Geo-elektrische metingen in Noord-Holland

Uit elektrische weerstandsmetingen uitgevoerd op 60 locaties en analyses van watermonsters zijn gegevens verkregen omtrent het chloridegehalte van het grondwater tot een diepte van 10 meter beneden maaivel

Case registry systems for pandemic influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 in Europe: are there lessons for the future?

Countries across Europe developed a range of database systems to register pandemic influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 cases. Anecdotal reports indicate that some systems were not as useful as expected. This was a cross-sectional, semi-structured survey of health professionals who collected and reported pandemic influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 cases in 23 countries within the 27 European Union (EU) Member States plus Norway. We describe here the experiences of using pandemic case register systems developed before and during the pandemic, whether the systems were used as intended and, what problems, if any, were encountered. We conducted the survey to identify improvements that could be made to future pandemic case registers at national and EU level. Despite many inter-country differences, 17 respondents felt that a standardised case register template incorporating a limited number of simple standard variables specified in advance and agreed between the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control could be useful. Intra- and inter-country working groups could facilitate information exchange, clearer system objectives and improved interoperability between systems

Using habitat selection theories to predict the spatiotemporal distribution of migratory birds during stopover - a case study of pink-footed geese Anser brachyrhynchus

Th is study was part of MC ’ s PhD project funded by Aarhus University. Th e fi eldwork was supported by the Norwegian Research Council project MIGRAPOP.Understanding how animals select for habitat and foraging resources therein is a crucial component of basic and applied ecology. The selection process is typically influenced by a variety of environmental conditions including the spatial and temporal variation in the quantity and quality of food resources, predation or disturbance risks, and inter-and intraspecific competition. Indeed, some of the most commonly employed ecological theories used to describe how animals choose foraging sites are: nutrient intake maximisation, density-dependent habitat selection, central-place foraging, and predation risk effects. Even though these theories are not mutually exclusive, rarely are multiple theoretical models considered concomitantly to assess which theory, or combination thereof, best predicts observed changes in habitat selection over space and time. Here, we tested which of the above theories best-predicted habitat selection of Svalbard-breeding pink-footed geese at their main spring migration stopover site in mid-Norway by computing a series of resource selection functions (RSFs) and their predictive ability (k-fold cross validation scores). At this stopover site geese fuel intensively as a preparation for breeding and further migration. We found that the predation risk model and a combination of the density-dependent and central-place foraging models best-predicted habitat selection during stopover as geese selected for larger fields where predation risk is typically lower and selection for foraging sites changed as a function of both distance to the roost site (i.e. central-place) and changes in local density. In contrast to many other studies, the nutritional value of the available food resources did not appear to be a major limiting factor as geese used different food resources proportional to their availability. Our study shows that in an agricultural landscape where nutritional value of food resources is homogeneously high and resource availability changes rapidly; foraging behaviour of geese is largely a tradeoff between fast refuelling and disturbance/predator avoidance.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Convergence of cMyc and β-catenin on Tcf7l1 enables endoderm specification.

The molecular machinery that directs formation of definitive endoderm from pluripotent stem cells is not well understood. Wnt/β-catenin and Nodal signalling have been implicated, but the requirements for lineage specification remain incompletely defined. Here, we demonstrate a potent effect of inhibiting glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) on definitive endoderm production. We find that downstream of GSK3 inhibition, elevated cMyc and β-catenin act in parallel to reduce transcription and DNA binding, respectively, of the transcriptional repressor Tcf7l1. Tcf7l1 represses FoxA2, a pioneer factor for endoderm specification. Deletion of Tcf7l1 is sufficient to allow upregulation of FoxA2 in the presence of Activin. In wild-type cells, cMyc contributes by reducing Tcf7l1 mRNA, while β-catenin acts on Tcf7l1 protein. GSK3 inhibition is further required for consolidation of endodermal fate via upregulation of Sox17, highlighting sequential roles for Wnt signalling. The identification of a cMyc/β-catenin-Tcf7l1-FoxA2 axis reveals a de-repression mechanism underlying endoderm induction that may be recapitulated in other developmental and patho-logical contexts.This study was funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International, the European Commission FP7 project BetaCellTherapy (agreement No. 241883), a core support grant from the Wellcome Trust and MRC to the Wellcome Trust – Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, and a University of Edinburgh Chancellor’s Fellowship awarded to GM. GM was a JDRF advanced postdoctoral fellow. AS is a Medical Research Council Professor.This is the final version of the article. It was first available from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.15252/embj.20159211

