321 research outputs found
ICPR2017 – The Fourth International Conference on Practice Research: overview
This paper reports issues arising from the Fourth International Conference on Practice Research, held in Hong Kong in May 2017. The issues were identified by specially convened group of conference participants, and include the need to develop a better language to describe practice research in terms that make sense to practitioners, improved support for practitioners to conduct research, recognising the different drivers for practice research in different countries, and enhancing practitioners' coordinating and leadership roles
Fluctuations of the Casimir-like force between two membrane inclusions
Although Casimir forces are inseparable from their fluctuations, little is
known about these fluctuations in soft matter systems. We use the membrane
stress tensor to study the fluctuations of the membrane-mediated Casimir-like
force. This method enables us to recover the Casimir force between two
inclusions and to calculate its variance. We show that the Casimir force is
dominated by its fluctuations. Furthermore, when the distance d between the
inclusions is decreased from infinity, the variance of the Casimir force
decreases as -1/d^2. This distance dependence shares a common physical origin
with the Casimir force itself.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Corrigendum to: Pattern Recognition Receptors in Innate Immunity to Obligate Intracellular Bacteria
Pattern Recognition Receptors in Innate Immunity to Obligate Intracellular Bacteria
Host pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) are crucial for sensing pathogenic microorganisms, initiating innate responses, and modulating pathogen-specific adaptive immunity during infection. Rickettsia spp. , Orientia tsutsugamushi , Anaplasma spp. , Ehrlichia spp. , and Coxiella burnetii are obligate intracellular bacteria that can replicate only within host cells and must evade immune detection to successfully propagate. These five bacterial species are zoonotic pathogens of clinical or agricultural importance, yet uncovering how immune recognition occurs has remained challenging. Recent evidence from in vitro studies and animal models has yielded new insights into the types and kinetics of PRR activation during infection with Rickettsia spp. , A. phagocytophilum , E. chaffeensis , and C. burnetii . However, much less was known about PRR activation in O. tsutsugamushi infection until the recent discovery of the role of the C-type lectin receptor Mincle during lethal infection in mice and in primary macrophage cultures. This review provides a brief summary of the clinical and epidemiologic features of these five bacterial infections, with a focus on the fundamental biologic facets of infection, and recent advances in host recognition. In addition, knowledge gaps regarding the innate recognition of these bacteria in the context of disease pathogenesis are discussed
Forces exerted by a correlated fluid on embedded inclusions
We investigate the forces exerted on embedded inclusions by a fluid medium
with long-range correlations, described by an effective scalar field theory.
Such forces are the basis for the medium-mediated Casimir-like force. To study
these forces beyond thermal average, it is necessary to define them in each
microstate of the medium. Two different definitions of these forces are
currently used in the literature. We study the assumptions underlying them. We
show that only the definition that uses the stress tensor of the medium gives
the sought-after force exerted by the medium on an embedded inclusion. If a
second inclusion is embedded in the medium, the thermal average of this force
gives the usual Casimir-like force between the two inclusions. The other
definition can be used in the different physical case of an object that
interacts with the medium without being embedded in it. We show in a simple
example that the two definitions yield different results for the variance of
the Casimir-like force.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure
CD95-mediated calcium signaling promotes T helper 17 trafficking to inflamed organs in lupus-prone mice
CD95 ligand (CD95L) is expressed by immune cells and triggers apoptotic death. Metalloprotease-cleaved CD95L (cl-CD95L) is released into the bloodstream but does not trigger apoptotic signaling. Hence, the pathophysiological role of cl-CD95L remains unclear. We observed that skin-derived endothelial cells from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients expressed CD95L and that after cleavage, cl-CD95L promoted T helper 17 (Th17) lymphocyte transmigration across the endothelial barrier at the expense of T regulatory cells. T cell migration relied on a direct interaction between the CD95 domain called calcium-inducing domain (CID) and the Src homology 3 domain of phospholipase CÎł1. Th17 cells stimulated with cl-CD95L produced sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P), which promoted endothelial transmigration by activating the S1P receptor 3. We generated a cell-penetrating CID peptide that prevented Th17 cell transmigration and alleviated clinical symptoms in lupus mice. Therefore, neutralizing the CD95 non-apoptotic signaling pathway could be an attractive therapeutic approach for SLE treatment
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