Concomitant infections, parasites and immune responses.

Concomitant infections are common in nature and often involve parasites. A number of examples of the interactions between protozoa and viruses, protozoa and bacteria, protozoa and other protozoa, protozoa and helminths, helminths and viruses, helminths and bacteria, and helminths and other helminths are described. In mixed infections the burden of one or both the infectious agents may be increased, one or both may be suppressed or one may be increased and the other suppressed. It is now possible to explain many of these interactions in terms of the effects parasites have on the immune system, particularly parasite-induced immunodepression, and the effects of cytokines controlling polarization to the Th1 or Th2 arms of the immune response. In addition, parasites may be affected, directly or indirectly, by cytokines and other immune effector molecules and parasites may themselves produce factors that affect the cells of the immune system. Parasites are, therefore, affected when they themselves, or other organisms, interact with the immune response and, in particular, the cytokine network. The importance of such interactions is discussed in relation to clinical disease and the development and use of vaccines

Event Planner Sensitivity to the Needs of Individuals with Visual Disability at Meetings and Events

Special events, such as fairs, conventions, ballgames, and concerts are typically activities people attend to participate in the festivities and enjoy with friends and family members. For individuals with disabilities, however, these types of events can create more challenges than enjoyment. Despite a thorough review of the literature, no studies were found which evaluated the experiences of individuals who are blind and have visual impairments at events and meetings. The aim of this study was to determine the current level of accessibility at meetings perceived by consumers who are blind and visually impaired. Respondents to the survey indicated many obstacles to accessing meetings including: discrimination, a paucity of accessible features, and accessibility features that are not truly accessible for consumers who are blind and visually impaired. Recommendations are provided for increasing meeting and event accessibility for consumers who are blind and visually impaired

Modelling transitions in childrens' development by starting with adults

We present a blocks task in which cognitive change is apparent, and propose that computational modelling can help in examining how cognitive change occurs. We initially examine the performance of adults on the task, and use the results of this experiment to build both an adult model and a simulation of the task. Comparisons of the model with the adult data reveal further completion work regarding the models qualitative behaviour. However, when finished, the model will be able to predict how behaviour changes when domain knowledge is removed, and will provide the basis for models of children’s behaviour on the task

Existence of random attractors for a class of second order lattice dynamical systems with Brownian motions

Copyright © 2014 Yamin Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.For abstract, see attached file.The National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant nos. 61374010, 61074129, and 61175111, the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China under Grant BK2012682, the Qing Lan Project of Jiangsu Province (2010), the 333 Project of Jiangsu Province (2011), and the Six Talents Peak Project of Jiangsu Province (DZXX-047)

Implementing Sustainable Meal Planning Practices Through Meal Mentoring at an East Texas Food Bank Sponsored Location

Objectives Participants being able to identify key terms on a food label. That the participants will have an awareness of healthful portion sizes. That the participants will be able to demonstrate this knowledge. This was accomplished by an initial assessment, a review and a post assessment. Each interview period had a discussion time and nutrition information was disseminated. Each participant received a one on one mentoring with the researcher covering basic nutrition content of foods during each interview

An integrated approach to global synchronization and state estimation for nonlinear singularly perturbed complex networks

This paper aims to establish a unified framework to handle both the exponential synchronization and state estimation problems for a class of nonlinear singularly perturbed complex networks (SPCNs). Each node in the SPCN comprises both 'slow' and 'fast' dynamics that reflects the singular perturbation behavior. General sector-like nonlinear function is employed to describe the nonlinearities existing in the network. All nodes in the SPCN have the same structures and properties. By utilizing a novel Lyapunov functional and the Kronecker product, it is shown that the addressed SPCN is synchronized if certain matrix inequalities are feasible. The state estimation problem is then studied for the same complex network, where the purpose is to design a state estimator to estimate the network states through available output measurements such that dynamics (both slow and fast) of the estimation error is guaranteed to be globally asymptotically stable. Again, a matrix inequality approach is developed for the state estimation problem. Two numerical examples are presented to verify the effectiveness and merits of the proposed synchronization scheme and state estimation formulation. It is worth mentioning that our main results are still valid even if the slow subsystems within the network are unstable

Formal conserved quantities for isothermic surfaces

Isothermic surfaces in $S^n$ are characterised by the existence of a pencil $\nabla^t$ of flat connections. Such a surface is special of type $d$ if there is a family $p(t)$ of $\nabla^t$-parallel sections whose dependence on the spectral parameter $t$ is polynomial of degree $d$. We prove that any isothermic surface admits a family of $\nabla^t$-parallel sections which is a formal Laurent series in $t$. As an application, we give conformally invariant conditions for an isothermic surface in $S^3$ to be special.Comment: 13 page

Perceptions of Current Tipping Customs and Feasibility of a No-Tip Policy in a Micropolitan Area of Texas

The purpose of this research is to examine the issues surrounding the recent trend to establish a no-tipping policy in American full-service restaurants. Most businesses experimenting with alternative tipping policies are in metropolitan areas, so this research attempts to examine a micropolitan city’s perspective on tip and no-tip policies in full-service restaurants in the area

Outcomes and costs of penetrating trauma injury in England and Wales

The official published version of the article can be found at the link below.Background: Penetrating trauma injury is generally associated with higher short-term mortality than blunt trauma, and results in substantial societal costs given the young age of those typically injured. Little information exists on the patient and treatment characteristics for penetrating trauma in England and Wales, and the acute outcomes and costs of care have not been documented and analysed in detail.Methods: Using the Trauma Audit Research Network (TARN) database, we examined patient records for persons aged 18+ years hospitalised for penetrating trauma injury between January 2000 and December 2005. Patients were stratified by injury severity score (ISS).Results: 1365 patients were identified; 16% with ISS 1-8, 50% ISS 9-15, 15% ISS 16-24, 16% ISS 25-34, and 4% with ISS 35-75. The median age was 30 years and 91% of patients were men. Over 90% of the injuries occurred in alleged assaults. Stabbings were the most common cause of injury (73%), followed by shootings (19%). Forty-seven percent were admitted to critical care for a median length of stay of 2 days; median total hospital length of stay was 7 days. Sixty-nine percent of patients underwent at least one surgical procedure. Eight percent of the patients died before discharge, with a mean time to death of 1.6 days (S.D. 4.0). Mortality ranged from 0% among patients with ISS 1-8 to 55% in patients with ISS > 34. The mean hospital cost per patient was 7983 pound, ranging from 6035 pound in patients with ISS 9-15 to El 6,438 among patients with ISS > 34. Costs varied significantly by ISS, hospital mortality, cause and body region of injury.Conclusion: The acute treatment costs of penetrating trauma injury in England and Wales vary by patient, injury and treatment characteristics. Measures designed toreduce the incidence and severity of penetrating trauma may result in significant hospital cost savings. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This study was funded by Novo Nordisk A/S