Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is associated with adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) and HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). Only a limited percentage of infected individuals develop disease in response to the virus while the majority remain asymptomatic and HAM/TSP is the most common clinical manifestation of the virus. HAM/TSP is an inflamma...

For reasons that remain unclear, even multicellular organisms usually originate from a single cell. Here I consider the balance between deleterious mutations and selection against them in a population with obligate vegetative reproduction, when every offspring is initiated by more than one cell of a parent. The mutation load depends on the genomic deleterious mutation rate U, strictness of sele...

CONTEXT Plasma human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) viral load and CD4+ cell count are used to predict prognosis of persons infected with HIV. However, whether combining these markers improves prognostic accuracy and whether they predict prognosis for injection drug users (IDUs) and nonwhite persons infected with HIV has not been extensively investigated. OBJECTIVE To evaluate plasma v...

Explosive data traffic growth leads to a continuous surge in capacity demands across mobile networks. In order to provision high network capacity, small cell base stations (SCBSs) are widely deployed. Owing to the close proximity to mobile users, SCBSs can effectively enhance the network capacity and offloading traffic load from macro BSs (MBSs). However, the cost-effective backhaul may not be ...

Plasma viral burden has proven valuable in predicting the future course of systemic HIV related disease and the response to treatment. It is not known whether plasma or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) viral burden can be used to predict onset of or response to treatment of nervous system disease. We propose a model of viral load mediated neurotoxicity underlying peripheral and central HIV associated ...

The accurate assessment of stress, strain and loads in components under working conditions are an essential requirement of successful engineering design. Experimental stress analysis over years has been playing an increasingly important role in aiding engineering product designers to produce not only efficient, economic designs but also in substantial reductions in weight and yet aid in easier ...

The tensile properties of materials, such as the ultimate tensile strength, yield strength, elongation and elastic modulus, are very important factors for engineering designs. However, it is not easy for students to understand and evaluate the tensile properties of materials. In this study, a small and handy tensile testing machine was designed to help students conduct tensile tests in class us...

The widespread deployment of wireless cellular technology affects the traditional concept of channel allocation and drives the necessity for novel load balancing techniques. Various load-balancing schemes have been proposed to assign channels to the cells such that the available channels are efficiently used and thus channel reuse, maximized. This is particularly important in networks where tra...