Einfluss von Rauheit und Hydrophobizität von Keramik- und Titan-Implantatoberflächen auf die initiale Biofilmbildung

Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit war die in-vitro-Untersuchung der Biofilmbildung auf verschiedenen Implantatmaterialien unter den Einflüssen Rauheit und Hydrophobizität. Als Material wurde Reintitan und Yttrium-stabilisiertes Zirkoniumdioxid untersucht. Die Proben wurden mit unterschiedlicher Oberflächentopographie sowie Hydrophobizität (hydrophob / hydrophil) versehen. Durch Perthometrie (Ra) wurde die mittlere Oberflächenrauheit ermittelt. Mit Hilfe der Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) wurde das Oberflächenrelief dargestellt. Die Hydrophobizitäten wurden durch goniometrische Messungen identifiziert. Zu den verwendeten Bakterienkulturen zählten Streptococcus sanguinis und Staphylococcus epidermidis, welche sich bei 37°C für zwei Stunden auf jedem Material anlagerten. Für die mikrobiologische Analyse der erfolgten Anlagerung wurde die Fluoreszenz mittels automatisiertem Multi-Fluoreszenzmessgerätes ermittelt. Die Daten der Hydrophobizitäten wurden mit Hilfe eines Bildanalyseprogramms verarbeitet. Es wurde festgestellt, dass sowohl Oberflächenhydrophobizität, wie auch Rauheit, die Hafteigenschaften von Bakterien beeinflussen können (Verändert das Material die Bakterien das wissen wir nicht, oder lagert sich einfach nur mehr oder weniger an?-es gibt bakterien die durch ihre eigene Zelloberflächenbeschaffenheit Eigenschaften besitzen die sie eher auf glatten oder rauhen Substraten und oder hydrophilen wie hydrophoben Oberflächen anlagern lassen). Für S. sanguinis war die Oberflächenrauheit für eine initiale Adhäsion der bestimmende Faktor, sowie die Werkstoffauswahl, welche auf keramischen Oberflächen signifikant höher war als auf Titanoberflächen. Für S. epidermidis schien die Hydrophobizität auf der Implantatoberfläche bedeutender zu sein als die Oberflächenrauheit. Hydrophobe Oberflächen zeigten eine stärkere (Im Sinne von schwerer zu lösen oder vermehrt? - vermehrt) Adhäsion als hydrophile Oberflächen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Oberflächenrauheit nicht zwangsläufig der bestimmende Faktor für die Biofilmbildung auf Implantatoberflächen bei diesen Bakterienspezien ist, sondern, dass zudem andere Parameter in Betracht gezogen werden müssen, wie die Hydrophobizität und die vorhandenen Adhäsine auf der Bakterienzelloberfläche. Bestimmende (oder bestimmte? Wie wäre: Eine allgemein gültige Empfehlung für...- allgemeingültige Empfehlung klingt sehr gut.) und allgemeingültige Aussagen für die zahnmedizinische Anwendung können aufgrund der unterschiedlichen Adhäsionsergebnisse der beiden Bakterienstämme nicht formuliert werden. Dies kann nur durch weitere Untersuchungen über eine größere Anzahl von Bakterienspezies (619 Taxa) und Multi-Spezies-Biofilmen erfolgen. Nur dann würden allgemeingültige Zusammenhänge klarer werden und grundsätzlich formuliert werden können

Ländliche Räume im Fokus: der Landatlas als neue Informationsplattform

Seit Ende 2016 ermöglicht der digitale Landatlas des Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Instituts (www.landatlas.de) allen Interessierten, sich aktuell, kleinräumig und flächendeckend über ländliche Räume in Deutschland zu informieren. Mit seinen interaktiven Karten gibt der Landatlas einen breiten Überblick über die soziale, demographische, ökonomische und Versorgungssituation in unterschiedlichen Gebietseinheiten und dies auch im Vergleich zu nicht-ländlichen Räumen. In neun Themenbereichen werden gegenwärtig 55 Indikatoren der Lebensqualität auf Kreis- und, wenn verfügbar, auf Gemeindeverbandsebene dargestellt. Dabei erfolgt zum einen eine Sekundäraufbereitung von Daten der amtlichen Statistik, zum anderen werden Ergebnisse des Thünen-Erreichbarkeitsmodells dargestellt. Dem Landatlas liegt eine Neuabgrenzung ländlicher Räume zugrunde. Dabei wird von einem relationalen Verständnis von Ländlichkeit ausgegangen, wonach dünn besiedelte Räume und städtische Ballungszentren die Pole der Siedlungsstruktur und Landnutzung darstellen. Dieser Abgrenzung zufolge leben ca. 57 Prozent der Bevölkerung auf 91 Prozent der Fläche Deutschlands in ländlichen Räumen. Außerdem werden diese Räume nach ihrer sozioökonomischen Lage differenziert. Der Landatlas ist als Informationsinstrument für die breite Öffentlichkeit konzipiert und soll künftig als kontinuierliches Monitoring weiterentwickelt werden

