Ninjurin 1 contributes to TLR-induced inflammation in endothelial cells

Background: Nerve injury induced protein 1 (Ninjurin 1 (Ninj1)) was first identified in Schwann cells and neurons contributing to cell adhesion and nerve regeneration. Recently, the role of Ninj1 has been linked to inflammatory processes in the central nervous system where functional repression reduced leukocyte infiltration and clinical disease activity during experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis in mice [1]. But Ninj1 is also expressed outside the nervous system in various organs such as the liver and kidney as well as on leukocytes [2,3]. Therefore, we hypothesized that Ninj1 contributes to inflammation in general; that is, also outside the nervous system, with special interest in the pathogenesis of sepsis. Methods: Ninj1 was repressed by transfecting HMEC-1 cells, a human dermal microvascular endothelial cell line with siRNA targeting Ninj1 (siNinj1) or a negative control (siC). Subsequently, cells were stimulated with 100 ng/ml LPS (TLR4 agonist), 3 μg/ml LTA (TLR2 agonist) or 100 n/ml poly(I:C) (TLR3 agonist) for 3 hours. The inflammatory response was analyzed by real-time PCR. In addition, transmigration of neutrophils across a HMEC-1 monolayer was measured using transwell plates (pore size 3 μm). Results: Repression of Ninj1 by siRNA reduced Ninj1 mRNA expression in HMEC about 90% (Figure 1A). Reduced Ninj1 expression decreased neutrophil migration to 62.5% (Figure 1B) and TLR signaling. In detail, knockdown of Ninj1 significantly reduced TLR-2 and TLR-4 triggered expression of ICAM-1 and IL-6 (Figure 1C,D) while poly(I:C)-induced expression was only slightly reduced. To analyze a more specific TLR-3 target, we measured IP-10 mRNA expression, which was also significantly reduced in siNinj1-transfected cells (Figure 1E). Conclusion: Our in vitro data strongly indicated that Ninj1 is involved in regulation of TLR signaling and therewith contributes to inflammation. In vivo experiments will clarify its impact on systemic inflammation

Longer-Baseline Telescopes Using Quantum Repeaters

We present an approach to building interferometric telescopes using ideas of quantum information. Current optical interferometers have limited baseline lengths, and thus limited resolution, because of noise and loss of signal due to the transmission of photons between the telescopes. The technology of quantum repeaters has the potential to eliminate this limit, allowing in principle interferometers with arbitrarily long baselines.Comment: 10 pages, v2 improved clarit

Perceptions of leadership across cultures: a study of French and German managers and their employees in both their domestic and host environments

The phenomenon of globalisation has contributed greatly to the increasing interest in investigating cross-cultural leadership in recent years (Avolio, Walumbwa and Weber, 2009). To date cross-cultural leadership research has mainly involved comparative studies between countries at manager level (e.g. House et al., 2004) and has focused on potential cultural effects on leadership styles. The aim of this crosscultural study is to address the gap of neglecting employees’ views on leadership by investigating leadership perceptions both from the perspective of managers and employees in their domestic and host environments. This study explores leadership perceptions in the specific context of France and Germany, using a mixed methods approach. Based on implicit leadership theories and connectionist theory (Hanges et al., 2006; Lord et al., 2001), the similarities and differences that exist between the structure and the content of cognitive leadership schemas of French and German managers and employees regarding their perceptions of effective leadership are compared. This study shows that the application of connectionist theory to the field of cross-cultural leadership research provides a meaningful lens to investigate the relationship between culture and leadership. It found that despite the spread of globalisation and an often assumed concomitant convergence of cultures, differences in the approaches to leadership in a French and German business context still persist and should, therefore, be considered by companies planning foreign operations or secondments

Entangling ability of a beam splitter in the presence of temporal which-path information

We calculate the amount of polarization-entanglement induced by two-photon interference at a lossless beam splitter. Entanglement and its witness are quantified respectively by concurrence and the Bell-CHSH parameter. In the presence of a Mandel dip, the interplay of two kinds of which-path information -- temporal and polarization -- gives rise to the existence of entangled polarization-states that cannot violate the Bell-CHSH inequality.Comment: 8 pages including 2 figure