Punctors constitute a class of markers that have usually been classified as nervous tics, fillers, or signs of hesitation. The words we consider to be punctors share a number of structural and functional characteristics: they manifest prosodic assimilation to the preceding phrase; they are almost never preceded by a pause; they show a high degree of phonological reduction; and all punctors have...

Vpx encoded by HIV-2 and SIVsm enhances retroviral reverse transcription in macrophages in vitro by mediating the degradation of the host SAMHD1 protein that hydrolyzes dNTPs and by elevating cellular dNTP levels. Here we employed RT-SHIV constructs (SIV encoding HIV-1 RT) to investigate the contribution of Vpx to the potency of NRTIs, which compete against dNTPs, in monocyte-derived macrophage...

Color Calibration Device is a key component for the performance of Medical Display Monitor (MDM). MDMs have been extensively used in hospitals in the past decades. The technological requirements of MDMs are higher than those of general purpose display monitors, but the gross profit margins of MDMS are larger as well. The purpose of this research is to build a hybrid multiple criteria decision m...

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) presents an emerging threat to public health worldwide by causing severe respiratory disease in humans with high virulence and case fatality rate (about 35%) since 2012. Little is known about the pathogenesis and innate antiviral response in primary human monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs) and dendritic cells (MDDCs) upon MERS-CoV infecti...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE Activation of T cells is mediated through two critical signals provided by activated macrophages. The first signal is triggered when T cell receptor (TCR) binds to the major histocompatibility antigen (MHC/Ag) complex. The second signal is the interaction of co-stimulatory molecules with their respective ligands on T cells for their activation and proliferation. We undert...

Usage of discourse markers in tutorial language can make the difference between stilted and natural sounding dialogue. In this paper we describe some simple rules for selection of discourse markers. These rules were derived for use in an intelligent tutoring system by applying decision-tree machine learning to human tutoring language. The fact that these selection rules operate within the envir...

Background and Purpose: MicroRNAs are small non-coding RNAs with 1924- nucleotides in length. Up- or downregulation of many miRNAs has been shown by stimulation of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) in the innate immune system. Up-regulation of miR-146a has been reported by both TLR and heat-killed Candida albicans. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the expression of miR-146a in cultured monocyte-...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a major etiologic agent of acute lower respiratory infection constitutes the most important cause of death in young children worldwide. Viral/bacterial mixed infections are related to severity of respiratory inflammatory diseases, but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. We have previously investigated the intracellular mechanisms that mediate t...