Conformal carpet and grating cloaks

We introduce a class of conformal versions of the previously introduced quasi-conformal carpet cloak, and show how to construct such conformal cloaks for different cloak shapes. Our method provides exact refractive-index profiles in closed mathematical form for the usual carpet cloak as well as for other shapes. By analyzing their asymptotic behavior, we find that the performance of finite-size cloaks becomes much better for metal shapes with zero average value, e.g., for gratings.Comment: added Ref. 12; added 2 figures; reformatte

Procedures and criteria for evaluating academic legal publications: Results of a survey in Switzerland

As in other European countries, there has been a growing pressure on assessing academic research in Switzerland. This also applies to the field of academic legal research. This article, which is based on a survey in Switzerland, aims to explore the assessment procedures and criteria that are used to evaluate academic legal publications and to judge their suitability. In doing so, two important principles have to be respected: first, the suitability of assessment procedures and quality criteria depends on the context and the purpose of the assessment. Additionally, peculiarities of research (and publication) behaviour in academic legal research have to be taken into account. Second, researchers of a certain field need to be involved into the process of defining how to evaluate research (bottom-up approach). On the basis of literature analysis, the actual use and suitability of assessment procedures and criteria were explored in a survey among editors of law journals, law professors, and practitioners (lawyers). Results show that academic legal publications in Switzerland are mainly being assessed by means of (simple) peer review, whereby double-blind peer review procedures are rarely used. There appears to be some common ground among stakeholders concerning appropriate criteria, but the substance of criteria remains unclear. Bibliometric methods and indicators are rarely being used and generally do not yield meaningful results

The effectiveness of study skills courses: Do they increase general study competences?

The present longitudinal study aims to assess the effectiveness of study skills courses in improving students' general study competences. In a pre-study, an online questionnaire was developed which measured the learning process organization, motivation, planning, and stress management on four reliable scales. The participants in the main study were 45 students from five different German universities who attended such a course and a control group of 87 students who did not. Two-way repeated measures ANOVA's indicate an increase in general study competences for students in the intervention group. The change in competences between a pre-test and post-test differ significantly between the groups. 16.12.2015 | Verena Schmied & Martin Hänze (Kassel

Traumziel Nachhaltigkeit

Nachhaltiger Massentourismus ist ein Widerspruch in sich! So oder ähnlich äußerten sich Vertreter aus Politik, Tourismus und Umweltverbänden zu Beginn des BMBF Projekts INVENT. Drei Jahre später wissen sie, dass Nachhaltigkeit und Massenmarkt sehr wohl vereinbar sind

Time-of-flight imaging of invisibility cloaks

As invisibility cloaking has recently become experimental reality, it is interesting to explore ways to reveal remaining imperfections. In essence, the idea of most invisibility cloaks is to recover the optical path lengths without an object (to be made invisible) by a suitable arrangement around that object. Optical path length is proportional to the time of flight of a light ray or to the optical phase accumulated by a light wave. Thus, time-of-flight images provide a direct and intuitive tool for probing imperfections. Indeed, recent phase-sensitive experiments on the carpet cloak have already made early steps in this direction. In the macroscopic world, time-of-flight images could be measured directly by light detection and ranging (LIDAR). Here, we show calculated time-of-flight images of the conformal Gaussian carpet cloak, the conformal grating cloak, the cylindrical free-space cloak, and of the invisible sphere. All results are obtained by using a ray-velocity equation of motion derived from Fermat's principle.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, journal pape

C-Reactive Protein 2 Days After Laparoscopic Gastric Bypass Surgery Reliably Indicates Leaks and Moderately Predicts Morbidity

