BACKGROUND Previous studies on the influence of HLA-DRB1 alleles on multiple sclerosis (MS) susceptibility and clinical course have mostly employed the 2-point genotyping method. OBJECTIVE To assess the influence of HLA-DRB1 alleles and allele interactions on disease risk and clinical course in a large West Australian MS patient cohort using high-resolution genotyping. METHODS Four digit HL...

BACKGROUND Little is known about the associations between human leukocyte antigens (HLAs) and food allergies. Our aim was to analyze the associations between the HLA class II polymorphism and food allergy using bioinformatics. METHODS A two-step algorithm was developed which mimics the food allergen processing in the human body. In the first step, the allergen is digested by pepsin, trypsin a...

In this proceeding, we show that when the drive laser pulse overlaps the trapped electrons in a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA), those electrons can gain energy from direct laser acceleration (DLA) over extended distances despite the evolution of both the laser and the wake. Through simulations, the evolution of the properties of both the laser and the electron beam is quantified, and then t...

Mechanisms for observed associations within the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and autoimmune diseases including multiple sclerosis (MS) remain uncertain. Genotyping of the HLA Class II DRB1 locus in 4347 individuals from 873 multiplex families with MS highlights the genetic complexity of this locus. Excess allele sharing in sibling pair families lacking DRB1*15 and DRB1*17 (58.5% shari...

Autoimmune diseases (AIDs) are characterized by a multifactorial aetiology and a complex genetic background, with the MHC region playing a major role. We genotyped for HLA-DRB1 locus 1228 patients with AIDs-213 with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), 166 with Psoriasis or Psoriatic Arthritis (Ps + PsA), 153 with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), 67 with Systemic Sclerosis (SSc), 536 with Multiple Scl...

Based on our analysis of the behavior of standard UNIX communication software, we propose a new communication mechanism which reduces software overhead. This mechanism is optimized to be used in business applications, such as those of online transaction process ing and da tabase managemen t . These applications are currently designed to operate i n mul t ip le concurrent processes , thus requir...

Diffusion-Limited Aggregation (DLA) is a model of fractal growth. Computer models can simulate the fast aggregation of millions of particles. In this paper, we propose a modified version of DLA, called semantically modified DLA (SM-DLA), for visualizing large-scale networks. SM-DLA introduces similarity measures between particles so that instead of attaching to the nearest particle in the aggre...

26 Background. The frequency of autoantibodies against glutamic acid decarboxylase-65 27 (GAD65), and ICA512/IA2 (IA2) are a function of the specific human leukocyte antigen 28 (HLA) in type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1D). We investigated the association of HLA class II 29 (DR, DQ) alleles and haplotypes with the presence of GAD and IA-2 autoantibodies in T1D. 30 Methods. Autoantibodies were tested ...

We examine the abundance, clustering and metallicity of Damped Lyman-α Absorbers (DLAs) in a suite of hydrodynamic cosmological simulations using the moving mesh code AREPO . We incorporate models of supernova and AGN feedback, as well as molecular hydrogen formation. We compare our simulations to the column density distribution function at z = 3, the total DLA abundance at z = 2 − 4, the measu...

BACKGROUND Several studies have reported that HLA-DRB1 may be correlated with pemphigus vulgaris (PV), but most have been based on small samples and the results remain inconsistent and unclear. OBJECTIVES To investigate the correlation between DRB1 and PV by a meta-analysis of case-control/nonfamily studies. METHODS PubMed, Wiley Online Library, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, Cochrane Libra...