Protecting the boundary: the sentinel role of host defense peptides in the skin

The skin is our primary shield against microbial pathogens and has evolved innate and adaptive strategies to enhance immunity in response to injury or microbial insult. The study of antimicrobial peptide (AMP) production in mammalian skin has revealed several of the elegant strategies that AMPs use to prevent infection. AMPs are inducible by both infection and injury and protect the host by directly killing pathogens and/or acting as multifunctional effector molecules that trigger cellular responses to aid in the anti-infective and repair response. Depending on the specific AMP, these molecules can influence cytokine production, cell migration, cell proliferation, differentiation, angiogenesis and wound healing. Abnormal production of AMPs has been associated with the pathogenesis of several cutaneous diseases and plays a role in determining a patient’s susceptibility to pathogens. This review will discuss current research on the regulation and function of AMPs in the skin and in skin disorders.     

Bacterial resistance mechanisms against host defense peptides

Host defense peptides and proteins are important components of the innate host defense against pathogenic microorganisms. They target negatively charged bacterial surfaces and disrupt microbial cytoplasmic membranes, which ultimately leads to bacterial destruction. Throughout evolution, pathogens devised several mechanisms to protect themselves from deleterious damage of host defense peptides. These strategies include (a) inactivation and cleavage of host defense peptides by production of host defense binding proteins and proteases, (b) repulsion of the peptides by alteration of pathogen’s surface charge employing modifications by amino acids or amino sugars of anionic molecules (e.g., teichoic acids, lipid A and phospholipids), (c) alteration of bacterial membrane fluidity, and (d) expulsion of the peptides using multi drug pumps. Together with bacterial regulatory network(s) that regulate expression and activity of these mechanisms, they represent attractive targets for development of novel antibacterials.     

Faithful chaperones

This review describes the properties of some rare eukaryotic chaperones that each assist in the folding of only one target protein. In particular, we describe (1) the tubulin cofactors, (2) p47, which assists in the folding of collagen, (3) α-hemoglobin stabilizing protein (AHSP), (4) the adenovirus L4-100 K protein, which is a chaperone of the major structural viral protein, hexon, and (5) HYPK, the huntingtin-interacting protein. These various-sized proteins (102–1,190 amino acids long) are all involved in the folding of oligomeric polypeptides but are otherwise functionally unique, as they each assist only one particular client. This raises a question regarding the biosynthetic cost of the high-level production of such chaperones. As the clients of faithful chaperones are all abundant proteins that are essential cellular or viral components, it is conceivable that this necessary metabolic expenditure withstood evolutionary pressure to minimize biosynthetic costs. Nevertheless, the complexity of the folding pathways in which these chaperones are involved results in error-prone processes. Several human disorders associated with these chaperones are discussed.     

Immune biology of Ag-specific γδ T cells in infections

Accumulating evidence suggests that human γδ T cells act as non-classical T cells and contribute to both innate and adaptive immune responses in infections. Vγ2 Vδ2 T (also termed Vγ9 Vδ2 T) cells exist only in primates, and in humans represent a dominant circulating γδ T-cell subset. Primate Vγ2 Vδ2 T cells are the only γδ T cell subset capable of recognizing microbial phosphoantigen. Since nonhuman primate Vγ2 Vδ2 T cells resemble their human counterparts, in-depth studies have been undertaken in macaques to understand the biology and function of human Vγ2 Vδ2 T cells. This article reviews the recent progress for immune biology of Vγ2 Vδ2 T cells in infections.     

Behavior Model Construction for Client Side of Modern Web Applications

Most of the behavior models with respect to Web applications focus on sequencing of events,without regard for the changes of parameters or elements and the relationship between trigger conditions of events and Web pages.As a result,these models are not sufficient to effectively represent the dynamic behavior of the Web2.0 application.Therefore,in this paper,to appropriately describe the dynamic behavior of the client side of Web applications,we define a novel Client-side Behavior Model(CBM) for Web applications and present a user behavior trace-based modeling method to automatically generate and optimize CBMs.To verify the effectiveness of our method,we conduct a series of experiments on six Web applications according to three types of user behavior traces.The experimental results show that our modeling method can construct CBMs automatically and effectively,and the CBMs built are more precise to represent the dynamic behavior of Web applications.     

混合约束非凸规划拟锥条件下的同伦方法

使用同伦算法研究混合约束的非凸非线性规划问题. 当规划问题为混合约束（带有等式约束）时, 可行域变成一个边界区域, 并没有内点. 通过对可行域定义新的拟锥条件, 给出相应同伦方程, 并证明此同伦算法在此拟锥条件下具有全局收敛性.     

基于自然特征的增强现实注册算法

增强现实标志点注册算法需在场景中叠加各种标志,系统构造复杂.文中在深入研究机器人视觉伺服系统的基础上,提出了利用虚拟视觉伺服技术、基于自然特征的增强现实注册算法.利用特征点和图像矩作为图像特征,推导出了图像特征变化量与虚拟摄像机相对位姿变化量之间的关系矩阵(即图像的雅可比矩阵),实现了基于自然特征的三维注册算法.与混合跟踪注册算法、共面四点注册算法相比,文中方法具有更高的精度.     

不同工作模式下激光熔化沉积过程熔池演变数值研究

激光熔化沉积工艺中有连续波(continuous-wave,CW)和脉冲波(pulse-wave,PW)两种激光模式.基于Fluent针对熔池瞬态运动和传热传质建立了三维对称数值模型,通过求解VOF(volume of fluid)连续方程追踪沉积层自由表面,分析了不同激光工作模式下熔池的演变过程及上表面波动规律,对熔...     

学习型组织知识创新的文化环境分析

知识创新是学习型组织的内在要求。学习型组织的知识创新是在社会系统中进行的,社会文化环境对其有重要的影响和作用。而社会环境文化的作用包括了外生变量和内生变量两种不同的方式,其中外生变量表现为适应环境的行为,内生变量表现为积极主动地创新。     

我国大型钢铁企业可持续发展对策研究

随着国内外钢铁市场竞争的日趋激烈,我国大型钢铁企业所面临的风险和危机也更大了。从我国大型钢铁企业所处的内外部环境出发剖析了制约其可持续发展的因素,并在此基础上给出了可持续发展的对策,为钢铁企业实现可持续发展起到了积极的指导作用。