What Automated Planning Can Do for Business Process Management

Business Process Management (BPM) is a central element of today organizations. Despite over the years its main focus has been the support of processes in highly controlled domains, nowadays many domains of interest to the BPM community are characterized by ever-changing requirements, unpredictable environments and increasing amounts of data that influence the execution of process instances. Under such dynamic conditions, BPM systems must increase their level of automation to provide the reactivity and flexibility necessary for process management. On the other hand, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) community has concentrated its efforts on investigating dynamic domains that involve active control of computational entities and physical devices (e.g., robots, software agents, etc.). In this context, Automated Planning, which is one of the oldest areas in AI, is conceived as a model-based approach to synthesize autonomous behaviours in automated way from a model. In this paper, we discuss how automated planning techniques can be leveraged to enable new levels of automation and support for business processing, and we show some concrete examples of their successful application to the different stages of the BPM life cycle

Novel pyridinium surfactants for efficient, nontoxic in vitro gene delivery

Novel, double-chained pyridinium compounds have been developed that display highly efficient DNA transfection properties. The transfection efficiency of several of these compounds is enhanced by an order of magnitude, when compared with the transfection efficiency accomplished with the widely used cationic lipid system, lipofectin. Most importantly, the pyridinium compounds were found to be essentially nontoxic toward cells. Using various reporter genes, such as beta-galactosidase and pNEO (a gene construct that renders cells resistent to antibiotic derivatives of neomycin like G418), we demonstrate that the enhanced efficiency relates to the fact that a relative higher number of cells in the population is transfected (approximately 50% in the case of COS cells) by the pyridinium derivatives, whereas the delivery of DNA per cell is also enhanced. Furthermore, application of the pyridinium derivatives shows little cellular preference in their ability to transfect cells. By systematically modifying the structure of the pyridinium amphiphile, i.e., by changing either the headgroup structure or the alkyl chains, some insight was obtained that may lead to unraveling the mechanism of amphiphile-mediated transfection, and thus to protocols that further optimize the carrier properties of the amphiphile. Our results reveal that unsaturated alkyl chains enhance the transfection properties of the pyridinium-based amphiphiles. Preliminary experiments suggest that the structure-dependent improvement of transfection efficiency, when comparing pyridinium derivatives with lipofectin, likely relates to the mechanism of delivery rather than the packaging of the amphiphile/DNA complex

The Debye-Waller factor of liquid silica: Theory and simulation

We show that the prediction of mode-coupling theory for a model of a network-forming strong glass-former correctly describes the wave-vector dependence of the Debye-Waller factor. To obtain a good description it is important to take into account the triplet correlation function c_3, which we evaluate from a computer simulation. Our results support the possibility that this theory is able to accurately describe the non-ergodicity parameters of simple as well as of network-forming liquids.Comment: 5 pages of Latex, 3 figure

Heterosubtypic cross-reactivity of HA1 antibodies to influenza A, with emphasis on nonhuman subtypes (H5N1, H7N7, H9N2)

