A soil bacterium capable of metabolizing organophosphorus compounds by reducing the P S group in the molecules was taxonomically identified as Klebsiella sp. strain F51-1-2. The gene involved in the reduction of organophosphorus compounds was cloned from this strain by the shotgun technique, and the deduced protein (named AKR5F1) showed homology to members of the aldo-keto reductase (AKR) super...

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of respiratory tract infection in infants and young children worldwide, but currently no safe and effective vaccine is available. The RSV G glycoprotein (RSVG), a major attachment protein, is an important target for the induction of protective immune responses during RSV infection. However, it has been thought that a CD4+ T cell epitope (a.a. 1...

Trade, Peace and Democracy: An Analysis of Dyadic Dispute At least since 1750 when Baron de Montesquieu declared "peace is the natural effect of trade," a number of economists and political scientists espoused the notion that trade among nations leads to peace. Employing resources wisely to produce one commodity rather than employing them inefficiently to produce another is the foundation for c...

Poor rule of law is usually a binding constraint for foreign investment and lending. But recently Chinese firms disproportionally invest overseas in countries with weak institutions. How do they manage this exposure? Our model appeals to China’s buying power as importer and also to its within-country coordination to act like a single agent. These two factors allow China to credibly commit to si...

Sovereign debt renegotiations take an average of nine years for bank loans but only one year for bonds. Our paper provides an explanation to this finding by highlighting one key difference between bank loans and bonds: bank debt is rarely traded, while bond debt is heavily traded on the secondary market. The secondary market plays a crucial information revelation role in shortening renegotiatio...

The article discusses the publication activity of scientists in the field of studying the consequences of US economic sanctions against Iran, and their impact on the development of science and the economy in this countries. The paper considers the dynamics of publication activity in the field of biomedicine of Iranian scientists over the past 20 years. Increased sanctions have led to a shortage...

By using cavity ring-down spectroscopy ~CRDS!, we have obtained visible overtone absorption spectra of HCN which display a large collisional line-mixing effect in the proximity of the R branch band heads, for J;18. We consider in detail the 106←000 ~15CN, 05bend, 65CH! parallel transition. The R branch profile was modeled using the modified-exponential-gap ~MEG! and energy-corrected-sudden appr...