CD23, the low-affinity IgE receptor found on B lymphocytes and other cells, contains a C-terminal lectin-like domain that resembles C-type carbohydrate-recognition domains (CRDs) found in many glycan-binding receptors. In most mammalian species, the CD23 residues required to form a sugar-binding site are present, although binding of CD23 to IgE does not involve sugars. Solid-phase binding competition assays, glycoprotein blotting experiments, and glycan array analysis employing the lectin-like domains of cow and mouse CD23 demonstrate that they bind to mannose, GlcNAc, glucose, and fucose and to glycoproteins that bear these sugars in nonreducing terminal positions. Crystal structures of the cow CRD in the presence of α-methyl mannoside and GlcNAcβ1–2Man reveal that a range of oligosaccharide ligands can be accommodated in an open binding site in which most interactions are with a single terminal sugar residue. Although mouse CD23 shows a pattern of monosaccharide and glycoprotein binding similar to cow CD23, the binding is weaker. In contrast, no sugar binding was observed in similar experiments with human CD23. The absence of sugar-binding activity correlates with accumulation of mutations in the gene for CD23 in the primate lineage leading to humans, resulting in loss of key sugar-binding residues. These results are consistent with a role for CD23 in many species as a receptor for potentially pathogenic microorganisms as well as IgE. However, the ability of CD23 to bind several different ligands varies between species, suggesting that it has distinct functions in different organisms.

The school community may be important in fostering peace within and between people. A major goal of school discipline is to help students develop and learn how to get along in a peaceful way. Given the historic emphasis on justice in school discipline and within peace education programs, we propose the novel idea of "school as a just and merciful community." In this qualitative research study, a series of questions were asked to teachers in the United States in 2000 (N ϭ 69) and 2015 (N ϭ 49) and in China in 2015 (N ϭ 116) to explore their perspectives on the feasibility of the just and merciful community (JMC) approach. The majority of those surveyed across time and culture saw justice alone as insufficient for a peaceful school community. A hybrid of justice and mercy within schools was a shared view. The JMC in school settings may be one path to peace. Public Significance StatementPeace education may be more complete if both justice and mercy are part of the disciplinary process of schools. Justice by itself, as a traditional method of discipline in schools, will not necessarily address the resentments that can build up in both those offended and those offending. Mercy offers a second chance and the recognition and acknowledgment that many carry emotional pain which must be addressed for thriving in the school setting.

Gas explosion is a very serious hazard. Explosion limits are the important indices to evaluate the safety of multicomponent explosive gas mixture. In order to estimate explosion limits, a single spread generalized regression neural network was employed. The gas mixture consists of six gases, i.e. hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen. The number of inputs on the prediction was investigated. The results show that the GRNN model predicted upper explosion limit with good accuracy. However, the prediction of lower explosion limit was poor. The selection of input variables for the GRNN showed significant effect on the predictive accuracy.