The Mycobacterium tuberculosis PE_PGRS Protein Family Acts as an Immunological Decoy to Subvert Host Immune Response

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) is a successful pathogen that can reside within the alveolar macrophages of the host and can survive in a latent stage. The pathogen has evolved and developed multiple strategies to resist the host immune responses. M.tb escapes from host macrophage through evasion or subversion of immune effector functions. M.tb genome codes for PE/PPE/PE_PGRS proteins, which are intrinsically disordered, redundant and antigenic in nature. These proteins perform multiple functions that intensify the virulence competence of M.tb majorly by modulating immune responses, thereby affecting immune mediated clearance of the pathogen. The highly repetitive, redundant and antigenic nature of PE/PPE/PE_PGRS proteins provide a critical edge over other M.tb proteins in terms of imparting a higher level of virulence and also as a decoy molecule that masks the effect of effector molecules, thereby modulating immuno-surveillance. An understanding of how these proteins subvert the host immunological machinery may add to the current knowledge about M.tb virulence and pathogenesis. This can help in redirecting our strategies for tackling M.tb infections.

Research on the Improvement of Teachers’ Artistic Accomplishment Based on the Status Quo of Contemporary Aesthetic Education

Contemporary aesthetic education is one of the educational methods under the contemporary cultural system, which includes contemporary educational ideas, methods, and countermeasures of art. Teachers under contemporary aesthetic education must take on the responsibility of improving their artistic qualities in this process, express differences through perceiving life, and reshape aesthetics by regulating oneself. Teachers need to be concerned about the society, and based on the present, with independent thinking, capture the essence of life and conform to the laws of art, maintain a vigilant and critical edge, advance with the times in teaching and life, as well as embody their own educational philosophies and value judgments.

Walking with Vigilance: Middleton's Edge in The Triumphs of Truth

Scholars have frequently regarded Thomas Middleton's mayoral shows as exemplary for their moral dramatic structure. More recently, Tracey Hill has remarked upon their critical edge. Taking Middleton’s first show, The Triumphs of Truth (1613), as its primary focus and drawing upon selections from his other civic writings, this article examines the ways that Middleton's attention to the peripatetic nature of these events establishes a moral and critical reflection that is uniquely captured in the printed books he and other pageant writers saw through to publication. While arguing that this aspect of Middleton’s shows represents his unique contribution to the genre, the essay also explores the influences of Munday and Dekker, whose shows precede Middleton’s. Middleton does not entirely reinvent the genre but instead reminds the mayor and reader to walk with vigilance during both the live and imagined event.

Critical edge behavior in the singularly perturbed Pollaczek–Jacobi type unitary ensemble

We investigate the orthogonal polynomials associated with a singularly perturbed Pollaczek–Jacobi type weight [Formula: see text] where [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]. Based on our observation, we find that this weight includes the symmetric constraint [Formula: see text]. Our main results obtained here include two aspects: (1) Strong asymptotics: we deduce strong asymptotics of monic orthogonal polynomials with respect to the above weight function in different regions in the complex plane when the polynomial degree [Formula: see text] goes to infinity. Because of the effect of [Formula: see text] for varying [Formula: see text], the asymptotic behavior in a neighborhood of point [Formula: see text] is described in terms of the Airy function as [Formula: see text], but the Bessel function as [Formula: see text]. Due to symmetry, the similar local asymptotic behavior near the singular point [Formula: see text] can be derived. (2) Limiting eigenvalue correlation kernels: We calculate the limit of the eigenvalue correlation kernel of the corresponding unitary random matrix ensemble in the bulk of the spectrum described by the sine kernel, and at both sides of hard edge, expressed as a Painlevé III kernel. Our analysis is based on the Deift–Zhou nonlinear steepest descent method for Riemann–Hilbert problems.

“We have tiny purses in our vaginas!!! #thanksforthat”: absurdity as a feminist method of intervention

PurposeAccording to thesaurus definitions, the absurd translates as “ridiculously unreasonable, unsound, or incongruous”; “extremely silly; not logical and sensible”. As further indicated in the Latin root absurdus, “out of tune, uncouth, inappropriate, ridiculous,” humor in absurd registers plays with that which is out of harmony with both reason and decency. In this article, the authors make an argument for the absurd as a feminist method for tackling heterosexism.Design/methodology/approachBy focusing on the Twitter account “Men Write Women” (est. 2019), the rationale of which is to share literary excerpts from male authors describing women's experiences, thoughts and appearances, and which regularly broadens into social theater in the user reactions, the study explores the critical value of absurdity in feminist social media tactics.FindingsThe study proposes the absurd as a means of not merely turning things around, or inside out, but disrupting and eschewing the hegemonic logic on offer. While both absurd humor and feminist activism may begin from a site of reactivity and negative evaluation, it need not remain confined to it. Rather, by turning things preposterous, ludicrous and inappropriate, absurd laughter ends up somewhere different. The feminist value of absurd humor has to do with both its critical edge and with the affective lifts and spaces of ambiguity that it allows for.Originality/valueResearch on digital feminist activism has largely focused on the affective dynamics of anger. As there are multiple affective responses to sexism, our article foregrounds laughter and ambivalence as a means of claiming space differently in online cultures rife with hate, sexism and misogyny.

FOUND: A DEFINITION OF INTELLIGENCE

Intelligence has come to play a pivotal role in the affairs of states and non-state actors in the 21st century. It not only determines the outcome of conflict when it breaks out but also provides critical edge and foresight in military planning and engagements. However, the effective utilization and deployment of intelligence in any strategic environment may be hampered by the lack of a holistic and generally accepted definition of it. The search for a robust definition has not also been helped by the differing views on what should constitute the basic elements of it. To overcome these challenges, this work argues for and provides a holistic definition of intelligence. It uses both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to provide a more robust and holistic definition of intelligence. The work concludes that any acceptable definition of intelligence must contain five key elements: process, data, actionable information, political group and security.

Alternative Comedy and Resistance to ‘Thatcher’s Britain’

This chapter foregrounds a central dilemma between the ‘success’ of alternative comedy in promoting certain values in the mainstream of UK political culture, e.g. equality, political correctness, and a potential for ‘recuperation’ of such resistance as the critical edge is superseded by TV friendly irony. Here comedy takes on an avowed sense of political identity, questioning social attitudes and orienting against neoliberalism.

The (Critical) Edge of Tradition: Understanding Ġhālib as Valī in Contemporary Delhi

In this essay, I explore an emergent trend within both authoritative Islamic discourse and Urdu public culture in north India, in which the poet Mirzā Asadullāh Ḳhān “Ġhālib” (1797-1869) is portrayed as a saintly and prophetic figure. I aim to show that claiming Ġhālib as an authoritatively Islamic figure—and hence his life and poetry as Islamically authoritative and legible—at this historical moment of unprecedented Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bias in India is a profoundly radical claim. It gestures towards a Muslim—and crucially, also non-Muslim—reclamation of precolonial lifeways and intellectual, literary, and spiritual traditions as an antidote to the poisonous discourses of modern religious nationalism and sectarianism.