Transcriptional activity of the phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase gene decreases in regenerating rat liver

AbstractRat cytosolic phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK) gene expression and enzyme activity in liver were studied in rats fasted for 12 hours before and after partial hepatectomy, sham operation or no operation. Transcriptional activity and mRNA levels decreased in regenerating liver compared to sham-operated and unoperated controls. In contrast, PEPCK enzyme activity in regenerating liver was similar to that in livers of sham-operated and unoperated controls. Since all the animals were fasted the decrease in transcription is probably caused by some factor other than insulin, the known repressor of PEPCK gene expression

Development of an automated adsorbent selection strategy for liquid–phase adsorption

A systematic and automatic approach for adsorbent selection for liquid–phase adsorption is proposed. Based on physical properties like polarity, pore size, and specific surface, a screening strategy is developed and automated on a robotic platform. Key performance indicators are applied ensuring economically based decisions. The approach developed is verified by adsorption of caffeine out of an aqueous solution with vanillin, uracil, and α–ionon as impurities. The adsorbent selection strategy leads to the polymeric adsorbent SP207 and a specific surface of 15 m2mL−1 ending in a separation cost indicator of 16 € gCaffeine−1. This work proposes an opportunity for accelerated process design strengthened by the usage of robotic devices

Extraction on a robotic platform - autonomous solvent selection under economic evaluation criteria

Steps and necessary decisions for a liquid-liquid extraction were pointed out for its automatic design on a robotic platform. A tool for solvent selection based on Hansen parameters was developed to simplify solvent selection. An approach was developed for automatic, visual phase boundary detection. Key performance indicators are used to ensure economically motivated decisions. The autonomous design of an extraction process is demonstrated for the separation of progesterone from a fermentation broth. The method leads to the selection of methanol and acetonitrile, with separation cost indicators of 146 and 183 € gProg.−1. This work constitutes the prospects of using autonomous robotic systems to design entire production processes

Die Interunfall Versicherung und die Riunione Adriatica di Sicurtà

Die "Riunione Adriatica di Sicurtà" (Adriatischer Versicherungsverein) – kurz RAS genannt – wurde 1838 in Triest gegründet und eröffnete noch im selben Jahr eine Niederlassung in Wien. 1890 wurde in Wien "unter den Auspizien der RAS" die "Internationale Unfall-Versi-cherungs-Aktiengesellschaft" – später Interunfall genannt – als erste Tochtergesellschaft ins Leben gerufen. Internationale Unfall und Direktion der RAS in Wien waren im selben Haus untergebracht und personell, organisatorisch und kapitalmäßig eng verflochten. Den Schwerpunkt der Arbeit bildet die Entwicklung der Internationalen Unfall/Interunfall und ihr Verhältnis zur RAS-Wien. Beide standen, im unterschiedlichen Ausmaß, im Einflussbe-reich der Muttergesellschaft, sodass auch die RAS-Triest – in ihren Beziehungen zu den bei-den Wiener Niederlassungen – einbezogen wurde. Nach dem einleitenden Kapitel 1 wird im Kapitel 2 der wirtschaftliche und soziale Hinter-grund beleuchtet mit Schwerpunkt auf die soziale Situation der Versicherungsangestellten. Die historische Entwicklung der Sozial- und Privatversicherung bildet einen weiteren Schwer-punkt. Im Kapitel 3 folgt die Entstehungsgeschichte wichtiger Versicherungssparten. Kapitel 4 behandelt die strategischen Überlegungen zur und die daraus folgenden Maßnah-men der Gründung der Interunfall. Kapitel 5 schildert die Expansion der Interunfall hinsichtlich regionaler Ausdehnung, spar-tenmäßiger Erweiterung, Akquisitionen und Diversifikation, woraus sich die Periodisierung der Unternehmensgeschichte ergibt. Weitere Punkte sind die Geschäftsentwicklung und das Verhältnis von Interunfall zu RAS. Kapitel 6 schildert die Auslandsaktivitäten. Im Kapitel 7 wird auf die Menschen im Unternehmen eingegangen (Aufsichtsrat, Vorstand, Dienstnehmer), ihre arbeitsrechtliche und soziale Stellung, die innerbetriebliche Kommunika-tion, die Aus- und Weiterbildung und die Unternehmenskultur. Kapitel 8 schildert den Werdegang einiger wThe "Riunione Adriatica di Sicurità" (Adriatic Insurance Association) – RAS in short – was founded in Triest in 1838, that same year a branch office was also opened in Vienna. In 1890 "under the auspices of RAS" the first subsidiary, the "Internationale Unfall-Versicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft" (International Accident Insurance Company), later on renamed “Interun-all”, was created. "Internanionale Unfall" and the head office of RAS in Vienna were located in the same building and closely connected as far as personnel, organisation and capital were concerned. The present work emphasizes on the development of Internationale Unfall/Interun-fall and its relationship with RAS-Vienna. Both branches were - in varying degrees - under the control of the founding company, resulting in the inclusion of RAS-Triest into their relationship. After the introductory chapter 1, chapter 2 highlights the economical and social background, with special consideration to the social situation of the employees. Another significant point is the historical development of public and private insurance in general. Chapter 3 follows the emersion of the different branches of insurance. In chapter 4 the strategic considerations and subsequent measures, that led to the founding of "Interunfall", are presented. Chapter 5 shows the growth of Interunfall in terms of regional expansion, extension in new sections, acquisitions and diversification, illustrating the evolution of this insurance company. Further reference is being made to the economical development and the relationship between RAS and Interunfall. Chapter 6 relates the foreign activities. In chapter 7 the main points are the human perspective (board of directors, management, employees), social and contractual positions, communication, training and further education, as well as the corporate culture. Chapter 8 presents the biography of several important personalities. Chapter 9 shows the organisational aspects of the

