Stationary shapes of deformable particles moving at low Reynolds numbers

Lecture Notes of the Summer School ``Microswimmers -- From Single Particle Motion to Collective Behaviour'', organised by the DFG Priority Programme SPP 1726 (Forschungszentrum J{\"{u}}lich, 2015).Comment: Pages C7.1-16 of G. Gompper et al. (ed.), Microswimmers - From Single Particle Motion to Collective Behaviour, Lecture Notes of the DFG SPP 1726 Summer School 2015, Forschungszentrum J\"ulich GmbH, Schriften des Forschungszentrums J\"ulich, Reihe Key Technologies, Vol 110, ISBN 978-3-95806-083-

The Cyclophilin-Binding Agent Sanglifehrin A Is a Dendritic Cell Chemokine and Migration Inhibitor

Sanglifehrin A (SFA) is a cyclophilin-binding immunosuppressant but the immunobiology of action is poorly understood. We and others have reported that SFA inhibits IL-12 production and antigen uptake in dendritic cells (DC) and exhibits lower activity against lymphocytes. Here we show that SFA suppresses DC chemokine production and migration. Gene expression analysis and subsequent protein level confirmation revealed that SFA suppressed CCL5, CCL17, CCL19, CXCL9 and CXCL10 expression in human monocyte-derived DC (moDC). A systems biology analysis, Onto Express, confirmed that SFA interferes with chemokine-chemokine receptor gene expression with the highest impact. Direct comparison with the related agent cyclosporine A (CsA) and dexamethasone indicated that SFA uniquely suppresses moDC chemokine expression. Competitive experiments with a 100-fold molar excess of CsA and with N-Methyl-Val-4-cyclosporin, representing a nonimmunosuppressive derivative of CsA indicated chemokine suppression through a cyclophilin-A independent pathway. Functional assays confirmed reduced migration of CD4+ Tcells and moDCs to supernatant of SFA-exposed moDCs. Vice versa, SFA-exposed moDC exhibited reduced migration against CCL19. Moreover, SFA suppressed expression of the ectoenzyme CD38 that was reported to regulate DC migration and cytokine production. These results identify SFA as a DC chemokine and migration inhibitor and provide novel insight into the immunobiology of SFA

Using microservices for legacy software modernization

Microservices are commonly known as an architecture for building scalable applications running in the cloud. However, they also promise high maintainability due to smaller code bases and strong component separation, making them an interesting option for software modernization. This article presents a migration process to decompose an existing application into microservices, and presents experiences from applying this process in an ongoing legacy modernization project.</p

Drivers and barriers for microservice adoption – a survey among professionals in Germany

Microservices are an architectural style for software which currently receives a lot of attention in both industry and academia. Several companies employ microservice architectures with great success, and there is a wealth of blog posts praising their advantages. Especially so-called Internet-scale systems use them to satisfy their enormous scalability requirements and to rapidly deliver new features to their users. But microservices are not only popular with large, Internet-scale systems. Many traditional companies are also considering whether microservices are a viable option for their applications. However, these companies may have other motivations to employ microservices, and see other barriers which could prevent them from adopting microservices. Furthermore, these drivers and barriers possibly differ among industry sectors. In this article, we present the results of a survey on drivers and barriers for microservice adoption among professionals in Germany. In addition to overall drivers and barriers, we particularly focus on the use of microservices to modernize existing software, with special emphasis on implications for runtime performance and transactionality. We observe interesting differences between early adopters who emphasize scalability of their Internet-scale systems, compared to traditional companies which emphasize maintainability of their IT systems.</p

Experience with microservices for legacy software modernization

Microservices are known as an architecture for building scalable applications running in the cloud. However, they also promise high maintainability due to smaller code bases and strong component separation, making them an interesting option for software modernization. We present a migration process to decompose an existing application into microservices, and report on experiences from applying this process in an ongoing legacy modernization project.</p

Eine Ökobilanz zum Anfassen - Wie LED-Licht nachhaltig wird

Grüne Werbebotschaften gibt es bereits zu Hauf – auch in der Beleuchtungsbranche. Nach aktiver Beteiligung an Forschungsprojekten zur Nachhaltigkeit von LED-Beleuchtung ist uns eines klargeworden: Wir brauchen immer noch mehr Leute, die die richtigen Fragen stellen, und weniger solche, die ihre Meinungen als die ultimativen Lösungen verkaufen