Undernutrition during development increases the risk for adult cardiovascular disease. To determine if PUN alters heart structure function, and maximal exercise capacity in adulthood, newborn control mouse pups were fostered to dams fed a control (CON; 20% protein) or a protein-restricted diet (PUN; 8% protein; n=7-10 litters/treatment). At 21 d (PN21) pups were fed the CON diet ad lib. At PN70 a maximal treadmill test was performed to determine VO2peak; maximal vertical work was calculated for the final 30 sec. At PN80 cardiac function was evaluated by echocardiography. VO2peak was the same in CON and PUN mice and higher in males than females (249 + 9 and 169 + 6 ml/hr, respectively, P<0.001); gender x diet, NS. Maximal vertical work at VO2peak was higher in CON than PUN females (1.64 + 0.07 and 1.33 + 0.06 J/min, respectively, P < 0.01) but not males; gender x diet, P<0.02. Resting cardiac output was higher in CON than PUN offspring (18.8 + 0.7 and 16.3 + 0.7 ml/min, respectively; P<0.02) and in males than females (19.2 + 0.7 and 15.9 + 0.7 ml/min, respectively; P<0.01; gender x diet, NS) due to differences in stroke volume (CON: 43.0 ± 1.5; PUN: 37.7 ± 1.4 µl; P<0.05; males: 46.8 ± 1.5; females: 34.0 ± 1.4 µl; P<0.05), and left ventricular mass (CON: 104 ± 5; PUN: 90 ± 5 mg; P<0.05; males: 108 ± 5; females: 90 ± 5 mg; P<0.05). Thus, PUN permanently reduces left ventricular mass which in turn reduces stroke volume and maximal treadmill work capacity in female mice. Male mice were able to compensate for the reduction in cardiac output and maintain maximal exercise capacity. Supported by NIH AR46308, T32HL07676, USDA/ARS 6250-51000-051

Consider the ensemble of real symmetric Toeplitz matrices, each independent entry an i.i.d. random variable chosen from a fixed probability distribution p of mean 0, variance 1, and finite higher moments. Previous investigations showed that the limiting spectral measure (the density of normalized eigenvalues) converges weakly and almost surely, independent of p , to a distribution which is almost the standard Gaussian. The deviations from Gaussian behavior can be interpreted as arising from obstructions to solutions of Diophantine equations. We show that these obstructions vanish if instead one considers real symmetric palindromic Toeplitz matrices, matrices where the first row is a palindrome. A similar result was previously proved for a related circulant ensemble through an analysis of the explicit formulas for eigenvalues. By Cauchy’s interlacing property and the rank inequality, this ensemble has the same limiting spectral distribution as the palindromic Toeplitz matrices; a consequence of combining the two approaches is a version of the almost sure Central Limit Theorem. Thus our analysis of these Diophantine equations provides an alternate technique for proving limiting spectral measures for certain ensembles of circulant matrices.

The Ratios Conjecture of Conrey, Farmer and Zirnbauer (2008) [CFZ1], (preprint) [CFZ2] predicts the answers to numerous questions in number theory, ranging from n-level densities and correlations to mollifiers to moments and vanishing at the central point. The conjecture gives a recipe to generate these answers, which are believed to be correct up to square-root cancelation. These predictions have been verified, for suitably restricted test functions, for the 1-level density of orthogonal (Huynh and Miller (preprint) [HuyMil], Miller (2009) [Mil5], Miller and Montague (in press) [MilMo]) and symplectic (Miller (2008) [Mil3], Stopple (2009) [St]) families of L-functions. In this paper we verify the conjecture's predictions for the unitary family of all Dirichlet L-functions with prime conductor; we show square-root agreement between prediction and number theory if the support of the Fourier transform of the test function is in (−1,1), and for support up to (−2,2) we show agreement up to a power savings in the family's cardinality.

Background: Diabetes and hypertension are known as risk factors of cardiovascular disease (CVD), and the identification of these risk factors is essential for preventing CVD. We assessed the awareness level with regard to CVD and the sources of information among the Vietnamese and Japanese populations. Methods: The questionnaire for this study was completed by 155 rural Vietnamese, 147 urban Vietnamese, and 102 urban Japanese subjects, and 159 Japanese outpatients. They were asked to identify the risk factors for diabetes and hypertension and their sources of medical information by answering multiple-choice questions. Results: Excessive sweet intake, lack of exercise, and obesity were cited as risk factors for diabetes by the urban Vietnamese and Japanese subjects. The most commonly cited risk factor for hypertension by the Japanese subjects was excessive salt intake, whereas obesity and alcohol consumption were cited by the urban and rural Vietnamese subjects, respectively. In both countries, medical information was mainly obtained from medical staff, but other mass media were also commonly used as sources of information. Conclusion: Certain differences were observed in the level of awareness between the Japanese and Vietnamese and also between the Vietnamese urban and rural populations with regard to the risk factors for diabetes and hypertension. Thus, we think that information regarding modifiable risk factors must be tailored to suit subjects according to their nationality and their area of residence (urban or rural).

