Äquivariante holomorphe Differentialoperatoren mit vektorwertigen Automorphiefaktoren

Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist der Beweis der Existenz bzw. die explizite Konstruktion äquivarianter und holomorpher Differentialoperatoren auf dem Siegelschen Halbraum von Grad n und mit vektorwertigen Ausgangsautomorphiefaktoren

Characterisation of the Rota Wewa tank cascade system in the vicinity of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

A complex and sustainable watershed management strategy was implemented in Sri Lanka during the ancient Anuradhapuraperiod, from the 5th century BC to the 11th century AD. Like modern watershed management strategies, it focused on flood prevention, soil erosion control, water quality control and water storage for irrigation. Tank cascade systems were the key element of these ancient watershed management installations. The wewas investigated were constructed in valleys characterised by fluvial accumulation. Sedimentological analyses of these tank cascade systems show that a precise age determination and the reconstruction of sediment and water f luxes as triggered by human-environment interactions are difficult. This is caused by theshallow character of the wewas leading to the steady redeposition of the tank sediments by wave motions during the wet season and agricultural use of the desiccated wewas during the dry season. Beyond, the sediments analysed allow to distinguish between the weathered parent bedrock and the overlying sediments. A differentiation between wewa deposits and the underlying fluvial deposits remains challenging

siRNA Specificity: RNAi Mechanisms and Strategies to Reduce Off-Target Effects

Short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are processed from long double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), and a guide strand is selected and incorporated into the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). Within RISC, a member of the Argonaute protein family directly binds the guide strand and the siRNA guides RISC to fully complementary sites on-target RNAs, which are then sequence-specifically cleaved by the Argonaute protein—a process commonly referred to as RNA interference (RNAi). In animals, endogenous microRNAs (miRNAs) function similarly but do not lead to direct cleavage of the target RNA but to translational inhibition followed by exonucleolytic decay. This is due to only partial complementarity between the miRNA and the target RNA. SiRNAs, however, can function as miRNAs, and partial complementarity can lead to miRNA-like off-target effects in RNAi applications. Since siRNAs are widely used not only for screening but also for therapeutics as well as crop protection purposes, such miRNA-like off-target effects need to be minimized. Strategies such as RNA modifications or pooling of siRNAs have been developed and are used to reduce off-target effects

Habituelle Passungen und Nicht-Passungen angehender und berufseinsteigender Lehrpersonen im Sprechen über die (professionelle) schulische Praxis

Berufliche Arbeit nimmt entscheidend Einfluss auf die Habitusentwicklung und Identitätsbildung der Berufsausübenden. Mit dieser Annahme lässt sich fragen, wie angehende und berufseinsteigende Lehrpersonen ihre (antizipierte) berufliche Praxis wahrnehmen, deuten und bewältigen.Ausgehend von einem laufenden Dissertationsprojekt im Rahmen des DFG/SNF-Projekts „Kompetenzentwicklung und Beanspruchung im Berufseinstieg von Lehrerinnen und Lehrern“ (KomBest), geleitet von Uwe Hericks und Manuela Keller-Schneider, werden für diesen Beitrag (Nicht-) Passungsprozesse zwischen den Habitus von berufseinsteigenden Lehrpersonen und den erlebten normativen Erwartungen in den Blick genommen. Angenommen wird, dass sich (Nicht-)Passungsprozesse über Ausbildungsphasen hinweg permanent in Form von – bewussten und unbewussten – Reflexionsprozessen der beruflichen Tätigkeit vollziehen. So dokumentieren sich diese auch im Sprechen von Lehramtsstudierenden über fremde (professionelle) Praxis. Ausgehend von Gruppendiskussionen mit Sportstudierenden werden die sich in diskursiven Aushandlungen dokumentierenden Orientierungen rekonstruiert, die Hinweise auf eine (individuelle und kollektive) Passung oder Nicht-Passung zu einem antizipierten professionellen Habitus liefern. Dafür werden erste Ergebnisse eines Teilprojekts einer kumulativen Habilitation vorgestellt, die im Rahmen von ProPraxis (als Teil der Qualitätsoffensive Lehrerbildung) an der Philipps-Universität Marburg entsteht.Das  Datenmaterial beider Projekte wird mit der Dokumentarischen Methode ausgewertet. (Nicht-) Passungsprozesse werden in Bezug auf die Habitustheorie von Bourdieu und Methodologie der Dokumentarischen Methode konzeptualisiert.

miRA: adaptable novel miRNA identification in plants using small RNA sequencing data

BACKGROUND: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short regulatory RNAs derived from longer precursor RNAs. miRNA biogenesis has been studied in animals and plants, recently elucidating more complex aspects, such as non-conserved, species-specific, and heterogeneous miRNA precursor populations. Small RNA sequencing data can help in computationally identifying genomic loci of miRNA precursors. The challenge is to predict a valid miRNA precursor from inhomogeneous read coverage from a complex RNA library: while the mature miRNA typically produces many sequence reads, the remaining part of the precursor is covered very sparsely. As recent results suggest, alternative miRNA biogenesis pathways may lead to a more diverse miRNA precursor population than previously assumed. In plants, the latter manifests itself in e.g. complex secondary structures and expression from multiple loci within precursors. Current miRNA identification algorithms often depend on already existing gene annotation, and/or make use of specific miRNA precursor features such as precursor lengths, secondary structures etc. Consequently and in view of the emerging new understanding of a more complex miRNA biogenesis in plants, current tools may fail to characterise organism-specific and heterogeneous miRNA populations. RESULTS: miRA is a new tool to identify miRNA precursors in plants, allowing for heterogeneous and complex precursor populations. miRA requires small RNA sequencing data and a corresponding reference genome, and evaluates precursor secondary structures and precursor processing accuracy; key parameters can be adapted based on the specific organism under investigation. We show that miRA outperforms the currently best plant miRNA prediction tools both in sensitivity and specificity, for data involving Arabidopsis thaliana and the Volvocine algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii; the latter organism has been shown to exhibit a heterogeneous and complex precursor population with little cross-species miRNA sequence conservation, and therefore constitutes an ideal model organism. Furthermore we identify novel miRNAs in the Chlamydomonas-related organism Volvox carteri. CONCLUSIONS: We propose miRA, a new plant miRNA identification tool that is well adapted to complex precursor populations. miRA is particularly suited for organisms with no existing miRNA annotation, or without a known related organism with well characterized miRNAs. Moreover, miRA has proven its ability to identify species-specific miRNAs. miRA is flexible in its parameter settings, and produces user-friendly output files in various formats (pdf, csv, genome-browser-suitable annotation files, etc.). It is freely available at https://github.com/mhuttner/miRA .The authors acknowledge funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB 960), the Bavarian Genome Research Network (BayGene), and the Bavarian Biosystems Network (BioSysNet)