One of the main reasons considered for BCG failure in tuberculosis-endemic areas is impediment by environmental mycobacteria in its processing and generation of memory T-cell response. To overcome this problem, we developed a unique lipopeptide (L91) by linking the promiscuous peptide (sequence 91-110) of 16 kDa antigen of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to Pam2Cys. L91 does not require extensive an...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES In spite of the fact that BCG is the most widely used vaccine, tuberculosis (TB) continues to be a major killer disease in TB-endemic regions. Recently, many emerging evidences from the published literature indicate the role of environmental mycobacteria in blocking the processing and presentation of BCG antigens and thereby impairing with suboptimal generation of protec...

Regardless of the fact that potent drug-regimen is currently available, tuberculosis continues to kill 1.5 million people annually. Tuberculosis patients are not only inflicted by the trauma of disease but they also suffer from the harmful side-effects, immune suppression and drug resistance instigated by prolonged therapy. It is an exigency to introduce radical changes in the existing drug-reg...

For a quarter century, a top priority in transportation economic theory has been to develop models of rush-hour traffic dynamics that incorporate traffic jams (hypercongestion). The difficulty has been that “proper” models result in mathematical intractabilty, while none of the proposed approximating models has gained general acceptance. This paper takes a different tack, focusing on a particul...

We investigate the effect of lane kilometers of roads on vehicle-kilometers traveled (VKT) in US cities. VKT increases proportionately to roadway lane kilometers for interstate highways and probably slightly less rapidly for other types of roads. The sources for this extra VKT are increases in driving by current residents, increases in commercial traffic, and migration. Increasing lane kilomete...

We exploit historical data on planned highways, railroads, and exploration routes as sources of exogenous variation, in order to estimate the effect of interstate highways on regional innovation: a 10% increase in a region?s stock of highways causes a 1.7% increase in regional patenting over a five-year period. In terms of the mechanism, we report evidence that roads facilitate local knowledge ...

In April 2009 the US government unveiled its blueprint for a national network of high-speed passenger rail (HSR) lines aimed at reducing traffic congestion, cutting national dependence on foreign oil and improving rural and urban environments. In implementing such a program, it is essential to identify the factors that might influence decision making and the eventual success of the HSR project,...

Cross-border integration is a complex process, but it could bring benefits to the nations involved in motivating trade and tourism. Air transport has been playing an important role accelerating of economies countries Association Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The introduction visa-free exemption agreement 2006 ratification semi-ASEAN open skies 2016 have stimulated intra-ASEAN travel trade. H...

abstract fars province with a share of more than 16 percent holds the highest rank in producing tomato in iran. this study aims at determining priorities for tomato processing centers in fars province’s townships. to achieve the study objective a distance minimizing pattern was used for transportation network between producing and processing centers as well as processing and consumption centers...