OBJECTIVE Mucociliary transport is an important defense mechanism for the airways. The aim of this study was to establish reference values for nasal mucociliary clearance time (MCT) by means of the saccharin test. SUBJECTS AND METHODS A cross-sectional, descriptive, observational study was performed. The variables studied were nasal MCT, age, and sex. We included 249 healthy nonsmokers (134 m...

Mammary secretions (n = 34 cows) and mammary phagocytes (n = 18 cows) were collected throughout the nonlactating (dry) period to determine changes in intramammary phagocytic defense mechanisms. Mammary secretions were evaluated for their ability to support phagocytosis of Staphylococcus aureus by neutrophils from donor cows and mammary phagocytes for phagocytic and chemiluminescence activity. A...

In recent years, the United States, along with many other countries, has significantly increased its detection and defense mechanisms against terrorist attacks. A potential attack with a nuclear weapon, using nuclear materials smuggled into the country, has been identified as a particularly grave threat. The system for detecting illicit nuclear materials that is currently in place at U.S. ports...

Bacteria have evolved diverse defense mechanisms that allow them to fight viral attacks. One such mechanism, the clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) system, is an adaptive immune system consisting of genetic loci that can take up genetic material from invasive elements (viruses and plasmids) and later use them to reject the returning invaders. It remains an open ...

Enterprises are more and more moving to the cloud to take advantages of its economic and technological model. However, Privacy and Security issues are often cited as the main obstacle to the adoption of cloud computing for enterprises; hence we need to have a clear understanding of security needs in the cloud in order to achieve solutions. The aim of this paper is twofold: firstly, to distingui...

This article examines why organizations struggle with learning how to prevent discrimination against their employees with disabilities. To explore this issue, qualitative archival data were collected and analyzed from 53 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) lawsuits filed against 44 organizations. Theoretical analysis of the qualitative data suggests that several organizationally based learnin...

The immune system is often said to function by "self-nonself" discrimination. Recently, some have argued that it actually detects "danger" or "strangers". There are problems with all of these points of view. Given that the immune system has been cobbled together throughout evolution and uses a diverse array of innate and adaptive defense mechanisms, it may not be possible to account for immunit...

Fungal laccases are involved in a variety of physiological functions such as delignification, morphogenesis, and parasitism. In addition to these functions, we suggest that fungal laccases are involved in defense mechanisms. When the laccase secreting Trichoderma viride was grown in the presence of a range of microorganisms including bacteria and fungi, laccase secretion was enhanced in respons...

The innate immune system in humans consists of both cellular and humoral components that collaborate to eradicate invading bacteria from the body. Here, we discover that the gram-positive bacterium Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of anthrax, does not grow in human serum. Fractionation of serum by gel filtration chromatography led to the identification of human transferrin as the inhibit...

Staphylococcus bacteriophage 81 is capable of in vivo interaction with Staphylococcus aureus, Type 80/81. This is immediately made evident by increased levels of bacteriophage and concomitant survival of 81 per cent infected mice. The reaction is dependent upon the use of active, type-specific bacteriophage. The maximal protective effect is observed at a bacteriophage to bacteria ratio of 1:2 a...