Eurasiens Wirtschaft und Covid-19: Strategien der Krisenbewältigung und Reformaussichten in vier postsowjetischen Staaten

Covid-19 hat die Staaten des postsowjetischen Raums in unterschiedlicher Weise getroffen, doch die Persistenz etablierter wirtschaftspolitischer Strukturen zeigt sich überall - auch dort, wo Reformen unternommen werden. Die russische Führung sieht sich durch die Krise in ihrem Kurs bestätigt und strebt keine strukturellen Reformen an. Usbekistan ist zwar weiter auf Erneuerungskurs, doch im Bestreben, krisen­bedingte Verluste zu kompensieren, wird ein Rückfall in Mechanismen erkenn­bar, die den Reformzielen widersprechen. In der Ukraine ist die Nachhaltigkeit eines eilig umgesetzten Reformpakets gefährdet, das dem Land einen dringend benötig­ten IWF-Kredit verschafft hat. Georgien wiederum versucht, mit seinem bisherigen Wirtschaftsmodell durch die Krise zu steuern, obwohl Covid-19 dessen Vulnerabilität verdeutlicht hat. (Autorenreferat

Changes of Adipose Tissue Morphology and Composition during Late Pregnancy and Early Lactation in Dairy Cows

Dairy cows mobilize large amounts of body fat during early lactation to overcome negative energy balance which typically arises in this period. As an adaptation process, adipose tissues of cows undergo extensive remodeling during late pregnancy and early lactation. The objective of the present study was to characterize this remodeling to get a better understanding of adaptation processes in adipose tissues, affected by changing metabolic conditions including lipid mobilization and refilling as a function of energy status. This was done by determining adipocyte size in histological sections of subcutaneous and retroperitoneal adipose tissue biopsy samples collected from German Holstein cows at 42 days prepartum, and 1, 21, and 100 days postpartum. Characterization of cell size changes was extended by the analysis of DNA, triacylglycerol, and protein content per gram tissue, and beta-actin protein expression in the same samples. In both adipose tissue depots cell size was becoming smaller during the course of the study, suggesting a decrease in cellular triacylglycerol content. Results of DNA, triacylglycerol, and protein content, and beta-actin protein expression could only partially explain the observed differences in cell size. The retroperitoneal adipose tissue exhibited a greater extent of time-related differences in cell size, DNA, and protein content, suggesting greater dynamics and metabolic flexibility for this abdominal depot compared to the investigated subcutaneous depot

Changes of Adipose Tissue Morphology and Composition during Late Pregnancy and Early Lactation in Dairy Cows

Dairy cows mobilize large amounts of body fat during early lactation to overcome negative energy balance which typically arises in this period. As an adaptation process, adipose tissues of cows undergo extensive remodeling during late pregnancy and early lactation. The objective of the present study was to characterize this remodeling to get a better understanding of adaptation processes in adipose tissues, affected by changing metabolic conditions including lipid mobilization and refilling as a function of energy status. This was done by determining adipocyte size in histological sections of subcutaneous and retroperitoneal adipose tissue biopsy samples collected from German Holstein cows at 42 days prepartum, and 1, 21, and 100 days postpartum. Characterization of cell size changes was extended by the analysis of DNA, triacylglycerol, and protein content per gram tissue, and beta-actin protein expression in the same samples. In both adipose tissue depots cell size was becoming smaller during the course of the study, suggesting a decrease in cellular triacylglycerol content. Results of DNA, triacylglycerol, and protein content, and beta-actin protein expression could only partially explain the observed differences in cell size. The retroperitoneal adipose tissue exhibited a greater extent of time-related differences in cell size, DNA, and protein content, suggesting greater dynamics and metabolic flexibility for this abdominal depot compared to the investigated subcutaneous depot

Decision Making in Patients With Metastatic Spine. The Role of Minimally Invasive Treatment Modalities

