...The immune system is a network of cells that join together to combat the body against the attacks of a foreign invaders. These foreign invaders are mainly microbes such as parasites, fungi, and bacteria. Viruses are also considered foreign invaders to the body. The immune system’s job is to keep these foreign invaders out of the body. If some of them do come in the body, then it’s job is to kill them. A pathogen can be viewed as an infectious agent. It causes illness or disease to its host. It causes chaos in the normal physiology of a multi-cellular plant or animal. It can also infect unicellular organisms as well. One of the immune system’s most important functions is the ability to distinguish between the body’s own cells as “self” and foreign cells as “non self.” The immune system usually works together quietly with cells that are classified as “self” cells. When an immune system detects a foreign organism or cell categorized as “non self,” it quickly fires an attack. In abnormal circumstances, the immune system can order an attack by mistake on its own cells. This is known as autoimmune disease. There are many types of nonspecific defenses that the immune system uses. The three types of nonspecific defenses I am going to talk about are traps, barriers, and low level of pH. Some of the examples of traps are hair, cilia, ear wax, and mucous membranes. Mucous membrane and skin are the first line of defense, also called along innate immunity, in a person’s body...
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...Immune System-Part II The immune system is composed of a very complex network of organs, cells, and molecules. All of these contributors play a significant role in the maintaining the body’s homeostasis. There are two paths the immune system can take. These are known as innate and adaptive immunity. They work in conjunction with one another to provide the proper response to environmental factors. Innate immunity is characterized by a rapid response to the stimulus. It is known as the body’s first line of defense. As mentioned above, there are several components of the immune system. Notable cellular components are recognized as T and B lymphocytes. To explain a little about their origin, it begins in the bone marrow. Previous to the bone marrow, the T and B lymphocytes start out as stem cells in the bone marrow. These pluripotent stem cells give rise to myeloid and lymphoid progenitors. The lymphoid progenitors give origin to the T and B lymphocytes and NK cells. The T lymphocytes will leave the bone marrow and migrate to the thymus in order to mature as a T-cell. It should be noted that only mature T lymphocytes leave the thymus and enter into circulation. In contrast, B lymphocytes remain in the bone marrow. At the end of their maturation stage, they can then leave the bone marrow and enter into circulation, migrating to secondary lymphoid organs. B lymphocytes define the classes of immunoglobulins, also known as antibodies, IgA, IgG, IgD, IgE, and IgM. The...
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...and the immune system’ The immune system is a collection of billions of cells that travel through the bloodstream. They move in and out of tissues and organs, defending the body against foreign bodies (antigens), such as bacteria, viruses and cancerous cells. There are two types of lymphocytes within the immune system, these are; B cells- produce antibodies which are released into the fluid surrounding the body’s cells to destroy the invading viruses and bacteria. T cells- if the invader gets inside a cell, these (T cells) lock on to the infected cell, multiply and destroy it. The main types of immune cells are white blood cells. There are two types of white blood cells – lymphocytes and phagocytes. When people are stressed, the immune system’s ability to fight off antigens is reduced. That is why we are more prone to infectious disease. The stress hormone corticosteroid can suppress the effectiveness of the immune system (lowers the number of lymphocytes). Stress can also have an indirect effect on the immune system as a person may use unhealthy behavioural coping strategies to reduce their stress, such as drinking and smoking which further inhibit the immune system. There has been a lot of research into the relationship between stress and the immune system. One group of psychologists who researched this was Kiecolt- Glaser et al (1984). Their aim was to investigate whether stress of important examinations has an effect on the functioning of the immune system. They...
