Alveolar macrophages and the diagnosis of drowning

In the present study, we examined the number of alveolar macrophages in lung tissue from 17 cases of fresh water drowning, 22 cases of acute death and 6 cases of lung emphysema. When counting only the number of alveolar macrophages per alveolus without consideration of the alveolar size we found no relevant differences between the groups investigated. To exclude any influence of the alveolar size on the results the surface density of the alveolar macrophages and interstitial tissue was estimated and compared in the different groups. In cases of drowning, the lungs showed significantly lower values in both categories. The ratio of ‘alveolar macrophages/interstitial tissue’ was also reduced in cases of drowning in comparison to the other groups, however, without significant differences. These morphometrical results characterizing the ‘emphysema aquosum’ with almost ‘empty’ and dilated alveoli could be explained by a wash-out effect of the drowning fluid leading to a partial removal of the macrophages from the alveoli. This hypothesis was confirmed by the detection of alveolar macrophages in the drowning froth by immunohistochemical analysis. Even though alveolar macrophages were unambiguously identified in advanced putrefied lungs in HE-stained sections as well as by immunohistochemical staining, an estimation of the number of these cells cannot provide further information for the diagnosis of drowning in putrefied corpses due to the autolytic destruction of the lung architecture providing no reliable values

Entwicklung der Vorwinter-Nmin-Gehalte in Abhängigkeit von Bodeneigenschaften und Bewirtschaftung

Seit dem Jahr 2011 betreut das Ingenieurbüro für Ökologie und Landwirtschaft (IfÖL) aus Kassel verschiedene Maßnahmenräume zur Umsetzung der Wasserrahmenrichtlinie (WRRL) in Hessen. Im Rahmen der landwirtschaftlichen Gewässerschutzberatung wurden jährlich bis zu 600 Bodenproben vor Beginn der Sickerwasserperiode auf mineralischen Stickstoff (Vorwinter-Nmin-Gehalte) untersucht. Der LAWA-Zielwert aus Sicht des Gewässerschutzes von 40-50 kg N/ha (0-90 cm Bodentiefe) wird auf über 53 % Flächen überschritten. Die statistische Auswertung der Vorwinter-Nmin-Gehalte seit 2012 (> 2000 Datensätze) in den unterschiedlichen Regionen zeigt, dass die Bodenart und Bodenqualität nur einen untergeordneten Einfluss auf die Höhe der Vorwinter-Nmin-Gehalte hat. Neben der Anbaukultur sind die Bewirtschaftung und das herbstliche Flächenmanagement die entscheidenden Einflussfaktoren. Die Auswertungen zeigen, dass sich unabhängig von der Bodenqualität, dem Maßnahmenraum und der Anbaukultur der Einfluss einzelner Bewirtschafter signifikant in den Vorwinter-Nmin-Gehalten widerspiegelt

Subtypes of narcissistic personality disorder based on psychotherapy process: A longitudinal nonparametric analysis.

The present study aims at empirically exploring subtypes of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), based on patient descriptors of the psychotherapeutic process. Subtype identification and characterization of NPD is central, in particular, to increase diagnostic precision, linking categorical and dimensional conceptualizations of psychopathology, and to individualize treatments. A total of N = 161 patients diagnosed with NPD undergoing clarification-oriented psychotherapy were included in the present reanalysis of a naturalistic pre-post process-outcome study. At three crucial time-points of the therapy (Sessions 15, 20, and 25), the patient's in-session quality of content, process, and relationship are assessed using intensive video- and audio analyses. Levels of psychopathology were assessed using self-reported questionnaires. Data were analyzed using longitudinal nonparametric analysis. Based on in-session processes across three time-points, a two-subtype solution was retained (optimal vs. suboptimal process qualities). Optimal process quality of time was linked with the intensity of narcissistic symptoms; suboptimal process quality was linked with a variety of general symptom loads and problematic personality traits. The two empirical subtypes were predicted by the quality of real-life functioning with an accuracy of more than 92% and were partially associated with outcome. NPD may be empirically differentiated between patients engaging in optimal psychotherapy process versus those who engage in suboptimal psychotherapy process. This differentiation has reliable clinical predictors at the outset of treatment. The present study has implications in terms of personalizing psychotherapy for patients presenting NPD, or pathological narcissism. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

The Reaction Specificity of Mammalian ALOX15 Orthologs is Changed During Late Primate Evolution and These Alterations Might Offer Evolutionary Advantages for Hominidae

