Stein structures and holomorphic mappings

We prove that every continuous map from a Stein manifold X to a complex manifold Y can be made holomorphic by a homotopic deformation of both the map and the Stein structure on X. In the absence of topological obstructions the holomorphic map may be chosen to have pointwise maximal rank. The analogous result holds for any compact Hausdorff family of maps, but it fails in general for a noncompact family. Our main results are actually proved for smooth almost complex source manifolds (X,J) with the correct handlebody structure. The paper contains another proof of Eliashberg's (Int J Math 1:29--46, 1990) homotopy characterization of Stein manifolds and a slightly different explanation of the construction of exotic Stein surfaces due to Gompf (Ann Math 148 (2):619--693, 1998; J Symplectic Geom 3:565--587, 2005). (See also the related preprint math/0509419).Comment: The original publication is available at http://www.springerlink.co

Host species adaptation of TLR5 signalling and flagellin recognition

Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5) recognition of flagellin instigates inflammatory signalling. Significant sequence variation in TLR5 exists between animal species but its impact on activity is less well understood. Building on our previous research that bovine TLR5 (bTLR5) is functional, we compared human and bovine TLR5 activity and signalling in cognate cell lines. bTLR5 induced higher levels of CXCL8 when expressed in bovine cells and reciprocal results were found for human TLR5 (hTLR5) in human cells, indicative of host cell specificity in this response. Analysis of Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) sequences indicated that these differential responses involve cognate MyD88 recognition. siRNA knockdowns and inhibitor experiments demonstrated that there are some host differences in signalling. Although, PI3K activation is required for bTLR5 signalling, mutating bTLR5 F798 to hTLR5 Y798 within a putative PI3K motif resulted in a significantly reduced response. All ruminants have F798 in contrast to most other species, suggesting that TLR5 signalling has evolved differently in ruminants. Evolutionary divergence between bovine and human TLR5 was also apparent in relation to responses measured to diverse bacterial flagellins. Our results underscore the importance of species specific studies and how differences may alter efficacy of TLR-based vaccine adjuvants

On subelliptic manifolds

A smooth complex quasi-affine algebraic variety Y is flexible if its special group SAut(Y) of automorphisms (generated by the elements of one-dimensional unipotent subgroups of Aut(Y)) acts transitively on Y, and an algebraic variety is stably flexible if its product with some affine space is flexible. An irreducible algebraic variety X is locally stably flexible if it is a union of a finite number of Zariski open sets each of which is stably flexible. The main result of this paper states that the blowup of a locally stably flexible variety along a smooth algebraic subvariety (not necessarily equidimensional or connected) is subelliptic, and, therefore, it is an Oka manifold

Efeito dos níveis energéticos em dietas isoprotéicas sobre o desempenho, taxa metabólica e hormônios tireoideanos em frangos

Submitted by Franciele Moreira ([email protected]) on 2018-03-13T16:32:47Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Artigo - Otto Mack Junqueira - 1999.pdf: 158899 bytes, checksum: 78afd5849aa656a3ae6c8f2e25c7ec26 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5)Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira ([email protected]) on 2018-03-14T11:15:48Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Artigo - Otto Mack Junqueira - 1999.pdf: 158899 bytes, checksum: 78afd5849aa656a3ae6c8f2e25c7ec26 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5)Made available in DSpace on 2018-03-14T11:15:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Artigo - Otto Mack Junqueira - 1999.pdf: 158899 bytes, checksum: 78afd5849aa656a3ae6c8f2e25c7ec26 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 1999Foram testados três níveis de energia (2 600, 2 900 e 3 200 kcal EM/kg) para estudar a influência dos mesmos em dietas isoprotéicas, sobre o desempenho, níveis plasmáticos dos hormônios tireoideanos e a taxa metabólica aos 28 e 49 dias de idade nas temperaturas de 15ºC, 25ºC e 35ºC em frangos de corte. Aves que receberam dietas com maior nível energético apresentaram melhor ganho de peso e maior consumo de ração. A taxa metabólica foi dependente da idade das aves e da temperatura ambiente, não sendo influenciada pelo nível energético da dieta. Não foi observado correlação entre a concentração plasmática dos hormônios tireoideanos e a energia ingerida.A study was conducted on the effects of three dietary energy levels (2 600, 2 900, and 3 200 Kcal EM/kg) in isoproteinic diets for broiler chicks, on the productive performance, plasma thyroid hormone (T4 and T3) levels and metabolic rate, determined at 28 and 49 days of age and at environmental temperatures of 15ºC, 25ºC, and 35ºC. Birds fed the highest energy level showed the most rapid weight gain and greater feed intake. Metabolic rate was dependent on ambient temperature and age of the birds, but not on the dietary energy level. No correlation was observed between plasma thyroid hormone concentration and energy intake