Secretory-immunoglobulin A (S-IgA) plays an important role in immunological defense in the intestine. It has been known for a long time that microbial stimulation is required for the development and maintenance of intestinal IgA production. Recent advances in genomic technology have made it possible to detect uncultivable commensal bacteria in the intestine and identify key bacteria in the regu...

The phenotype of B cells responsible for the production of anti-pneumococcal polysaccharide Ab has been unclear. Although individuals that respond poorly to the 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide (PPS) vaccine, Pneumovax, such as children <2 y, the asplenic, and a subset of common variable immunodeficiency patients, are profoundly deficient or lack IgM memory cells (CD27(+)IgM(+)), they are ...

The large numbers of human intestinal microorganisms have a highly co-evolved relationship with the immune system. Dysbacteriosis of intestinal microbiota induces alterations of immune responses, and is closely related to disease development. Peyer's patches are immune sensors in intestine which exert essential functions during development of inflammatory disease. However, interactions between ...

In the field of design and analysis of manufacturing systems, models are sometimes built with the help of analytical methods. However, the verification of these models is often addressed by simulation. To check the performance of a manufacturing system, formal methods of design are needed. In this work, the selected modelling and verification tool is a high level Petri net. Based on properties ...

BACKGROUND Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been used to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) for many years. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the comprehensive therapy based on the three common TCM patterns in stable COPD patients. METHODS A four-center, open-label randomized controlled method was conducted. A total of 352 patients were divided into...

The apoptosis of tubular epithelial cells in diabetic nephropathy (DN) is commonly observed in human renal biopsies. Inflammation plays a key role in DN, and pentosan polysulfate (PPS) has been shown to largely attenuate the inflammation of nephropathy in aging diabetic mice. p38 mitogen‑activated protein kinase (p38 MAPK) plays a crucial role in tissue inflammation and cell apoptosis, and it i...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE To improve the efficacy and safety of tolerance induction for food allergies, identifying the tissues responsible for inducing intestinal inflammation and subsequent oral tolerance is important. We used OVA23-3 mice, which express an ovalbumin-specific T-cell receptor, to elucidate the roles of local and systemic immune tissues in intestinal inflammation. METHODS AND ...

The input prices indexes used in part to set payment rates for Medicare inpatient hospital services in both prospective payment system (PPS) and PPS-excluded hospitals were rebased from 1982 to 1987 beginning with payments for fiscal year 1991. In this article, the issues and evidence used to determine the composition of the revised hospital input price indexes are discussed. One issue is the n...

Latest scientific and engineering advances have started to recognize the need of defining multiple types of uncertainty. Probabilistic modeling cannot handle situations with incomplete or little information on which to evaluate a probability, or when that information is nonspecific, ambiguous, or conflicting [1]. Many generalized models of uncertainty have been developed to treat such situation...

This paper proposes a push and pull search (PPS) framework for solving constrained multi-objective optimization problems (CMOPs). To be more specific, the proposed PPS divides the search process into two different stages, including the push and pull search stages. In the push stage, a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) is adopted to explore the search space without considering any con...