Center Vortex Model for the Infrared Sector of SU(3) Yang-Mills Theory

In this talk, we review some recent results of the center vortex model for the infrared sector of SU(3) Yang-Mills theory. Particular emphasis is put on the order of the finite-temperature deconfining phase transition and the geometrical structure of vortex branchings. We also present preliminary data for the 't Hooft loop operator and the dual string tension near the phase transition.Comment: 3 pages, 7 .eps figures, talk given by M.Q. at 6th Conference on Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum, Villasimius, Sardinia, Italy, 21-25 Sep 200

A Novel Link Between the Chemotaxis and Biofilm Dispersion Systems of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa

Bacterial chemotaxis is the movement of a cell towards an attractant or away from a repellent. This controlled movement is possible due to the chemotaxis system, which is typically made up of several proteins that collectively sense the stimuli and transduce the signal within the cell to mediate a motility response. The chemotaxis proteins of Pseudomonas aeruginosa are encoded in two clusters, which are located at different regions of the chromosome: che I and che V. These gene clusters are known to control chemotaxis via swimming, or flagellar-based, motility. When expressed, these chemotaxis proteins associate with each other to form tight clusters that are composed of thousands of copies of each protein. These clusters localize to the flagellated pole in young cells and show bi-polar localization in older cells. Within cluster che I are genes encoding two Par-like proteins: ParC and ParP. Both Par-like proteins are needed for wild type swimming motility, yet ParP appears to have a more important role as its loss results in a greater swimming defect. Cluster formation of the chemotaxis histidine kinase CheA was reduced by 50% in the absence of either Par-like protein, thus demonstrating a potential mechanism behind the reduced swimming motility. However, the equivalent reduction in foci formation does not explain the larger defect resulting from the absence of ParP. ParC has a predicted ATPase domain and mutation of the ATP binding site resulted in a dominant negative swimming phenotype when expressed in trans. ParP has a CheW-like domain and overexpression of CheW can partially restore swimming motility to a parP mutant. Bacterial two-hybrid results showed that the Par-like proteins interact with each other and the chemotaxis system, and that ParP interacts with DipA, a phosphodiesterase which degrades cyclic-di-GMP and is important for biofilm dispersion and chemotaxis. Deletion of dipA resulted in a similar defect in swimming motility as the parP mutant. Surface flagellin levels were slightly increased in both the parP and dipA mutants, although it is not known if this was due to increased flagellation or longer flagella. Fluorescence microscopy results showed that ParP has an interdependence in polar cluster formation with both CheA and DipA. CheA cluster formation is dependent on ParC. Due to the direct interactions and interdependence of cluster formation of ParP and DipA, and the fact that parP and dipA mutants have similar defects in swimming motility and increases in surface flagellin levels, further investigation into the role of ParP in biofilm dispersion is warranted

IT Support for Intra-Organizational Innovation Networks – An Exploratory Study

The paper examines requirements for IT support in open innovation within companies. Based on an in-depth single-case study, we derive four major levels of IT requirements: incentive & inspiration, information & knowledge, communication & collaboration, and feedback & feed-forward. The multitude of requirements identified on each level clearly points to the need for IT support during the internal open innovation process. The paper concludes that many findings from prior research on innovation management systems apply to the internal open innovation context as well, but with some interesting differences. An IT system for open innovation within a company should pay particular attention to the incentives and inspiration of employees. The system should motivate all employees to participate in open innovation and stimulate innovative ideas by indicating clear benefits as well as recent needs, challenges and developments in their company’s context. Furthermore, a virtual community seems to be a powerful concept for driving open innovation in the company. It fosters the activity of and the interaction between employees, thereby addressing all of our requirement levels. To build and run such an intraorganizational open innovation community, social software offers useful concepts and applications. Based on the identified requirements, we present initial concepts for their implementation

Stiff Structures for Loose Folks – A Platform for an Open Innovation Community

The increasing opening of the innovation process fairly neglected an important group of potential innovators so far: the employees of a company. Their integration offers promising potentials, but also requires an adequate IT support. A virtual innovation community seems to be an adequate construct to funnel the employees’ creativity and knowledge into innovation management, but per se points out the need for structural support. For the implementation we used a social networking based innovation platform prototype, which aims to allow for the integration of all employees into the innovation process. Here, two options are shown to provide transparency and orientation within the innovation platform to the users as well as controlling mechanism to the innovation managers: First, the fundamental innovation structure, which allows for the flexible treatment of elements in the data model and their integrated display at the front end. Second, a semi-structured innovation process is shown, which allows for management and flexible customization

Exploiting synthetic lethal interactions for targeted cancer therapy

March 15, 2011Emerging data suggests that synthetic lethal interactions between mutated oncogenes/tumor suppressor genes and molecules involved in DNA damage signaling and repair can be therapeutically exploited to preferentially kill tumor cells. In this review, we discuss the concept of synthetic lethality, and describe several recent examples in which this concept was successfully implemented to target tumor cells in culture, in mouse models, and in human cancer patients.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant GM68762)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant CA112967)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant ES015339)National Cancer Institute (U.S.). Integrative Cancer Biology Program (Grant U54-CA112967-03)German Research Foundation (RE2246/1-1)David H. Koch Cancer Research FundGerman Kidney Foundatio

Gill transcriptome response to changes in environmental calcium in the green spotted puffer fish

Abstract Background Calcium ion is tightly regulated in body fluids and for euryhaline fish, which are exposed to rapid changes in environmental [Ca2+], homeostasis is especially challenging. The gill is the main organ of active calcium uptake and therefore plays a crucial role in the maintenance of calcium ion homeostasis. To study the molecular basis of the short-term responses to changing calcium availability, the whole gill transcriptome obtained by Super Serial Analysis of Gene Expression (SuperSAGE) of the euryhaline teleost green spotted puffer fish, Tetraodon nigroviridis, exposed to water with altered [Ca2+] was analysed. Results Transfer of T. nigroviridis from 10 ppt water salinity containing 2.9 mM Ca2+ to high (10 mM Ca2+ ) and low (0.01 mM Ca2+) calcium water of similar salinity for 2-12 h resulted in 1,339 differentially expressed SuperSAGE tags (26-bp transcript identifiers) in gills. Of these 869 tags (65%) were mapped to T. nigroviridis cDNAs or genomic DNA and 497 (57%) were assigned to known proteins. Thirteen percent of the genes matched multiple tags indicating alternative RNA transcripts. The main enriched gene ontology groups belong to Ca2+ signaling/homeostasis but also muscle contraction, cytoskeleton, energy production/homeostasis and tissue remodeling. K-means clustering identified co-expressed transcripts with distinct patterns in response to water [Ca2+] and exposure time. Conclusions The generated transcript expression patterns provide a framework of novel water calcium-responsive genes in the gill during the initial response after transfer to different [Ca2+]. This molecular response entails initial perception of alterations, activation of signaling networks and effectors and suggests active remodeling of cytoskeletal proteins during the initial acclimation process. Genes related to energy production and energy homeostasis are also up-regulated, probably reflecting the increased energetic needs of the acclimation response. This study is the first genome-wide transcriptome analysis of fish gills and is an important resource for future research on the short-term mechanisms involved in the gill acclimation responses to environmental Ca2+ changes and osmoregulation.Peer Reviewe