Consumption of nitric oxide by endothelial cells: Evidence for the involvement of a NAD(P)H-, flavin- and heme-dependent dioxygenase reaction

AbstractIn the present study, we investigated the mechanism of nitric oxide (NO) inactivation by endothelial cells. All experiments were performed in the presence of superoxide dismutase to minimize the peroxynitrite reaction. Incubation of the NO donor diethylamine/NO adduct with increasing amounts of intact cells led to a progressive decrease of the NO concentration, demonstrating a cell-dependent consumption of NO. In cell homogenates, consumption of NO critically depended on the presence of NADPH or NADH and resulted in the formation of nitrate. Both NO consumption and nitrate formation were largely inhibited by the heme poisons NaCN and phenylhydrazine as well as the flavoenzyme inhibitor diphenylene iodonium. Further characterization of this NO consumption pathway suggests that endothelial cells express a unique membrane-associated enzyme or enzyme system analogous to the bacterial NO dioxygenase that converts NO to nitrate in a NAD(P)H-, flavin- and heme-dependent manner

Definition and selection of key competencies in Austria: country report on the BFS-OECD project DeSeCo

'Den Vorgaben des von der OECD und dem Schweizerischen Bundesamtes für Statistik im Rahmen des Projektes Definition and Selection of Competencies (DeSeCo) folgend besteht die Aufgabe des vorliegenden Papiers in einer Zusammenschau und Analyse wesentlicher nationaler Diskurse, Strategien und Maßnahmen zur Definition von Grundkompetenzen als angestrebte Ergebnisse des Bildungssystems oder als Basis für die Überprüfung. Der zur Verfolgung dieser Aufgabenstellungen entwickelte methodische Rahmen beruht auf der Analyse von Literatur und ausgewählten Dokumenten aus der österreichischen Debatte und Politik zur Definition und Auswahl von Kompetenzen, sowie auf einer kleinen Zahl von gezielten Expertlnneninterviews aus den Bereichen der Interessenvertretungen und der Administration des Schulwesens. Als hervorstechende Aktivitäten im Bereich des Schulwesens sind vor allem zwei längerfristige Aktivitäten zu nennen: Die Entwicklung eines neuen Lehrplanes im Bereich der unteren Sekundarstufe (Lehrplan'99), in dem ein neuer Begriff von Kompetenzen im Sinne der Ergänzung der Sachkompetenz durch Selbstkompetenz und Sozialkompetenz für diese Phase der Schulpflicht verbindlich gemacht wurde. Auch aus dem Bereich der Industrie sind weitreichende Vorschläge im Hinblick auf die Definition von erforderlichen Kompetenzen vorgetragen worden, die sich auf die Ergänzung der Fachkompetenz durch Methoden- und Sozialkompetenz beziehen.' (Autorenreferat)'Corresponding to the requirements launched by OECD and the Swiss Federal Statistical Office in the project Definition and Selection of Competencies (DeSeCo) the paper provides an analysis of salient discourses, strategies and steps found at the national level for the definition of key competencies as the desired outputs of the educational system or as a basis for assessment. The methodological framework of the report is based on an analysis of literature and selected documents covering the debate held and the policy adopted in Austria regarding the definition and selection of competencies, and on a small number of specific interviews with experts representing interest groups and the school administration. The most noteworthy activities found in Austria were two long-term measures: The development of a new curriculum for the secondary lower level (1999 curriculum), which introduced a new mandatory competency notion in the sense of a complementarity between subject-matter competence and self-competence/ social competence for this phase of compulsory schooling. Industry as well launched a process of several years that was designed to define the challenges and new requirements facing the system of education and submitted extensive suggestions for the definition of competencies needed, which are aimed at complementing subject-matter competence by methodological and social competence.' (author's abstract)

P4CEP: Towards In-Network Complex Event Processing

In-network computing using programmable networking hardware is a strong trend in networking that promises to reduce latency and consumption of server resources through offloading to network elements (programmable switches and smart NICs). In particular, the data plane programming language P4 together with powerful P4 networking hardware has spawned projects offloading services into the network, e.g., consensus services or caching services. In this paper, we present a novel case for in-network computing, namely, Complex Event Processing (CEP). CEP processes streams of basic events, e.g., stemming from networked sensors, into meaningful complex events. Traditionally, CEP processing has been performed on servers or overlay networks. However, we argue in this paper that CEP is a good candidate for in-network computing along the communication path avoiding detouring streams to distant servers to minimize communication latency while also exploiting processing capabilities of novel networking hardware. We show that it is feasible to express CEP operations in P4 and also present a tool to compile CEP operations, formulated in our P4CEP rule specification language, to P4 code. Moreover, we identify challenges and problems that we have encountered to show future research directions for implementing full-fledged in-network CEP systems.Comment: 6 pages. Author's versio