INFLUENCE OF TRAINING ON ANAEROBIC POWER AND CAPACITY OF UPPER AND LOWER LIMBS IN YOUNG GRECO-ROMAN WRESTLERS

The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of training on selected markers of anaerobic capacity of upper and lower limbs in male, Greco-Roman wrestlers from 16 to 19 years of age. The study was conducted four times at one-year intervals on the same group of male competitors (n=12). Every year at the beginning of the second preparatory period all wrestlers performed arm cranking and leg cycling 30 s Wingate tests. The relative peak and mean power of upper limbs were higher in 17-, 18-, and 19-year-old wrestlers compared to 16-year-old ones, but were similar in 17- and 18-year-old athletes. The highest peak and mean power of legs were found in 19-year-old wrestlers. In 18-year-old athletes, the peak power was lower than in 17-year-olds and was similar to 16-year-old wrestlers. The relative mean power in the group of 18-year-old athletes was lower compared to 16- and 17-year-old ones, but it was similar in 17- and 19-year-old wrestlers. Changes in the levels of the relative peak and mean power of upper and lower limb muscles in wrestlers occurred at different periods between the age of 16 and 19. However, it seems that inappropriately chosen training loads may reduce short-term power outputs despite age correct increase in anthropometric parameters. Wrongly applied training did not bring positive effects and could inhibit, for some time, the natural development of power in young wrestlers

Development of a Competence-based Role Model for Managers considering current Megatrends

Due to the digital transformation and global megatrends, the industrial environment of manufacturing companies is changing faster than ever. As a result, the tasks of managers in these companies are evolving. New management roles and competences are required to master the challenges of this industrial change and remain competitive in the global market. This paper describes the development of a competence-based role model of managers in manufacturing companies focusing on the influence of current megatrends and the associated digital transformation. The model provides an overview of future tasks and roles of managers, which are becoming increasingly important in view of current megatrends. In regard to existing role models, seven roles of modern managers are derived. These management roles were evaluated in an extensive survey and detailed with corresponding competence profiles

Closing the Implementation Gap of Digital Twins

Since the manufacturing industry is facing increasingly advancing digitalization, digital twins (DT) have become a popular means for integrating various actors\u27 value creation using a smart product. DTs are information systems that connect the physical and virtual worlds. The design of DTs is time-consuming, expensive, and lacks appropriate prescriptive design knowledge for its development. Design principles (DP) represent a mechanism to codify design knowledge into prescriptive knowledge. However, the mostly abstract DPs are often difficult for practitioners to operationalize during software development projects, rendering the design knowledge difficult to access. The paper at hand addresses these issues by providing a reference model for DT development as a semi-abstract artifact. The model has been constructed by drawing on a literature review and empirical cases in the manufacturing industry. The reference model includes multiple adaptation mechanisms to ensure a flexible development of company-specific DTs

Superlattice in collapsed graphene wrinkles

Topographic corrugations, such as wrinkles, are known to introduce diverse physical phenomena that can significantly modify the electrical, optical and chemical properties of two-dimensional materials. This range of assets can be expanded even further when the crystal lattices of the walls of the wrinkle are aligned and form a superlattice, thereby creating a high aspect ratio analogue of a twisted bilayer or multilayer – the so-called twisted wrinkle. Here we present an experimental proof that such twisted wrinkles exist in graphene monolayers on the scale of several micrometres. Combining atomic force microscopy and Raman spectral mapping using a wide range of visible excitation energies, we show that the wrinkles are extremely narrow and their Raman spectra exhibit all the characteristic features of twisted bilayer or multilayer graphene. In light of a recent breakthrough – the superconductivity of a magic-angle graphene bilayer, the collapsed wrinkles represent naturally occurring systems with tuneable collective regimes

The Interchromatin Compartment Participates in the Structural and Functional Organization of the Cell Nucleus

This article focuses on the role of the interchromatin compartment (IC) in shaping nuclear landscapes. The IC is connected with nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) and harbors splicing speckles and nuclear bodies. It is postulated that the IC provides routes for imported transcription factors to target sites, for export routes of mRNA as ribonucleoproteins toward NPCs, as well as for the intranuclear passage of regulatory RNAs from sites of transcription to remote functional sites (IC hypothesis). IC channels are lined by less‐compacted euchromatin, called the perichromatin region (PR). The PR and IC together form the active nuclear compartment (ANC). The ANC is co‐aligned with the inactive nuclear compartment (INC), comprising more compacted heterochromatin. It is postulated that the INC is accessible for individual transcription factors, but inaccessible for larger macromolecular aggregates (limited accessibility hypothesis). This functional nuclear organization depends on still unexplored movements of genes and regulatory sequences between the two compartments

Primary rat LSECs preserve their characteristic phenotype after cryopreservation

Liver disease is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Recently, the liver non-parenchymal cells have gained increasing attention for their potential role in the development of liver disease. Liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs), a specialized type of endothelial cells that have unique morphology and function, play a fundamental role in maintaining liver homeostasis. Current protocols for LSEC isolation and cultivation rely on freshly isolated cells which can only be maintained differentiated in culture for a few days. This creates a limitation in the use of LSECs for research and a need for a consistent and reliable source of these cells. To date, no LSEC cryopreservation protocols have been reported that enable LSECs to retain their functional and morphological characteristics upon thawing and culturing. Here, we report a protocol to cryopreserve rat LSECs that, upon thawing, maintain full LSEC-signature features: fenestrations, scavenger receptor expression and endocytic function on par with freshly isolated cells. We have confirmed these features by a combination of biochemical and functional techniques, and super-resolution microscopy. Our findings offer a means to standardize research using LSECs, opening the prospects for designing pharmacological strategies for various liver diseases, and considering LSECs as a therapeutic target

