Bacteria and bacterial DNA in atherosclerotic plaque and aneurysmal wall biopsies from patients with and without periodontitis

Background: Several studies have reported an association between chronic periodontitis (CP) and cardiovascular diseases. Detection of periodontopathogens, including red complex bacteria (RCB), in vascular lesions has suggested these bacteria to be involved in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and abdominal aortic aneurysms. Objective: In this study, we investigate bacteria and their DNA in vascular biopsies from patients with vascular diseases (VD; i.e. abdominal aortic aneurysms, atherosclerotic carotid, and common femoral arteries), with and without CP. Methods: DNA was extracted from vascular biopsies selected from 40 VD patients: 30 with CP and 10 without CP. The V3-V5 region of the 16S rDNA (V3-V5) was polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-amplified, and the amplicons were cloned into Escherichia coli, sequenced, and classified (GenBank and the Human Oral Microbiome database). Species-specific primers were used for the detection of Porphyromonas gingivalis. In addition, 10 randomly selected vascular biopsies from the CP group were subjected to scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for visualization of bacteria. Checkerboard DNA–DNA hybridization was performed to assess the presence of RCB in 10 randomly selected subgingival plaque samples from CP patients. Results: A higher load and mean diversity of bacteria were detected in vascular biopsies from VD patients with CP compared to those without CP. Enterobacteriaceae were frequently detected in vascular biopsies together with cultivable, commensal oral, and not-yet-cultured bacterial species. While 70% of the subgingival plaque samples from CP patients showed presence of RCB, only P. gingivalis was detected in one vascular biopsy. Bacterial cells were seen in all 10 vascular biopsies examined by SEM. Conclusions: A higher bacterial load and more diverse colonization were detected in VD lesions of CP patients as compared to patients without CP. This indicated that a multitude of bacterial species both from the gut and the oral cavity, rather than exclusively periodontopathogens, may be involved as additional risk factors in the pathogenesis of VD

Verification of State/Event Systems by Quotienting

A rather new approach towards compositional verification of concurrent systems is the quotient technique, where components are gradually removed from the concurrent system while transforming the specification accordingly. When the intermediate specifications can be kept small using heuristics for minimization, the state explosion problemis avoided and there are already promising experimental results for systems with an interleaving semantics, including real-time systems. This paper extends the quotienting approach to deal with a synchronous framework in the shape of state/event systems. A state/event system is a concurrent system with a set of interdependent components operating synchronously according to stimuli (input events) provided by an environment while producing output events in return for the environment. A compositional modal logic M suitable for expressing general safety and liveness properties subsystems is introduced. A quotient construction for building components from a state/event system into the specification is presented and heuristics for minimizing formulae are proposed. The techniques are demonstrated on an example. The correctness of the techniques are justified by proofs in an appendix

Flyttningen til Terningen Arena

Denne bacheloroppgaven handler om organisasjonsendring i form av fysisk flytting og sammenslåing. Vi har studert en endringsprosess ved Campus Elverum, som er en av fire Campus ved Høgskolen i Hedmark. Campus Elverum har tidligere hatt lokaler på to ulike steder, men de har nå slått seg sammen og flyttet inn i ett nytt, felles bygg, Terningen Arena. I organisasjonsteorien finnes det mange argumenter og studier på at det ofte er motstand mot endring. Likevel hadde vi en antakelse om at denne endringen ikke ble møtt med noe særlig motstand. Denne oppgaven går derfor ut på å finne ut om det har vært motstand i forbindelse med endringsprosessen eller ikke og årsakene til dette. For å få svar på dette har vi intervjuet noen ansatte ved Campus Elverum om deres opplevelse av flytteprosessen. Dette har vi analysert i lys av to teoretiske perspektiver på motstand mot endring. Perspektivene handler om at det er flere forhold ved en endringsprosess som kan være med på å avgjøre graden av motstand. Disse perspektivene er hentet fra boken Organisasjonsendringer og endringsledelse av Dag Ingvar Jacobsen. Hovedresultatene våre er at endringsprosessen i sin helhet er blitt møtt med minimalt med motstand og prosessen har stort sett blitt gjennomført på en måte de ansatte har vært fornøyde med. Vi har funnet tegn til motstand på noen få områder, men det er kun ett område som er blitt møtt med aktiv motstand. Motstanden kom i form av at noen ansatte brøt reglene for kontorutforming

Measurement and modeling of volume scattering functions for phytoplankton from Norwegian coastal waters

The volume scattering function (VSF) describes the angular distribution of scattered light, and the VSF of phytoplankton is one of the most important inherent optical properties of oceanic water. Despite its importance, relatively few measurements of the VSF have been carried out in aquatic environments, and we present here data and analyses of measured VSFs at 442, 490, and 550 nm for 15 representative phytoplankton species from Norwegian coastal waters. In addition, the analytic scattering phase functions Henyey-Greenstein (HG) and Fournier-Forand, as well as Mie theory, were fitted and compared to the measured VSFs. The measured VSFs for all the species were strongly, but unequally forward peaked with HG-fitted asymmetry factors in the range 0.897–0.988. The VSF of Synechococcus sp., Phaeodactylum tricornutum, and Emiliania huxleyi (naked) had shoulders in the forward direction, whereas the VSF of the cylindrically shaped Chaetoceros calcitrans and Chaetoceros wighamii had minima in the backward direction. Results from this work indicate that internal structures influence the angular and spectral shape of the VSF more significantly than the morphology and size of the phytoplankton cells

Secondary user relations in emerging mobile computing environments

Mobile technologies are enabling access to information in diverse environ.ments, and are exposing a wider group of individuals to said technology. Therefore, this paper proposes that a wider view of user relations than is usually considered in information systems research is required. Specifically, we examine the potential effects of emerging mobile technologies on end-­‐user relations with a focus on the ‘secondary user’, those who are not intended to interact directly with the technology but are intended consumers of the technology’s output. For illustration, we draw on a study of a U.K. regional Fire and Rescue Service and deconstruct mobile technology use at Fire Service incidents. Our findings provide insights, which suggest that, because of the nature of mobile technologies and their context of use, secondary user relations in such emerging mobile environments are important and need further exploration

Real-time detection of TDP1 activity using a fluorophore-quencher coupled DNA-biosensor

Real-time detection of enzyme activities may present the easiest and most reliable way of obtaining quantitative analyses in biological samples. We present a new DNA-biosensor capable of detecting the activity of the potential anticancer drug target tyrosyl-DNA phosphodiesterase 1 (TDP1) in a very simple, high throughput, and real-time format. The biosensor is specific for Tdp1 even in complex biological samples, such as human cell extracts, and may consequently find future use in fundamental studies as well as a cancer predictive tool allowing fast analyses of diagnostic cell samples such as biopsies. TDP1 removes covalent 3'DNA adducts in DNA single-strand break repair. This enzymatic activity forms the basis of the design of the TDP1-biosensor, which consists of a short hairpin-forming oligonucleotide having a 5'fluorophore and a 3'quencher brought in close proximity by the secondary structure of the biosensor. The specific action of TDP1 removes the quencher, thereby enabling optical detection of the fluorophore. Since the enzymatic action of TDP1 is the only "signal amplification" the increase in fluorescence may easily be followed in real-time and allows quantitative analyses of TDP1 activity in pure enzyme fractions as well as in crude cell extracts. In the present study we demonstrate the specificity of the biosensor, its ability to quantitatively detect up- or down-regulated TDP1 activity, and that it may be used for measuring and for analyzing the mechanism of TDP1 inhibition