Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) is a permanent threat due to its capacity to cross species barriers and generate severe infections and high mortality in humans. Recent findings have highlighted the potential role of PB1-F2, a small accessory influenza protein, in the pathogenesis process mediated by HPAIV in mammals. In this study, using a recombinant H5N1 HPAIV (wt) and its PB1...

We initiate a systematic study of linear sketching over F2. For a given Boolean function f : {0, 1} → {0, 1} a randomized F2-sketch is a distributionM over d×n matrices with elements over F2 such thatMx suffices for computing f(x) with high probability. We study a connection between F2-sketching and a two-player one-way communication game for the corresponding XOR-function. Our results show tha...

In classical fixed point and coincidence theory, the notion of Nielsen numbers has proved to be extremely fruitful. Here we extend it to pairs ( f1, f2) of maps between manifolds of arbitrary dimensions. This leads to estimates of the minimum numbers MCC( f1, f2) (and MC( f1, f2), resp.) of path components (and of points, resp.) in the coincidence sets of those pairs of maps which are ( f1, f2)...

For simplicity, we adopt the following rules: x denotes a set, n, m, k denote natural numbers, r denotes a real number, V denotes a real linear space, v, w denote vectors of V , A1 denotes a finite subset of V , and A2 denotes a finite affinely independent subset of V . One can prove the following propositions: (1) For all real-valued finite sequences f1, f2 and for every real number r holds (I...

In classical fixed point and coincidence theory the notion of Nielsen numbers has proved to be extremely fruitful. Here we extend it to pairs (f1, f2) of maps between manifolds of arbitrary dimensions. This leads to estimates of the minimum numbers MCC(f1, f2) (and MC(f1, f2), resp.) of pathcomponents (and of points, resp.) in the coincidence sets of those pairs of maps which are homotopic to (...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate liver fibrosis using non-invasive Real-time Tissue Elastography (RTE) and transient elastography (FibroScan) methods. METHODS RTE, FibroScan and percutaneous liver biopsy were all performed on patients with chronic liver disease, particularly hepatitis C, to investigate liver fibrosis. RESULTS FibroScan and RTE were compared for fibrous liv...

Let Fn be a free group of rank n. In this paper we discuss three algorithmic problems related to automorphisms of F2. A word u of Fn is called positive if u does not have negative exponents. A word u in Fn is called potentially positive if φ(u) is positive for some automorphism φ of Fn. We prove that there is an algorithm to decide whether or not a given word in F2 is potentially positive, whic...

The influenza A virus (IAV) PB1-F2 protein is a virulence factor contributing to the pathogenesis observed during IAV infections in mammals. In this study, using a mouse model, we compared the host response associated with PB1-F2 with an early transcriptomic signature that was previously associated with neutrophils and consecutively fatal IAV infections. This allowed us to show that PB1-F2 is p...

This study aimed to sequence and characterize two pro-coagulant genes, coagulation factor II (f2) and fibrinogen gamma chain (fgg), from the liver of the African lungfish Protopterus annectens, and to determine their hepatic mRNA expression levels during three phases of aestivation. The protein abundance of F2 and Fgg in the liver and plasma was determined by immunoblotting. The results indicat...

Bent functions (Dillon 1974; Rothaus 1976) are extremal objects in combinatorics and Boolean function theory. They have been studied for about 40 years; even more, under the name of difference sets in elementary Abelian 2-groups. The motivation for the study of these particular difference sets is mainly cryptographic (but bent functions play also a role in coding theory and sequences; and as di...