Ingest and Storage of 3D Objects in a Digital Preservation System

The DURAARK project is developing methods and tools for the Long-Term Preservation (LTP) of architectural knowledge, including approaches to: enrich Building Information Models with “as built” information from scans, semantically enrich building models with additional data sets, preserve 3D models for future reuse. This deliverable defines the necessary steps for ingest and storage of 3D objects into anexisting OAIS compliant digital preservation system. It discusses how the gaps, which were previously identified and presented in deliverable D6.6.1, have been addressed in the DURAARK project so far. Developed methods and tools will be run against the DURAARK test set. Lastly, the existing drafts of the metadata schemas buildm for descriptive information and e57m and ifcm as technical metadata schemas for E57 and IFC respectively, will be extended significantly and presented in a digital preservation context

FACTORS FACILITATING COMPLIANCE IMPLEMENTATION – CASE STUDY RESULTS FROM MULTINATIONAL ENTERPRISES

Number and complexity of compliance requirements for companies steadily increase. Enterprises focus on the implementation of compliance programs to ensure conformance with rules and regulations. However, it is the employees’ compliant behavior and their understanding of compliance requirements that support realization and ensure conformance. Thus, companies must ask how to integrate employees into compliance programs and how to foster their understanding for compliance necessity. The paper at hand explores how key compliance components are implemented in practice and which factors facilitate the implementation of these components. Based on multiple case studies, two central key findings are identified contributing to the discussion of compliance implementation. First, the tone at the top facilitates compliance by strongly supporting a compliance culture which in turn positively influences the implementation of all four key compliance components. Second, the key component compliance reporting and controlling is not only supported by compliance facilitators but also builds the foundation for one of them. The facilitator incentive systems must be based on comprehensive compliance performance measures to provide a common understanding of compliance goals in a company. Additionally clear measures provide the basis to identify eligibility for incentives or the imposture of sanctions. In this context, the set up of a compliance performance measurement system is discussed, highlighting the necessity of basing it on adequate information system structures

Porcine transcriptome analysis based on 97 non-normalized cDNA libraries and assembly of 1,021,891 expressed sequence tags.

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.BACKGROUND: Knowledge of the structure of gene expression is essential for mammalian transcriptomics research. We analyzed a collection of more than one million porcine expressed sequence tags (ESTs), of which two-thirds were generated in the Sino-Danish Pig Genome Project and one-third are from public databases. The Sino-Danish ESTs were generated from one normalized and 97 non-normalized cDNA libraries representing 35 different tissues and three developmental stages. RESULTS: Using the Distiller package, the ESTs were assembled to roughly 48,000 contigs and 73,000 singletons, of which approximately 25% have a high confidence match to UniProt. Approximately 6,000 new porcine gene clusters were identified. Expression analysis based on the non-normalized libraries resulted in the following findings. The distribution of cluster sizes is scaling invariant. Brain and testes are among the tissues with the greatest number of different expressed genes, whereas tissues with more specialized function, such as developing liver, have fewer expressed genes. There are at least 65 high confidence housekeeping gene candidates and 876 cDNA library-specific gene candidates. We identified differential expression of genes between different tissues, in particular brain/spinal cord, and found patterns of correlation between genes that share expression in pairs of libraries. Finally, there was remarkable agreement in expression between specialized tissues according to Gene Ontology categories. CONCLUSION: This EST collection, the largest to date in pig, represents an essential resource for annotation, comparative genomics, assembly of the pig genome sequence, and further porcine transcription studies.Published versio

SAMHD1-Deficient CD14+ Cells from Individuals with Aicardi-Goutières Syndrome Are Highly Susceptible to HIV-1 Infection

Myeloid blood cells are largely resistant to infection with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). Recently, it was reported that Vpx from HIV-2/SIVsm facilitates infection of these cells by counteracting the host restriction factor SAMHD1. Here, we independently confirmed that Vpx interacts with SAMHD1 and targets it for ubiquitin-mediated degradation. We found that Vpx-mediated SAMHD1 degradation rendered primary monocytes highly susceptible to HIV-1 infection; Vpx with a T17A mutation, defective for SAMHD1 binding and degradation, did not show this activity. Several single nucleotide polymorphisms in the SAMHD1 gene have been associated with Aicardi-Goutières syndrome (AGS), a very rare and severe autoimmune disease. Primary peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from AGS patients homozygous for a nonsense mutation in SAMHD1 (R164X) lacked endogenous SAMHD1 expression and support HIV-1 replication in the absence of exogenous activation. Our results indicate that within PBMC from AGS patients, CD14+ cells were the subpopulation susceptible to HIV-1 infection, whereas cells from healthy donors did not support infection. The monocytic lineage of the infected SAMHD1 -/- cells, in conjunction with mostly undetectable levels of cytokines, chemokines and type I interferon measured prior to infection, indicate that aberrant cellular activation is not the cause for the observed phenotype. Taken together, we propose that SAMHD1 protects primary CD14+ monocytes from HIV-1 infection confirming SAMHD1 as a potent lentiviral restriction factor

Analyses of pig genomes provide insight into porcine demography and evolution

For 10,000 years pigs and humans have shared a close and complex relationship. From domestication to modern breeding practices, humans have shaped the genomes of domestic pigs. Here we present the assembly and analysis of the genome sequence of a female domestic Duroc pig (Sus scrofa) and a comparison with the genomes of wild and domestic pigs from Europe and Asia. Wild pigs emerged in South East Asia and subsequently spread across Eurasia. Our results reveal a deep phylogenetic split between European and Asian wild boars ∼1 million years ago, and a selective sweep analysis indicates selection on genes involved in RNA processing and regulation. Genes associated with immune response and olfaction exhibit fast evolution. Pigs have the largest repertoire of functional olfactory receptor genes, reflecting the importance of smell in this scavenging animal. The pig genome sequence provides an important resource for further improvements of this important livestock species, and our identification of many putative disease-causing variants extends the potential of the pig as a biomedical model

A Balanced Scorecard for Compliance - Requirements of a Comprehensive Compliance-Reporting

Companies increasingly focus on compliance and progressively establish various compliance measures. Despite these efforts, in general no comprehensive overview of all compliance data exists. An enterprise must however communicate its compliance to multiple internal and external stakeholders. A central compliance reporting - ideally using an already existing reporting concept - is to be developed. The balanced scorecard concept is already widely accepted and used for reporting purposes in theory and practice. Companies increasingly focus on compliance and progressively establish various compliance measures. Despite these efforts, in general no comprehensive overview of all compliance data exists. An enterprise must however communicate its compliance to multiple internal and external stakeholders. A central compliance reporting - ideally using an already existing reporting concept - is to be developed. The balanced scorecard concept is already widely accepted and used for reporting purposes in theory and practice