Proposed criteria for the evaluation of the scientific quality of mandatory rat and mouse feeding trials with whole food/feed derived from genetically modified plants

In recent years, animal feeding trials conducted with whole food/feed have been a focal issue in the controversy on the safety assessment of genetically modified (GM) plants and derived food/feed. Within the scientific community and among stakeholders, quite different views have been expressed on how these studies should be conducted, analysed and interpreted, what they might add in terms of information relevant to safety and whether 90-day rodent feeding trials should be mandatory. Despite the fact that the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No. 503/2013 (specifying the requirements for the risk assessment of GM food/feed) requests mandatory 90-day feeding trials for GM plants with single transformation events, the controversy continues. This is due to the fact that in 2016 the European Commission will have to review this particular provision in the legislation (ibid, Article 12), and because of questions raised by long-term feeding studies with GM maize

Donor-Ligand-Substituted Cyclopentadienylchromium(III) Complexes: A New Class of Alkene Polymerization Catalyst. 2. Phosphinoalkyl-Substituted Systems

A series of phosphinoalkyl-substituted cyclopentadienylchromium complexes, e.g., (η1:η5-R2PC2H4C5H4)CrCl2, have been synthesized. The complexation of the P atom to the chromium has been confirmed by crystal structure determinations. Activated by methylalumoxane (MAO), these compounds catalyze the oligomerization and polymerization of ethylene. The catalytic activity and the degree of oligomerization are controlled by the steric properties of the substituents on the donor atom:  the smaller the substituent, the greater the activity and the lower the molecular weight of the oligomer. Density functional calculations indicate that propagation and termination through β-hydrogen transfer are competitive for small substituents and that the latter process, which involves spin inversion, becomes selectively disfavored with increasing size of the substituents. For large substituents β-hydrogen elimination to the chromium atom is found to be the preferred route for termination, although this reaction is less facile than insertion

Influence of Road Camber on Motorcycle Stability

Published versio

Mechanical steering compensators for high-performance motorcycles

Published versio

Maintenance of Hair Follicle Immune Privilege Is Linked to Prevention of NK Cell Attack

Hair follicles (HFs) enjoy a relative immune privilege (IP) that is characterized by downregulation of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and local expression of potent immunosuppressants. Normally, natural killer (NK) cells attack cells with absent/low MHC class I expression. However, because few perifollicular NK cells are found around healthy human anagen HFs, we asked how HFs escape from NK cell attack. This study suggests that this happens via an active NK cell suppression. Alopecia areata (AA), an organ-specific autoimmune disease thought to result from a collapse of HF-IP, in contrast, shows striking defects in NK cell inhibition/containment. We show that the NK cell inhibitor macrophage migration inhibitory factor is strongly expressed by the HF epithelium, and very few CD56+/NKG2D+ NK cells are observed in and around normal anagen HFs compared to AA with prominent aggregations of CD56+/NKG2D+ NK around AA-HFs. By flow cytometry, many fewer NK function-activating receptors (NKG2D, NKG2C) and significantly more killer cell Ig-like receptors-2D2/2D3 were found to be expressed on peripheral blood CD56+ NK cells of healthy controls than on those of AA patients. In addition, only weak immunoreactivity for MHC class I chain-related A gene was observed in normal anagen HFs compared to AA. To our knowledge, this defect is previously unreported and must be taken into account in AA pathogenesis and its management

KIR2DS4 is a product of gene conversion with KIR3DL2 that introduced specificity for HLA-A*11 while diminishing avidity for HLA-C

Human killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs) are distinguished by expansion of activating KIR2DS, whose ligands and functions remain poorly understood. The oldest, most prevalent KIR2DS is KIR2DS4, which is represented by a variable balance between “full-length” and “deleted” forms. We find that full-length 2DS4 is a human histocompatibility leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I receptor that binds specifically to subsets of C1+ and C2+ HLA-C and to HLA-A*11, whereas deleted 2DS4 is nonfunctional. Activation of 2DS4+ NKL cells was achieved with A*1102 as ligand, which differs from A*1101 by unique substitution of lysine 19 for glutamate, but not with A*1101 or HLA-C. Distinguishing KIR2DS4 from other KIR2DS is the proline–valine motif at positions 71–72, which is shared with KIR3DL2 and was introduced by gene conversion before separation of the human and chimpanzee lineages. Site-directed swap mutagenesis shows that these two residues are largely responsible for the unique HLA class I specificity of KIR2DS4. Determination of the crystallographic structure of KIR2DS4 shows two major differences from KIR2DL: displacement of contact loop L2 and altered bonding potential because of the substitutions at positions 71 and 72. Correlation between the worldwide distributions of functional KIR2DS4 and HLA-A*11 points to the physiological importance of their mutual interaction

A Reflection on the Interrelations Between Business Process Management and Requirements Engineering with an Agility Perspective

The paper points out some aspects of the interrelations between business process management, agility, flexibility, and requirements engineering. It shows some possibilities for agile development of business processes and for the development of flexible processes for changing requirements