Guilan Province is the biggest hazelnut producer in Iran. Over 70% of hazelnut production cost is due to its manual harvesting. Therefore, study on all aspects of its cultivation mechanization is necessary to sustain its production. This study focused on identifying factors that affect the development of hazelnut harvesting mechanization in Guilan Province, Iran, using a three-round Delphi tech...

IL-12 drives type I immune responses and can mediate chronic inflammation that leads to host defense as well as disease. Recently, we discovered a novel role for 12/15-lipoxygenase (12/15-LO) in mediating IL-12p40 expression in atherosclerotic plaque and in isolated macrophages. We now demonstrate that 12/15-LO regulates IL-12 family cytokine production in a cell-type and stimulus-restricted fa...

Highly virulent influenza virus infection results in excessive cytokine production, recruitment of leukocytes, and immune-mediated pulmonary injury. Teijaro et al. (2011) now demonstrate that sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1 ligands suppress all features of flu-inflicted pathological inflammation and place the endothelium at the center of this regulatory network.

Transient receptor potential melastatin 2 (TRPM2) is a Ca(2+)-permeable nonselective cation channel that is stimulated by oxidative stress and specifically activated by intracellular ADP-ribose. Because TRPM2 is highly expressed in immunocytes, a role of this channel in inflammation processes has been proposed. The aim of the current study was to determine the function of TRPM2 in LPS-induced c...

Human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (lymphocyte-monocyte) in culture release a solube factor which can stimulate, up to 200-fold, production of prostaglandin E2 by isolated, adherent, rheumatoid synovial cells. Production of the factor by the mononuclear cells is enhanced by phytohemagglutinin. This factor is similar in apparent mol vt (10,000-20,000) to that which also stimulates collagen...

Dendritic cells (DCs) are a heterogenous population of bone-marrow-derived immune cells. Although all DCs share a common ability to process and present antigen to naive T cells for the initiation of an immune response, they differ in surface markers, migratory patterns, localization, and cytokine production. DCs were originally considered to be myeloid cells, but recent findings have demonstrat...

The inability to acquire protective immunity against Plasmodia is the chief obstacle to malaria control, and inadequate T-cell responses may facilitate persistent blood-stage infection. Malaria is characterized by a highly inflammatory cytokine milieu, and the lack of effective protection against infection suggests that memory T cells are not adequately formed or maintained. Using a genetically...

In this paper, we present a method for improving the performance of classical symbolic rules. This is achieved by introducing a type of hybrid rules, called neurules, which integrate neurocomputing into the symbolic framework of production rules. Neurules are produced by converting existing symbolic rules. Each neurule is considered as an adaline unit, where weights are considered as significan...