MOSES. Modellierung und Simulation oekologischer Systeme Eine Sprachbeschreibung mit Anwendungsbeispielen

Concept, design and application of a new object-oriented simulation language are described. It presents an unique calculus for modelling of complex ecological systems. MOSES (modelling and simulation of ecological systems), a successor of SONCHES, integrates experiences from related partial disciplines: population, robber-prey systems, succession, agricultural, aquatic and forest ecosystems. MOSES has been developed with respect to model integration for climate succession assessment. With its demand-, supply- and matrix-structures MOSES also supports economic models. Applying the new calculus to the model DEMETER, the effect of global change on the wheat ecosystems has been studied. As a further example the MOSES formulation of the Model WORLD 3 (Club of Rome, 1973) is given. (WEN)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: RR 5801(13) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekBundesministerium fuer Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie, Bonn (Germany)DEGerman

Three-dimensional spatially resolved geometrical and functional models of human liver tissue reveal new aspects of NAFLD progression

Early disease diagnosis is key to the effective treatment of diseases. Histopathological analysis of human biopsies is the gold standard to diagnose tissue alterations. However, this approach has low resolution and overlooks 3D (three-dimensional) structural changes resulting from functional alterations. Here, we applied multiphoton imaging, 3D digital reconstructions and computational simulations to generate spatially resolved geometrical and functional models of human liver tissue at different stages of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). We identified a set of morphometric cellular and tissue parameters correlated with disease progression, and discover profound topological defects in the 3D bile canalicular (BC) network. Personalized biliary fluid dynamic simulations predicted an increased pericentral biliary pressure and micro-cholestasis, consistent with elevated cholestatic biomarkers in patients' sera. Our spatially resolved models of human liver tissue can contribute to high-definition medicine by identifying quantitative multiparametric cellular and tissue signatures to define disease progression and provide new insights into NAFLD pathophysiology

Implementation of a parallel version of a regional climate model

A regional climate model developed by the Max Planck Institute for Meterology and the German Climate Computing Centre in Hamburg based on the 'Europa' and 'Deutschland' models of the German Weather Service has been parallelized and implemented on the IBM RS/6000 SP computer system of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research including parallel input/output processing, the explicit Eulerian time-step, the semi-implicit corrections, the normal-mode initialization and the physical parameterizations of the German Weather Service. The implementation utilizes Fortran 90 and the Message Passing Interface. The parallelization strategy used is a 2D domain decomposition. This report describes the parallelization strategy, the parallel I/O organization, the influence of different domain decomposition approaches for static and dynamic load imbalances and first numerical results. (orig.)Available from TIB Hannover: RR 5801(29) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman

The CORALZOO project: a synopsis of four years of public aquarium science

In order to improve the methodology for growing and maintaining corals in captivity, a consortium of European zoos, aquaria and academia executed a four-year public/private collaborative research and innovation project (CORALZOO) on the breeding and husbandry of stony corals. CORALZOO comprised the following topics: (1) sexual and asexual breeding of corals in captivity, including techniques for propagation, feeding and induction of natural coral colony morphogenesis; and (2) coral husbandry: development of generic bioassays to evaluate biotic and abiotic husbandry parameters and to monitor coral health, elaboration of methods for identification and treatment of coral diseases and optimization of transport and acclimation procedures. The results of this project are reviewe

Forensic use of fingermarks and fingerprints

The aim of this entry is to describe and explain the main forensic uses of fingermarks and fingerprints. It defines the concepts and provides the nomenclature related to forensic dactyloscopy. It describes the structure of the papillary ridges, the organization of the information in three levels, and its use for the fingerprint classification and individualization processes. It focuses on the variability and the distinctiveness of the marks and the prints and the exploitation of these properties in the forensic context. It emphasizes the difference between the properties of the mark and the prints in relation with the individualization process. It describes the current practice for fingermark evidence evaluation and analyzes the limits of forensic evaluation based on deterministic conclusions. It discusses the admissibility of the fingerprint evidence and provides casework examples involving misidentifications. It introduces the results of statistical research based on empirical data, statistical modeling, and an evaluation framework aiming at the description of the strength of evidence. Finally, it puts in perspective the current practice and the results of research and addresses the question of future developments in the field