The positive side of stress: Investigating the impact of challenge stressors on innovative behavior in higher education.

Stress can be a double-edged sword. Given the intricacy of the innovation process, the link between job stress and individual innovation behavior remains uncertain. To clarify the relationship between challenge stressors and the innovative behavior of higher education teachers, this study was based on the conservation of resources (COR) theory and adopted the structural equation modeling method to explore the impact of challenge stressors on the innovative behavior of higher education teachers and reveal its influencing mechanism and boundary conditions.

Long term effects of cyclophosphamide treatment on lung function and survival in scleroderma patients with interstitial lung disease.

Background: Scleroderma (SSc) patients with active interstitial lung disease (ILD) experience a decline in lung function and increased mortality; cyclophosphamide (CYC) therapy may stabilize lung function at one and two years follow-up. Long-term lung function and survival outcomes of SSc patients with ILD following CYC treatment remain largely unknown.

Methodology: We reviewed records of SSc patients with active ILD who had received at least six months of CYC treatment and had pulmonary function tests (PFTs) performed at least two years from the onset of treatment.

Decreases in human dendritic cell-dependent T(H)2-like responses after acute in vivo IgE neutralization.

Background: Dendritic cells (DCs) and other professional antigen-presenting cells express a variant of the high-affinity IgE receptor known as alphagamma(2), which, on the basis of in vitro findings, has long been implicated to function in facilitating allergen uptake and presentation to T(H) cells.

Objectives: To use omalizumab as an in vivo tool to neutralize IgE binding to circulating dendritic cells and to assess whether this results in altered DC-dependent T-cell responsiveness to allergen ex vivo.

Methods: Subjects with cat allergy were enrolled in a 3.

Local release of B cell-activating factor of the TNF family after segmental allergen challenge of allergic subjects.

Background: Local production of IgA and IgE in the airways has been proposed to be an important event in both immune protection from pathogens and the pathogenesis of airway allergic diseases.

Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the production of B cell-activating factor of the TNF family (BAFF), an important regulator of B-cell survival and immunoglobulin class-switch recombination, in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid after segmental allergen challenge of allergic subjects.

Methods: Segmental allergen challenge with saline or allergen was performed in 16 adult allergic subjects.

Persistence of abnormal bronchoalveolar lavage findings after cyclophosphamide treatment in scleroderma patients with interstitial lung disease.

Objective: Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) is a procedure for sampling the terminal airspace cell population to diagnose alveolitis, a condition that predicts changes in lung function in scleroderma patients. Cyclophosphamide (CYC) stabilizes the progression of lung disease in some, but not all, patients with active alveolitis. However, it is unknown whether the BAL fluid cell count obtained after CYC treatment of alveolitis predicts long-term lung function outcomes and can therefore be used to assist in therapeutic decision-making.

TLR9- and FcepsilonRI-mediated responses oppose one another in plasmacytoid dendritic cells by down-regulating receptor expression.

Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC) express not only TLR9 molecules through which ligation with CpG DNA favors Th1 responses but also possess IgE receptors (FcepsilonRI) implicated in allergen presentation and induction of Th2 responses. This dichotomy prompted an investigation to determine whether TLR9- and IgE receptor-mediated responses oppose one another in pDC by affecting receptor expression and associated functional responses. Results showed that IgE cross-linking reduced TLR9 in pDC and inhibited the capacity of these cells to secrete IFN-alpha when stimulated with the CpG oligodeoxynucleotide (ODN)-2216.