Background: The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether serum C-reactive protein (CRP) is a useful predictor of early post-operative complications, particularly of intestinal leaks after laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (LRYGB) surgery. Methods: The present study was a retrospective analysis of a prospectively maintained database with 809 patients who underwent LRYGB from 2002 until 2011. For 410 of these patients, at least one CRP measurement within the first seven post-operative days was available. The diagnostic value was determined by the area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results: Forty-nine of 410 patients (12.0%; 95% confidence intervals [95% CI], 9.2-15.5%) developed surgery-related complications. Leaks occurred in 17 patients (4.1%; 95% CI, 2.6-6.5%) at a median of 5days after surgery. CRP levels 2days after surgery showed the highest diagnostic value for post-operative complications (AUC, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.60-0.89). Sensitivity was 0.53 (95% CI, 0.31-0.74) and specificity was 0.91 (95% CI, 0.79-0.96) on day 2 (cutoff level, 229mg/l). The sensitivity for intestinal leaks was 1.00 (95% CI, 0.51-1.00). Conclusion: CRP on post-operative day 2 is a valuable predictor of post-operative complications, in particular intestinal leaks. Radiological imaging studies for intestinal leaks could be restricted to patients with CRP values exceeding 229mg/

Quantity of HLA-C surface expression and licensing of KIR2DL+ natural killer cells

Natural killer (NK) cells require interaction of inhibitory surface receptors with human leukocyte antigen (HLA) ligands during development to acquire functional competence in a process termed "licensing.” The quantity of HLA required for this process is unknown. Two polymorphisms affecting HLA-C surface expression (rs9264942 and rs67384697) have recently been identified, and shown to influence progression of HIV infection. We typed a cohort of healthy donors for the two HLA-C-related polymorphisms, KIR2DL1 and KIR2DL3, and their respective HLA-C ligands and analyzed how HLA ligands influenced licensing status of killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR)+ NK cells in terms of degranulation and cytokine production in response to HLA-deficient target cells. The presence of respective HLA class I ligands increased the function of KIR2DL1+ and KIR2DL3+ NK cells in a dose-dependent manner. In contrast, neither of the HLA-C-related polymorphisms nor the quantity of cell surface HLA-C had any significant effect on NK cell function. Interestingly, HLA-Cw7—an HLA-C allele with low surface expression—licensed KIR2DL3+ NK cells more strongly than any other KIR2DL3 ligand. The quantity of cell surface HLA-C does not appear to influence licensing of NK cells, and the HLA-C-related polymorphisms presumably influence HIV progression through factors unrelated to NK cell educatio

Identification and X-ray Co-crystal Structure of a Small-Molecule Activator of LFA-1-ICAM-1 Binding

The integrin Leucocyte function associated antigen 1 (LFA-1) is a heterodimeric immune receptor ubiquitously expressed on all leucocytes. Its interaction with Intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1) provides a critical recognition event between T-cells and antigen presenting cells in the immune systems efforts to pull off an early stage cell mediated immune response.[1–3] The LFA-1/ICAM-1 axis has thus been explored as a target interaction for drug discovery.[4–7] Furthermore, the structural changes of LFA-1 upon activation and interaction with ICAM-1 also make the LFA-1/ICAM-1 interaction an interesting example of protein-protein interaction (PPI) inhibition by small molecule inhibitors.[8,9] While protein-protein interaction inhibition by small molecules is considered to be the ultimate art in drug design, even fewer examples of true agonists of PPIs have been reported.[10–12] As for LFA-1, such activators would have interesting applications in rare hereditary genetic disorders called Leucocyte adhesion deficiency (LAD) or as potential enhancers of tumour immunotherapy.[13,14] Although, one such activator has been described recently, closer biological investigation has shown that it ultimately worked as an inhibitor on a cellular level by locking the LFA-1/ICAM-1 interaction when reversibility was needed for detachment of immune cells from endothelial surfaces and tissue infiltration.[15] Herein we describe the identification and structural biology of IBE-667, an ICAM-1 binding enhancer for LFA-1 from on-bead screening of tagged one-bead one-compound combinatorial libraries by confocal nanoscanning and bead picking (CONA).[16] Cellular assays demonstrate the activity of IBE-667 in promoting the binding of LFA-1 on activated immune cells to ICAM-1. X-ray structure based analysis did not only allow us to explain the molecular features of IBE-667 binding to LFA-1 but also offers an explanation for its mode of action