This paper presents the design, analysis, and implementation of a novel data center network architecture, named NovaCube . Based on regular Torus topology, NovaCube is constructed by adding a number of most beneficial jump-over links, which offers many distinct advantages and practical benefits. Moreover, in order to enable NovaCube to achieve its maximum theoretical performance, a probabilisti...

The development of prophylactic vaccines against pathogenic bacteria is a major objective of the World Health Organisation. However, vaccine development is often hindered by antigenic diversity and the difficulties encountered manufacturing immunogenic membrane proteins. Here, we employed structure-based design as a strategy to develop Chimeric Antigens (ChAs) for subunit vaccines. ChAs were ge...

Since 1980, the number of cases of meningococcal disease caused by serogroup B isolates with the P1.4 serosubtype has greatly increased in The Netherlands. Screening for this serosubtype in the strain collection of The Netherlands Reference Laboratory for Bacterial Meningitis revealed that a low number of P1.4 strains had been present in the Dutch meningococcal population since 1965. Genotyping...

neisseria meningitidis is a major causative agent of bacterial septicemia and meningitis in humans. currently, there are no vaccines to prevent disease caused by strains of n.meningitidis serogroup b. the class 1 outer membrane protein (omp) has been named pora which is a cation selective transmembrane protein of 45 kda that forms trimeric pore in the meningococcal outer membrane. pora from ser...

We have analyzed human T-cell responses in parallel with serum immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibody levels after systemic vaccination with the Norwegian group B Neisseria meningitidis outer membrane vesicle (OMV) vaccine. Ten adult volunteers, with no or very low levels of serum IgG antibodies against meningococci, received three doses intramuscularly of the OMV vaccine (at weeks 0, 6, and 46). T-ce...

The question of whether Campylobacter jejuni produces a cholera toxin-like toxin (CTLT) has been controversial. The objective of this study was to identify the factor that cross-reacts with CT from C. jejuni. Filtrates of C. jejuni grown in four different liquid media reported to promote CTLT production were tested by Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell elongation assay and for reactivity with CT ...

The bacterial pathogen Neisseria meningitidis expresses two major outer-membrane porins. PorA expression is subject to phase-variation (high frequency, random, on-off switching), and both PorA and PorB are antigenically variable between strains. PorA expression is variable and not correlated with meningococcal colonisation or invasive disease, whereas all naturally-occurring strains express Por...

The high genetic diversity found among the PorA regions VR1 and VR2 of 101 Neisseria meningitidis isolates from patients with meningococcal disease and healthy carriers in Brazil contrasts with the stability found in the PorA VR3 of these isolates. The presence of VR3 epitope variant 35 or 36 on the surfaces of 87% of the strains analyzed suggests that these antigens should be considered for in...

Neisseria meningitidis, Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae are major bacterial agents of meningitis. They each bind the 37/67-kDa laminin receptor (LamR) via the surface protein adhesins: meningococcal PilQ and PorA, H. influenzae OmpP2 and pneumococcal CbpA. We have previously reported that a surface-exposed loop of the R2 domain of CbpA mediates LamR-binding. Here we have ide...