Abstract. The notion of geometric nerve of a 2-category (Street, [18]) provides a full and faithful functor if regarded as defined on the category of 2-categories and lax 2-functors. Furthermore, lax 2-natural transformations between lax 2-functors give rise to homotopies between the corresponding simplicial maps. These facts allow us to prove a representation theorem of the general non abelian cohomology of groupoids (classifying non abelian extensions of groupoids) by means of homotopy classes of simplicial maps.

Germinal centers (GCs) are transient anatomical microenvironments where antibody affinity maturation and memory B cells generation takes place. In the past, models of Germinal Center (GC) dynamics have focused on understanding antibody affinity maturation rather than on the main mechanism(s) driving their rise-and-fall dynamics. Here, based on a population dynamics model core, we compare three mechanisms potentially responsible for this GC biphasic behavior dependent on follicular dendritic cell (FDC) maturation, follicular T helper (Tfh) cell maturation, and antigen depletion. Analyzing the kinetics of B and T cells, as well as its parameter sensitivities, we found that only the FDC-maturation-based model could describe realistic GC dynamics, whereas the simple Tfh-maturation and antigen-depletion mechanisms, as implemented here, could not. We also found that in all models the processes directly related to Tfh cell kinetics have the highest impact on GC dynamics. This suggests the existence of some still unknown mechanism(s) tuning GC dynamics by affecting Tfh cell response to proliferation-inducing stimuli.

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By regarding the classical non abelian cohomology of groups from a 2-dimensional categorical viewpoint, we are led to a non abelian cohomology of groupoids which continues to satisfy classification, interpretation and representation theorems generalizing the classical ones. This categorical approach is based on the fact that if groups are regarded as categories, then, on the one hand, crossed modules are 2-groupoids and, cocycles are lax 2-functors and the cocycle conditions are precisely the coherence axioms for lax 2-functors, and, on the other hand group extensions are fibrations of categories. Furthermore, n-simplices in the nerve of a 2-category are lax 2-functors.