Potential of GPS Common Clock Single-differences for Deformation Monitoring

Global satellite navigation systems (GNSS) are a standard measurement device for deformation monitoring. In many applications, double-differences are used to reduce distance dependent systematic effects, as well as to eliminate the receiver and satellites clock errors. However, due to the navigation principle of one way ranging used in GPS, the geometry of the subsequent adjustment is weakened. As a result, the height component is generally determined three times less precisely than the horizontal coordinates. In addition, large correlations between the height and elevation dependent effects exist such as tropospheric refraction, mismodelled phase center variations, or multipath which restricts the attainable accuracy. However, for a kinematic analysis, i. e. for estimating high rate coordinate time series, the situation can be significantly improved if a common clock is connected to different GNSS receivers in a network or on a baseline. Consequently, between-station single-differences are sufficient to solve for the baseline coordinates. The positioning geometry is significantly improved which is reflected by a reduction of the standard deviation of kinematic heights by about a factor 3 underlining the benefits of this new approach. Real data from baselines at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt campus at Braunschweig where receivers are connected over 290 m via an optical fiber link to a common clock was analysed. © 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Munich/Boston

Drug-target identification in COVID-19 disease mechanisms using computational systems biology approaches

Introduction: The COVID-19 Disease Map project is a large-scale community effort uniting 277 scientists from 130 Institutions around the globe. We use high-quality, mechanistic content describing SARS-CoV-2-host interactions and develop interoperable bioinformatic pipelines for novel target identification and drug repurposing. Methods: Extensive community work allowed an impressive step forward in building interfaces between Systems Biology tools and platforms. Our framework can link biomolecules from omics data analysis and computational modelling to dysregulated pathways in a cell-, tissue- or patient-specific manner. Drug repurposing using text mining and AI-assisted analysis identified potential drugs, chemicals and microRNAs that could target the identified key factors. Results: Results revealed drugs already tested for anti-COVID-19 efficacy, providing a mechanistic context for their mode of action, and drugs already in clinical trials for treating other diseases, never tested against COVID-19. Discussion: The key advance is that the proposed framework is versatile and expandable, offering a significant upgrade in the arsenal for virus-host interactions and other complex pathologies.Peer Reviewe

COVID19 Disease Map, a computational knowledge repository of virus-host interaction mechanisms.

Funder: Bundesministerium für Bildung und ForschungFunder: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)We need to effectively combine the knowledge from surging literature with complex datasets to propose mechanistic models of SARS-CoV-2 infection, improving data interpretation and predicting key targets of intervention. Here, we describe a large-scale community effort to build an open access, interoperable and computable repository of COVID-19 molecular mechanisms. The COVID-19 Disease Map (C19DMap) is a graphical, interactive representation of disease-relevant molecular mechanisms linking many knowledge sources. Notably, it is a computational resource for graph-based analyses and disease modelling. To this end, we established a framework of tools, platforms and guidelines necessary for a multifaceted community of biocurators, domain experts, bioinformaticians and computational biologists. The diagrams of the C19DMap, curated from the literature, are integrated with relevant interaction and text mining databases. We demonstrate the application of network analysis and modelling approaches by concrete examples to highlight new testable hypotheses. This framework helps to find signatures of SARS-CoV-2 predisposition, treatment response or prioritisation of drug candidates. Such an approach may help deal with new waves of COVID-19 or similar pandemics in the long-term perspective

Drug-target identification in COVID-19 disease mechanisms using computational systems biology approaches

IntroductionThe COVID-19 Disease Map project is a large-scale community effort uniting 277 scientists from 130 Institutions around the globe. We use high-quality, mechanistic content describing SARS-CoV-2-host interactions and develop interoperable bioinformatic pipelines for novel target identification and drug repurposing. MethodsExtensive community work allowed an impressive step forward in building interfaces between Systems Biology tools and platforms. Our framework can link biomolecules from omics data analysis and computational modelling to dysregulated pathways in a cell-, tissue- or patient-specific manner. Drug repurposing using text mining and AI-assisted analysis identified potential drugs, chemicals and microRNAs that could target the identified key factors.ResultsResults revealed drugs already tested for anti-COVID-19 efficacy, providing a mechanistic context for their mode of action, and drugs already in clinical trials for treating other diseases, never tested against COVID-19. DiscussionThe key advance is that the proposed framework is versatile and expandable, offering a significant upgrade in the arsenal for virus-host interactions and other complex pathologies