Spine metastases affect more than 70% of terminal cancer patients that eventually suffer from severe pain and neurological symptoms. Nevertheless, in the overwhelming majority of the cases, a spinal metastasis represents just one location of a diffuse systemic disease. Therefore, the best practice for treatment of spinal metastases depends on many different aspects of an oncological disease, including the assessment of neurological status, pain, location, and dissemination of the disease as well as the ability to predict the risk of disease progression with neurological worsening, benefits and risks associated to treatment and, eventually, expected survival. To address this need for a framework and algorithm that takes all aspects of care into consideration, we reviewed available evidence on the multidisciplinary management of spinal metastases. According to the latest evidence, the use of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) or stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) for spinal metastatic disease is rapidly increasing. Indeed, aggressive surgical resection may provide the best results in terms of local control, but carries a significant rate of post-surgical morbidity whose incidence and severity appears to be correlated to the extent of resection. The multidisciplinary management represents, according to current evidence, the best option for the treatment of spinal metastases. Noteworthy, according to the recent literature evidence, cases that once required radical surgical resection followed by low-dose conventional radiotherapy, can now be more effectively treated by minimally invasive spinal surgery (MISS) followed by spine SRS with decreased morbidity, improved local control, and more durable pain control. This combination allows also extending this standard of care to patients that would be too sick for an aggressive surgical treatment

Image-guided robotic radiosurgery for the treatment of arteriovenous malformations

Cerebral arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) are challenging lesions, often requiring multimodal interventions; however, data on the efficacy of stereotactic radiosurgery for cerebral AVMs are limited. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical and radiographic results following robotic radiosurgery, alone or in combination with endovascular treatment, and to investigate factors associated with obliteration and complications in patients with AVM

Visualizing Ultrafast Kinetic Instabilities in Laser-Driven Solids using X-ray Scattering

Ultra-intense lasers that ionize and accelerate electrons in solids to near the speed of light can lead to kinetic instabilities that alter the laser absorption and subsequent electron transport, isochoric heating, and ion acceleration. These instabilities can be difficult to characterize, but a novel approach using X-ray scattering at keV energies allows for their visualization with femtosecond temporal resolution on the few nanometer mesoscale. Our experiments on laser-driven flat silicon membranes show the development of structure with a dominant scale of ~60\unit{nm} in the plane of the laser axis and laser polarization, and ~95\unit{nm} in the vertical direction with a growth rate faster than $0.1/\mathrm{fs}$. Combining the XFEL experiments with simulations provides a complete picture of the structural evolution of ultra-fast laser-induced instability development, indicating the excitation of surface plasmons and the growth of a new type of filamentation instability. These findings provide new insight into the ultra-fast instability processes in solids under extreme conditions at the nanometer level with important implications for inertial confinement fusion and laboratory astrophysics

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Dynamics of adipose tissue morphology in periparturient dairy cows

During the peripartal period the dairy cow undergoes enormous metabolic changes switching from the anabolic to the catabolic status due to the onset of lactation. In early lactation the cow is in a negative energy balance in which the feed intake cannot cover the energy requirements. Therefore, cows mobilize the body´s own energy reserves. The adipose tissue is the major site of energy storage and through lipolysis it liberates fatty acids and glycerol into the blood, providing metabolic energy. Due to the lipid mobilization the morphology of adipose tissue has to be dynamically modified, e.g. by reducing cell size due to decreased lipid droplet size. The aim of this study was to investigate the morphological changes in adipose tissue during the periparturient period. As other studies provided evidence for possible differences between adipose tissue depots within the same animal, both the subcutaneous (SCAT) and retroperitoneal adipose tissue (RPAT) were examined

The transmembrane domain of HIV-1 Vpu is sufficient to confer anti-tetherin activity to SIVcpz and SIVgor Vpus

The acquisition of effective Vpu-mediated anti-tetherin activity distinguishes pandemic HIV-1 group M strains from non-pandemic group N, O and P viruses and may have been a prerequisite for their global spread. Sequence analyses revealed that the motifs in the cytoplasmic tail of Vpu reported to be required for effective antagonism of human tetherin are often conserved in SIVcpzPtt Vpus from Central chimpanzees but usually absent in SIVcpzPts Vpus from Eastern chimpanzees and SIVgor Vpus from Western lowland gorillas. The aim of my thesis was to clarify whether the SIVcpzPtt Vpu only requires adaptive changes in the transmembrane domain whereas SIVcpzPts or SIVgor Vpus require adaptation in both TMD and cytoplasmic part to acquire activity against the human tetherin orthologue. This might explain (1) why SIVcpzPts has never been detected in humans yet and (2) why the descendants of SIVcpzPtt but not SIVgor evolved Vpu-mediated tetherin antagonism and caused the AIDS pandemic. My results suggest that it is easier for SIVcpzPts and SIVgor to evolve Vpu-mediated anti-human tetherin activity than previously anticipated. The data further demonstrate that the requirements for trafficking and beta-TrCP binding motifs in the cytoplasmic part of Vpu for human tetherin counteraction are highly context dependent. Thus, results obtained from the analysis a few T cell line adapted HIV-1 strains should not be generalized