Background:Staphylococcus aureus-induced arthritis causes rapid joint destruction, often leading to disabling joint damage despite antibiotics. We have previously shown that IL-15 inhibition without antibiotics is beneficial in S. aureus-induced arthritis. We therefore hypothesized that inhibition of IL-15, in combination with antibiotics, might represent a useful therapy that would both reduce...

A number of bacteria bind factor H (FH), the negative regulator of the alternative complement pathway, to avoid complement-mediated killing. Here we show that a gram-negative enteric pathogen, Yersinia enterocolitica serotype O:3, uses two virulence-related outer membrane (OM) proteins to bind FH. With Y. enterocolitica O:3 mutant strains displaying different combinations of surface factors rel...

A factor that augmented the phagocytosis of IgG-coated ox red blood cells by the human monocyte/macrophage line U937 was identified in cell culture supernatants from two of two patients with angiocentric peripheral T cell lymphomas, three of three patients with angiocentric immunoproliferative lesions that were not frankly malignant, and one of two patients with T lymphoblastic malignancies. Th...

This paper summarises how agent programming languages are be embedded into an intermediate agent layer called Agent Infrastructure Layer (AIL) that can be seen as a unifying framework for such languages. We discuss common concepts of the agent programming languages on which the AIL’s design is based and outline a translation of AgentSpeak programs into this intermediate layer. An executable pro...

A covering of a multigraph G is a subset of edges which meet ail vertices of G. Partitions of the edges of G into coverings Ci, C2,..., Ck are considered. In particular we examine how close the cardinalities of thèse coverings may be. A resuit concerning matchings is extended to the décomposition into coverings. Finally thèse considérations are generalized to the décompositions of the vertices ...

BACKGROUND It may be clinically useful to predict the depth of the epidural space. METHODS To investigate the accuracy of preoperative abdominal computed tomography (CT) in prediction of the distance for low-thoracic epidural insertion, a single group observational study was conducted in 30 male patients undergoing elective major abdominal surgery requiring epidural analgesia for postoperativ...

Yersinia enterocolitica, a cause of emerging enteric infections, is a foodborne pathogen associated with various enteric and systemic syndromes, e.g., diarrhea, enteritis, and enterocolitis. Therefore, the detection of this pathogen has important significance. Previous real-time PCR for detection of Y. enterocolitica was primarily based on the ail gene; biotype 1A nonpathogenic strains were not...

Auxin is an important regulator of many aspects of plant growth and development. During reproductive development, auxin specifies the site of flower initiation and subsequently regulates organ growth and patterning as well as later events that determine reproductive success. Underlying auxin action in plant tissues is its uneven distribution, resulting in groups of cells with high auxin levels ...

BACKGROUND Staphylococcus aureus arthritis causes severe and rapid joint damage despite antibiotics. Thus, there is a need to identify new treatment targets in addition to antibiotics. Lately, interleukin 15 (IL-15) has been implicated both in osteoclastogenesis and in bacterial clearance-2 important issues in S. aureus-induced joint destruction. This has prompted us to investigate the importan...