Properties of Heavy B Hadrons

We review recent measurements of heavy B hadron states including masses and lifetimes of the Bc meson as well as excited B states (B**, Bs**). We discuss properties of the Bs meson such as lifetime, lifetime difference delta_Gamma/Gamma and CP violation in Bs -> J/Psi Phi decays. We also summarize new measurements of the masses and lifetimes of bottom baryons including the Lambda_b baryon, the Sigma_b baryon states as well as the Xi_b and Omega_b baryons.Comment: Plenary talk at ICHEP08, Philadelphia, USA, July 2008. 15 pages with 10 figures and 1 table. Fixed typo

Healthcare Process Support: Achievements, Challenges, Current Research

Healthcare organizations are facing the challenge of delivering high-quality services to their patients at affordable costs. To tackle this challenge, the Medical Informatics community targets at formalisms for developing decision-support systems (DSSs) based on clinical guidelines. At the same time, business process management (BPM) enables IT support for healthcare processes, e.g., based on workflow technology. By integrating aspects from these two fields, promising perspectives for achieving better healthcare process support arise. The perspectives and limitations of IT support for healthcare processes provided the focus of three Workshops on Process-oriented Information Systems (ProHealth). These were held in conjunction with the International Conference on Business Process Management in 2007-2009. The ProHealth workshops provided a forum wherein challenges, paradigms, and tools for optimized process support in healthcare were debated. Following the success of these workshops, this special issue on process support in healthcare provides extended papers by research groups who contributed multiple times to the ProHealth workshop series. These works address issues pertaining to healthcare process modeling, process-aware healthcare information system, workflow management in healthcare, IT support for guideline implementation and medical decision support, flexibility in healthcare processes, process interoperability in healthcare and healthcare standards, clinical semantics of healthcare processes, healthcare process patterns, best practices for designing healthcare processes, and healthcare process validation, verification, and evaluation

Impulsive Hybrid Discrete-Continuous Delay Differential Equations

This thesis deals with impulsive hybrid discrete-continuous delay differential equations (IHDDEs). This new class of differential equations is highly challenging for two reasons. First, because of a dependency of the right-hand-side function on past states, with time delays that depend on the current state. Second, because both the right-hand-side function and the state itself are discontinuous at implicitly defined time points. The theoretical results and numerical methods presented in this thesis are related to the following subject areas: First, solutions of initial value problems (IVPs) in IHDDEs. Second, derivatives of IVP solutions with respect to parameters (“sensitivities”). Third, estimation of parameters in IHDDE models from experimental data. Amongst others, this thesis thereby makes the following contributions: - The theoretical basis of IHDDE-IVPs is established. This includes the definition of a solution concept, the existence of solutions, the uniqueness of solutions, and the differentiability of solutions with respect to parameters. - A new approach for numerically solving IVPs in differential equations with time delays is introduced. A key aspect is the use of extrapolations beyond past discontinuities. Convergence of continuous Runge-Kutta methods realized in the framework of the new approach is shown, and numerical results are presented that demonstrate the benefit of using extrapolations on a practical example. - A “first discretize, then differentiate” approach and a “first differentiate, then discretize” approach for forward sensitivity computation in IHDDEs are investigated. It is revealed that the presence of time delays destroys commutativity of differentiation and discretization in the case of continuous Runge-Kutta methods. - An extension of the concept of Internal Numerical Differentiation is proposed for differential equations with time delays. The use of the extended concept ensures that numerically computed sensitivities converge to the exact sensitivities, and that the convergence order is identical to the convergence order of the method that is used for solving the nominal IVP. - The first practical forward and adjoint schemes are developed that realize Internal Numerical Differentiation for IHDDEs. Numerical investigations show that the developed schemes are drastically more efficient than classical methods for sensitivity computation. - The new numerical methods for solving IVPs and for computing sensitivites are successfully applied to several challenging test cases, and the properties of the methods are analysed. - Numerical methods are presented for solving nonlinear least-squares parameter estimation problems constrained by IHDDEs. - A new epidemiological IHDDE model is developed. Therein, an impulse accounts for the arrival of an infected population. Further, the zeros of state-dependent switching functions characterize the time points at which new medical treatments become available. - A delay differential equation model is presented for the crosstalk of the signaling pathways of two cytokines. In comparison to an ordinary differential equation model, a better fit to experimental data is obtained with a smaller number of differential states. - A novel model is proposed to describe the voting behavior of the viewers of the TV singing competition “Unser Star für Baku” aired in 2012. Numerical results show that the use of a time delay is crucial for a qualitative correct description of the voting behavior. Furthermore, parameter estimation results yield a good quantitative agreeement with data from the TV show. - The practical implementation of all developed methods in the new software packages Colsol-DDE and ParamEDE is described

