Research into the brain’s protein-disposal systems, electrical activity and three other areas looks promising

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London : Layton, 1903.

Amir Bashir, Carlos M. Carvalho, P. Richard Hahn, M. Beatrix Jones.

Source: Bayesian Analysis, Volume 14, Number 4, 1075--1090.

Abstract:
A variety of computationally efficient Bayesian models for the covariance matrix of a multivariate Gaussian distribution are available. However, all produce a relatively dense estimate of the precision matrix, and are therefore unsatisfactory when one wishes to use the precision matrix to consider the conditional independence structure of the data. This paper considers the posterior predictive distribution of model fit for these covariance models. We then undertake post-processing of the Bayes point estimate for the precision matrix to produce a sparse model whose expected fit lies within the upper 95% of the posterior predictive distribution of fit. The impact of the method for selecting the zero elements of the precision matrix is evaluated. Good results were obtained using models that encouraged a sparse posterior (G-Wishart, Bayesian adaptive graphical lasso) and selection using credible intervals. We also find that this approach is easily extended to the problem of finding a sparse set of elements that differ across a set of precision matrices, a natural summary when a common set of variables is observed under multiple conditions. We illustrate our findings with moderate dimensional data examples from finance and metabolomics.

Amanda Avona
May 29, 2019; 39:4323-4331
Systems/Circuits

Jessica A. Gorski
Aug 1, 2002; 22:6309-6314
BRIEF COMMUNICATION

One of the first signs of viral infection is body-wide aches and pain. Although this type of pain usually subsides, at the extreme, viral infections can induce painful neuropathies that can last for decades. Neither of these types of pain sensitization is well understood. A key part of the response to viral infection is production of interferons (IFNs), which then activate their specific receptors (IFNRs) resulting in downstream activation of cellular signaling and a variety of physiological responses. We sought to understand how type I IFNs (IFN-α and IFN-β) might act directly on nociceptors in the dorsal root ganglion (DRG) to cause pain sensitization. We demonstrate that type I IFNRs are expressed in small/medium DRG neurons and that their activation produces neuronal hyper-excitability and mechanical pain in mice. Type I IFNs stimulate JAK/STAT signaling in DRG neurons but this does not apparently result in PKR-eIF2α activation that normally induces an anti-viral response by limiting mRNA translation. Rather, type I IFNs stimulate MNK-mediated eIF4E phosphorylation in DRG neurons to promote pain hypersensitivity. Endogenous release of type I IFNs with the double-stranded RNA mimetic poly(I:C) likewise produces pain hypersensitivity that is blunted in mice lacking MNK-eIF4E signaling. Our findings reveal mechanisms through which type I IFNs cause nociceptor sensitization with implications for understanding how viral infections promote pain and can lead to neuropathies.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT It is increasingly understood that pathogens interact with nociceptors to alert organisms to infection as well as to mount early host defenses. Although specific mechanisms have been discovered for diverse bacterial and fungal pathogens, mechanisms engaged by viruses have remained elusive. Here we show that type I interferons, one of the first mediators produced by viral infection, act directly on nociceptors to produce pain sensitization. Type I interferons act via a specific signaling pathway (MNK-eIF4E signaling), which is known to produce nociceptor sensitization in inflammatory and neuropathic pain conditions. Our work reveals a mechanism through which viral infections cause heightened pain sensitivity

Producer Jermaine Baker has decided to do his part in the fight against COVID-19 in Jamaica. He has donated funds from the first-quarter earnings from his latest project, the JA Bounce rhythm, to support this cause.

Hamish Wilson, radio producer and actor

The pathophysiology of pediatric sports-related concussion (SRC) is largely unknown. Studies of concussed adults have identified neuronal and axonal injury and time-limited metabolic disruptions. An experimental animal model has also demonstrated physiologic perturbations, including reduced cerebral blood flow (CBF).

Using MRI techniques, we found no evidence of neuronal, axonal, or metabolic disruptions in 12 children with SRC. However, when compared with controls, statistically significant alterations in CBF were defined and frequently persisted beyond 30 days after injury. (Read the full article)

OM Germany's Xenos team member helps a Chinese lady to overcome her bitterness through counselling and prayer.

An audiobook version of a Penn State faculty member's critically acclaimed nonfiction work about a secret, illegal 1947-49 operation to rescue newborn Israel has been produced by Rowman & Littlefield.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the daily work routine for tailors and apprentices looks a bit different than usual: for several weeks, they have been producing hand-crafted masks for use of...

Fruit and vegetable growers who want to learn about produce safety, Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs), developing food safety plans and the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety Rule are encouraged to attend several upcoming workshops. On March 16 and 17, the “Delaware FSMA Produce Safety Alliance Training, Produce Food Safety Updates, and Food Safety Plan Writing Workshop” will be held at the Delaware State Fairgrounds in Harrington. The workshop will be from 8 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. each day. Lunch will be provided and registration is free, courtesy of the USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant and the Delaware Department of Agriculture.