Epidemics of influenza A vary greatly in size and age distribution of cases, and this variation is attributed to varying levels of pre-existing immunity. Recent studies have shown that antibody-mediated immune responses are more cross-reactive than previously believed, and shape patterns of humoral immunity to influenza A viruses over long periods. Here we quantify antibody responses to the hemagglutinin subunit 1 (HA1) across a range of subtypes using protein microarray analysis of cross-sectional serological surveys carried out in the Netherlands before and after the A/2009 (H1N1) pandemic. We find significant associations of responses, both within and between subtypes. Interestingly, substantial overall reactivity is observed to HA1 of avian H7N7 and H9N2 viruses. Seroprevalence of H7N7 correlates with antibody titers to A/1968 (H3N2), and is highest in persons born between 1954 and 1969. Seroprevalence of H9N2 is high across all ages, and correlates strongly with A/1957 (H2N2). This correlation is most pronounced in A/2009 (H1N1) infected persons born after 1968 who have never encountered A/1957 (H2N2)-like viruses. We conclude that heterosubtypic antibody cross-reactivity, both between human subtypes and between human and nonhuman subtypes, is common in the human population

Computer investigation of the energy landscape of amorphous silica

The multidimensional topography of the collective potential energy function of a so-called strong glass former (silica) is analyzed by means of classical molecular dynamics calculations. Features qualitatively similar to those of fragile glasses are recovered at high temperatures : in particular an intrinsic characteristic temperature $T_c\simeq 3500$K is evidenced above which the system starts to investigate non-harmonic potential energy basins. It is shown that the anharmonicities are essentially characterized by a roughness appearing in the potential energy valleys explored by the system for temperatures above $T_c$.Comment: 5 pages; accepted for publication in PR

EFFECTS OF A RESTORED ELK POPULATION ON SOILS, VEGETATION, AND WATER QUALITY IN EASTERN KENTUCKY

A restored elk (Cervus elaphus) population in eastern Kentucky may be affecting ecosystem processes in a landscape composed of reclaimed grassland expanses and isolated forest remnants. Elk routinely select forested ridge-tops as resting and ruminating sites. These locations are characterized by sparse or absent leaf litter, trampled and diminished vegetation, large deposits of dung, and urine-saturated soils. In fall 2003, a series of fenced ungulate exclosures were constructed; 8 on highly disturbed forested ridge-tops and 8 on reclaimed grasslands. Soil analyses measured % moisture, pH, total nitrogen, total carbon, ammonium, nitrate, phosphorus, and major extractable cations in 0-10 cm and 10-20 cm cores. Litter depths and percentages of bare ground, vegetative cover, litter cover, and woody debris were measured. Sediment and water samples were collected monthly from sediment traps on reference and experimental ridge-tops. Studentfs t-tests were used to determine significance (p . 0.10) between treatments. Disturbed ridge-tops had higher soil ammonium (0.68 mg/kg, 10-20 cm) than reference sites (0.25 mg/kg) in spring 2004 and lower ammonium (0.72 mg/kg, 0-10 cm; 0.44 mg/kg, 10-20 cm) than reference sites (1.80 mg/kg, 0-10 cm; 0.94 mg/kg, 10-20 cm) in summer 2004. Total carbon was higher inside (67.57 g/kg, 0-10 cm) than outside (45.38 g/kg) of ridge-top exclosures in fall 2004. Soil moisture, litter depths, and vegetative cover were generally lower, while % bare ground was higher on disturbed ridge-tops. Sediment collected from traps averaged 2.21g/m2 inside exclosures, 2.86 g/m2 outside exclosures, and 0.39 g/m2 on reference ridge-tops. These data suggest that this reintroduced species is changing several attributes of the Cumberland Plateau landscape. The lack of a predator such as the gray wolf (Canis lupis) or cougar (Puma concolor) likely contributes to the development of habitual elk use of landscape features such as remnant ridge-top forests. Such concentrated use may create conditions for the colonization of certain plant species including rare natives and invasive exotics. Continued monitoring of high use areas is recommended so that managers can fully understand the long-term impact of the return of this large, gregarious herbivore, and that appropriate management actions can be developed to promote native biodiversity