Abstracts from the 8th International Conference on cGMP Generators, Effectors and Therapeutic Implications

This work was supported by a restricted research grant of Bayer AG

YBCOSQUIDs with unconventional current phase relation

We have studied the dynamics of YBa2Cu3O7-delta,5 (YBCO) dc sperconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) characterized by an unconventional Josephson current phase relation (CPR). We have focused on SQUID configurations with Josephson junctions where the lobe of the order parameter in one electrode is facing a node in the other electrode. This order parameter arrangement should enhance the appearance of a sin(2(p) term in the CPR. The response of the critical current of the dc SQUID, under the effect of an external magnetic field, has been measured in temperature, down to 20 mK. Our experimental data have been compared with numerical simulations of the SQUIDs dynamics by considering a CPR of a single junction of the form I(phi) = I-I sin(phi) - I-II sin(2 phi) where I-I, and I-II are, respectively, the first and second harmonic component. In our devices the values of the sin(2 phi) term are such that the fundamental state of the SQUID is naturally double degenerate. This is of great relevance for applications of d-wave SQUIDs in quantum information processing. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Barium measured on water bottle samples during POLARSTERN cruise ARK-XXII/2 (SPACE)

Dissolved barium has been shown to have the potential to distinguish Eurasian from North American (NA) river runoff. As part of the ARK-XXII/2 Polarstern expedition in summer 2007, Ba was analyzed in the Barents, Kara, Laptev seas, and the Eurasian Basins as well as the Makarov Basin up to the Alpha and Mendeleyev Ridges. By combining salinity, d18O and initial phosphate corrected for mineralization with oxygen (PO4*) or N/P ratios we identified the water mass fractions of meteoric water, sea ice meltwater, and marine waters of Atlantic as well as Pacific origin in the upper water column. In all basins inside the lower halocline layer and the Arctic intermediate waters we find Ba concentrations close to those of the Fram Strait branch of the lower halocline (41-45 nM), reflecting the composition of the incoming Atlantic water. A layer of upper halocline water (UHW) with higher Ba concentrations (45-55 nM) is identified in the Makarov Basin. Atop of the UHW, the Surface Mixed Layer (SML), including the summer and winter mixed layers, has high concentrations of Ba (58-67 nM). In the SML of the investigated area of the central Arctic the meteoric fraction can be identified by assuming a conservative behavior of Ba to be primarily of Eurasian river origin. However, in productive coastal regions biological removal compromises the use of Ba to distinguish between Eurasian and NA rivers. As a consequence, the NA river water fraction is underestimated in productive surface waters or waters that have passed a productive region, whereas this fraction is overestimated in subsurface waters containing remineralised Ba, particularly when these waters have passed productive shelf regions. Especially in the Laptev Sea and small regions in the Barents Sea, Ba concentrations are low in surface waters. In the Laptev Sea exceptionally high Ba concentrations in shelf bottom waters indicate that Ba is removed from surface waters to deep waters by biological activity enhanced by increasing ice-free conditions as well as by scavenging by organic matter of terrestrial origin. We interpret high Ba concentrations in the UHW of the Makarov Basin to result from enrichment by remineralisation in bottom waters on the shelf of the Chukchi Sea and therefore the calculated NA runoff is an artefact. We conclude that no NA runoff can be demonstrated unequivocally anywhere during our expedition with the set of tracers considered here. Small contributions of NA runoff may have been masked by Ba depletion and could only be resolved by supportive tracers on the uptake history. We thus suggest that Ba has to be used with care as it can put limits but not yield quantitative water mass distributions. Only if the extra Ba inputs exceed the cumulative biological uptake the signal can be unequivocally attributed to NA runoff