Osteoimmunological interations at the switch from acute to chronic arthritis

Immunization with Glucose-6-phosphate isomerase induces arthritis in susceptible strains of mice. Depletion of regulatory T cells prior to immunization switches the usually acute, self-limiting course to a non-remitting, destructive arthritis. This provides a possibility to study molecular switches for this transition within one mouse model. To examine the role of fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS), which are known to modulate immune responses via the production of inflammatory mediators, the phenotype and function of FLS from mice with either acute, self-limiting or non-remitting, destructive arthritis was studied. The cellular composition of isolates and cultured cells was found to be stably comprised mainly of fibroblasts and fibrocytes. The secretion of cytokines and chemokines did not differ significantly between FLS from nondepleted and Treg-depleted mice after in vitro stimulation. Furthermore, the secretion and activity of matrix metalloproteases was enhanced in the FLS from mice with chronic arthritis compared to samples from the ones with the acute form. Additional functional differences include the collagen-destructive potential and the potential to attach and eventually invade wild type cartilage. Here, FLS from Treg-depleted chronic arthritic mice showed a higher invasive and destructive potential. This aggressive phenotype could be reversed by the preventive and therapeutic treatment of the animals with anti-IL-17A. Ultimately, FLS from Treg-depleted mice were able to destroy cartilage and bone in vivo upon transfer into immunodeficient mice. The results are compatible with the hypothesis that uninhibited inflammation in the early phase of Treg-depleted mice causes the acquisition of an autonomously aggressive phenotype of synoviocytes mediated via IL-17 which contributes to the switch from acute to chronic arthritis even in the absence of late support from T and B lymphocytes

Detecting independence of random vectors: generalized distance covariance and Gaussian covariance

Distance covariance is a quantity to measure the dependence of two random vectors. We show that the original concept introduced and developed by Sz\'{e}kely, Rizzo and Bakirov can be embedded into a more general framework based on symmetric L\'{e}vy measures and the corresponding real-valued continuous negative definite functions. The L\'{e}vy measures replace the weight functions used in the original definition of distance covariance. All essential properties of distance covariance are preserved in this new framework. From a practical point of view this allows less restrictive moment conditions on the underlying random variables and one can use other distance functions than Euclidean distance, e.g. Minkowski distance. Most importantly, it serves as the basic building block for distance multivariance, a quantity to measure and estimate dependence of multiple random vectors, which is introduced in a follow-up paper [Distance Multivariance: New dependence measures for random vectors (submitted). Revised version of arXiv: 1711.07775v1] to the present article.Comment: Published at https://doi.org/10.15559/18-VMSTA116 in the Modern Stochastics: Theory and Applications (https://www.i-journals.org/vtxpp/VMSTA) by VTeX (http://www.vtex.lt/

Small Logic-based Multipliers with Incomplete Sub-Multipliers for FPGAs

There is a recent trend in artificial intelligence (AI) inference towards lower precision data formats down to 8 bits and less. As multiplication is the most complex operation in typical inference tasks, there is a large demand for efficient small multipliers. The large DSP blocks have limitations implementing many small multipliers efficiently. Hence, this work proposes a solution for better logic-based multipliers that is especially beneficial for small multipliers. Our work is based on the multiplier tiling method in which a multiplier is designed out of several sub-multiplier tiles. The key observation we made is that these sub-multipliers do not necessarily have to perform a complete (rectangular) NxK multiplication and more efficient sub-multipliers are possible that are incomplete (non-rectangular). This proposal first seeks to identify efficient incomplete irregular sub-multipliers and then demonstrates improvements over state-of-the-art designs. It is shown that optimal solutions can be found using integer linear programming (ILP), which are evaluated in FPGA synthesis experiments.Comment: Preprint, to appear at ARITH 2024 (http://arith24.arithsymposium.org) and IEEEXplor

Bestimmung bodenabhängiger Klimafeuchtezahlen für verschiedene Standorte in den mittleren und nordöstlichen Regionen Deutschlands

