University of Southampton

About: University of Southampton is a education organization based out in Southampton, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Laser. The organization has 37184 authors who have published 99400 publications receiving 3462915 citations. The organization is also known as: Southampton University & Soton Uni.

Systemic inflammation and disease progression in alzheimer disease

Abstract: Background: Acute and chronic systemic inflammation are characterized by the systemic production of the proinflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) that plays a role in immune to brain communication. Previous preclinical research shows that acute systemic inflammation contributes to an exacerbation of neurodegeneration by activation of primed microglial cells. Objective: To determine whether acute episodes of systemic inflammation associated with increased TNF-α would be associated with long-term cognitive decline in a prospective cohort study of subjects with Alzheimer disease. Methods: Three hundred community-dwelling subjects with mild to severe Alzheimer disease were cognitively assessed, and a blood sample was taken for systemic inflammatory markers. Each subject’s main caregiver was interviewed to assess the presence of incident systemic inflammatory events. Assessments of both patient and caregiver were repeated at 2, 4, and 6 months. Results: Acute systemic inflammatory events, found in around half of all subjects, were associated with an increase in the serum levels of proinflammatory cytokine TNF-α and a 2-fold increase in the rate of cognitive decline over a 6-month period. High baseline levels of TNF-α were associated with a 4-fold increase in the rate of cognitive decline. Subjects who had low levels of serum TNF-α throughout the study showed no cognitive decline over the 6-month period. Conclusions: Both acute and chronic systemic inflammation, associated with increases in serum tumor necrosis factor α, is associated with an increase in cognitive decline in Alzheimer disease.

Application Overview for the Book: Grid Computing – Making the Global Infrastructure a Reality

Abstract: From the Publisher: Grid computing is applying the resources of many computers in a network to a single problem at the same time Grid computing appears to be a promising trend for three reasons: (1) Its ability to make more cost-effective use of a given amount of computer resources, (2) As a way to solve problems that can't be approached without an enormous amount of computing power (3) Because it suggests that the resources of many computers can be cooperatively and perhaps synergistically harnessed and managed as a collaboration toward a common objective. A number of corporations, professional groups, university consortiums, and other groups have developed or are developing frameworks and software for managing grid computing projects. The European Community (EU) is sponsoring a project for a grid for high-energy physics, earth observation, and biology applications. In the United States, the National Technology Grid is prototyping a computational grid for infrastructure and an access grid for people. Sun Microsystems offers Grid Engine software. Described as a distributed resource management tool, Grid Engine allows engineers at companies like Sony and Synopsys to pool the computer cycles on up to 80 workstations at a time. "the Grid" is a very hot topic generating broad interest from research and industry (e.g. IBM, Platform, Avaki, Entropia, Sun, HP) Grid architecture enables very popular e-Science projects like the Genome project which demand global interaction and networking In recent surveys over 500f Chief Information Officers are expected to use Grid technology this year Grid Computing: Features contributions from the major players in the field Covers all aspects of grid technology from motivation to applications Provides an extensive state-of-the-art guide in grid computing This is essential reading for researchers in Computing and Engineering, physicists, statisticians, engineers and mathematicians and IT policy makers.

The second fermi large area telescope catalog of gamma-ray pulsars

Abstract: This catalog summarizes 117 high-confidence > 0.1 GeV gamma-ray pulsar detections using three years of data acquired by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi satellite. Half are neutron stars discovered using LAT data, through periodicity searches in gamma-ray and radio data around LAT unassociated source positions. The 117 pulsars are evenly divided into three groups: millisecond pulsars, young radio-loud pulsars, and young radio-quiet pulsars. We characterize the pulse profiles and energy spectra and derive luminosities when distance information exists. Spectral analysis of the off-peak phase intervals indicates probable pulsar wind nebula emission for four pulsars, and off-peak magnetospheric emission for several young and millisecond pulsars. We compare the gamma-ray properties with those in the radio, optical, and X-ray bands. We provide flux limits for pulsars with no observed gamma-ray emission, highlighting a small number of gamma-faint, radio-loud pulsars. The large, varied gamma-ray pulsar sample constrains emission models. Fermi's selection biases complement those of radio surveys, enhancing comparisons with predicted population distributions.

Role of deficient type III interferon-λ production in asthma exacerbations

Abstract: Rhinoviruses are the major cause of asthma exacerbations, and asthmatics have increased susceptibility to rhinovirus and risk of invasive bacterial infections. Here we show deficient induction of interferon-λs by rhinovirus in asthmatic primary bronchial epithelial cells and alveolar macrophages, which was highly correlated with severity of rhinovirus-induced asthma exacerbation and virus load in experimentally infected human volunteers. Induction by lipopolysaccharide in asthmatic macrophages was also deficient and correlated with exacerbation severity. These results identify previously unknown mechanisms of susceptibility to infection in asthma and suggest new approaches to prevention and/or treatment of asthma exacerbations.