Experimental parasite infection reveals costs and benefits of paternal effects

Forces shaping an individual's phenotype are complex and include transgenerational effects. Despite low investment into reproduction, a father's environment and phenotype can shape its offspring's phenotype. Whether and when such paternal effects are adaptive, however, remains elusive. Using three-spined sticklebacks in controlled infection experiments, we show that sperm deficiencies in exposed males compared to their unexposed brothers functionally translated into reduced reproductive success in sperm competition trials. In non-competitive fertilisations, offspring of exposed males suffered significant costs of reduced hatching success and survival but they reached a higher body condition than their counterparts from unexposed fathers after experimental infection. Interestingly, those benefits of paternal infection did not result from increased resistance but from increased tolerance to the parasite. Altogether, these results demonstrate that parasite resistance and tolerance are shaped by processes involving both genetic and non-genetic inheritance and suggest a context-dependent adaptive value of paternal effects

Cryptic haplotype‐specific gamete selection yields offspring with optimal MHC immune genes

Females choose specific mates in order to produce fitter offspring. However, several factors interfere with females' control over fertilization of their eggs, including sneaker males and phenotypically unpredictable allele segregation during meiosis. Mate choice at the individual level thus provides only a poor approximation for obtaining the best genetic match. Consequently, postcopulatory sperm selection by female oocytes has been proposed as a mechanism to achieve complementary combinations of parental haplotypes. Here, using controlled in vitro fertilization of three‐spined stickleback eggs, we find haplotype‐specific fertilization bias toward gametes with complementary major histocompatibility complex (MHC) immunogenes. The resulting zygote (and thus offspring) genotypes exhibit an intermediate level of individual MHC diversity that was previously shown to confer highest pathogen resistance. Our finding of haplotype‐specific gamete selection thus represents an intriguing mechanism for fine‐tuned optimization of the offspring's immune gene composition and an evolutionary advantage in the Red Queen dynamics of host‐parasite coevolution

Cryptic haplotype‐specific gamete selection yields offspring with optimal MHC immune genes

Females choose specific mates in order to produce fitter offspring. However, several factors interfere with females' control over fertilization of their eggs, including sneaker males and phenotypically unpredictable allele segregation during meiosis. Mate choice at the individual level thus provides only a poor approximation for obtaining the best genetic match. Consequently, postcopulatory sperm selection by female oocytes has been proposed as a mechanism to achieve complementary combinations of parental haplotypes. Here, using controlled in vitro fertilization of three‐spined stickleback eggs, we find haplotype‐specific fertilization bias toward gametes with complementary major histocompatibility complex (MHC) immunogenes. The resulting zygote (and thus offspring) genotypes exhibit an intermediate level of individual MHC diversity that was previously shown to confer highest pathogen resistance. Our finding of haplotype‐specific gamete selection thus represents an intriguing mechanism for fine‐tuned optimization of the offspring's immune gene composition and an evolutionary advantage in the Red Queen dynamics of host‐parasite coevolution

Induction of diploid gynogenesis in an evolutionary model organism, the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus)

Background: Rapid advances in genomics have provided nearly complete genome sequences for many different species. However, no matter how the sequencing technology has improved, natural genetic polymorphism complicates the production of high quality reference genomes. To address this problem, researchers have tried using artificial modes of genome manipulation such as gynogenesis for fast production of inbred lines. Results: Here, we present the first successful induction of diploid gynogenesis in an evolutionary model system, the three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus), using a combination of UV-irradiation of the sperm and heat shock (HS) of the resulting embryo to inhibit the second meiotic division. Optimal UV irradiation of the sperm was established by exposing stickleback sperm to a UV- light source at various times. Heat shock parameters like temperature, duration, and time of initiation were tested by subjecting eggs fertilized with UV inactivated sperm 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 minutes post fertilization (mpf) to 30°C, 34°C, or 38°C for 2, 4, 6 or 8 minutes. Gynogen yield was highest when stickleback eggs were activated with 2 minutes UV-irradiated sperm and received HS 5 mpf at 34°C for 4 minutes. Conclusions: Diploid gynogenesis has been successfully performed in three-spined stickleback. This has been confirmed by microsatellite DNA analysis which revealed exclusively maternal inheritance in all gynogenetic fry tested. Ploidy verification by flow cytometry showed that gynogenetic embryos/larvae exhibiting abnormalities were haploids and those that developed normally were diploids, i.e., double haploids that can be raised until adult size