Konventionalisierungsfalle? was tun?

Der Öko-Landbau schrieb in den letzten Jahren Erfolgsgeschichte: Der Biosektor und seine Akteure scheinen in ihren Strukturen, Funktions- und Handlungsweisen der konventionellen Landwirtschaft immer ähnlicher zu werden. Während die einen Werte- und Sinnverlust beklagen, begrüßen die anderen Wachstum und öffentliche Anerkennung. Maßnahmen zur Überwindung dieses Spannungsfeldes wurden im März 2005 auf der Wissenschaftstagung zum Ökologischen Landbau im Rahmen eines Symposiums erörtert

A New 5 Flavour NLO Analysis and Parametrizations of Parton Distributions of the Real Photon

New, radiatively generated, NLO quark (u,d,s,c,b) and gluon densities in a real, unpolarized photon are presented. We perform three global fits, based on the NLO DGLAP evolution equations for Q^2>1 GeV^2, to all the available structure function F_2^gamma(x,Q^2) data. As in our previous LO analysis we utilize two theoretical approaches. Two models, denoted as FFNS_{CJK}1 & 2 NLO, adopt the so-called Fixed Flavour-Number Scheme for calculation of the heavy-quark contributions to F_2^gamma(x,Q^2), the CJK NLO model applies the ACOT(chi) scheme. We examine the results of our fits by a comparison with the LEP data for the Q^2 dependence of the F_2^gamma, averaged over various x-regions, and the F_2,c^gamma. Grid parametrizations of the parton densities for all fits are provided.Comment: 49 pages, 27 postscript figures; FORTRAN programs available at http://www.fuw.edu.pl/~pjank/param.htm

The H1 Forward Proton Spectrometer at HERA

The forward proton spectrometer is part of the H1 detector at the HERA collider. Protons with energies above 500 GeV and polar angles below 1 mrad can be detected by this spectrometer. The main detector components are scintillating fiber detectors read out by position-sensitive photo-multipliers. These detectors are housed in so-called Roman Pots which allow them to be moved close to the circulating proton beam. Four Roman Pot stations are located at distances between 60 m and 90 m from the interaction point.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures, submitted to Nucl.Instr.and Method

Primakoff effect in eta-photoproduction off protons

We analyse data on forward eta-meson photoproduction off a proton target and extract the eta to gamma gamma decay width utilizing the Primakoff effect. The hadronic amplitude that enters into our analysis is strongly constrained because it is fixed from a global fit to available gamma p to p eta data for differential cross sections and polarizations. We compare our results with present information on the two-photon eta-decay from the literature. We provide predictions for future PrimEx experiments at Jefferson Laboratory in order to motivate further studies.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, gamma-gamma*-eta form factor included, version to appear in Eur. Phys. J. A

Transfer RNA-derived small RNAs in the cancer transcriptome

The cellular lifetime includes stages such as differentiation, proliferation, division, senescence and apoptosis.These stages are driven by a strictly ordered process of transcription dynamics. Molecular disruption to RNA polymerase assembly, chromatin remodelling and transcription factor binding through to RNA editing, splicing, post-transcriptional regulation and ribosome scanning can result in significant costs arising from genome instability. Cancer development is one example of when such disruption takes place. RNA silencing is a term used to describe the effects of post-transcriptional gene silencing mediated by a diverse set of small RNA molecules. Small RNAs are crucial for regulating gene expression and microguarding genome integrity.RNA silencing studies predominantly focus on small RNAs such as microRNAs, short-interfering RNAs and piwi-interacting RNAs. We describe an emerging renewal of inter-est in a‘larger’small RNA, the transfer RNA (tRNA).Precisely generated tRNA-derived small RNAs, named tRNA halves (tiRNAs) and tRNA fragments (tRFs), have been reported to be abundant with dysregulation associated with cancer. Transfection of tiRNAs inhibits protein translation by displacing eukaryotic initiation factors from messenger RNA (mRNA) and inaugurating stress granule formation.Knockdown of an overexpressed tRF inhibits cancer cell proliferation. Recovery of lacking tRFs prevents cancer metastasis. The dual oncogenic and tumour-suppressive role is typical of functional small RNAs. We review recent reports on tiRNA and tRF discovery and biogenesis, identification and analysis from next-generation sequencing data and a mechanistic animal study to demonstrate their physiological role in cancer biology. We propose tRNA-derived small RNA-mediated RNA silencing is an innate defence mechanism to prevent oncogenic translation. We expect that cancer cells are percipient to their ablated control of transcription and attempt to prevent loss of genome control through RNA silencing

Kinetic modelling of competition and depletion of shared miRNAs by competing endogenous RNAs