Arachidonic acid lipoxygenases (ALOXs) have been implicated in the immune response of mammals. The reaction specificity of these enzymes is decisive for their biological functions and ALOX classification is based on this enzyme property. Comparing the amino acid sequences and the functional properties of selected mammalian ALOX15 orthologs we previously hypothesized that the reaction specificity of these enzymes can be predicted based on their amino acid sequences (Triad Concept) and that mammals, which are ranked in evolution below gibbons, express arachidonic acid 12-lipoxygenating ALOX15 orthologs. In contrast, Hominidae involving the great apes and humans possess 15-lipoxygenating enzymes (Evolutionary Hypothesis). These two hypotheses were based on sequence data of some 60 mammalian ALOX15 orthologs and about half of them were functionally characterized. Here, we compared the ALOX15 sequences of 152 mammals representing all major mammalian subclades expressed 44 novel ALOX15 orthologs and performed extensive mutagenesis studies of their triad determinants. We found that ALOX15 genes are absent in extant Prototheria but that corresponding enzymes frequently occur in Metatheria and Eutheria. More than 90% of them catalyze arachidonic acid 12-lipoxygenation and the Triad Concept is applicable to all of them. Mammals ranked in evolution above gibbons express arachidonic acid 15-lipoxygenating ALOX15 orthologs but enzymes with similar specificity are only present in less than 5% of mammals ranked below gibbons. This data suggests that ALOX15 orthologs have been introduced during Prototheria-Metatheria transition and put the Triad Concept and the Evolutionary Hypothesis on a much broader and more reliable experimental basis

Generating Performance Portable Code using Rewrite Rules: From High-Level Functional Expressions to High-Performance OpenCL Code

Computers have become increasingly complex with the emergence of heterogeneous hardware combining multicore CPUs and GPUs. These parallel systems exhibit tremendous computational power at the cost of increased programming effort resulting in a tension between performance and code portability. Typically, code is either tuned in a low-level imperative language using hardware-specific optimizations to achieve maximum performance or is written in a high-level, possibly functional, language to achieve portability at the expense of performance. We propose a novel approach aiming to combine high-level programming, code portability, and high-performance. Starting from a high-level functional expression we apply a simple set of rewrite rules to transform it into a low-level functional representation, close to the OpenCL programming model, from which OpenCL code is generated. Our rewrite rules define a space of possible implementations which we automatically explore to generate hardware-specific OpenCL implementations. We formalize our system with a core dependently-typed λ-calculus along with a denotational semantics which we use to prove the correctness of the rewrite rules. We test our design in practice by implementing a compiler which generates high performance imperative OpenCL code. Our experiments show that we can automatically derive hardware-specific implementations from simple functional high-level algorithmic expressions offering performance on a par with highly tuned code for multicore CPUs and GPUs written by experts

Empirical Installation of Linear Algebra Shared-Memory Subroutines for Auto-Tuning

