University of Texas at Austin

About: University of Texas at Austin is a education organization based out in Austin, Texas, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 94352 authors who have published 206297 publications receiving 9070052 citations. The organization is also known as: UT-Austin & UT Austin.

Mechanisms of Antibiotic Resistance

Abstract: The discovery, commercialization, and routine administration of antimicrobial compounds to treat infections revolutionized modern medicine and changed the therapeutic paradigm. Indeed, antibiotics have become one of the most important medical interventions needed for the development of complex medical approaches such as cutting-edge surgical procedures, solid organ transplantation, and management of patients with cancer, among others. Unfortunately, the marked increase in antimicrobial resistance among common bacterial pathogens is now threatening this therapeutic accomplishment, jeopardizing the successful outcomes of critically ill patients. In fact, the World Health Organization has named antibiotic resistance as one of the three most important public health threats of the 21st century ( 1 ).

EDC-2: The Endocrine Society's Second Scientific Statement on Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals

Abstract: The Endocrine Society's first Scientific Statement in 2009 provided a wake-up call to the scientific community about how environmental endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) affect health and disease. Five years later, a substantially larger body of literature has solidified our understanding of plausible mechanisms underlying EDC actions and how exposures in animals and humans-especially during development-may lay the foundations for disease later in life. At this point in history, we have much stronger knowledge about how EDCs alter gene-environment interactions via physiological, cellular, molecular, and epigenetic changes, thereby producing effects in exposed individuals as well as their descendants. Causal links between exposure and manifestation of disease are substantiated by experimental animal models and are consistent with correlative epidemiological data in humans. There are several caveats because differences in how experimental animal work is conducted can lead to difficulties in drawing broad conclusions, and we must continue to be cautious about inferring causality in humans. In this second Scientific Statement, we reviewed the literature on a subset of topics for which the translational evidence is strongest: 1) obesity and diabetes; 2) female reproduction; 3) male reproduction; 4) hormone-sensitive cancers in females; 5) prostate; 6) thyroid; and 7) neurodevelopment and neuroendocrine systems. Our inclusion criteria for studies were those conducted predominantly in the past 5 years deemed to be of high quality based on appropriate negative and positive control groups or populations, adequate sample size and experimental design, and mammalian animal studies with exposure levels in a range that was relevant to humans. We also focused on studies using the developmental origins of health and disease model. No report was excluded based on a positive or negative effect of the EDC exposure. The bulk of the results across the board strengthen the evidence for endocrine health-related actions of EDCs. Based on this much more complete understanding of the endocrine principles by which EDCs act, including nonmonotonic dose-responses, low-dose effects, and developmental vulnerability, these findings can be much better translated to human health. Armed with this information, researchers, physicians, and other healthcare providers can guide regulators and policymakers as they make responsible decisions.

Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption: An Expressive, Efficient, and Provably Secure Realization.

Abstract: We present a new methodology for realizing Ciphertext-Policy Attribute Encryption (CP-ABE) under concrete and noninteractive cryptographic assumptions in the standard model. Our solutions allow any encryptor to specify access control in terms of any access formula over the attributes in the system. In our most efficient system, ciphertext size, encryption, and decryption time scales linearly with the complexity of the access formula. The only previous work to achieve these parameters was limited to a proof in the generic group model. We present three constructions within our framework. Our first system is proven selectively secure under a assumption that we call the decisional Parallel Bilinear Diffie-Hellman Exponent (PBDHE) assumption which can be viewed as a generalization of the BDHE assumption. Our next two constructions provide performance tradeoffs to achieve provable security respectively under the (weaker) decisional Bilinear-Diffie-Hellman Exponent and decisional Bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumptions.

Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900

Abstract: People of European descent form the bulk of the population in most of the temperate zones of the world - North America, Australia and New Zealand. The military successes of European imperialism are easy to explain; in many cases they were a matter of firearms against spears. But as Alfred Crosby explains in his highly original and fascinating book, the Europeans' displacement and replacement of the native peoples in the temperate zones was more a matter of biology than of military conquest.

4-manifolds and Kirby calculus

Abstract: 4-manifolds: Introduction Surfaces in 4-manifolds Complex surfaces Kirby calculus: Handelbodies and Kirby diagrams Kirby calculus More examples Applications: Branched covers and resolutions Elliptic and Lefschetz fibrations Cobordisms, $h$-cobordisms and exotic ${\mathbb{R}}^{4,}$s Symplectic 4-manifolds Stein surfaces Appendices: Solutions Notation, important figures Bibliography Index.