Non-conding RNAs play a key role in the post-transcriptional regulation of mRNA translation and turnover in eukaryotes. miRNAs, in particular, interact with their target RNAs through protein-mediated, sequence-specific binding, giving rise to extended and highly heterogeneous miRNA-RNA interaction networks. Within such networks, competition to bind miRNAs can generate an effective positive coupling between their targets. Competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) can in turn regulate each other through miRNA-mediated crosstalk. Albeit potentially weak, ceRNA interactions can occur both dynamically, affecting e.g. the regulatory clock, and at stationarity, in which case ceRNA networks as a whole can be implicated in the composition of the cell's proteome. Many features of ceRNA interactions, including the conditions under which they become significant, can be unraveled by mathematical and in silico models. We review the understanding of the ceRNA effect obtained within such frameworks, focusing on the methods employed to quantify it, its role in the processing of gene expression noise, and how network topology can determine its reach.Comment: review article, 29 pages, 7 figure

Features of mammalian microRNA promoters emerge from polymerase II chromatin immunoprecipitation data

Background: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short, non-coding RNA regulators of protein coding genes. miRNAs play a very important role in diverse biological processes and various diseases. Many algorithms are able to predict miRNA genes and their targets, but their transcription regulation is still under investigation. It is generally believed that intragenic miRNAs (located in introns or exons of protein coding genes) are co-transcribed with their host genes and most intergenic miRNAs transcribed from their own RNA polymerase II (Pol II) promoter. However, the length of the primary transcripts and promoter organization is currently unknown. Methodology: We performed Pol II chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-chip using a custom array surrounding regions of known miRNA genes. To identify the true core transcription start sites of the miRNA genes we developed a new tool (CPPP). We showed that miRNA genes can be transcribed from promoters located several kilobases away and that their promoters share the same general features as those of protein coding genes. Finally, we found evidence that as many as 26% of the intragenic miRNAs may be transcribed from their own unique promoters. Conclusion: miRNA promoters have similar features to those of protein coding genes, but miRNA transcript organization is more complex. © 2009 Corcoran et al

Urinary MicroRNA Profiling in the Nephropathy of Type 1 Diabetes

Background: Patients with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) are particularly vulnerable to development of Diabetic nephropathy (DN) leading to End Stage Renal Disease. Hence a better understanding of the factors affecting kidney disease progression in T1D is urgently needed. In recent years microRNAs have emerged as important post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression in many different health conditions. We hypothesized that urinary microRNA profile of patients will differ in the different stages of diabetic renal disease. Methods and Findings: We studied urine microRNA profiles with qPCR in 40 T1D with >20 year follow up 10 who never developed renal disease (N) matched against 10 patients who went on to develop overt nephropathy (DN), 10 patients with intermittent microalbuminuria (IMA) matched against 10 patients with persistent (PMA) microalbuminuria. A Bayesian procedure was used to normalize and convert raw signals to expression ratios. We applied formal statistical techniques to translate fold changes to profiles of microRNA targets which were then used to make inferences about biological pathways in the Gene Ontology and REACTOME structured vocabularies. A total of 27 microRNAs were found to be present at significantly different levels in different stages of untreated nephropathy. These microRNAs mapped to overlapping pathways pertaining to growth factor signaling and renal fibrosis known to be targeted in diabetic kidney disease. Conclusions: Urinary microRNA profiles differ across the different stages of diabetic nephropathy. Previous work using experimental, clinical chemistry or biopsy samples has demonstrated differential expression of many of these microRNAs in a variety of chronic renal conditions and diabetes. Combining expression ratios of microRNAs with formal inferences about their predicted mRNA targets and associated biological pathways may yield useful markers for early diagnosis and risk stratification of DN in T1D by inferring the alteration of renal molecular processes. © 2013 Argyropoulos et al

Measurement of Azimuthal Asymmetries in Inclusive Production of Hadron Pairs in e+e- Annihilation at Belle

The Collins effect connects transverse quark spin with a measurable azimuthal dependence in the yield of hadronic fragments around the quark's momentum vector. Using two different reconstruction methods we observe statistically significant azimuthal asymmetries for charged pion pairs in e+e- annihilation at a center-of-mass energy of 10.52 GeV, which can be attributed to a transverse polarization of the primordial quarks. The measurement was performed using a sample of 79 million hadronic events collected with the Belle detector.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Energy Flow in the Hadronic Final State of Diffractive and Non-Diffractive Deep-Inelastic Scattering at HERA

An investigation of the hadronic final state in diffractive and non--diffractive deep--inelastic electron--proton scattering at HERA is presented, where diffractive data are selected experimentally by demanding a large gap in pseudo --rapidity around the proton remnant direction. The transverse energy flow in the hadronic final state is evaluated using a set of estimators which quantify topological properties. Using available Monte Carlo QCD calculations, it is demonstrated that the final state in diffractive DIS exhibits the features expected if the interaction is interpreted as the scattering of an electron off a current quark with associated effects of perturbative QCD. A model in which deep--inelastic diffraction is taken to be the exchange of a pomeron with partonic structure is found to reproduce the measurements well. Models for deep--inelastic $ep$ scattering, in which a sizeable diffractive contribution is present because of non--perturbative effects in the production of the hadronic final state, reproduce the general tendencies of the data but in all give a worse description.Comment: 22 pages, latex, 6 Figures appended as uuencoded fil