Female scholars need to achieve more for equal public recognition

Different kinds of "gender gap" have been reported in different walks of the scientific life, almost always favouring male scientists over females. In this work, for the first time, we present a large-scale empirical analysis to ask whether female scientists with the same level of scientific accomplishment are as likely as males to be recognised. We particularly focus on Wikipedia, the open online encyclopedia that its open nature allows us to have a proxy of community recognition. We calculate the probability of appearing on Wikipedia as a scientist for both male and female scholars in three different fields. We find that women in Physics, Economics and Philosophy are considerable less likely than men to be recognised on Wikipedia across all levels of achievement.Comment: Under revie

Interferons, properties and applications

The main theme of this thesis is the clinical evaluation of interferon. From the biology of the interferon system and animal experiments it can be expected that exogenous interferon will exert its optimum effect when used to prevent acute infections or to modulate chronic infections. Therefore, we administered interferon to patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection (chapter 5) and to renal transplant recipients, in whom viral infections occur frequently in the first months after transplantation (chapter 6). The other studies in this thesis are directly related to the problems we met in the clinical studies. We wanted to study interferon in an animal renal transplantation model. For us the most obvious choice was the rat. However, little was known about the production and characterization of rat interferon. Chapter 2 describes our experiences with rat interferon. While we were well underway with the study in renal transplant recipients, we were contacted by Martin Hirsch, who was conducting a similar trial in Boston. Some of his patients receiving 3 x 106 U HLI every other day showed severe bone marrow depression. We had no such problem in our trial, but we used another type of interferon: HFI. For this reason we started a study on the t'oxicity of interferons for bone marrow in vitro

Quality of Original and Biosimilar Epoetin Products

# The Author(s) 2010. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Purpose To compare the quality of therapeutic erythropoietin (EPO) products, including two biosimilars, with respect to content, aggregation, isoform profile and potency. Methods Two original products, Eprex (epoetin alfa) and Dynepo (epoetin delta), and two biosimilar products, Binocrit (epoetin alfa) and Retacrit (epoetin zeta), were compared using (1) high performance size exclusion chromatography, (2) ELISA, (3) SDS-PAGE, (4) capillary zone electrophoresis and (5) in-vivo potency. Results Tested EPO products differed in content, isoform composition, and potency. Conclusion Of the tested products, the biosimilars have the same or even better quality as the originals. Especially, the potency of originals may significantly differ from the value on the label

Biosimilar therapeutics—what do we need to consider?

Patents for the first generation of approved biopharmaceuticals have either expired or are about to expire. Thus the market is opening for generic versions, referred to as ‘biosimilars’ (European Union) or ‘follow-on protein products’ (United States). Healthcare professionals need to understand the critical issues surrounding the use of biosimilars to make informed treatment decisions

Observation of atom pairs in spontaneous four wave mixing of two colliding Bose-Einstein Condensates

We study atom scattering from two colliding Bose-Einstein condensates using a position sensitive, time resolved, single atom detector. In analogy to quantum optics, the process can also be thought of as spontaneous, degenerate four wave mixing of de Broglie waves. We find a clear correlation between atoms with opposite momenta, demonstrating pair production in the scattering process. We also observe a Hanbury Brown and Twiss correlation for collinear momenta, which permits an independent measurement of the size of the pair production source and thus the size of the spatial mode. The back to back pairs occupy very nearly two oppositely directed spatial modes, a promising feature for future quantum optics experiments.Comment: A few typos have been correcte

Immunogenicity of Therapeutic Proteins: The Use of Animal Models

Immunogenicity of therapeutic proteins lowers patient well-being and drastically increases therapeutic costs. Preventing immunogenicity is an important issue to consider when developing novel therapeutic proteins and applying them in the clinic. Animal models are increasingly used to study immunogenicity of therapeutic proteins. They are employed as predictive tools to assess different aspects of immunogenicity during drug development and have become vital in studying the mechanisms underlying immunogenicity of therapeutic proteins. However, the use of animal models needs critical evaluation. Because of species differences, predictive value of such models is limited, and mechanistic studies can be restricted. This review addresses the suitability of animal models for immunogenicity prediction and summarizes the insights in immunogenicity that they have given so far

Setting Up an Industrial Control Systems Laboratory

With the evolution of Industrial Control Systems, many solutions from vendors are offered for industries. But sadly, most of those solutions are close-sourced, delivering lack of support for third parties who aim to develop Industrial Control Systems further. A start-up company named SecurityMatters needs an industrial instrument to simulate industrial environment to have a better idea how a particular protocol works. The application made in this project was developed using Java programming language to have compatibilities across platforms. An Object-Oriented-Programming and Model-View-Controller pattern are used as well to ensure maintainability. This application can be used to demonstrate capabilities of Modbus protocol and test industrial devices for vulnerabilities

De universiteitsbibliotheek in het databankenrecht

Universiteitsbibliotheken hebben vanouds te maken gehad met auteursrechten die rusten op de werken in hun collecties. Sinds 1999 kent het Nederlandse recht naast het auteursrecht het zogenaamde databankenrecht. Het databankenrecht beschermt de investeringen die producenten van databanken hebben gepleegd. Daartoe verschaft het databankenrecht de producenten - kort gezegd - een exclusief recht om hun databanken te exploiteren. Het databankenrecht (en het auteursrecht) raken het functioneren van bibliotheken in tweeërlei opzicht. Met de opkomst van gedigitaliseerde informatie is de bibliotheek enerzijds als afneemster van databanken in een afhankelijkere positie komen te verkeren. Anderzijds bestaat de toegevoegde waarde die bibliotheken realiseren voor een deel uit de voortbrenging van databanken, zoals bijvoorbeeld catalogi. Deze databanken zijn - met name als ze in digitale vorm verkeren - technisch gemakkelijk te exploiteren. Deze studie onderzoekt of het vanuit een juridisch perspectief noodzakelijk dan wel wenselijk is dat bibliotheken zich meer gaan profileren als producenten van informatie.

Локальные элиминационные алгоритмы обработки запросов в базах данных

Рассмотрено использование локальных элиминационных алгоритмов (ЛЭА) для обработки запросов в реляционных базах данных. Обсуждаются особенности реализации локального алгоритма, использующего лишь прямую часть.Розглянуто використання локальних елімінаційних алгоритмів (ЛЕА) для обробки запитів в реляційних базах даних. Обговорюються особливості реалізації локального алгоритму, що використовує лише пряму частину.The applying local elimination algorithms (LEA) for processing queries in relational databases is considered. The special features of realization of local algorithm using only a forward part are discussed