The chlamydiae are Gram-negative, obligate intracellular bacteria with a complex developmental cycle comprising a metabolically less-active, infectious stage, the elementary body (EB), and a metabolically more active stage, the reticulate body (RB). They are responsible for many acute and chronic diseases in humans and animals. In order to play a causative role in chronic diseases, chlamydiae would need to persist and to re-activate within infected cells/tissues for extended periods of time. Persistence in vitro is defined as viable but non-cultivable chlamydiae involving morphologically enlarged, aberrant, and nondividing RBs, termed aberrant bodies (AB). In vitro, alterations of the normal developmental cycle of chlamydiae can be induced by the addition of Interferon-? (IFN-?), tumor necrosis factor-a (TNF-a) and penicillin G exposure as well as amino acid or iron deprivation, monocyte infection and co-infection with viruses. In vivo, key questions include whether or not ABs occur in infected patients and animals and whether such ABs can contribute to prolonged, chronic inflammation, fibrosis, and scarring through continuing stimulation of the host immune system known from diseases such as trachoma, pelvic inflammatory disease, reactive arthritis and atherosclerosis. To date, the direct causal role in the pathogenesis of chlamydial infection and persistence in vivo has been questioned since there was no tractable animal model of chlamydial persistence so far. A very recent study was able to establish an experimental animal model of in vivo persistence, when C. muridarum vaginally-infected mice were gavaged with amoxicillin. Amoxicillin treatment induced C. muridarum to enter the persistent state in vivo. Recent in vivo data from patients indicate that viable but non-infectious developmental stages are present in the genital tract of chronically-infected women and that the gastrointestinal tract might be a reservoir for persistent chlamydial infections at other sites.

The Yearbook of Transnational History is dedicated to disseminating pioneering research in the field of transnational history. This seventh volume brings together examples of four different world migration systems, that of the Black Atlantic, of early modern religious migrations, exile in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and twenty-first century refugee systems, thus encompassing more than six centuries from local, regional, transregional, comparative, and macro historical perspectives.

Historische Ereignisse sind unlösbar mit den Medien ihrer jeweiligen Epoche verflochten. Medien prägen die Planung, den Ablauf, die öffentliche Deutung und die Erinnerung an Ereignisse. Die Beiträge untersuchen das Wechselverhältnis zwischen der körperlichen Performanz und der Medialität für die Zeit seit der Aufklärung. Das Spektrum reicht dabei von den Wundergeburten und Ballonaufstiegen des 18. Jahrhunderts über die Revolution 1789 bis zum Tod von Papst Pius XII., den Protesten 1968 und den Olympischen Spielen in München 1972.

Nikdy to nevzdávat, to je životní krédo českého handicapovaného sportovce, reprezentanta v cyklistice, Iva Koblasy. Těžká epilepsie v dětství, pák náročná operace mozku, po které se znovu učil chodit, mluvit a zvládat i ty nejběžnější denní činnosti - nic z toho Iva nezastavilo v cestě za jeho snem, stát se skvělým cyklistou a medailistou z velkých šampionátů. V této knize naleznete jeho životní příběh, jenž se rovněž prolíná s osudy jeho dědečka, válečného hrdiny a pilota RAF generála Emila Bočka. Je to příběh o vůli, odříkání i překonávání překážek. A především pak o naději.

"Entanglements: Envisioning World Literature from the Global South scrutinizes current debates to bring historical and contemporary South-South entanglements to the fore and to develop a new understanding of world literature in a multipolar world of globalized modernity. The volume challenges established ideas of world literature by rethinking the concept along the notion of "entanglements": as a field of variously criss-crossing relations of literary activity beyond the confines of literary canons, cultural containers, or national borders. The collection presents individual case studies from a variety of language traditions that focus on particular literary relationships and practices across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe as well as new fictional, poetical, and theoretical conceptions of world literature in order to broaden our understanding of the multilateral entanglements within a widening communicative network that shape our globalized world."--Publisher's website.