60 research outputs found
Refining Human Capital Insight: An Elegant Exposition of Enriching Essentials: A Book Review
No full textThis book review pertaining to “Advanced HRM” offers a panoramic view relating to intricacies of managing people, the most “precious” resource in any organization. The author, having produced a masterpiece “Human Resource Management”, has extended the depth and breadth of its coverage in adding much value, inclusive of concepts, frameworks, applications, cases, tools as well as reflections. In the logically sequenced twelve chapters, the author offers valuable knowledge enriched with objectives and a series of real life examples. Visual depictions such as frameworks, process flow charts, models and figures have enriched the clarity of thoughts associated with an increased appeal for reading. From a critical perspective, providing useful web links for further reading, additional tools, or latest statistics can be a further improvement. Also, reference to the contribution towards HRM by regional and local resource personnel could have been meaningfully incorporated into the discussion. Overall, the author invites the reader for an impactful interaction of reflecting and relating the richly covered content towards the betterment of individuals and institutions alike
Recent development in XML-IR
No full textThe Web is characterized by a huge amount of heterogeneous data sources, which have different media support and format representation. Because XML can represent files of different formats, it can play an important role in IR since it is becoming a standard form for data representation and exchange over the Web. Under this assumption, the problem of querying heterogeneous sources can be reduced to the problem of querying XML data sources. This paper shows the influence of XML on the IR techniques and methodologies during the last five years through serving over 400 papers published in different conferences and journals
Characterization of Three <i>nef</i> -Defective Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Strains Associated with Long-Term Nonprogression
No full textABSTRACT
Long-term survivors (LTS) of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection provide an opportunity to investigate both viral and host factors that influence the rate of disease progression. We have identified three HIV-1-infected individuals in Australia who have been infected for over 11 years with viruses that contain deletions in the
nef
and
nef
-long terminal repeat (
nef
/LTR) overlap regions. These viruses differ from each other and from other
nef
-defective strains of HIV-1 previously identified in Australia. One individual, LTS 3, is infected with a virus containing a
nef
gene with a deletion of 29 bp from the
nef
/LTR overlap region, resulting in a truncated Nef open reading frame. In addition to the Nef defect, only viruses containing truncated Vif open reading frames of 37 or 69 amino acids could be detected in peripheral blood mononuclear cells isolated from this patient. LTS 3 had a viral load of less than 20 copies of RNA/ml of plasma. The other two long-term survivors, LTS 9 and LTS 11, had loads of less than 200 copies of RNA/ml of plasma and are infected with viruses with larger deletions in both the
nef
alone and
nef
/LTR overlap regions. These viruses contain wild-type
vif
,
vpu
, and
vpr
accessory genes. All three strains of virus had envelope sequences characteristic of macrophagetropic viruses. These findings further indicate the reduced pathogenic potential of
nef
-defective viruses.
</jats:p
Thymic plasmacytoid dendritic cells are susceptible to productive HIV-1 infection and efficiently transfer R5 HIV-1 to thymocytes <it>in vitro</it>
No full textAbstract Background HIV-1 infection of the thymus contributes to the defective regeneration and loss of CD4+ T cells in HIV-1-infected individuals. As thymic dendritic cells (DC) are permissive to infection by HIV-1, we examined the ability of thymic DC to enhance infection of thymocytes which may contribute to the overall depletion of CD4+ T cells. We compared productive infection in isolated human thymic and blood CD11c+ myeloid DC (mDC) and CD123+ plasmacytoid DC (pDC) using enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) CCR5 (R5)-tropic NL(AD8) and CXCR4 (X4)-tropic NL4-3 HIV-1 reporter viruses. Transfer of productive HIV-1 infection from thymic mDC and pDC was determined by culturing these DC subsets either alone or with sorted thymocytes. Results Productive infection was observed in both thymic pDC and mDC following exposure to R5 HIV-1 and X4 HIV-1. Thymic pDC were more frequently productively infected by both R5 and X4 HIV-1 than thymic mDC (p = 0.03; n = 6). Thymic pDC efficiently transferred productive R5 HIV-1 infection to both CD3hi (p = 0.01; mean fold increase of 6.5; n = 6) and CD3lo thymocytes (mean fold increase of 1.6; n = 2). In comparison, transfer of productive infection by thymic mDC was not observed for either X4 or R5 HIV-1. Conclusions The capacity of thymic pDC to efficiently transfer R5 HIV-1 to both mature and immature thymocytes that are otherwise refractory to R5 virus may represent a pathway to early infection and impaired production of thymocytes and CD4+ T cells in HIV-1-infected individuals.</p
Post-treatment control in an adult with perinatally acquired HIV following cessation of antiretroviral therapy
No full textAnti-Allergic Cromones Inhibit Histamine and Eicosanoid Release from Activated Human and Murine Mast Cells by Releasing Annexin A1
No full textPMCID: PMC3601088This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
No difference in the rate of change in telomere length or telomerase activity in HIV-infected patients after three years of darunavir/ritonavir with and without nucleoside analogues in the MONET trial.
