Macrophages in homeostatic immune function

Macrophages are not only involved in inflammatory and anti-infective processes, but also play an important role in maintaining tissue homeostasis. In this review, we summarize recent evidence investigating the role of macrophages in controlling angiogenesis, metabolism as well as salt and water balance. Particularly, we summarize the importance of macrophage tonicity enhancer binding protein (TonEBP, also termed nuclear factor of activated T-cells 5 [NFAT5]) expression in the regulation of salt and water homeostasis. Further understanding of homeostatic macrophage function may lead to new therapeutic approaches to treat ischemia, hypertension and metabolic disorders

Real-time visualization of a sparse parametric mixture model for BTF rendering

Bidirectional Texture Functions (BTF) allow high quality visualization of real world materials exhibiting complex appearance and details that can not be faithfully represented using simpler analytical or parametric representations. Accurate representations of such materials require huge amounts of data, hindering real time rendering. BTFs compress the raw original data, constituting a compromise between visual quality and rendering time. This paper presents an implementation of a state of the art BTF representation on the GPU, allowing interactive high fidelity visualization of complex geometric models textured with multiple BTFs. Scalability with respect to the geometric complexity, amount of lights and number of BTFs is also studied.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologi

Dynamic Front Transitions and Spiral-Vortex Nucleation

This is a study of front dynamics in reaction diffusion systems near Nonequilibrium Ising-Bloch bifurcations. We find that the relation between front velocity and perturbative factors, such as external fields and curvature, is typically multivalued. This unusual form allows small perturbations to induce dynamic transitions between counter-propagating fronts and nucleate spiral vortices. We use these findings to propose explanations for a few numerical and experimental observations including spiral breakup driven by advective fields, and spot splitting

Physikalische Verfahren zur Behandlung von Saatgut im ökologischen Landbau

A variety of physical treatment methods are able to kill pathogens on and in seeds non-selectively. In all cases, the application of these methods requires optimisation of the relevant treatment parameters such as temperature, treatment time or energy dose. The optimum treatment effect is achieved when the selected parameters induce a maximum reduction of infestation without relevant impairment of germination capac-ity and plant growth. It has been confirmed that different physical measures can be used for the control of seed-borne pathogens. The “classical” hot water treatment method is suitable for a wide range of seeds. Further procedures like the hot air seed treatment method “Thermoseed®”, the vacuum-steam treatment method Steamlab, and others are also suitable

Усовершенствование газодинамических методов исследования скважин на нефтегазоконденсатных месторождениях

Объектом исследования являются газодинамические исследования скважин с помощью различных мобильных установок на нефтегазоконденсатных месторождениях. Цель исследования – анализ методов и технологий промысловых газоконденсатных исследований и влияние результатов данных исследований на дальнейшую разработку месторождения. В процессе исследования были подробно рассмотрены виды газоконденсатных исследований скважин, данные получаемые в ходе этих исследований.The object of research is gas-dynamic studies of wells using various mobile installations at oil and gas condensate fields. The purpose of the study is to analyze methods and technologies of field gas condensate research and the impact of the results of these studies on the further development of the field. In the course of the study, the types of gas condensate well studies, the data obtained during these studies, as well as the prospects for using more advanced installations for well research

Diagonal input for the evolution of off-diagonal partons

We show that a knowledge of diagonal partons at a low scale is sufficient to determine the off-diagonal (or skewed) distributions at a higher scale, to a good degree of accuracy. We quantify this observation by presenting results for the evolution of off-diagonal distributions from a variety of different inputs.Comment: 12 pages, latex, 5 figure

Atypical neurocognitive functioning in children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Atypical neurocognitive functioning has been found in adult patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, little work has been done in children and adolescents with OCD. In this study, we investigated neurocognitive functioning in a large and representative sample of newly diagnosed children and adolescents with OCD compared to non-psychiatric controls. Children and adolescents with OCD (n = 119) and non-psychiatric controls (n = 90) underwent psychopathological assessment, intelligence testing, and a neurocognitive test battery spanning cognitive flexibility, planning and decision-making, working memory, fluency, and processing speed. The MANOVA main effect revealed that children and adolescents with OCD performed significantly worse than the control group (p < .001, [Formula: see text] = 0.256). Atypical patient performance was particularly found for indices of cognitive flexibility, decision-making, working memory, and processing speed. We found no evidence of differences in planning or fluency. Moreover, we found no significant associations between neurocognitive performance and OCD symptom severity or comorbidity status. Our results indicate that children and adolescents with OCD show selective atypical neurocognitive functioning. These difficulties do not appear to drive their OCD symptoms. However, they may contribute to lifespan difficulties and interfere with treatment efficacy, an objective of our research currently

Screening of Hydrodynamic Interactions in Semidilute Polymer Solutions: A Computer Simulation Study

We study single-chain motion in semidilute solutions of polymers of length N = 1000 with excluded-volume and hydrodynamic interactions by a novel algorithm. The crossover length of the transition from Zimm (short lengths and times) to Rouse dynamics (larger scales) is proportional to the static screening length. The crossover time is the corresponding Zimm time. Our data indicate Zimm behavior at large lengths but short times. There is no hydrodynamic screening until the chains feel constraints, after which they resist the flow: "Incomplete screening" occurs in the time domain.Comment: 3 figure