Arthritic joints are chock-full of activated immune cells. These cells produce chemotactic proteins that lure other cells into the joint, setting up a vicious cycle of inflammation. But what instigates this cycle in the first place? A study by Kim et al. (page 829) puts much of the blame on neutrophils. Neutrophils—granular cells that are among the immune system’s earliest responders during inf...

Intra-ply shear locking results in unrealistic fibre stresses and spurious wrinkling in composite forming simulations. Three remedies are investigated: aligning the mesh, applying reduced integration and using multi-field elements. The bias extension simulation is used to test several triangular and quadrilateral elements on their capability to avoid locking. Their performance under large defor...

A pneumolysin-specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (PLY-ELISA) for the detection of pneumolysin in urine was developed and evaluated in comparison with the commercially available Binax Now Streptococcus pneumoniae test (Binax, Portland, ME) for the diagnosis of pneumococcal infections. Assay sensitivity was evaluated using urine from 108 patients with culture-confirmed pneumococcal infect...

In conventional manufacturing processes of composites, Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) laminates have been made by stacking unidirectional or woven prepreg sheets. Recently, as a manufacturing process of CFRP, 3D printing of CFRP composites has been developed. The 3D printing process of CFRP composites enables us to fabricate CFRP laminates with arbitrary curvilinear fibre plies. This in...

in this paper, the nonlinear free vibrations of thin symmetric and non-symmetric cross-ply composite plates subjected to biaxial initial stresses are investigated. because of their excellent properties such as specific strength and specific stiffness, composite plates have wide applications in aerospace and mechanical structures. based on von-karman's strain-displacement relations and using gal...

PURPOSE To determine the effectiveness of a progressively "skating specific" periodized off-season training program on skating performance in competitive hockey players. METHODS Twenty (M = 18; F = 2) highly skilled hockey players (age 15.9 +/- 1.5 yr) completed 16 wk of standardized resistance and stability training supplemented with either off-ice simulated skating using the SkateSIM (SIM) ...

Streptococcus pneumoniae adherence to human epithelial cells (HECs) is the first step in pathogenesis leading to infections. We sought to determine the role of human antibodies against S. pneumoniae protein vaccine candidates PhtD, PcpA, and Ply in preventing adherence to lung HECs in vitro and mouse nasopharyngeal (NP) colonization in vivo. Human anti-PhtD, -PcpA, and -Ply antibodies were puri...