DOVER, Del. – The Delaware Department of Agriculture is offering two one-day courses in March to help farmers growing fruits and vegetables comply with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety Rule. “About 1 in 6 Americans gets sick each year from foodborne illness,” said Secretary of Agriculture Michael T. Scuse. “The Food Safety […]

Delaware Grown Week – a campaign highlighting the fruits, vegetables, and value-added agricultural products produced in The First State – officially launched with a kick-off event at the Rehoboth Beach Farmers’ Market including Secretary of Agriculture Michael T. Scuse, state legislators, and other officials.

DOVER, Del. – The Delaware Department of Agriculture (DDA) Food Products Inspection was granted statutory authority on June 11, 2019 to enforce compliance with the Produce Safety Rule in the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The Food Safety Modernization Act is a proactive approach to prevent foodborne illnesses by strengthening the food supply. These regulations, […]

Today’s announcement that China has made the decision to lift its ban on poultry imports is welcomed news for Delmarva poultry producers.

Agency: GSS Closing Date: 5/21/2020

Agency: GSS Closing Date: 5/21/2020

MILTON, Del. – The State of Delaware and Dogfish Head Craft Brewery are partnering to make more, much-needed hand sanitizer available to the state government. Dogfish Head, one of Delaware’s best-known businesses, began distilling spirits in Delaware in 2002 and has now committed part of its operations to also make hand sanitizer. As it ramps […]

DOVER, Del. – Due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, the deadline for produce growers to register their farms with the Delaware Department of Agriculture (DDA) has been extended to June 30. The Food Product Inspection Section has enforcement responsibility for the Produce Safety Rule of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).The rule focuses on […]

The Vizag plant manufactures polystyrene (PS) that finds wide utility in the food-service industry as rigid trays and containers, disposable utensils, and foamed cups, plates and bowls.

The Association of Power Producers (APP) had requested Coal India Ltd (CIL) to extend the timelines for the auction as well as reassess the eligibility for participation in the third round of auction under the SHAKTI B (ii) scheme.

Power plants across the country currently have coal stock to run their plants for 31 days on an average.

Unusually still weather in the upper Midwest and Great Plains in late 2018 has already taken a bite out of earnings at NextEra Energy Inc. and Avangrid Inc., which both operate large wind farms. Other wind generators have yet to report fourth-quarter results, including Pattern Energy Group Inc., TerraForm Power Inc. and Clearway Energy Inc.

Two large-scale solar farms are set to make Warrington Borough Council the first local authority in the UK to produce all its own electricity from clean energy.

In their push to upend the economics of rooftop solar, Iowa’s major electric utilities are up against an opponent as politically potent as they are: the state’s pork producers.

State-run NTPC Ltd., India’s largest coal-fired power producer, is appointing a new head of its renewables team to speed up its expansion into clean energy, according to a company official with knowledge of the plan.

Exxon Mobil Corp. will use renewable energy to produce oil in West Texas.

Today, Smithfield Foods and Roeslein Alternative Energy (RAE) announced that they have formed a joint venture called Monarch Bioenergy to produce renewable natural gas (RNG) across Smithfield’s hog farms in Missouri.

The U.K. company planning the world’s first tidal-lagoon power station said its next plant may generate electricity at almost half the price.

Australia’s largest electricity producer committed to close its coal-fired power plants within 35 years as part of an effort to cut the nation’s dependence on the fossil fuel.

State-run NTPC Ltd., India’s largest coal-fired power producer, is appointing a new head of its renewables team to speed up its expansion into clean energy, according to a company official with knowledge of the plan.

Unusually still weather in the upper Midwest and Great Plains in late 2018 has already taken a bite out of earnings at NextEra Energy Inc. and Avangrid Inc., which both operate large wind farms. Other wind generators have yet to report fourth-quarter results, including Pattern Energy Group Inc., TerraForm Power Inc. and Clearway Energy Inc.

State-run NTPC Ltd., India’s largest coal-fired power producer, is appointing a new head of its renewables team to speed up its expansion into clean energy, according to a company official with knowledge of the plan.

Over 30 tonnes of fresh South Australian produce, seafood and meat is now on its way to Asia under a new agreement with Singapore Airlines that will see local businesses once again have a direct freight route into key export markets.

Kyushu Electric Power Co. will suspend responding to applications from renewable-energy producers applying to access its grid while it reviews how much more clean energy it’s capable of handling.

Australia’s largest electricity producer committed to close its coal-fired power plants within 35 years as part of an effort to cut the nation’s dependence on the fossil fuel.

Check here each week to keep up with the latest from John MacArthur's pulpit at Grace Community Church.

Auto production in Mexico and Brazil, Latin America's top producers, plunged by an unprecedented 99% in April as a result of the coronavirus crisis, with the two countries building a total of just 5,569 vehicles.

The last movie in 'Bad Boys' franchise released in January this year

Mustard prices have jumped this fall to their highest level in seven years as growers in Western Canada, which supplies three-quarters of the world's traded mustard seed, turn in their smallest crop in nine years, threatening to drive up costs of the yellow condiment for producers.

