Whole-body tissue stabilization and selective extractions via tissue-hydrogel hybrids for high-resolution intact circuit mapping and phenotyping

To facilitate fine-scale phenotyping of whole specimens, we describe here a set of tissue fixation-embedding, detergent-clearing and staining protocols that can be used to transform excised organs and whole organisms into optically transparent samples within 1–2 weeks without compromising their cellular architecture or endogenous fluorescence. PACT (passive CLARITY technique) and PARS (perfusion-assisted agent release in situ) use tissue-hydrogel hybrids to stabilize tissue biomolecules during selective lipid extraction, resulting in enhanced clearing efficiency and sample integrity. Furthermore, the macromolecule permeability of PACT- and PARS-processed tissue hybrids supports the diffusion of immunolabels throughout intact tissue, whereas RIMS (refractive index matching solution) grants high-resolution imaging at depth by further reducing light scattering in cleared and uncleared samples alike. These methods are adaptable to difficult-to-image tissues, such as bone (PACT-deCAL), and to magnified single-cell visualization (ePACT). Together, these protocols and solutions enable phenotyping of subcellular components and tracing cellular connectivity in intact biological networks

Granularity of Services – an Economic Analysis

Service-oriented architectures are widely discussed as a design principle for application and enterprise architectures. Nevertheless, an adequate granularity of services has not yet been researched sufficiently from an economic perspective. The finer the granularity to realize the functions of a process, the higher the number of services is, and the more effort has to be directed towards composing them. In contrast, very coarse grained services bear the disadvantages of higher implementation costs and lower reuse potential (e.g., in different processes). The aim of the decision model proposed in this paper is to determine an adequate granularity of services from an economical perspective. Thus, degrees of freedom, which often exist for the choice of granularity after a domain analysis, can be leveraged to realize a cost-efficient solution. We illustrate the applicability and practical benefits of the decision model with an example from the context of a financial services provider

Granularität von Services – eine ökonomische Analyse

Serviceorientierte Architekturen werden für die Gestaltung von Anwendungs- und Unternehmensarchitekturen intensiv diskutiert. Dennoch wurde die Frage nach einer adäquaten Granularität von Services unter ökonomischen Aspekten bisher kaum erforscht. Je feiner die Granularität von Services zur Realisierung der Funktionen eines Prozesses gewählt wird, desto größer ist die Anzahl der notwendigen Services. Dadurch steigt der Kompositionsaufwand. Sehr grobgranulare Services hingegen besitzen den Nachteil, dass ihr Realisierungsaufwand höher ist und die Chance zur Mehrfachverwendung (bspw. in verschiedenen Prozessen) sinkt. Im Beitrag wird daher ein Modell entwickelt, das die Entscheidung bezüglich der Granularität von Services unter ökonomischen Aspekten unterstützt und auf diese Weise bestehende Freiheitsgrade nutzt, die eine rein fachlich orientierte Festlegung der Granularität noch offenlässt. Das Entscheidungsmodell wird am Fallbeispiel einer Bank demonstriert, um die Anwendbarkeit und den praktischen Nutzen zu veranschaulichen

Macromolecular organic compounds from the depths of Enceladus

Abstract Saturn’s moon Enceladus harbours a global water ocean¹, which lies under an ice crust and above a rocky core². Through warm cracks in the crust³ a cryo-volcanic plume ejects ice grains and vapour into space⁴–⁷ that contain materials originating from the ocean⁸,⁹. Hydrothermal activity is suspected to occur deep inside the porous core¹⁰–¹², powered by tidal dissipation¹³. So far, only simple organic compounds with molecular masses mostly below 50 atomic mass units have been observed in plume material⁶,¹⁴,¹⁵. Here we report observations of emitted ice grains containing concentrated and complex macromolecular organic material with molecular masses above 200 atomic mass units. The data constrain the macromolecular structure of organics detected in the ice grains and suggest the presence of a thin organic-rich film on top of the oceanic water table, where organic nucleation cores generated by the bursting of bubbles allow the probing of Enceladus’ organic inventory in enhanced concentrations