Variants of human chorionic gonadotropin from pregnant women and tumor patients recognized by monoclonal antibodies

In biological fluids, hCG and its free alpha- (hCG alpha) and beta-subunits (hCG beta), occur in multiple forms. These various forms differ at the molecular level primarily in glycosylation, but also differ in protein backbone modifications corresponding to the urinary low molecular weight fragment of the hCG beta-subunit (beta-core fragment). This microheterogeneous nature can be demonstrated by isoelectric focusing in which variants are separated into bands with different isoelectric points (pI). To determine whether such isoelectric variants differ in antigenicity and consequently might escape immunoassay detection due to overspecificity of monoclonal antibodies (MCA), urinary pregnancy hCG (NIH, CR123) and tumor hCG preparations, such as a tumor-specific acidic variant of hCG (hCGav) and the hCG beta-core fragment, were separated by isoelectric focusing in the absence or presence of 8 M urea, or by sodium docedyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and enzymatically immunostained using an MCA panel directed against 17 different hCG epitopes. MCA against 14 different epitopes accessible on holo-hCG recognized all pI variants of pregnancy holo-hCG or tumor-derived hCGav, as was true for the three MCA recognizing epitopes hidden on holo-hCG but accessible on the free subunits after hCG dissociation by urea. We conclude that each individual pI-isoform of holo-hCG and its free subunits expresses the entire set of epitopes recognized by our MCA panel. The carbohydrate moieties that form a biochemical basis for hCG heterogeneity seem to be neither of major antigenic relevance, nor are they structurally related to any particular epitope. Thus, various glycosylation forms of hCG, hCG alpha, hCG beta, and hCG beta-core in normal as well as in pathological samples should safely be detectable and measureable by immunoassays employing MCA with appropriate subunit specificity

Regionale Verteilung technologieorientierter Unternehmensgründungen

During the last years more and more discussions came up about the contribution of technology-oriented and technology-intensive industries for the economic development and employment. This paper examines the foundation dynamic and the regional clustering of various technology-oriented sectors in West-Germany from 1983 until 1993 on the basis of a firm specific data set from the greatest German Credit Rating Agency (Verband der Vereine Creditreform, VVC). The development of the number of foundations in various technology-intensive industries show high growth rates during the early eighties and after reunification in 1989. On the other side it becomes obvious that there's a severe decline in these sectors after 1991. Another result is that a regional clustering of new technology-based firms becomes obvious. This clustering can be recognised in and around the big areas of industrial concentration like Munich and the Ruhr Valley

Technologieorientierte Industrien und Unternehmen: Alternative Definitionen

During the last years more and more discussions came up about the contribution of technology-oriented and technology-intensive industries for employment and economic development. One reason for some of the contradictory evaluations of technology-intensive industries can be attributed to different conceptual definitions of technology and high-technology. This paper examines various definitions of high-technology, ranging from input factors, output factors, mixed input-output factors. subjective evaluations to definitions, based on employment or turnover growth. After characterizing the advantages and disadvantages of each factor, relevant definitions of high-technology are then discussed in detail. One finding of this overview is, that there's a huge mass of definitions which make more or less sense, depending on the underlying data, definitions and thresholds

Establishing Entrepreneurial Thinking and Acting in Swiss Vocational College

Switzerland has one of the best ecosystems for entrepreneurship. However, there is a blind spot with regard to vocational colleges: A systematic integration of the topic is currently missing. The initiative «Entrepreneurial Thinking and Acting in Swiss Vocational Colleges – Economic, Social and Ethical Dimensions» aims to address this blind spot. The vision of the initiative is to ensure that all 75,000 young people entering vocational colleges each year in Switzerland are given the opportunity to acquire entrepreneurial skills to enable them to play an active role in positively shaping the economy and society of the future. In the article, we focus on three key aspects of the initiative: (1) the pedagogical approach of the entrepreneurship program that allows students to develop personal initiative, entrepreneurial competences, and an awareness of sustainability; (2) the continuous evaluation of the program and the teacher training; and (3) the parallel bottom-up and top-down approach chosen to integrate entrepreneurial thinking and acting in the vocational education and training system

The Space-Efficient Core of Vadalog

Vadalog is a system for performing complex reasoning tasks such as those required in advanced knowledge graphs. The logical core of the underlying Vadalog language is the warded fragment of tuple-generating dependencies (TGDs). This formalism ensures tractable reasoning in data complexity, while a recent analysis focusing on a practical implementation led to the reasoning algorithm around which the Vadalog system is built. A fundamental question that has emerged in the context of Vadalog is the following: can we limit the recursion allowed by wardedness in order to obtain a formalism that provides a convenient syntax for expressing useful recursive statements, and at the same time achieves space-efficiency? After analyzing several real-life examples of warded sets of TGDs provided by our industrial partners, as well as recent benchmarks, we observed that recursion is often used in a restricted way: the body of a TGD contains at most one atom whose predicate is mutually recursive with a predicate in the head. We show that this type of recursion, known as piece-wise linear in the Datalog literature, is the answer to our main question. We further show that piece-wise linear recursion alone, without the wardedness condition, is not enough as it leads to the undecidability of reasoning. We finally study the relative expressiveness of the query languages based on (piece-wise linear) warded sets of TGDs

Nonparametric approach for structural dynamics of high-voltage cables

High-voltage cables, as applied in the electro-mobility, are highly complex structures regarding their vibration behaviour. The high complexity leads to considerable uncertainty in models for a finite element method (FEM) simulation, which is shown, for example, in the contact modelling between the strands of the cable. To handle this uncertainty and model the structural dynamic, a nonparametric probabilistic approach (NPPA) with random matrices is used for the first time on high-voltage cables. This novel application of NPPA has an advantage over typical FEM analysis by using a more manageable simulation model and eliminating the need for a complex deterministic simulation model. Initially, the NPPA is analysed and enhanced, with an optimization for the dispersion parameter and a frequency shift introduced as methodological improvements. These enhancements result in a comparable scatter band of the frequency response. Following preliminary studies, the cable's dynamic behaviour is examined through experimental modal analysis, after which the dispersion parameters are computed. The NPPA is then applied to the simplified deterministic model with the calculated dispersion parameters, and a Monte Carlo simulation is done. As a result of this simulation, a scatter band is given. The results from the simulation are then compared to the results of an experiment. It is shown that the frequency response from the experiment is almost always in the inner area of the scatter band. Consequently, this innovative method can be used for a risk evaluation according to the path of the frequency response function and an evaluation of the structural behaviour