Many gram-negative pathogens employ a type III secretion injectisome to translocate effector proteins into eukaryotic host cells. While the structure of the distal "needle complex" is well documented, the composition and role of the functionally important cytosolic complex remain less well understood. Using functional fluorescent fusions, we found that the C-ring, an essential and conserved cyt...

Ring signatures, introduced by Rivest, Shamir and Tauman, attest the fact that one member from a ring of signers has endorsed the message but no one can identify who from the ring is actually responsible for its generation. It was designed canonically for secret leaking. Since then, various applications have been discovered. For instance, it is a building block of optimistic fair exchange, dest...

The terrestrial ring current is an electric current flowing toroidally around the Earth, centered at the equatorial plane and at altitudes of ;10,000–60,000 km. Changes in this current are responsible for global decreases in the Earth’s surface magnetic field, which are known as geomagnetic storms. Intense geomagnetic storms have severe effects on technological systems, such as disturbances or ...

In 1977 Hartwig and Luh asked whether an element a in a Dedekind-finite ring R satisfying aR = a2R also satisfies Ra = Ra2. In this paper, we answer this question in the negative. We also prove that if a is an element of a Dedekind-finite exchange ring R and aR = a2R, then Ra = Ra2. This gives an easier proof of Dischinger’s theorem that left strongly π-regular rings are right strongly π-regula...

Protocols for authenticated key exchange allow parties within an insecure network to establish a common session key which can then be used to secure their future communication. In this paper we introduce a protocol for distributed key agreement over a noncommutative ring with a large number of noninvertible elements. This protocol uses polynomials with coefficients in the center of the ring. We...

Conformational dynamics plays a fundamental role in molecular recognition and activity in enzymes. The ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme (E2) Ube2g2 functions with the ubiquitin ligase (E3) gp78 to assemble poly-ubiquitin chains on target substrates. Two domains in gp78, RING and G2BR, bind to two distant regions of Ube2g2, and activate it for ubiquitin (Ub) transfer. G2BR increases the affinity bet...

The Kula Ring described by Bronislaw Malinowski is a system of the ceremonial exchange of gifts among a number of tribal societies inhabiting various island groups in the region east of Papua New Guinea. Two ceremonial gifts continually circulate in opposite directions: necklaces clockwise and armshells counterclockwise. After a brief description of the social system of Kula exchange, a game-th...