Functional ADA Polymorphism Increases Sleep Depth and Reduces Vigilant Attention in Humans

Homeostatically regulated slow-wave oscillations in non-rapid eye movement (REM) sleep may reflect synaptic changes across the sleep-wake continuum and the restorative function of sleep. The nonsynonymous c.22G>A polymorphism (rs73598374) of adenosine deaminase (ADA) reduces the conversion of adenosine to inosine and predicts baseline differences in sleep slow-wave oscillations. We hypothesized that this polymorphism affects cognitive functions, and investigated whether it modulates electroencephalogram (EEG), behavioral, subjective, and biochemical responses to sleep deprivation. Attention, learning, memory, and executive functioning were quantified in healthy adults. Right-handed carriers of the variant allele (G/A genotype, n = 29) performed worse on the d2 attention task than G/G homozygotes (n = 191). To test whether this difference reflects elevated homeostatic sleep pressure, sleep and sleep EEG before and after sleep deprivation were studied in 2 prospectively matched groups of G/A and G/G genotype subjects. Deep sleep and EEG 0.75- to 1.5-Hz oscillations in non-REM sleep were significantly higher in G/A than in G/G genotype. Moreover, attention and vigor were reduced, whereas waking EEG alpha activity (8.5-12 Hz), sleepiness, fatigue, and α-amylase in saliva were enhanced. These convergent data demonstrate that genetic reduction of ADA activity elevates sleep pressure and plays a key role in sleep and waking quality in human

Self-Learning Prediciton System for Optimisation of Workload Managememt in a Mainframe Operating System

We present a framework for extraction and prediction of online workload data from a workload manager of a mainframe operating system. To boost overall system performance, the prediction will be corporated into the workload manager to take preventive action before a bottleneck develops. Model and feature selection automatically create a prediction model based on given training data, thereby keeping the system flexible. We tailor data extraction, preprocessing and training to this specific task, keeping in mind the nonstationarity of business processes. Using error measures suited to our task, we show that our approach is promising. To conclude, we discuss our first results and give an outlook on future work

Welche Chancen bietet die Immunonkologie für ein indikationsübergreifendes Langzeitüberleben?

Tumore nutzen verschiedene Escape-Mechanismen, um das körpereigene Immunsystem zu überlisten und sich gegenüber der Tumor-Immunabwehr durchzusetzen: Die Erkenntnis, dass sie immunregulative Moleküle wie z.B. CTLA-4 (Cytotoxic T Lymphocyte Antigen 4) oder PD-1 (programmed cell death 1) sowie deren Liganden PD-L1/PD-L2 instrumentalisieren können, um der Immunüberwachung zu entkommen (immune escape), hat einen vollständig neuen Therapiezugang für die Onkologie eröffnet..

Evaluation of Beam Losses and Energy Depositions for a Possible Phase II Design for LHC Collimation

The LHC beams are designed to have high stability and to be stored for many hours. The nominal beam intensity lifetime is expected to be of the order of 20h. The Phase II collimation system has to be able to handle particle losses in stable physics conditions at 7 TeV in order to avoid beam aborts and to allow correction of parameters and restoration to nominal conditions. Monte Carlo simulations are needed in order to evaluate the behavior of metallic high-Z collimators during operation scenarios using a realistic distribution of losses, which is a mix of the three limiting halo cases. Moreover, the consequences in the IR7 insertion of the worst (case) abnormal beam loss are evaluated. The case refers to a spontaneous trigger of the horizontal extraction kicker at top energy, when Phase II collimators are used. These studies are an important input for engineering design of the collimation Phase II system and for the evaluation of their effect on adjacent components. The goal is to build collimators that can survive the expected conditions during LHC stable physics runs, in order to avoid quenches of the SC magnets and to protect other LHC equipments

Preliminary Exploratory Study of Different Phase II Collimators

The LHC collimation system is installed and commissioned in different phases, following the natural evolution of the LHC performance. To improve cleaning efficiency towards the end of the low beta squeeze at 7TeV, and in stable physics conditions, it is foreseen to complement the 30 highly robust Phase I secondary collimators with low impedance Phase II collimators. At this stage, their design is not yet finalized. Possible options include metallic collimators, graphite jaws with a movable metallic foil, or collimators with metallic rotating jaws. As part of the evaluation of the different designs, the FLUKA Monte Carlo code is extensively used for calculating energy deposition and studying material damage and activation. This report outlines the simulation approach and defines the critical quantities involved

Polysaccharide capsule composition of pneumococcal serotype 19A subtypes: Unaltered among subtypes and independent of the nutritional environment

