C-reactive protein (CRP) 1 is an acute phase serum protein produced rapidly in response to inflammatory stimuli. The binding and functional characteristics of CRP suggest that it may play a role in host defense against infection. CRP has binding specificity for the phosphocholine (PC) determinant of cell wall C-polysaccharide (PnC) from Streptococcus pneumoniae (1, 2). The binding of CRP to PnC...

The mammalian acoustic startle response (ASR) is a relatively simple motor response that can be elicited by sudden and loud acoustic stimuli. The ASR shows several forms of plasticity, such as habituation, sensitization, and prepulse inhibition, thereby making it an interesting model for studying the underlying neuronal mechanisms. Among the neurons that compose the elementary startle circuit a...

Previous research on physical layer network coding (PNC) focuses on the improvements in bandwidth usage efficiency. Its capability to assist wireless nodes in localization was first discussed in [1]. In that paper, however, the authors discussed only the basic idea to detect and separate the interfered signals for calculating the node positions. Many important issues to turn the idea into a pra...

Specific tolerance to phosphorylcholine (PC) can be induced in BALB/c mice by neonatal injection with either pneumococcal C-polysaccharide (PnC) or anti-TEPC 15 idiotype (T15Id) antibody specific for the major idiotype (Id) of anti-PC antibody. Spleen cells from these tolerant mice exhibited T cell-mediated active suppression of anti-PC response when they were co-cultured with normal spleen cel...

BACKGROUND Antenatal Care (ANC), use of skilled delivery attendants and postnatal care (PNC) services are key maternal health services that can significantly reduce maternal mortality. Understanding the factors that affect service utilization helps to design appropriate strategies and policies towards improvement of service utilization and thereby reduce maternal mortality. The objective of thi...

BACKGROUND Streptococcus spp. and other Gram-positive, catalase-negative cocci (PNC) form a large group of microorganisms which can be found in the milk of cows with intramammary infection. The most frequently observed PNC mastitis pathogens (major pathogens) are Streptococcus uberis, Strep. dysgalactiae, and Strep. agalactiae. The remaining PNC include a few minor pathogens and a large nonpath...

Analyses of phylogenetic niche conservatism (PNC) are becoming increasingly common. However, each analysis makes subtly different assumptions about the evolutionary mechanism that generates patterns of niche conservatism. To understand PNC, analyses should be conducted with reference to a clear underlying model, using appropriate methods. Here, we outline five macroevolutionary models that may ...

AIMS To evaluate the use of a quantitative enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) detecting C-polysaccharide (PnC) antigen in sputum for the diagnosis of Streptococcus pneumoniae infection. METHODS Specimens of sputum from 60 patients with acute community and hospital acquired pneumonia and infective exacerbations of obstructive airways disease were examined by semiquantitative culture and...

Proposed method, called Probabilistic Nodes Combination (PNC), is the method of 2D curve modeling and handwriting identification by using the set of key points. Nodes are treated as characteristic points of signature or handwriting for modeling and writer recognition. Identification of handwritten letters or symbols need modeling and the model of each individual symbol or character is built by ...

We present accurate ab initio non-perturbative calculations of the Breit correction to the parity non-conserving (PNC) amplitudes of the 6s−7s and 6s−5d3/2 transitions in Cs, 7s−8s and 7s−6d3/2 transitions in Fr, 6s − 5d3/2 transition in Ba , 7s − 6d3/2 transition in Ra , and 6p1/2 − 6p3/2 transition in Tl. The results for the 6s− 7s transition in Cs and 7s− 8s transition in Fr are in good agre...