No full textTo determine whether nucleos(t)ide reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI) contribute to an accelerated loss in telomere length (TL) in HIV-infected patients on antiretroviral therapy (ART).Substudy of randomised controlled trial.Patients with HIV RNA <50 copies/mL on combination ART (n = 256) were randomised to darunavir/ritonavir (DRV/r) 800/100 mg once daily, either as monotherapy (n = 127) or with 2 NRTIs (n = 129) for up to 144 weeks. TL and telomerase activity was quantified on stored peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC; n = 124) using quantitative real time PCR.Patients in the sub-study had a mean age of 44 years and had received NRTI for a mean of 6.4 years (range 1-20 years). As expected, older patients have significantly shorter TL (p = 0.006), while women had significantly longer TL (p = 0.026). There was no significant association between TL and either the duration of prior NRTI treatment (p = 0.894) or the use of a PI versus NNRTI (p = 0.107). There was no significant difference between patients who continued or ceased NRTI in the mean change/year of TL or telomerase (p = 0.580 and 0.280 respectively).Continuation versus cessation of NRTI treatment was not associated with an accelerated loss in TL or telomerase activity
Endogenous Annexin-A1 Negatively Regulates Mast Cell-Mediated Allergic Reactions
No full textMast cell stabilizers like cromoglycate and nedocromil are mainstream treatments for ocular allergy. Biochemical studies in vitro suggest that these drugs prevent mast cell degranulation through the release of Annexin-A1 (Anx-A1) protein. However, the direct effect of Anx-A1 gene deletion on mast cell function in vitro and in vivo is yet to be fully investigated. Hence, we aim to elucidate the role of Anx-A1 in mast cell function, both in vivo and in vitro, using a transgenic mouse model where the Anx-A1 gene has been deleted. Bone marrow-derived mast cells (BMDMCs) were cultured from wild-type animals and compared throughout their development to BMDMCs obtained from mice lacking the Anx-A1 gene. The mast cell differentiation, maturity, mediator, and cytokine release were explored using multiple biochemical techniques, such as Western blots, ELISA, and flow cytometry analysis. Electron microscopy was used to identify metachromatic granules content of cells. For in vivo studies, Balb/C wild-type and Anx-A1-deficient mice were divided into the following groups: group 1, a control receiving only saline, and group 2, which had been sensitized by prior exposure to short ragweed (SRW) pollen by topical contact with the conjunctival mucosae. Allergic conjunctivitis was evaluated blind after 24 h by trained observers scoring clinical signs. Electron micrographs of BMDMCs from Anx-A1-null mice revealed more vacuoles overall and more fused vacuoles than wild-type cells, suggesting enhanced secretory activity. Congruent with these observations, BMDMCs lacking the Anx-A1 gene released significantly increased amounts of histamine both spontaneously as well as in response to Ig-E-FcεRI cross-linking compared to those from wild-type mice. Interestingly, the spontaneous release of IL-5, IL-6, IL-9, and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) were also markedly increased with a greater production observed upon IgE cross-linking. This latter finding is congruent with augmented calcium mobilization in BMDMCs lacking the Anx-A1 gene. In vivo, when compared to wild-type animals, Anx-A1-deficient mice exposed to SRW pollen displayed exacerbated signs and symptoms of allergic conjunctivitis. Taken together, these results suggest Anx-A1 is an important non-redundant regulator of mast cell reactivity and particularly in allergen mediated allergic reactions. © 2019 Sinniah, Yazid, Bena, Oliani, Perretti and Flower. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms
Baseline characteristics, telomere length and telomerase activity by treatment arm.
No full text<p>T/S ratio: TL was expressed as a ratio to a single (S) copy housekeeping gene 36B4 (T/S ratio). All parameters are shown as mean (SD), unless otherwise stated.</p><p>Baseline characteristics, telomere length and telomerase activity by treatment arm.</p
Both CD31+ and CD31- Naive CD4+ T Cells are persistent HIV Type 1-infected reservoirs in individuals receiving antiretroviral therapy
No full text- …
