Development of optimised algorithms to calculate equation-of-state data in many-particle systems consisting of hard, anisotropic particles

In this work, equations of state of hard, anisotropic particles are studied employing the complementary methods of virial theory and Monte Carlo simulations. To calculate higher-order virial coefficients, an algorithm is developed and optimised for hard particles. Using this algorithm, virial coefficients of hard lenses and hard, oblate ellipsoids of revolution are calculated. The method is extended to the 4D space. The development of a cluster Monte Carlo algorithm gives access to precise equation-of-state data, which is compared to the virial series.In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden Zustandsgleichungen harter, anisotroper Partikel mit den komplementären Verfahren der Virialreihe und Monte Carlo Simulationen untersucht. Um Zugang zu Virialkoeffizienter höherer Ordnung zu erhalten, wird ein für harte Körper optimierter Algorithmus entwickelt. Hiermit werden Virialkoeffizienten von harten Linsen und harten, oblaten Rotationsellipsoiden berechnet. Die Methode wird auf den 4D Raum erweitert. Die Entwicklung eines Cluster Monte Carlo Algorithmus macht hochgenaue Zustandsdaten zugänglich, welche mit der Virialreihe verglichen werden

Tailoring Corynebacterium glutamicum towards efficient production of plant polyphenols

Corynebacterium glutamicum is an important organism in industrial biotechnology for the microbial production of bulk chemicals, in particular amino acids. Functional integration of plant-derived biosynthetic pathways also allows for the microbial synthesis of various plant polyphenols such as flavonoids or stilbenes either from supplemented phenylpropanoid precursor molecules or directly from glucose. However, similar to other microorganisms engineered for plant polyphenol synthesis, insufficient malonyl-CoA supply is also limiting polyphenol production with C. glutamicum. To date, the antibiotic cerulenin inhibiting fatty acid synthesis is added during microbial cultivations to improve malonyl-CoA availability for product formation at lab-scale. Unfortunately, supplementation of cerulenin is very costly, which prohibits large-scale microbial polyphenol production. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Have Changes in Systemic Treatment Improved Survival in Patients with Breast Cancer Metastatic to the Brain?

Newly developed systemic treatment regimens might lead to improved survival also in the subgroup of breast cancer patients that harbour brain metastases. In order to examine this hypothesis, a matched pairs analysis was performed that involved one group of patients, which were treated after these new drugs were introduced, and one group of patients, which were treated approximately 10 years earlier. The two groups were well balanced for the known prognostic factors age, KPS, extracranial disease status, and recursive partitioning analysis class, as well as for the extent of brain treatment. The results show that the use of systemic chemotherapy has increased over time, both before and after the diagnosis of brain metastases. However, such treatment was performed nearly exclusively in those patients with brain metastases that belonged to the prognostically more favourable groups. Survival after whole-brain radiotherapy has remained unchanged in patients without further active treatment. It has improved in prognostically better patients and especially patients that received active treatment, where the 1-year survival rates have almost doubled. As these patient groups were small, confirmation of the results in other series should be attempted. Nevertheless, the present results are compatible with the hypothesis that improved systemic therapy might contribute to prolonged survival in patients with brain metastases from breast cancer

Towards Improved Prognostic Scores Predicting Survival in Patients with Brain Metastases: A Pilot Study of Serum Lactate Dehydrogenase Levels

Accurate prognostic information is desirable when counselling patients with brain metastases regarding their therapeutic options and life expectancy. Based on previous studies, we selected serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) as a promising factor on which we perform a pilot study investigating methodological aspects of biomarker studies in patients with brain metastases, before embarking on large-scale studies that will look at a larger number of candidate markers in an expanded patient cohort. For this retrospective analysis, 100 patients with available information on LDH treated with palliative whole-brain radiotherapy were selected. A comprehensive evaluation of different LDH-based variables was performed in uni- and multivariate tests. Probably, the most intriguing finding was that LDH kinetics might be more important, or at least complement, information obtained from a single measurement immediately before radiotherapy. LDH and performance status outperformed several other variables that are part of prognostic models such as recursive partitioning analyses classes and graded prognostic assessment score. LDH kinetics might reflect disease behaviour in extracranial metastatic and primary sites without need for comprehensive imaging studies and is a quite inexpensive diagnostic test. Based on these encouraging results, confirmatory studies in a larger cohort of patients are warranted

Мониторинг лесных угодий на основе материалов дистанционного зондирования Обь-Томского междуречья в границах Тимирязевского лесничества

В результате выполнения выпускной квалификационной работы был проведен информационно-аналитический анализ нормативно-правовой документации, изучен лесохозяйственный регламент Тимирязевского лесничества Обь-Томского междуречья Томской области, выбраны источники космической информации с достаточной разрешающей способностью для целей лесного мониторинга, а именно снимки, полученные со спутников Landsat 7, Sentinel 2A. Также рассмотрена методика оценки состояния лесных массивов с использованием ГИС-технологий, определены методы автоматизированного дешифрирования для обработки информации и получения результатов, выполнена классификация растительного покрова по снимкам Landsat 7.As a result of the final qualification work, an information and analytical analysis of legal documentation was conducted, the forestry regulations of the Timiryazev forest district of the Ob-Tomsk interfluve of the Tomsk region were studied, and sources of space information with sufficient resolution for forest monitoring were selected, namely images obtained from Landsat 7 and Sentinel 2A satellites. The method of assessing the state of woodlands using GIS technologies is also considered, methods of automated decryption for processing information and obtaining results are defined, and vegetation cover is classified according to Landsat 7 images

Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography in anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor encephalitis: distinct pattern of disease

Background: Patients with encephalitis associated with antibodies against N-methyl-D-aspartate-receptor antibody (NMDAR-ab) encephalitis frequently show psychotic symptoms, amnesia, seizures and movement disorders. While brain MRI in NMDAR-ab encephalitis is often normal, abnormalities of cerebral glucose metabolism have been demonstrated by positron emission tomography (PET) with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose(FDG) in a few usually isolated case reports. However, a common pattern of FDG-PET abnormalities has not been reported. Methods: The authors retrospectively identified six patients with NMDAR-ab encephalitis in two large German centres who underwent at least one whole-body FDG-PET for tumour screening between January 2007 and July 2010. They analysed the pattern of cerebral uptake derived from whole-body PET data for characteristic changes of glucose metabolism compared with controls, and the changes of this pattern during the course of the disease. Results: Groupwise analysis revealed that patients with NMDAR-ab encephalitis showed relative frontal and temporal glucose hypermetabolism associated with occipital hypometabolism. Cross-sectional analysis of the group demonstrated that the extent of these changes is positively associated with clinical disease severity. Longitudinal analysis of two cases showed normalisation of the pattern of cerebral glucose metabolism with recovery. Conclusions: A characteristic change in cerebral glucose metabolism during NMDAR-ab encephalitis is an increased frontotemporal-to-occipital gradient. This pattern correlates with disease severity. Similar changes have been observed in psychosis induced by NMDAR antagonists. Thus, this pattern might be a consequence of impaired NMDAR function

Усовершенствование системы сбора и подготовки газа с применением турбодетандерных установок на Мыльджинском нефтегазоконденсатном месторождении (Томская область)

В ходе работы был проведён расчёт и сравнительный анализ эффективности турбодетандерных агрегатов и дросселей на Мыльджинском нефтегазоконденсатном месторождении. Объектом исследования является турбодетандерный агрегат в системе подготовки газа.Экономический эффект достигается за счёт увеличения эффективности метода низкотемпературной сепарации.Сalculations and the comparative analysis of the efficiency of turboexpander units and throttles at the Myldzhinsky oil and gas condensate field were carried out. The object of research is a turbo expanding assembly in a gas treatment system. Economic effect will be achieved by increasing the degree of efficiency of low-temperature separation

Impact of the cultivation strategy on resveratrol production from glucose in engineered Corynebacterium glutamicum

The health benefits of polyphenols such as stilbenes and flavonoids for humans are increasingly attracting attention. Resveratrol is awell-characterized naturally-occurring stilbeneandpotentanti-oxidant, which isused as food supplement and cosmetic ingredient. Several microorganisms including Corynebacterium glutamicum were engineered for resveratrol production from glucose. Based on the cultivation of a resveratrol-producing C. glutamicum strain in shake flasks, different strategies for improving production under controlled conditions at bioreactor scale were tested. To this end, different cultivation parameters including substrate concentration and operation modes (batch and fed-batch) were evaluated. Whereas the highest biomass concentration was observed during fed-batch fermentation, the maximum resveratrol production was achieved in batch mode. The maximal titer obtained was 12 mg L−1 of resveratrol without the addition of the fatty acid synthase inhibitor cerulenin, which was previously shown to be crucial for production with C. glutamicum. The specific growth rate duringproductionseemstohaveasignificanteffectinresveratrolproductionandapparentlylowspecificgrowth rates may redirect the metabolic bottleneck from p-coumaric acid formation to malonyl-CoA or ATP availability. We also show that high oxygen concentrations in the bioreactor negatively affected the obtained resveratrol titerswithC.glutamicum,whichismost likelydueto thestrongtendency ofresveratrol tooxidizeoroligomerize. Thus, up-scaling of the resveratrol production process is technically challenging and individual process parameters have to be optimized cautiously.We would like to thank the European Union Framework Program 7 "BacHBerry" (www.bachberry.eu), Project No. FP7- 613793 for financial support, the PortugueseFoundation forScience andTechnology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit, COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684) and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020 − Programa Operacional Regional do Norte.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

OptPipe - a pipeline for optimizing metabolic engineering targets

International audienceBackground: We propose OptPipe-a Pipeline for Optimizing Metabolic Engineering Targets, based on a consensus approach. The method generates consensus hypotheses for metabolic engineering applications by combining several optimization solutions obtained from distinct algorithms. The solutions are ranked according to several objectives, such as biomass and target production, by using the rank product tests corrected for multiple comparisons. Results: OptPipe was applied in a genome-scale model of Corynebacterium glutamicum for maximizing malonyl-CoA, which is a valuable precursor for many phenolic compounds. In vivo experimental validation confirmed increased malonyl-CoA level in case of sdhCAB deletion, as predicted in silico. Conclusions: A method was developed to combine the optimization solutions provided by common knockout prediction procedures and rank the suggested mutants according to the expected growth rate, production and a new adaptability measure. The implementation of the pipeline along with the complete documentation is freely available at https://github.com/AndrasHartmann/OptPipe