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...Lymphatic/Immune System Unit Performance Assessment Your written work should contain 3 sections: 1. 2. 3. An explanation of the relationship between lymphatic structures and the immune system (~1 paragraph) a. Student work includes a detailed description of all of the structures of the lymphatic system (including lymph nodes and vessels, spleen, thymus, tonsils, Peyer's patches, and appendix), the location of each, and how that location supports the functions of immunity required by the body An explanation about how the immune system works and how a vaccine effects that system (~3-4 paragraphs) a. Student work includes a description of the "three levels" of immune system, including innate and adaptive defenses, humoral vs, cell-mediated responses, and active vs passive immunity; and describes how vaccines work in the body using a specific vaccine as an example A reaction (either in support or in disagreement) to the message of your chosen political cartoon (please include an image of the cartoon) along with supporting data/statistics from reliable and cited sources (~3-4 paragraphs) a. Student correctly explains the "sides" of the issue being reflected in the political cartoon of their choosing, and explains whether they agree or disagree with the overall message of the cartoon. Several specific data or statistics are researched by the student and used to support their argument either for or against the cartoon. 1. An explanation of the relationship...
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...The immune system is a complex system within the body that, when healthy, defends against foreign invaders and keeps the body free of infectious organisms that could cause harm to the body. When it is healthy and fights off a certain bacteria, infection, etc. it can grow an immunity to that specific agent and lower the person’s chances of contracting that sickness again. If the immune system gets out of balance, however, this can cause several problems. The body will become susceptible to any infectious sicknesses that they come in contact with and can even die. There is also the chance of this resulting in an autoimmune disease which is when “the immune system can attack the body’s own tissues…or it can over respond to common substances, creating...
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...Cohen et al. investigated the link between general life stressors and vulnerability to the common cold virus. He took 394 healthy individuals and asked them to complete questionnaires on the number of stressful life events they had experienced the previous year, the degree of their stress and their level of negative emotions. The three scores were combined to what is called a stress index. He found that the chance of developing a cold was linked with stress levels. Cohen et al. concluded that stress reduces the effectiveness of our immune system, leaving participants less able to resist viral infection. Cohen et al.’s research measured health outcomes, which shows a relationship between life stress and illness. However, this study does not tell us which part of the stress index is most important. This study also has ethical issues that need to be considered, such as participants needing to be in good health with no illness or infections prior the study. The participants were described as healthy however it is difficult to operationalize ‘healthy individuals’. This is a subjective measurement which does not take into account individual differences which will affect the validity of the data and its application to the general population. A large sample size of 394 individuals was used. This means that there will be a lot of representative data which therefore means it is high in validity. Questionnaires can be an effective research method tool as they allow for a measurement...
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...The immune system can be divided into two components, a primary innate generalised system and a secondary specialised response. It is the integration of these two systems which can eliminate harm provoked by an invader. The innate response includes multiple physiological and anatomical barriers, including unbroken skin, low pH conditions found on the skin and in the stomach, mucociliary clearance, temperature as well as a few more which all aid in the maintenance of an antimicrobial environment. The cells of the innate response typically express Toll-like receptors which allow them to react swiftly to a broad class of pathogens, which results in targeted protective inflammation. The cells of the innate response include numeral phagocytes,...
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...Are we really helping our children and ourselves by getting all sorts of immunizations and vaccines? Vaccines can actually harm a child’s immune system and brain, causing such disorders as autism, ADD, ADHD, asthma and allergies. Children and the elderly are the most people who are being vaccinated. Vaccine schedules have more than doubled since the 1980’s. In the last 25 years up until now, with vaccinating children, their health has had a huge downfall. As a child I was brought to the doctor’s office every time I was sick and given antibiotics. What they gave me could have more or less hurt me in the long run. I am sick several times out of a year because my immune system is very poor and takes a long time to fight infection. Because of taking these antibiotics, didn’t allow for my own body to try and fight the infection therefor I’m sick quite a bit. Antibiotics increase the bacterial toxins delivered into the body by killing other bacteria not targeted. Some may even reduce vitamin C which weakens your immune system. What exactly are in the ingredients in the vaccines that we are getting and giving to our children? Preservatives and chemicals that increase immune response, aluminum phosphate, phenol, gelatin etc. All of which exposure to these toxins in the early stages of development is severely dangerous to the brain. Immunity can be achieved naturally. First off by breastfeeding your newborn, even if its just for the first couple...