Impact of meteorological conditions on airborne fine particle composition and secondary pollutant characteristics in urban area during winter-time

The assessment of airborne fine particle composition and secondary pollutant characteristics in the case of Augsburg, Germany, during winter (31 January–12 March 2010) is studied on the basis of aerosol mass spectrometry (3 non-refractory components and organic matter, 3 positive matrix factorizations (PMF) factors), particle size distributions (PSD, 5 size modes, 5 PMF factors), further air pollutant mass concentrations (7 gases and VOC, black carbon, PM10, PM2.5) and meteorological measurements, including mixing layer height (MLH), with one-hourly temporal resolution. Data were subjectively assigned to 10 temporal phases which are characterised by different meteorological influences and air pollutant concentrations. In each phase hierarchical clustering analysis with the Ward method was applied to the correlations of air pollutants, PM components, PM source contributions and PSD modes and correlations of these data with all meteorological parameters. This analysis resulted in different degrees of sensitivities of these air pollutant data to single meteorological parameters. It is generally found that wind speed (negatively), MLH (negatively), relative humidity (positively) and wind direction influence primary pollutant and accumulation mode particle (size range 100–500 nm) concentrations. Temperature (negatively), absolute humidity (negatively) and also relative humidity (positively) are relevant for secondary compounds of PM and particle (PM2.5, PM10) mass concentrations. NO, nucleation and Aitken mode particle and the fresh traffic aerosol concentrations are only weakly dependent on meteorological parameters and thus are driven by emissions. These daily variation data analyses provide new, detailed meteorological influences on air pollutant data with the focus on fine particle composition and secondary pollutant characteristics and can explain major parts of certain PM component and gaseous pollutant exposure

SmartAQnet: remote and in-situ sensing of urban air quality

our time. However, it is very difficult for many cities to take measures to accommodate today’s needs concerning e.g. mobility, housing and work, because a consistent fine-granular data and information on causal chains is largely missing. This has the potential to change, as today, both large-scale basic data as well as new promising measuring approaches are becoming available. The project “SmartAQnet”, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), is based on a pragmatic, data driven approach, which for the first time combines existing data sets with a networked mobile measurement strategy in the urban space. By connecting open data, such as weather data or development plans, remote sensing of influencing factors, and new mobile measurement approaches, such as participatory sensing with low-cost sensor technology, “scientific scouts” (autonomous, mobile smart dust measurement device that is auto-calibrated to a high-quality reference instrument within an intelligent monitoring network) and demand-oriented measurements by light-weight UAVs, a novel measuring and analysis concept is created within the model region of Augsburg, Germany. In addition to novel analytics, a prototypical technology stack is planned which, through modern analytics methods and Big Data and IoT technologies, enables application in a scalable way

The protein kinases AtMAP3Kε1 and BnMAP3Kε1 are functional homologues of S. pombe cdc7p and may be involved in cell division

We identified an Arabidopsis thaliana gene, AtMAP3Kε1, and a Brassica napus cDNA, BnMAP3Kε1, encoding functional protein serine/threonine kinases closely related to cdc7p and Cdc15p from Schizosaccharomyces pombe and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, respectively. This is the first report of cdc7-related genes in non-fungal eukaryotes; no such genes have as yet been identified in Metazoans. The B. napus protein is able to partially complement a cdc7 loss of function mutation in S. pombe. RT–PCR and in situ hybridisation revealed that the A. thaliana and B. napus genes are expressed in both the sporophytic and the gametophytic tissues of the respective plant species and revealed further that expression is highest in dividing cells. Moreover, AtMAP3Kε1 gene expression is cell cycle-regulated, with higher expression in G2-M phases. Our results strongly suggest that the plant cdc7p-related protein kinases are involved in a signal transduction pathway similar to the SIN pathway, which positively regulates cytokinesis in S. pombe.This work was mainly supported by a EU grant (SIME project BIOTEC-RTD-CEE PL 960275). The authors also acknowledge the financial support of the MERS and CNRS to UMR 8618, and DGESIG PB98–0678