Background. Liver transplantation using ABO-incompatible grafts is rarely performed because the reported outcome is poorer than with compatible grafts. We report our positive experience with adult-to-adult living-donor liver transplant (LDLT) using ABO-incompatible grafts. Methods. The immunosuppressive protocol consisted of plasmapheresis/intravenous immunoglobulin infusion before LDLT followed by thymoglobulin induction and splenectomy, maintenance with tacrolimus/cyclosporine (FK/CSA), mycophenolate mofetil, and a rapid steroid taper. Plasmapheresis was planned for up to 3 months after LDLT aiming at maintaining the anti-ABO titers level below 1:16. Liver biopsies were routinely stained for humoral rejection with complement 4d (C4d) and for biliary damage with cytokeratin 7. Results. Between January 2003 and September 2004, five patients, mean age 59 years, received an ABO-incompatible LDLT. Patient and graft survival was 80% at mean follow-up of 43 months (range, 34–54) for the four surviving patients. One patient died 4 months after LDLT. Humoral rejection occurred in one patient whereas acute cellular rejection was diagnosed in four patients. Conclusions. ABO-incompatible LDLT can be performed with patient and graft survival similar to compatible LDLT. Minimization of immunosuppression is possible, and chronic biliary damage is not the norm. Better tools than complement 4d staining must be researched to diagnose the features of immunologic damage to the graft. If these results will be confirmed in a greater number of patients, ABO-incompatible LDLT may be proposed when ABO-compatible donors are not available or when the ABO-incompatible donor is the better candidate.

Viewer perceptions of superellipsoid-based glyphs representing trend analysis of tri-axial accelerometer data are studied in this paper. A trend analysis and its mapping to the superellipsoid parameters is proposed. Detailed results from a viewer survey about the usefulness of such glyphs are presented. Survey results indicate that approximately 60% of the respondents correctly identified the trend-related information and as much as an additional 27.2% acceptably identified some of the trend-related information. Overall, respondents indicated that the superellipsoid-based glyphs were helpful to understand accelerometer multi-plots.

In this paper we present a framework for investigating teachers' mathematical pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). The components of the framework permit identification of strengths and weaknesses in the PCK held by various teachers on different topics. It was applied to teachers' written and interview responses addressing a student's difficulties with the standard subtraction algorithm. This enabled comparison of the PCK held by individual teachers, together with analysis of the teachers' PCK as a group. Most understood the issues and knew suitable representations, but occasionally lacked key understanding of students' misconceptions and how to help students recognise them. Investigating teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is challenging for many reasons. PCK reveals itself in many places—in teachers' planning, classroom interactions, explanations, mathematical competency, and so on—and a study of only one environment will give a limited perspective. In addition, PCK's multifaceted nature makes considering all aspects time-consuming and complex. This report uses a framework that provides a set of lenses for studying PCK to address this second problem. At the same time we show that one carefully chosen environment can still reveal detail about teachers' PCK.

Transforming growth factor-beta 1 (TGF-beta 1) is a cytokine with complex immunomodulatory effects including the ability to inhibit the onset or severity of autoimmune disease. This study was designed to test the possibility that one mechanism by which TGF-beta 1 exerts its immunosuppressive effects is by inducing antigen (Ag)-specific unresponsiveness in CD4+ cells. TGF-beta 1 was shown here to inhibit the Ag-specific proliferation of naive CD4+ cells from T cell receptor (TCR) transgenic mice. More importantly, the naive CD4+ cells exposed to TGF-beta 1 and Ag, but not to TGF-beta 1 alone, in primary cultures were unable to proliferate or secrete IL-2 in response to a subsequent Ag challenge following removal of TGF-beta 1 from the cultures. Anti-CD28 mAb partially blocked the Ag-specific inactivation induced by TGF-beta 1 in naive CD4+ cells. The inhibitory effects of TGF-beta 1 on CD4+ cells are not mediated by alterations in APC costimulation since TGF-beta 1 did not inhibit the Ag-induced expression of MHC class II molecules, CD80 or CD86 on splenic APC. Taken together, the results suggest that the immunosuppressive activities of TGF-beta 1 encompass direct induction of Ag-specific unresponsiveness in naive CD4+ cells.