The effects of the 16-member macrolide spiramycin (2.5-80 mg/L) and the 14-member agent clarithromycin on the production of superoxide by activated human neutrophils were compared in vitro and related to membrane-stabilizing activity. Superoxide production was measured by lucigenin-enhanced chemiluminescence with N-formyl-L-methionyl-L-leucyl-L-phenylalanine (1 microM) as the stimulus, and memb...

A state-space approach to Youla-parametrization of stabilizing controllers for linear and nonlinear systems is suggested. The stabilizing controllers (or a class of stabilizing controllers for nonlinear systems) are characterized as (linearlnonlinear) fractional transformations of stable parameters. The main idea behind this approach is to decompose the output feedback stabilization problem int...

A snap-stabilizing protocol, starting from any arbitrary initial system configuration, always behaves according to its specification. In other words, a snap-stabilizing protocol is a self-stabilizing protocol which stabilizes in 0 steps. In this paper, we propose a snap-stabilizing PIF algorithm for tree networks without any sense of direction. This algorithm allows us to maintain only one (ins...

This paper advocates the use of self-stabilization as a provable property to achieve the goals of the self-* paradigms for systems, including availability, reliability, serviceability, disaster recovery and autonomic computing. Several recent results starting from hardware concerns, through the operating system, and ending in the applications are integrated: the selfstabilizing microprocessor [...

We study the scenario where a transient batch of faults hit a minority of the nodes in a distributed system by corrupting their state. We concentrate on the basic persistent bit problem, where the system is required to maintain a 0/1 value in the face of transient failures by means of replication. We give an algorithm to stabilize the value to a correct state quickly; that is, denoting the unkn...

We provide self-stabilizing algorithms to obtain and maintain a maximal matching, maximal independent set or minimal dominating set in a given system graph. They converge in linear rounds under a distributed or synchronous daemon. They can be implemented in an ad hoc network by piggy-backing on the beacon messages that nodes already use.

The algebraic structure underlying all the schemes for quantum information stabilization is argued to be fully contained in the reducibility of the operator algebra describing the interaction with the environment of the coding quantum system. This property amounts to the existence of a non-trivial group of symmetries for the global dynamics. We provide a unified framework which allows us to bui...

We suggest to model software package flaws (bugs) by assuming eventual Byzantine behavior of the package. In particular, the package has been tested by the manufacturer for limited length scenarios when started in a predefined initial state; the behavior beyond the tested scenario may be Byzantine. Restarts (reboots) are useful for recovering such systems. We suggest a general yet practical fra...

Spines are sites of excitatory synapse formation in central neurons. Alterations in spine structure and function are widely believed to actively contribute to the cellular mechanisms of learning and memory. In this issue, Mendez et al. (2010. J. Cell Biol. doi:10.1083/jcb.201003007) demonstrate a pivotal role for the cell adhesion molecule N-cadherin in activity-mediated spine stabilization, of...

Biological timekeeping is determined by internal temporal programmes and the resetting of these programmes or clocks by external stimuli. Many of the core genes of the mammalian daily or circadian clock are known, but the factors regulating so-called 'clock' gene proteins are unclear. In this issue of the Biochemical Journal, Gallego and colleagues show for the first time that protein phosphata...