Fortified Settlements of the 9th and 10th Centuries ad in Central Europe: structure, function and symbolism

Open access article. © Society for Medieval Archaeology 2012.The structure, function(s)and symbolism of early medieval (9th-10th centuries ad) fortified settlements from central Europe, in particular today's Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia, are examined in this paper. It offers an overview of the current state of research together with new insights based on analysis of the site of Gars-Thunau in Lower Austria. Special emphasis is given to the position of the fortified sites in the landscape, to the elements of the built environment and their spatial organisation, as well as to graves within the fortified area. The region under study was situated on the SE border of the Carolingian (and later the Ottonian) Empire, with some of the discussed sites lying in the territory of the 'Great Moravian Empire' in the 9th and 10th centuries. These sites can therefore provide important comparative data for researchers working in other parts of the Carolingian Empire and neighbouring regions.Alexander von Humboldt FoundationAustrian Science Fun

Characterization of a distinct population of circulating human non-adherent endothelial forming cells and their recruitment via intercellular adhesion molecule-3

Circulating vascular progenitor cells contribute to the pathological vasculogenesis of cancer whilst on the other hand offer much promise in therapeutic revascularization in post-occlusion intervention in cardiovascular disease. However, their characterization has been hampered by the many variables to produce them as well as their described phenotypic and functional heterogeneity. Herein we have isolated, enriched for and then characterized a human umbilical cord blood derived CD133+ population of non-adherent endothelial forming cells (naEFCs) which expressed the hematopoietic progenitor cell markers (CD133, CD34, CD117, CD90 and CD38) together with mature endothelial cell markers (VEGFR2, CD144 and CD31). These cells also expressed low levels of CD45 but did not express the lymphoid markers (CD3, CD4, CD8)or myeloid markers (CD11b and CD14) which distinguishes them from ‘early’ endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs). Functional studies demonstrated that these naEFCs (i) bound Ulex europaeus lectin, (ii)demonstrated acetylated-low density lipoprotein uptake, (iii) increased vascular cell adhesion molecule (VCAM-1) surface expression in response to tumor necrosis factor and (iv) in co-culture with mature endothelial cells increased the number of tubes, tubule branching and loops in a 3- dimensional in vitro matrix. More importantly, naEFCs placed in vivo generated new lumen containing vasculature lined by CD144 expressing human endothelial cells (ECs). Extensive genomic and proteomic analyses of the naEFCs showed that intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM)-3 is expressed on their cell surface but not on mature endothelial cells. Furthermore, functional analysis demonstrated that ICAM-3 mediated the rolling and adhesive events of the naEFCs under shear stress. We suggest that the distinct population of naEFCs identified and characterized here represents a new valuable therapeutic target to control aberrant vasculogenesis.Sarah L. Appleby, Michaelia P. Cockshell, Jyotsna B. Pippal, Emma J. Thompson, Jeffrey M. Barrett, Katie Tooley, Shaundeep Sen, Wai Yan Sun, Randall Grose, Ian Nicholson, Vitalina Levina, Ira Cooke, Gert Talbo, Angel F. Lopez and Claudine S. Bonde

A Semantics Extraction Framework for Decision Support in Context-Specific Social Web Networks

We are now part of a networked society, characterized by the intensive use and dependence of information systems that deals with communication and information, to support decision-making. It is thus clear that organizations, in order to interact effectively with their customers, need to manage their communication activities at the level of online channels. Monitoring these communications can contribute to obtain decision support insights, reduce costs, optimize processes, etc. In this work, we semantically studied the discursive exchanges of a Facebook group created by a strawberries’ seller, in order to predict, through Social Network Analysis (SNA) and semantic analysis of the posts, the quantities to be ordered by customers. The obtained results show that the unstructured data of the Web’s speech can be used to support the decision through SNA.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

MALDI-tof/tof-MS of N-glysocylated naEFC membrane proteins using hydrazide-bead capture.

<p>The consensus motif for N-linked glycosylation is highlighted in bold.</p

Hematopoietic properties of naEFCs.

<p>naEFCs were seeded in MethoCult and growth factors GM-CSF, IL-3, SCF and EPO for 14 days prior to colony counting and staining with May Grunwald/Giemsa to assess cellular morphology. naEFCs formed blast-forming unit-erythroid (BFU-E), colony-forming units (CFU)-GEMM, -GM, -G and -M colonies in methylcellulose. Colony formation was photographed and quantified after 14 days and compared between naEFCs and freshly isolated CD133⁺ and CD133⁻ cells (mean ± sem, n = 3).</p