGE" project extends littleBits electronic modules, an existing product that is aimed at simplifying electronics for a wide range of audiences. In this project we augment the littleBits modules to make them more accessible to people with learning disabilities. We will demonstrate how we have made the modules easier to handle and manipulate physically, and how we are augmenting the design of the modules to make their functions more obvious and understandable.