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against later initiation of treatment. Most studies were of limited quality. We found indications of short-term positive effects from language therapies in children with SLI. Longterm outcomes were not investigated. No evidence supporting the advantage of earlier treatment initiation was identified. Conclusions: The benefit of population-based language screening of preschool children with SLI is not proven. Controlled screening studies are therefore necessary. For Germany, the accuracy of existing diagnostic instruments has not yet been sufficiently examined

MiRNAs from serum-derived extracellular vesicles as biomarkers for uveal melanoma progression

Uveal melanoma (UM) is a rare type of malignancy that originates from melanocytes located in the choroid, iris and the ciliary body of the eye. UM has a very high mortality upon metastatic spread to the liver, the prime target organ for UM metastasis. The lack of effective therapies for advanced stages of the disease aggravate the prognosis further. Moreover, biomarkers for early detection and progression of UM, especially the molecular traits governing the development of metastasis, are still not available in clinical practice. One extensively studied components of liquid biopsies are exosomes, a subtype of extracellular vesicle. Due to their unique molecular cargo, they could be used as carriers of early markers of cancer development and progression. For characterisation of the miRNA profiles present in circulating serum-derived exosomes of patients with diagnosed primary and metastatic UM, we have analysed the miRNA cargos using next-generation sequencing followed by RT-qPCR validation in a cohort of patients (control n=20; primary n=9; metastatic n=11). Nine miRNAs clearly differentiating these patient groups have been established. We show that hsa-miR-223 and hsa-miR-203a are the most promising biomarker candidates, allowing categorization of patients into local and advanced UM. Additionally, the comparison of miRNA expression levels in exosomes derived from UM patients with those derived from healthy donors, revealed that hsa-miR-144 has the potential to be used as an early marker for presence of UM. Taken together, this pilot study reveals that miRNAs extracted from circulating exosomes could be exploited as potential biomarkers in UM diagnosis and, more importantly, for indicating metastatic spread

SmartAQnet 2020: A New Open Urban Air Quality Dataset from Heterogeneous PM Sensors

The increasing attention paid to urban air quality modeling places higher requirements on urban air quality datasets. This article introduces a new urban air quality dataset—the SmartAQnet2020 dataset—which has a large span and high resolution in both time and space dimensions. The dataset contains 248,572,003 observations recorded by over 180 individual measurement devices, including ceilometers, Radio Acoustic Sounding System (RASS), mid- and low-cost stationary measuring equipment equipped with meteorological sensors and particle counters, and low-weight portable measuring equipment mounted on different platforms such as trolley, bike, and UAV

The optimal cut-off values for tumor size, number of lesions, and CEA levels in patients with surgically treated colorectal cancer liver metastases: An international, multi-institutional study

Background and Objectives Despite the long-standing consensus on the importance of tumor size, tumor number and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels as predictors of long-term outcomes among patients with colorectal liver metastases (CRLM), optimal prognostic cut-offs for these variables have not been established. Methods Patients who underwent curative-intent resection of CRLM and had available data on at least one of the three variables of interest above were selected from a multi-institutional dataset of patients with known KRAS mutational status. The resulting cohort was randomly split into training and testing datasets and recursive partitioning analysis was employed to determine optimal cut-offs. The concordance probability estimates (CPEs) for these optimal cut offs were calculated and compared to CPEs for the most widely used cut-offs in the surgical literature. Results A total of 1643 patients who met eligibility criteria were identified. Following recursive partitioning analysis in the training dataset, the following cut-offs were identified: 2.95 cm for tumor size, 1.5 for tumor number and 6.15 ng/ml for CEA levels. In the entire dataset, the calculated CPEs for the new tumor size (0.52), tumor number (0.56) and CEA (0.53) cut offs exceeded CPEs for other commonly employed cut-offs. Conclusion The current study was able to identify optimal cut-offs for the three most commonly employed prognostic factors in CRLM. While the per variable gains in discriminatory power are modest, these novel cut-offs may help produce appreciable increases in prognostic performance when combined in the context of future risk scores.publishedVersio