Immunomodulatory parasites and toll-like receptor-mediated tumour necrosis factor alpha responsiveness in wild mammals

Background  

Immunological analyses of wild populations can increase our understanding of how vertebrate immune systems respond to 'natural' levels of exposure to diverse infections. A major recent advance in immunology has been the recognition of the central role of phylogenetically conserved toll-like receptors in triggering innate immunity and the subsequent recruitment of adaptive response programmes. We studied the cross-sectional associations between individual levels of systemic toll-like receptor-mediated tumour necrosis factor alpha responsiveness and macro- and microparasite infections in a natural wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) population.     

Morphology meets dialectology: insights from Modern Greek dialects

The focus of this paper is to discuss the relation between morphology and dialectology. On the one hand, it shows that the study of dialects offers new challenges to morphology, since dialects form an important source of morphological phenomena, and dialectal research allows us to throw light on theoretical morphological issues. On the other hand, it argues that morphological theory may provide accurate and interesting tools for the analysis of dialectal data. In addition, it shows that dialectal morphology can be profitable for typology and historical morphology, because the study of dialects may shed light on possible language structures and language change. The data to be used include examples from several Modern Greek dialects. They refer to coordinative compounding, allomorphy, a borderline case of prefixation and compounding, as well as to a contact-induced change of the morphological type of one particular dialectal system.