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...Outline and Evaluate research into the effects on Stress in the Immune System (12 marks) Stress is an environmental event or situation (a stressor), which can induce a stress response in us. When someone is experiencing a stressful situation, all the body's resources are diverted and this suppresses the immune system because of the high levels of stress hormones, corticosteroids, which shrink the thymus glands preventing the growth of T-cells. This makes us more vulnerable to infection and disease. Various studies have been devised to test whether stress makes us more vulnerable to infection and illness. Research has supported the theory that stress can reduce the effectiveness of the immune system. Kiecolt-Glaser et al 1984 devised the study of exam stress and the immune function in people exposed to high levels of stress. Blood samples were taken from medical students 1 month before their final exams (control reading) and on the first day of their exams. (stress reading) Participants also completed psychological questionnaires, and the difference in blood counts was greatest for those who reported highest levels of anxiety and social isolation. This sample of participants is an unrepresentative sample of the general population and its generalisation is therefore restricted only to medical students. Also the questionnaire is subjective and social desirability may take over the participant’s answers as they may be worrying who will see them. The perceptions...
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...Outline and evaluate research into the relationship between the immune system and Stress-related illness. (12marks) It is suggested that stress can result in immunosuppression which can lead to stress-related illnesses such as Coronary Heart Disease and high blood pressure. Kiecolt and Glaser conducted an experiment to see the effects of stress on the immune system. This was achieved by taking blood samples of 75 medical students one month before and during their examination period. They then compared the two blood samples and found decreased leucocyte activity in the sample taken during high levels of stress (during their exams). This shows that stress reduces the activity of the immune system, making them more susceptible to becoming ill. Advantages of the study are that blood tests are objective measurements, so there was no social desirability or experimenter bias when analysing the results. The participants were also compared to themselves which removes participant variables on how they perceive stressors. The experiment was a field experiment so there was no manipulating of the independant variable to deliberately cause stress to the participants which makes it ethical. It also means the research has ecological validity and can be applied to the wider world. However, a field experiment may have extraneous variables which impact the results. For example, the student lifestyle of having little sleep and poor accomidation may have been an alternative source of stress. Another...
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...37 - 41 Automatic Resume Recommender system Using Artificial Immune Systems Approach Fatma Masooma Nigar Tel : +91-7398084314 Email: masoomanigar5@gmail.com Department of Computer Science,Jamia Hamdard University, Delhi, India Abstract: In today’s competitive world people across the globe post resumes over various sites of different organizations. Huge amount of documented resumes get stored. The HR manager needs the best among the stored documented resumes. The outcome of this research is a proposed architecture for classification,retreivel of the best selected resumes for the HR based on the ideas and principles of artificial immune system. Based on the research an attempt is made to automate the HR resume selection process by building an automated resume recommender system using the concepts of information extraction and artificial immune system. Keywords: Artificial immune system, information extraction, classification. 1. INTRODUCTION In today’s e-world, many of the applications are automated to ease the task carried out with accuracy. Many organizations across the globe are flooded with hundreds of resumes every month. The task of the HR manager is to create a job based on some criteria and filter out the best suitable resumes among the repository. Since the HR are having rich text of huge data, a computational tool shall help to ease down the task for them...