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10766-013-0249-6The introduction of auto-tuning techniques in linear algebra shared-memory routines is analyzed. Information obtained in the installation of the routines is used at running time to take some decisions to reduce the total execution time. The study is carried out with routines at different levels (matrix multiplication, LU and Cholesky factorizations and linear systems symmetric or general routines) and with calls to routines in the LAPACK and PLASMA libraries with multithread implementations. Medium NUMA and large cc-NUMA systems are used in the experiments. This variety of routines, libraries and systems allows us to obtain general conclusions about the methodology to use for linear algebra shared-memory routines auto-tuning. Satisfactory execution times are obtained with the proposed methodology.Partially supported by Fundacion Seneca, Consejeria de Educacion de la Region de Murcia, 08763/PI/08, PROMETEO/2009/013 from Generalitat Valenciana, the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science through TIN2012-38341-C04-03, and the High-Performance Computing Network on Parallel Heterogeneus Architectures (CAPAP-H). The authors gratefully acknowledge the computer resources and assistance provided by the Supercomputing Centre of the Scientific Park Foundation of Murcia and by the Centre de Supercomputacio de Catalunya.Cámara, J.; Cuenca, J.; Giménez, D.; García, LP.; Vidal Maciá, AM. (2014). Empirical Installation of Linear Algebra Shared-Memory Subroutines for Auto-Tuning. International Journal of Parallel Programming. 42(3):408-434. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10766-013-0249-6S408434423Agullo, E., Demmel, J., Dongarra, J., Hadri, B., Kurzak, J., Langou, J., Ltaief, H., Luszczek, P., Tomov, S.: Numerical linear algebra on emerging architectures: the PLASMA and MAGMA projects. J. Phys. Conf. Ser. 180(1), 1–5 (2009)Alberti, P., Alonso, P., Vidal, A.M., Cuenca, J., Giménez, D.: Designing polylibraries to speed up linear algebra computations. Int. J. High Perform. Comput. Netw. 1/2/3(1), 75–84 (2004)Anderson, E., Bai, Z., Bischof, C., Demmel, J., Dongarra, J.J., Du Croz, J., Grenbaum, A., Hammarling, S., McKenney, A., Ostrouchov, S., D. Sorensen, S.: LAPACK User’s Guide. Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Philadelphia (1995)Bernabé, G., Cuenca, J., Giménez, D.: Optimization techniques for 3D-FWT on systems with manycore GPUs and multicore CPUs. In: ICCS (2013)Buttari, A., Langou, J., Kurzak, J., Dongarra, J.: A class of parallel tiled linear algebra algorithms for multicore architectures. Parallel Comput. 35(1), 38–53 (2009)Cámara, J., Cuenca, J., Giménez, D., Vidal. A.M.: Empirical autotuning of two-level parallel linear algebra routines on large cc-NUMA systems. In: ISPA (2012)Caron, E., Desprez, F., Suter, F.: Parallel extension of a dynamic performance forecasting tool. Scalable Comput. Pract. Exp. 6(1), 57–69 (2005)Chen, Z., Dongarra, J., Luszczek, P., Roche, K.: Self adapting software for numerical linear algebra and LAPACK for clusters. Parallel Comput. 29, 1723–1743 (2003)Cuenca, J., Giménez, D., González, J.: Achitecture of an automatic tuned linear algebra library. Parallel Comput. 30(2), 187–220 (2004)Cuenca, J., García, L.P., Giménez, D.: Improving linear algebra computation on NUMA platforms through auto-tuned nested parallelism. In: Proceedings of the 2012 EUROMICRO Conference on Parallel, Distributed and Network Processing (2012)Frigo, M.: FFTW: An adaptive software architecture for the FFT. In: Proceedings of the ICASSP Conference, vol. 3, p. 1381 (1998)Golub, G., Van Loan, C.F.: Matrix Computations, 3rd edn. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore (1996)Im, E.-J., Yelick, K., Vuduc, R.: Sparsity: optimization framework for sparse matrix kernels. Int. J. High Perform. Comput. Appl. (IJHPCA) 18(1), 135–158 (2004)Intel MKL web page.: http://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-mkl/Jerez, S., Montávez, J.-P., Giménez, D.: Optimizing the execution of a parallel meteorology simulation code. In: Proceedings of the 23rd IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium. IEEE (2009)Katagiri, T., Kise, K., Honda, H., Yuba, T.: Fiber: a generalized framework for auto-tuning software. Springer LNCS 2858, 146–159 (2003)Katagiri, T., Kise, K., Honda, H., Yuba, T.: ABCLib-DRSSED: a parallel eigensolver with an auto-tuning facility. Parallel Comput. 32(3), 231–250 (2006)Kurzak, J., Tomov, S., Dongarra, J.: Autotuning gemm kernels for the FERMI GPU. IEEE Trans. Parallel Distrib. Syst. 23(11), 2045–2057 (2012)Lastovetsky, A.L., Reddy, R., Higgins, R.: Building the functional performance model of a processor. In: SAC, pp. 746–753 (2006)Li, J., Skjellum, A., Falgout, R.D.: A poly-algorithm for parallel dense matrix multiplication on two-dimensional process grid topologies. Concurrency Pract. Exp. 9(5), 345–389 (1997)Naono, K., Teranishi, K., Cavazos, J., Suda, R., (eds.): Software Automatic Tuning. From Concepts to State-of-the-Art Results. Springer, Berlin (2010)Nath, R., Tomov, S., Dongarra, J.: An improved MAGMA gemm for FERMI graphics processing units. IJHPCA 24(4), 511–515 (2010)Petitet, A., Blackford, L.S., Dongarra, J., Ellis, B., Fagg, G.E., Roche, K., Vadhiyar, S.S.: Numerical libraries and the grid. IJHPCA 15(4), 359–374 (2001)PLASMA.: http://icl.cs.utk.edu/plasma/Püschel, M., Moura, J.M.F., Singer, B., Xiong, J., Johnson, J.R., Padua, D.A., Veloso, M.M., Johnson, R.W.: Spiral: a generator for platform-adapted libraries of signal processing algorithms. IJHPCA 18(1), 21–45 (2004)Seshagiri, L., Wu, M.-S., Sosonkina, M., Zhang, Z., Gordon, M.S., Schmidt, M.W.: Enhancing adaptive middleware for quantum chemistry applications with a database framework. In: IPDPS Workshops, pp. 1–8 (2010)Tanaka, T., Katagiri, T., Yuba, T.: d-Spline based incremental parameter estimation in automatic performance tuning. In: PARA, pp. 986–995 (2006)Vuduc, R., Demmel, J., Bilmes, J.: Statistical models for automatic performance tuning. In: International Conference on Computational Science (1), pp. 117–126 (2001)Whaley, R.C., Petitet, A., Dongarra, J.: Automated empirical optimizations of software and the ATLAS project. Parallel Comput. 27(1–2), 3–35 (2001

Quantitative High-Resolution Genomic Analysis of Single Cancer Cells

During cancer progression, specific genomic aberrations arise that can determine the scope of the disease and can be used as predictive or prognostic markers. The detection of specific gene amplifications or deletions in single blood-borne or disseminated tumour cells that may give rise to the development of metastases is of great clinical interest but technically challenging. In this study, we present a method for quantitative high-resolution genomic analysis of single cells. Cells were isolated under permanent microscopic control followed by high-fidelity whole genome amplification and subsequent analyses by fine tiling array-CGH and qPCR. The assay was applied to single breast cancer cells to analyze the chromosomal region centred by the therapeutical relevant EGFR gene. This method allows precise quantitative analysis of copy number variations in single cell diagnostics