Given a simple undirected graph G and a positive integer s, the maximum vertex coverage problem (MVC) is the problem of finding a set U of s vertices of G such that the number of edges having at least one endpoint in U is as large as possible. The problem is NP-hard even in bipartite graphs, as shown in two recent papers [N. Apollonio and B. Simeone, Discrete Appl. Math., 165 (2014), pp. 37-48; G. Joret and A. Vetta, Reducing the Rank of a Matroid, preprint, arXiv: 1211.4853v1 [cs.DS], 2012].

Objective: To provide a frame to estimate the systemic impact (side/adverse events) of (novel) therapeutic targets by taking into consideration drugs potential on the numerous districts involved in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) from the inflammatory and immune response to the gut-intestinal (GI) microbiome. Methods: We curated the collection of molecules from high-throughput screens of diverse (multi-omic) biochemical origin, experimentally associated to RA.

The conceptualization of immunological self is amongst the most important theories of modern biology, representing a sort of theoretical guideline for experimental immunologists, in order to understand how host constituents are ignored by the immune system (IS). A consistent advancement in this field has been represented by the danger/damage theory and its subsequent refinements, which at present represents the most comprehensive conceptualization of immunological self. Here, we present the new hypothesis of "liquid self," which integrates and extends the danger/damage theory.

Motivation: The human immune system evolved a multi-layered control mechanism to eliminate self-reactive cells. Of these so-called tolerance induction mechanisms, lymphocytes T education in the thymus gland represents the very first one. This complicated process is not fully understood and quantitative models able to help in this endeavor are lacking.

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To study naive and memory CD8 T cell turnover, we performed BrdU incorporation experiments in adult thymectomized C57BL/6 mice and analyzed data in a mathematical framework.