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The bi-component leukocidins of Staphylococcus aureus are important virulence factors that lyse human phagocytic cells and contribute to immune evasion. The γ-hemolysins (HlgAB and HlgCB) and Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL or LukSF) were shown to assemble from soluble subunits into membrane-bound oligomers on the surface of target cells, creating barrel-like pore structures that lead to cell lys

Insomnia and sleep apnea represent the most prevalent sleep disorders worldwide. Incidences are discouraging, with perhaps less attention in some parts, and the complexity in the pathophysiologies of the two diseases pose a major challenge to clinicians and researchers. Mainstream therapeutic regimens are afflicted by adverse side effects, laborious, demanding enormous amounts of money, and are in

Nonlinear light-matter interactions, such as filamentation or high-order harmonic generation, are at the heart of nonlinear optics. Scaling of such effects is crucial to benefit optimally from novel laser developments. We introduce and discuss a general scaling model for nonlinear light-matter interactions in gases.

Questions concerning the occurrence of adaptive sex ratio manipulation have a long research tradition in evolutionary biology, but evidence from birds is scarce. It has been suggested that birds are unable to adaptively determine the sex of their young because of the constraints of their sex determination systems. Here we report results from a study of variation in offspring sex ratio in the blue

Injuries to the spinal column and spinal cord are a major cause of disability, affecting predominately young, healthy individuals. The majority of the spinal injuries (60%) affect young healthy males between 15 and 35 years of age, with important socioeconomic consequences, and the costs of lifetime care and rehabilitation are extremely high. As the longevity of the general population increases, t

Viral infections predispose to the development of childhood asthma, a disease associated with increased lung mast cells (MCs). This study investigated whether viral lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) can already evoke a MC response during childhood. Lung tissue from young children who died following LRTIs were processed for immunohistochemical identification of MCs. Children who died from

This chapter outlines some of the key concerns with criminalising sex-selective abortion (SSA) in China and India, highlighting that it offers no identifiable options for sustainable, women-centred, progressive change. Instead, the criminalisation of SSA sits firmly within other forms of carceral feminism. Framing SSA as “female foeticide,” “femicide,” or “gendercide” is problematic, as such terms

The 1st International Hip-related Pain Research Network meeting discussed four prioritised themes concerning hip-related pain in young to middle-aged adults: (1) diagnosis and classification of hip-related pain; (2) patient-reported outcome measures for hip-related pain; (3) measurement of physical capacity for hip-related pain; (4) physiotherapist-led treatment for hip-related pain. Thirty-eight

Development of new computational methods and testing their performance has to be carried out using experimental data. Only in comparison to existing knowledge can method performance be assessed. For that purpose, benchmark datasets with known and verified outcome are needed. High-quality benchmark datasets are valuable and may be difficult, laborious and time consuming to generate. VariBench and V

There is no agreement on how to classify, define or diagnose hip-related pain-a common cause of hip and groin pain in young and middle-aged active adults. This complicates the work of clinicians and researchers. The International Hip-related Pain Research Network consensus group met in November 2018 in Zurich aiming to make recommendations on how to classify, define and diagnose hip disease in you

We here present some recent developments of MadGraph/MadEvent since the latest published version, 4.0. These developments include: Jet matching with Pythia parton showers for both Standard Model and Beyond the Standard Model processes, decay chain functionality, decay width calculation and decay simulation, process generation for the Grid, a package for calculation of quarkonium amplitudes, calcul

The Gaia spacecraft presents an unprecedented opportunity to reveal the population of long period (a > 1 au) exoplanets orbiting stars across the H-R diagram, including white dwarfs. White dwarf planetary systems have played an important role in the study of planetary compositions, from their unique ability to provide bulk elemental abundances of planetary material in their atmospheres. Yet, very

Coagulation, complement, and innate immunity are tightly interwoven and form an alliance that can be traced back to early eukaryotic evolution. Here we employed an ecoimmunological approach using Tissue Factor Pathway Inhibitor (TFPI)-1-derived peptides from the different classes of vertebrates (i.e. fish, reptile, bird, and mammals) and tested whether they can boost killing of various human bacte

Streptococcus pyogenes is known to cause both mucosal and systemic infections in humans. In this study, we used a combination of quantitative and structural mass spectrometry techniques to determine the composition and structure of the interaction network formed between human plasma proteins and the surfaces of different S. pyogenes serotypes. Quantitative network analysis revealed that S. pyogene

Parental care can be partitioned into traits that involve direct engagement with offspring and traits that are expressed as an extended phenotype and influence the developmental environment, such as constructing a nursery. Here, we use experimental evolution to test whether parents can evolve modifications in nursery construction when they are experimentally prevented from supplying care directly

Urban greening is often thought of as a tool for aligning developmental and environmental goals, but it is also a tool for magnifying the city. It exposes and expands almost invisible dimensions of our hyperlocal environment. Greening has become one of the strongest mechanisms for transforming these preferences from a figurative guide for action into the literal cities the authors inhabit. In the