The auxiliary/non-structural proteins of HIVcan be categorized into 2 groups, essential (Tat and Rev) and accessory (Vpr, Vpx, Vif, Vpu, and Nef). HIV replicates competently in vitro in T-cell lines without the need for accessory gene functions (Subbramanian and Cohen, 1994). However, in primary lymphocytes and macrophages, accessory gene products such as Vpr and Vpx contribute to the efficient...

The human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) is a complex retrovirus with more genes than most retroviruses. One of these extra genes codes for a protein called Vpr, which has recently been shown to prevent activation of the mitotic cyclin-dependent kinase and thereby prevent infected cells from undergoing mitosis and proliferating. Vpr also plays an important role in another property of HIV-1 th...

In the last few years we have been prototyping a multiperson virtual environment using low-cost workstations interconnected with relatively high-speed networks. This domain makes use of interactive and on-demand continuous media in addition to a number of other tasks that fall on a spectrum between hard real-time and best-e ort response. A brute force implementation of applications in this type...

miRNAs are a well-established RNA phenomenon. Previously, we analyzed the involvement of HIV-1 protein Tat in cellular gene networks and aspects of its interaction with miRNAs [1]. Here we mention an additional HIV-1 protein, HIV-1 viral protein R (Vpr) that interacts with miRNAs and it is involved in gene expression networks. The manipulation of miRNA expression is anticipated to become import...

The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) reverse transcriptase (RT) is a heterodimer comprised of two structurally distinct subunits (p51 and p66). Since p51 and p66 are derived from the same coding region, subunit-specific structure-function studies of RT have been conducted exclusively by in vitro biochemical approaches. To study RT subunit function in the context of infectious virus, ...

Navigating in a perpetually changing world can provide the basis for numerous challenging autonomous robotic applications. With view to long-term autonomy, visual place recognition (vPR) systems should be able robustly operate under extreme appearance changes their environment. Typically, utilized data representations are heavily influenced by those changes, negatively affecting vPR performance...

Visual Place Recognition (VPR) is the ability to correctly recall a previously visited place under changing viewpoints and appearances. A large number of handcrafted deep-learning-based VPR techniques exist, where former suffer from appearance changes latter have significant computational needs. In this paper, we present new technique, namely ConvSequential-SLAM, that achieves state-of-the-art ...

BACKGROUND Specific mutations in VPR and V2 potentially restrict HIV-1 replication in macrophages. Such restriction could potentially limit HIV replication in long-term non-progressors (LTNP), thus accounting for low viral load and delayed progression to AIDS. OBJECTIVE To examine whether a specific VPR phenotype (truncated versus non-truncated) correlates with disease progression and whether...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis C virus (HCV) genomes and proteins are present in human brain tissues although the impact of HIV/HCV co-infection on neuropathogenesis remains unclear. Herein, we investigate HCV infectivity and effects on neuronal survival and neuroinflammation in conjunction with HIV infection. METHODOLOGY Human microglia, astrocyte and neuron cultures were infected with cell culture-de...