Primary rat LSECs preserve their characteristic phenotype after cryopreservation

Mönkemöller V, Mao H, Hübner W, et al. Primary rat LSECs preserve their characteristic phenotype after cryopreservation. Scientific Reports. 2018;8(1): 14657.Liver disease is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Recently, the liver nonparenchymal cells have gained increasing attention for their potential role in the development of liver disease. Liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs), a specialized type of endothelial cells that have unique morphology and function, play a fundamental role in maintaining liver homeostasis. Current protocols for LSEC isolation and cultivation rely on freshly isolated cells which can only be maintained differentiated in culture for a few days. This creates a limitation in the use of LSECs for research and a need for a consistent and reliable source of these cells. To date, no LSEC cryopreservation protocols have been reported that enable LSECs to retain their functional and morphological characteristics upon thawing and culturing. Here, we report a protocol to cryopreserve rat LSECs that, upon thawing, maintain full LSEC-signature features: fenestrations, scavenger receptor expression and endocytic function on par with freshly isolated cells. We have confirmed these features by a combination of biochemical and functional techniques, and super-resolution microscopy. Our findings offer a means to standardize research using LSECs, opening the prospects for designing pharmacological strategies for various liver diseases, and considering LSECs as a therapeutic target

CRISPR/Cas9-mediated knockout of c-REL in HeLa cells results in profound defects of the cell cycle

Slotta C, Schlüter T, Ruiz-Perera LM, et al. CRISPR/Cas9-mediated knockout of c-REL in HeLa cells results in profound defects of the cell cycle. PLOS ONE. 2017;12(8): e0182373.Cervical cancer is the fourth common cancer in women resulting worldwide in 266,000 deaths per year. Belonging to the carcinomas, new insights into cervical cancer biology may also have great implications for finding new treatment strategies for other kinds of epithelial cancers. Although the transcription factor NF-κB is known as a key player in tumor formation, the relevance of its particular subunits is still underestimated. Here, we applied CRISPR/Cas9n-mediated genome editing to successfully knockout the NF-κB subunit c-REL in HeLa Kyoto cells as a model system for cervical cancers. We successfully generated a homozygous deletion in the c-REL gene, which we validated using sequencing, qPCR, immunocytochemistry, western blot analysis, EMSA and analysis of off-target effects. On the functional level, we observed the deletion of c-REL to result in a significantly decreased cell proliferation in comparison to wildtype (wt) without affecting apoptosis. The impaired proliferative behavior of c-REL-/- cells was accompanied by a strongly decreased amount of the H2B protein as well as a significant delay in the prometaphase of mitosis compared to c-REL+/+ HeLa Kyoto cells. c-REL-/- cells further showed significantly decreased expression levels of c-REL target genes in comparison to wt. In accordance to our proliferation data, we observed the c-REL knockout to result in a significantly increased resistance against the chemotherapeutic agents 5-Fluoro-2’-deoxyuridine (5-FUDR) and cisplatin. In summary, our findings emphasize the importance of c-REL signaling in a cellular model of cervical cancer with direct clinical implications for the development of new treatment strategies

Quantitative Live-Cell Imaging of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV-1) Assembly

Advances in fluorescence methodologies make it possible to investigate biological systems in unprecedented detail. Over the last few years, quantitative live-cell imaging has increasingly been used to study the dynamic interactions of viruses with cells and is expected to become even more indispensable in the future. Here, we describe different fluorescence labeling strategies that have been used to label HIV-1 for live cell imaging and the fluorescence based methods used to visualize individual aspects of virus-cell interactions. This review presents an overview of experimental methods and recent experiments that have employed quantitative microscopy in order to elucidate the dynamics of late stages in the HIV-1 replication cycle. This includes cytosolic interactions of the main structural protein, Gag, with itself and the viral RNA genome, the recruitment of Gag and RNA to the plasma membrane, virion assembly at the membrane and the recruitment of cellular proteins involved in HIV-1 release to the nascent budding site

Communicable Diseases Prioritized for Surveillance and Epidemiological Research: Results of a Standardized Prioritization Procedure in Germany, 2011

To establish strategic priorities for the German national public health institute (RKI) and guide the institute's mid-term strategic decisions, we prioritized infectious pathogens in accordance with their importance for national surveillance and epidemiological research.We used the Delphi process with internal (RKI) and external experts and a metric-consensus approach to score pathogens according to ten three-tiered criteria. Additional experts were invited to weight each criterion, leading to the calculation of a median weight by which each score was multiplied. We ranked the pathogens according to the total weighted score and divided them into four priority groups.., Respiratory syncytial virus or Hantavirus) indicate a possible under-recognised importance within the current German public health framework. A process to strengthen respective surveillance systems and research has been started. The prioritization methodology has worked well; its modular structure makes it potentially useful for other settings