Müller, J.; Böttcher, F.; Schmidt, M.: Classification of a soil addicted climate-moisture-index for different places in middle and north-eastern regions of Germany. – Hercynia N.F. 41 (2008): 189 -200.The productivity of agricultural regions depend on climatic conditions und exceedingly on the natural given soil performance. To get an adequate quantification of the regional agricultural ability and of the regional sensitivity concerning climate change, a simple soil addicted climate-moisture-index was developed. The independent index considers the annual precipitation rates, the saturation deficit and the usable field capacity of a location. An annual index was calculated for different bouts and places and also regional and chronologically compared to itself. The long-time average of this index allows a classification in different categories of humidity and aridity of the tested locations. The application of the index is transferable on other climes except for Polar Regions.Die Hercynia publiziert Originalbeiträge mit dem Schwerpunkt Ökologie (mit ihren vielseitigen Aspekten der Biodiversität), Botanik, Zoologie, Geologie und Geografie, den anwendungsorientierten Bereichen des Natur- und Umweltschutzes, sowie der Land- und Forstwirtschaft

Umweltethische Reflexionen für einen zukunftsfähigen Geographieunterricht im Kontext des globalen Wandels

[no abstract

ESDA2008-59537 ARCHITECTURE FOR INTEGRATED SERVICE SYSTEMS

ABSTRACT Even though the necessity of a holistic approach for service modeling is widely accepted no such approach is available by now. By analyzing existing service modeling approaches, service literature and by supervising an industrial project we identified several weak points within the field of service modeling. One main problem is the disregard of a clear separation of modeling levels (so called meta-levels). This leads to an unnecessary backlog within the field of service modeling as approaches are neither conformant to each other nor can they be compared. Therefore we suggest applying meta-levels (and corresponding technical spaces) within the area of service modeling, as known from other modeling domains. We outline the advantages of such an approach and we define which concepts are necessary for modeling services and what kind of impact they have on the idea of meta-levels within the service modeling domain

Tribology of Wire Arc Spray Coatings under the Influence of Regenerative Fuels

In order to further optimize the efficiency of today’s internal combustion engines, specific coatings are used on functional surfaces to reduce internal engine friction and wear. In the current research project, oxymethylene ether (OME) is discussed because it is CO2 neutral and has a strong soot-reducing effect as a fuel or fuel additive. In some operational regimes of the internal combustion engine a dilution of engine oil by fuel must be assumed. In this paper, the frictional contact between piston ring and cylinder raceway is modelled using a pin-on-disk tribometer and the friction and wear behavior between a diamond-like carbon coating (DLC) and a thermal spray coating is characterized. The wear of the spray layer could be continuously detected by radionuclide technology (RNT). With the aid of photoelectron spectroscopic measurements (XPS), the steel thermal spray coating was chemically analyzed before and after the tribometer tests and the oxidative influence of OME was investigated. In addition, confocal microscopy was used to assess the topographies of the specimens. The measurements showed that the addition of OME to the lubricant reduced the viscosity and load-bearing capacity of the lubricating film, which led to an increase in the coefficient of friction. While almost no wear on the pin could be detected at 10% OME, the first visible material removal occurs at an OME content of 20% and the layer delaminated at 30% OME. The evaluation of the RNT wear tests showed that both the tests with engine oil and with engine oil plus 20% OME achieved very low wear rates. No corrosion of the thermal spray coating could be detected by XPS. Only the proportion of engine oil additives in the friction track increased with increasing OME concentration

Non-Singlet QCD Analysis of the Structure Function F_2 in 3-Loops

First results of a non--singlet QCD analysis of the structure function $F_2(x,Q^2)$ in 3--loop order based on the non--singlet world data are presented. Correlated errors are determined and their propagation through the evolution equations is performed analytically. The value for $\alpha_s(M_Z)$ is determined to be $0.1135 +/- 0.0023/0.0026$ compatible with results from other QCD analyses. Low moments for $u_v(x)$, $d_v(x)$ and $u_v(x) - d_v(x)$ with correlated errors are calculated which may be compared with results from lattice simulations.Comment: 1 Latex file, 1 style file, 2 figures Current World average on alpha_s adde

Entwicklungspfad Service Engineering 2.0: Neue Perspektiven für die Dienstleistungsentwicklung

Das Service Engineering hat sich innerhalb der letzten Jahre zunehmend als eine wissenschaftliche Fachdisziplin etabliert. Das vorliegende Heft bietet in kompakter Form einen kurzen Abriss über die Entwicklung dieses Bereiches der Wissenschaft und kondensiert die Grundideen und bisher in der Forschung betrachteten Aspekte. Darüber hinaus erfolgt eine Auseinandersetzung mit neuen Anforderungen seitens der veränderten Dienstleistungswirtschaft. Aus diesen ergibt sich, dass bisherige Ansätze des Service Engineerings grundlegend weiterentwickelt und neue Ansätze bereitgestellt werden müssen. Diese bilden die Entwicklungspfade für ein Service Engineering 2.0