Exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), an environmental pollutant, has been shown to cause thymic atrophy and apoptosis. However, whether TCDD alters the process of T-cell selection in the thymus is not clear. To this end, we investigated the effects of TCDD in the context of the HY-T-cell receptor (TCR) transgenic (Tg) mouse model. We noted that negatively selecting male HY-TC...

In this work, the impact of chemical additions, especially nano-particles (NPs), was quantitatively analyzed using our constructed artificial neural networks (ANNs)-response surface methodology (RSM) algorithm. Fe-based and Ni-based NPs ions, including Mg2+, Cu2+, Na+, NH4+, K+, behave differently towards response hydrogen yield (HY) evolution rate (HER). Manipulating size concentration found t...

Naturally derived regulatory T cells (Tregs) may prevent graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) while preserving graft-versus-leukemia (GVL) activity. However, clinical application of naturally derived regulatory T cells has been severely hampered by their scarce availability and nonselectivity. To overcome these limitations, we took alternative approaches to generate Ag-specific induced Tregs (iTreg...

It is well known that, given a point-line geometry Γ and a projective embedding ε : Γ → PG(V ), if dim(V ) equals the size of a generating set of Γ, then ε is not derived from any other embedding. Thus, if Γ admits an absolutely universal embedding, then ε is absolutely universal. In this paper, without assuming the existence of any absolutely universal embedding, we give sufficient conditions ...

Experiments were carried out to test the validity of the hypothesis that postulated differences in the nature of the antigen receptors of primary and secondary B cells should be reflected in a greater specificity in primary B-cell stimulation (2). Enumeration of clonal precursors stimulated by either DNP-Hy, TNP-Hy, or a mixture of both antigens confirmed this hypothesis. Since the sum of prima...

The aim of this work is to model a jet diffusion flame, to show the corresponding proof of existence of solutions, and to present numerical results. The model is based on the flamelet equations for the chemistry and on the mixture fraction for the flow. Numerical tests are carried out for Sandia Flame D and the results are found to compare well with available data found in the literature.

We prove a general finite-dimensional reduction theorem for critical equations of scalar curvature type. Solutions of these equations are constructed as a sum of peaks. The use of this theorem reduces the proof of existence of multi-peak solutions to some test-functions estimates and to the analysis of the interactions of peaks.

High- and low-yawning rats (HY and LY) were selectively bred as a function of their spontaneous yawning frequency with the LY subline about 2 yawns/hr and the HY 20 yawns/hr. The HY rats have more grooming bouts and travel longer distances in an open field. HY dams spent less time in the nest, retrieved their pups faster, and show a longer latency to licking and mouthing the pups than the LY or...

We report the characterization in the human genome of 966 pseudogenes derived from the four human Y (hY) RNAs, components of the Ro/SS-A autoantigen. About 95% of the Y RNA pseudogenes are found in corresponding locations on the chimpanzee and human chromosomes. On the contrary, Y pseudogenes in mice are both infrequent and found in different genomic regions. In addition to this rodent/primate ...

We show lower bounds on the number of sample points and on the number of coin tosses used by general sampling algorithms for estimating the average value of functions over a large domain. The bounds depend on the desired precision and on the error probability of the estimate. Our lower bounds match upper bounds established by known algorithms, up to a mul-tiplicative constant. Furthermore, we g...