Title: HPV Vaccine Produces Early Benefits for Teen Girls: Study
Category: Health News
Created: 4/27/2015 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/27/2015 12:00:00 AM

Title: NIH Launches $500 Million Contest to Produce Best COVID-19 Test
Category: Health News
Created: 4/29/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/30/2020 12:00:00 AM

ABSTRACT

Polymorphonuclear granulocytes (PMNs) are indispensable for controlling life-threatening fungal infections. In addition to various effector mechanisms, PMNs also produce extracellular vesicles (EVs). Their contribution to antifungal defense has remained unexplored. We reveal that the clinically important human-pathogenic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus triggers PMNs to release a distinct set of antifungal EVs (afEVs). Proteome analyses indicated that afEVs are enriched in antimicrobial proteins. The cargo and the release kinetics of EVs are modulated by the fungal strain confronted. Tracking of afEVs indicated that they associated with fungal cells and even entered fungal hyphae, resulting in alterations in the morphology of the fungal cell wall and dose-dependent antifungal effects. To assess as a proof of concept whether the antimicrobial proteins found in afEVs might contribute to growth inhibition of hyphae when present in the fungal cytoplasm, two human proteins enriched in afEVs, cathepsin G and azurocidin, were heterologously expressed in fungal hyphae. This led to reduced fungal growth relative to that of a control strain producing the human retinol binding protein 7. In conclusion, extracellular vesicles produced by neutrophils in response to A. fumigatus infection are able to associate with the fungus, limit growth, and elicit cell damage by delivering antifungal cargo. This finding offers an intriguing, previously overlooked mechanism of antifungal defense against A. fumigatus.

IMPORTANCE Invasive fungal infections caused by the mold Aspergillus fumigatus are a growing concern in the clinic due to the increasing use of immunosuppressive therapies and increasing antifungal drug resistance. These infections result in high rates of mortality, as treatment and diagnostic options remain limited. In healthy individuals, neutrophilic granulocytes are critical for elimination of A. fumigatus from the host; however, the exact extracellular mechanism of neutrophil-mediated antifungal activity remains unresolved. Here, we present a mode of antifungal defense employed by human neutrophils against A. fumigatus not previously described. We found that extracellular vesicles produced by neutrophils in response to A. fumigatus infection are able to associate with the fungus, limit growth, and elicit cell damage by delivering antifungal cargo. In the end, antifungal extracellular vesicle biology provides a significant step forward in our understanding of A. fumigatus host pathogenesis and opens up novel diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities.

Flora Borne, Alexander Kovalev, Stanislav Gorb, and Virginie Courtier-Orgogozo

Insects produce a variety of adhesives for diverse functions such as locomotion, mating, and egg or pupal anchorage to substrates. Although they are important for the biology of organisms and potentially represent a great resource for developing new materials, insect adhesives have been little studied so far. Here, we examined the adhesive properties of the larval glue of Drosophila melanogaster. This glue is made of glycosylated proteins and allows the animal to adhere to a substrate during metamorphosis. We designed an adhesion test to measure the pull-off force required to detach a pupa from a substrate and to evaluate the contact area covered by the glue. We found that the pupa adheres with similar forces to a variety of substrates (with distinct roughness, hydrophilic and charge properties). We obtained an average pull-off force of 217 mN, corresponding to 15,500 times the weight of a pupa and an adhesion strength of 137–244 kPa. Surprisingly, the pull-off forces did not depend on the contact area. Our study paves the way for a genetic dissection of the components of D. melanogaster glue that confer its particular adhesive properties.

Noemie Liesch and Friedrich Ladich

In vocal fish species, males possess larger sound-generating organs and signal acoustically with pronounced sex-specific differences. Sound production is known in two out of three species of croaking gouramis (Trichopsis vittata and T. schalleri). The present study investigates sex-specific differences in sonic organs, vocalizing behaviour and sounds emitted in the third species, the pygmy gourami T. pumila, in order to test the hypothesis that females are able to vocalize despite their less-developed sonic organs, and despite contradictory reports. Croaking gouramis stretch and pluck two enhanced (sonic) pectoral fin tendons during alternate fin beating, resulting in a series of double-pulsed bursts termed croaking sound. We measured the diameter of the first and second sonic tendon and showed that male tendons were twice as large as in same-sized females. We also determined the duration of dyadic contests, visual displays, number of sounds and buttings. Sexes differ in all sound characteristics but in no behavioural variable. Male sounds consisted of twice as many bursts, a higher percentage of double-pulsed bursts and a higher burst period. Additionally, male sounds had a lower dominant frequency and a higher sound level. In summary, female pygmy gouramis possessed sonic organs and vocalized in most dyadic contests. The sexual dimorphism in sonic tendons is clearly reflected in sex-specific differences in sound characteristics, but not in agonistic behaviour, supporting the hypothesis that females are vocal.