Serotype 19A strains have emerged as a cause of invasive pneumococcal disease after the introduction of the seven-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) and serotype 19A has now been included in the recent thirteen-valent vaccine (PCV13). Genetic analysis has revealed at least three different capsular serotype 19A subtypes and nutritional environment dependent variation of the 19A capsule structure has been reported. Pneumococcal vaccine effectiveness and serotyping accuracy might be impaired by structural differences in serotype 19A capsules. We therefore analyzed the distribution of 19A subtypes collected within a Swiss national surveillance program and determined capsule composition in different nutritional conditions with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography – mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). After the introduction of PCV7 a significant relative increase of subtype 19A-II and decrease of 19A-I occurred. Chemical analyses showed no difference in the composition as well as the linkage of 19A subtype capsular saccharides grown in defined and undefined growth media being consistent with a trisaccharide repeat unit composed of rhamnose, N-acetyl-mannosamine and glucose. In summary, our study suggests that no structural variance dependent of the nutritional environment or the subtype exists. The serotype 19A subtype shift observed after the introduction of the PCV7 can therefore not be explained by selection of a capsule variant. However, capsule composition analysis of emerging 19A clones is recommended in cases where there is no other explanation for a selective advantage such as antibiotic resistance or loss or acquisition of other virulence factor

Acute Muscular Sarcocystosis: An International Investigation Among Ill Travelers Returning From Tioman Island, Malaysia, 2011-2012

A large outbreak of acute muscular sarcocystosis (AMS) among international tourists who visited Tioman Island, Malaysia, is described. Clinicians evaluating travelers returning ill from Malaysia with myalgia, with or without fever, should consider AMS in their differential diagnosi

The ASCAT soil moisture product: a review of its specifications, validation results, and emerging applications

Many physical, chemical and biological processes taking place at the land surface are strongly influenced by the amount of water stored within the upper soil layers. Therefore, many scientific disciplines require soil moisture observations for developing, evaluating and improving their models. One of these disciplines is meteorology where soil moisture is important due to its control on the exchange of heat and water between the soil and the lower atmosphere. Soil moisture observations may thus help to improve the forecasts of air temperature, air humidity and precipitation. However, until recently, soil moisture observations had only been available over a limited number of regional soil moisture networks. This has hampered scientific progress as regards the characterisation of land surface processes not just in meteorology but many other scientific disciplines as well. Fortunately, in recent years, satellite soil moisture data have increasingly become available. One of the freely available global soil moisture data sets is derived from the backscatter measurements acquired by the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) that is a C-band active microwave remote sensing instrument flown on board of the Meteorological Operational (METOP) satellite series. ASCAT was designed to observe wind speed and direction over the oceans and was initially not foreseen for monitoring soil moisture over land. Yet, as argued in this review paper, the characteristics of the ASCAT instrument, most importantly its wavelength (5.7 cm), its high radiometric accuracy, and its multiple-viewing capabilities make it an attractive sensor for measuring soil moisture. Moreover, given the operational status of ASCAT, and its promising long-term prospects, many geoscientific applications might benefit from using ASCAT soil moisture data. Nonetheless, the ASCAT soil moisture product is relatively complex, requiring a good understanding of its properties before it can be successfully used in applications. To provide a comprehensive overview of the major characteristics and caveats of the ASCAT soil moisture product, this paper describes the ASCAT instrument and the soil moisture processor and near-real-time distribution service implemented by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). A review of the most recent validation studies shows that the quality of ASCAT soil moisture product is – with the exception of arid environments –comparable to, and over some regions (e.g. Europe) even better than currently available soil moisture data derived from passive microwave sensors. Further, a review of applications studies shows that the use of the ASCAT soil moisture product is particularly advanced in the fields of numerical weather prediction and hydrologic modelling. But also in other application areas such as yield monitoring, epidemiologic modelling, or societal risks assessment some first progress can be noted. Considering the generally positive evaluation results, it is expected that the ASCAT soil moisture product will increasingly be used by a growing number of rather diverse land applications.The Austrian Science Fund (FWF) through the Vienna Doctoral Programme on Water Resource Systems (http://www.waterresources.at/,DK-plusW1219-N22

Studying the impacts of digitalization and further societal trends on energy demand

Digitalization has the possibility to fundamentally change the current ways things are done. From the digitalization in private households (as for example voice control systems, smart thermostats and streaming operators), to digitalization in the transport sector (autonomous electric cars with smart loading infrastructure), to increasingly digitalized processes in the industry which can be highly optimized through automation