Auf dem Weg zur individualisierten Medizin - Grid-basierte Services für die EPA der Zukunft.

Personalized Medicine is of paramount interest for many areas in Medical Informatics. Therefore genotype data as well a phenotype data about patients have to be available. This data will be stored in Electronic Health Records or – patient controlled - in Personal Health Records. As the amount of (raw) data is rising continuously, methods for a secure data administration have to be found. Grid Services offer data storage, can support data retrieval and the presentation of the data. The basic security services could be provided by the German health professional infrastructure, but there are many security challenges to be faced

Australia's Oldest Marsupial Fossils and their Biogeographical Implications

Background: We describe new cranial and post-cranial marsupial fossils from the early Eocene Tingamarra Local Fauna in Australia and refer them to Djarthia murgonensis, which was previously known only from fragmentary dental remains. Methodology/Principal Findings: The new material indicates that Djarthia is a member of Australidelphia, a pan-Gondwanan clade comprising all extant Australian marsupials together with the South American microbiotheres. Djarthia is therefore the oldest known crown-group marsupial anywhere in the world that is represented by dental, cranial and postcranial remains, and the oldest known Australian marsupial by 30 million years. It is also the most plesiomorphic known australidelphian, and phylogenetic analyses place it outside all other Australian marsupials. Conclusions/Significance: As the most plesiomorphic and oldest unequivocal australidelphian, Djarthia may approximate the ancestral morphotype of the Australian marsupial radiation and suggests that the South American microbiotheres may be the result of back-dispersal from eastern Gondwana, which is the reverse of prevailing hypotheses

The evolution of mammalian brain size

Relative brain size has long been considered a reflection of cognitive capacities and has played a fundamental role in developing core theories in the life sciences. Yet, the notion that relative brain size validly represents selection on brain size relies on the untested assumptions that brain-body allometry is restrained to a stable scaling relationship across species and that any deviation from this slope is due to selection on brain size. Using the largest fossil and extant dataset yet assembled, we find that shifts in allometric slope underpin major transitions in mammalian evolution and are often primarily characterized by marked changes in body size. Our results reveal that the largest-brained mammals achieved large relative brain sizes by highly divergent paths. These findings prompt a reevaluation of the traditional paradigm of relative brain size and open new opportunities to improve our understanding of the genetic and developmental mechanisms that influence brain size

The importance of the altricial – precocial spectrum for social complexity in mammals and birds:A review

Various types of long-term stable relationships that individuals uphold, including cooperation and competition between group members, define social complexity in vertebrates. Numerous life history, physiological and cognitive traits have been shown to affect, or to be affected by, such social relationships. As such, differences in developmental modes, i.e. the ‘altricial-precocial’ spectrum, may play an important role in understanding the interspecific variation in occurrence of social interactions, but to what extent this is the case is unclear because the role of the developmental mode has not been studied directly in across-species studies of sociality. In other words, although there are studies on the effects of developmental mode on brain size, on the effects of brain size on cognition, and on the effects of cognition on social complexity, there are no studies directly investigating the link between developmental mode and social complexity. This is surprising because developmental differences play a significant role in the evolution of, for example, brain size, which is in turn considered an essential building block with respect to social complexity. Here, we compiled an overview of studies on various aspects of the complexity of social systems in altricial and precocial mammals and birds. Although systematic studies are scarce and do not allow for a quantitative comparison, we show that several forms of social relationships and cognitive abilities occur in species along the entire developmental spectrum. Based on the existing evidence it seems that differences in developmental modes play a minor role in whether or not individuals or species are able to meet the cognitive capabilities and requirements for maintaining complex social relationships. Given the scarcity of comparative studies and potential subtle differences, however, we suggest that future studies should consider developmental differences to determine whether our finding is general or whether some of the vast variation in social complexity across species can be explained by developmental mode. This would allow a more detailed assessment of the relative importance of developmental mode in the evolution of vertebrate social systems

Comparación del crecimiento y del comportamiento alimenticio en cerdo criollo y "Large White": primeros resultados

Sobre 70 cerdos Criollos (CR) y 70 cerdos Large White (LW), de los 100 a los 150 días de edad, se obtuvieron medidas de consumo diario y de comportamiento alimenticio con un equipo electrónico de suministro de alimento, dispensado ad libitum. El experimento se realizó en Guadalupe (Antillas Francesas). El peso vivo al inicio fue 32,9 ± 6,1 kg y 42,1 ± 7,6 kg para CR y LW, respectivamente. Los cerdos CR tienen menor consumo diario (2001 vs 2167 g/d, p<0,01), más bajo crecimiento (649 vs 869 g/d, p< 0,01), más elevada conversión alimenticia (3,1 vs 2,5 kg/kg, p<0,01), y más alta ganancia de espesor de grasa de la espalda (+7,7 vs +4.4 mm, p<0,01) que los LW. El promedio de comidas fue significativamente más bajo (p<0,01), y su tamaño mayor para los cerdos CR que los LW (6,9 vs 8,4 comidas y 318 vs 282 g/comida, respectivamente). El ritmo de consumo fue menor (23,6 vs 33,6 g/min, p<0,01) y el tiempo total de ingestión fue mayor (88,0 vs 67,3 min/d, p<0,05) en cerdos CR que en LW. Para ambas razas, el consumo por hora se elevó, cerca del amanecer y del anochecer. El tamaño al pico fue significativamente más bajo (p<0,05) y el tiempo total de consumo fue más alto (15:25 h vs 12:12h, p<0,01) en CR que en LW. La raza afectó significativamente el consumo: 75 p.100 y 69 p.100 del consumo total diario ocurrió de día en LW y CR respectivamente. Se confirma que la distribución del consumo diario está influida por el genotipo de los cerdos