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...Outline and evaluate research into the relationship between the immune system and Stress-related illness. (12marks) It is suggested that stress can result in immunosuppression which can lead to stress-related illnesses such as Coronary Heart Disease and high blood pressure. Kiecolt and Glaser conducted an experiment to see the effects of stress on the immune system. This was achieved by taking blood samples of 75 medical students one month before and during their examination period. They then compared the two blood samples and found decreased leucocyte activity in the sample taken during high levels of stress (during their exams). This shows that stress reduces the activity of the immune system, making them more susceptible to becoming ill. Advantages of the study are that blood tests are objective measurements, so there was no social desirability or experimenter bias when analysing the results. The participants were also compared to themselves which removes participant variables on how they perceive stressors. The experiment was a field experiment so there was no manipulating of the independant variable to deliberately cause stress to the participants which makes it ethical. It also means the research has ecological validity and can be applied to the wider world. However, a field experiment may have extraneous variables which impact the results. For example, the student lifestyle of having little sleep and poor accomidation may have been an alternative source of stress. Another...
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...Kiecolt-Glaser et al. (1984) conducted a natural experiment on medical students that investigated whether the short-term stressor of approaching exams had an effect on the immune system functioning. They took blood samples of the 75 participants one month before their final exams and then again on the first day of exams. The blood samples were then analysed for leucocyte activity of the natural killer cell. Questionnaires were also given to establish the students’ psychiatric mind set and their life events. They found that the natural killer cell activity decreased in the second blood sample, compared with the first. Furthermore, immune response was particularly low for those who scored highly in the loneliness, psychiatric symptoms and stressful life events symptoms. They concluded that stress is associated with reduced immune system function. Another piece of research was conducted by Kiecolt-Glaser et al. (2005) but this time investigated long-term, chronic stress. They tested the impact of interpersonal conflict on wound healing. They found that blister wounds on the arms of married couples healed more slowly after the couples had had discussions which were conflicting rather than supportive. A key strength of Kiecolt-Glaser’s short-term stress study is that it contained stressors that were naturally occurring, which increases validity because it creates more mundane realism as the stressors, IV and DV weren’t artificially induced. Furthermore, another strength is that...
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...There has been a lot of research that suggests that the immune system can be severely affected by stress. Kiecolt-Glaser did an experiment to evaluate the effect of acute stressors on the immune system. She had a group of students who were about to have their medical exams. She took the blood sample one month before the exams and another during the exam period. She measured the NK cell activity to see how the immune system was effected and found that the NK cell activity had dropped significantly in the second blood sample that had been taken shows that stress had caused to lower the efficiency of the immune system and made the students were vulnerable to stress-related illnesses. Also Marucha et al. conducted a study involving a group of students. Marucha inflicted a punch-biopsy 3 days before an exam and found that the wound took 40% longer to heal when the wound was inflicted during the exam period. Also if a acute stressors could have such a negative impact on the immune system on chronic stressors where also suspected to have a similar effect. Kiecolt-Glaser conducted a study where a group of married couples were asked to have discussions about their marriage and also of the couples had blisters on their arms. It was found that the groups of couples that had very supportive discussions showed the wound healing process to be much faster in comparison to the people who had an argumentative discussion. Also another researcher observed 90 newly wedded couples for a 24 hours...
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...Outline & evaluate research into the relationship between the immune system and stress-related illness (12) AO1 - COHEN ET AL investigated the role of general life stress on vulnerability to the common cold virus. 394 participants completed questionnaires on the number of stressful life events experience in the previous year. They also rated their degree of stress and level of negative emotions such as depression. The 3 scores were combined into a stress index. Ps were then exposed to the common cold virus which lead to 82% becoming infected. After 7 days, the number whose infection developed into a clinical cold was recorded. They found the chance of developing the cold i.e. failing to fight off the viral infection was significantly correlated with stress index scores. AO2 – however this was an indirect study as there were no direct measures of immune function. Nevertheless the results have been supported by Evans & Edgington who found the probability of developing the cold was significantly correlated with negative life events in the preceding days. The study did measure health outcomes (development of clinical colds) showing a relationship between life stress and illness. However, there was no direct manipulation of the independent variable (stress index) therefore a cause and effect relationship cannot be confirmed – only correlational data. Finally, the study doesn’t tell us which of the 3 elements of the stress index is most important and/or if all 3 really contribute...
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