Comparative study of the growth of sputtered aluminum oxide films on organic and inorganic substrates

We present a comparative study of the growth of the technologically highly relevant gate dielectric and encapsulation material aluminum oxide in inorganic and also organic heterostructures. Atomic force microscopy studies indicate strong similarities in the surface morphology of aluminum oxide films grown on these chemically different substrates. In addition, from X-ray reflectivity measurements we extract the roughness exponent \beta of aluminum oxide growth on both substrates. By renormalising the aluminum oxide roughness by the roughness of the underlying organic film we find good agreement with \beta as obtained from the aluminum oxide on silicon oxide (\beta = 0.38 \pm 0.02), suggesting a remarkable similarity of the aluminum oxide growth on the two substrates under the conditions employed

Inferring Versatile Behavior from Demonstrations by Matching Geometric Descriptors

Humans intuitively solve tasks in versatile ways, varying their behavior in terms of trajectory-based planning and for individual steps. Thus, they can easily generalize and adapt to new and changing environments. Current Imitation Learning algorithms often only consider unimodal expert demonstrations and act in a state-action-based setting, making it difficult for them to imitate human behavior in case of versatile demonstrations. Instead, we combine a mixture of movement primitives with a distribution matching objective to learn versatile behaviors that match the expert's behavior and versatility. To facilitate generalization to novel task configurations, we do not directly match the agent's and expert's trajectory distributions but rather work with concise geometric descriptors which generalize well to unseen task configurations. We empirically validate our method on various robot tasks using versatile human demonstrations and compare to imitation learning algorithms in a state-action setting as well as a trajectory-based setting. We find that the geometric descriptors greatly help in generalizing to new task configurations and that combining them with our distribution-matching objective is crucial for representing and reproducing versatile behavior.Comment: Accepted as a poster at the 6th Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), 202

Inferring Versatile Behavior from Demonstrations by Matching Geometric Descriptors

Humans intuitively solve tasks in versatile ways, varying their behavior in terms of trajectory-based planning and for individual steps. Thus, they can easily generalize and adapt to new and changing environments. Current Imitation Learning algorithms often only consider unimodal expert demonstrations and act in a state-action-based setting, making it difficult for them to imitate human behavior in case of versatile demonstrations. Instead, we combine a mixture of movement primitives with a distribution matching objective to learn versatile behaviors that match the expert's behavior and versatility. To facilitate generalization to novel task configurations, we do not directly match the agent's and expert's trajectory distributions but rather work with concise geometric descriptors which generalize well to unseen task configurations. We empirically validate our method on various robot tasks using versatile human demonstrations and compare to imitation learning algorithms in a state-action setting as well as a trajectory-based setting. We find that the geometric descriptors greatly help in generalizing to new task configurations and that combining them with our distribution-matching objective is crucial for representing and reproducing versatile behavior.Comment: Accepted as a poster at the 6th Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), 202

Waveguide-based OPO source of entangled photon pairs

In this paper we present a compact source of narrow-band energy-time entangled photon pairs in the telecom regime based on a Ti-indiffused Periodically Poled Lithium Niobate (PPLN) waveguide resonator, i.e. a waveguide with end-face dielectric multi-layer mirrors. This is a monolithic doubly resonant Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO) far below threshold, which generates photon pairs by Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion (SPDC) at around 1560nm with a 117MHz (0.91 pm)- bandwidth. A coherence time of 2.7 ns is estimated by a time correlation measurement and a high quality of the entangled states is confirmed by a Bell-type experiment. Since highly coherent energy-time entangled photon pairs in the telecom regime are suitable for long distance transmission and manipulation, this source is well suited to the requirements of quantum communication.Comment: 13 page

TYK2 inhibition and its potential in the treatment of chronic inflammatory immune diseases

Immune-mediated chronic inflammatory diseases have emerged as a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Western countries over the last decades. Although multiple putative factors have been suspected to be causally related to the diseases, their overarching etiology remains unknown. This review article summarizes the current state of scientific knowledge and understanding of the role of non-receptor tyrosine kinases, with a special focus on the Janus kinase TYK2 in autoimmune and immune mediated diseases as well as on the clinical properties of its inhibition. A panel of experts in the field discussed the scientific evidence and molecular rationale for TYK2 inhibition and its clinical application. Reviewing this meeting, we aim at providing an integrated overview of the clinical profile of TYK2 inhibition and its potential in targeted pharmacological therapy of chronic autoimmune and immune-mediated diseases, with a special focus on inflammatory diseases of the skin