Lyme disease is a tick-transmitted disease caused by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi. The bacterium adopts different strategies for its survival inside the immunocompetent host from the time of infection until dissemination in different parts of body tissues. The success of this spirochete depends on its ability to colonise the host tissues and counteract the host's defence mechanisms. Duri...

REFERENCES AND NOTES se that destroys the host. Thus, within a particular host, diversity is driven by the collective sum of all the selective forces acting on the HIV-1 quasispecies virus population, rather than a specific immune parameter by or in itself (4). The theory predicts two possible outcomes. First, infected individuals with diversity higher than their individual specific threshold l...

Immunity to Theileria parva infection in cattle is often parasite stock specific. The antigenic diversity which is expressed at the schizont stage of the parasite together with a wild reservoir of the organism in buffalo has complicated the development of effective disease control by immunization. We have previously shown that about 70% of cattle inoculated with recombinant forms of p67, a spor...

In recent years, scholars and policy makers have questioned the extent to which the nation-state – specifically, the modern welfare state, marked by intervention and publicly-provided social protection – is compatible with economic globalisation. While transnational actors, including multinational corporations, institutional investors, banks and non-governmental organisations, undoubtedly influ...

A tight upper bound on the bit error probability of convolutionally encoded spread spectrum communication over frequency-selective Rayleigh-fading channels is derived. It is shown that combining coding and multipath propagation leads to a multiplication of time and multipath diversity. The main di erence between the two types of diversity is that in contrast to time diversity the multipath dive...

Many of the remaining challenges in infectious disease control involve pathogens that fail to elicit long-lasting immunity in their hosts. Antigenic variation is a common reason for this failure and a contributor to the complexity of vaccine design. Diversifying selection by the host immune system is commonly, and often correctly, invoked to explain antigenic variability in pathogens. However, ...

Pf155 is a merozoite-derived polypeptide antigen which the parasite Plasmodium falciparum deposits in the membranes of erythrocytes at invasion. Eleven laboratory strains or clones of P. falciparum and a large number of isolates obtained from patients from different parts of the world were studied for antigenic diversity in Pf155. Immunoglobulin G antibodies from different serum samples from P....

The spatial dynamics of ecological diversity are studied in two regions (Sudbury, Canada and Harjavalta, Finland) damaged by air pollution from copper and nickel smelting. Perturbation from pollution is assumed to be most intense near the source and to decrease with distance. Monitoring sites were therefore selected to traverse these pollution gradients. Using Rhyi's generalized entropy as a me...

The behaviours, attitudes, and work values of three generations of employees may be influenced by their historical, economic, social, and cultural experiences. Work tensions and conflicts are inevitable if the Baby Boomer, generation X, and generation Y employees fail to understand and accept the unique and different characteristics of each group, and to embrace their similarities. If employees...

Human rhinovirus (HRV) remains a leading cause of several human diseases including the common cold. Despite considerable research over the last 60 years, development of an effective vaccine to HRV has been viewed by many as unfeasible due, in part, to the antigenic diversity of circulating HRVs in nature. Over 150 antigenically distinct types of HRV are currently known which span three species:...