Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy in cancer patients : a four-arm randomized trial on the effectiveness of electroacupuncture

Purpose. Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is a common and dose-limiting side effect of cytostatic drugs. Since there are no proven therapeutic procedures against CIPN, we were interested to define the role of electroacupuncture (EA) from which preliminary data showed promising results. Methods. In a randomized trial with a group sequential adaptive design in patients with CIPN, we compared EA (LV3, SP9, GB41, GB34, LI4, LI11, SI3, and HT3; n=14) with hydroelectric baths (HB, n=14), vitamin B1/B6 capsules (300/300 mg daily; VitB, n=15), and placebo capsules (n=17). The statistical power in this trial was primarily calculated for proving EA only, so results of HB and VitB are pilot data. Results. CIPN complaints improved by 0.8 +- 1.2 (EA), 1.7 +- 1.7 (HB), 1.6 +- 2.0 (VitB), and 1.3 +- 1.3 points (placebo) on a 10-point numeric rating scale without significant difference between treatment groups or placebo. In addition no significant differences in sensory nerve conduction studies or quality of life (EORTC QLQ-C30) were found. Conclusions. The used EA concept, HB, and VitB were not superior to placebo. Since, contrary to our results, studies with different acupuncture concepts showed a positive effect on CIPN, the effect of acupuncture on CIPN remains unclear. Further randomized, placebo controlled studies seem necessary. This trial is registered with DRKS00004448

MorphoCluster: Efficient Annotation of Plankton Images by Clustering

In this work, we present MorphoCluster, a software tool for data-driven, fast, and accurate annotation of large image data sets. While already having surpassed the annotation rate of human experts, volume and complexity of marine data will continue to increase in the coming years. Still, this data requires interpretation. MorphoCluster augments the human ability to discover patterns and perform object classification in large amounts of data by embedding unsupervised clustering in an interactive process. By aggregating similar images into clusters, our novel approach to image annotation increases consistency, multiplies the throughput of an annotator, and allows experts to adapt the granularity of their sorting scheme to the structure in the data. By sorting a set of 1.2 M objects into 280 data-driven classes in 71 h (16 k objects per hour), with 90% of these classes having a precision of 0.889 or higher. This shows that MorphoCluster is at the same time fast, accurate, and consistent; provides a fine-grained and data-driven classification; and enables novelty detection

Production de litières par des forêts situées dans le pré-delta du fleuve Paraná (Argentine)

• The objectives of this study were to measure litterfall production of the four floodplain forest types and to analyze the relationship between litterfall (forest type, dominant species, organic fractions) and flood pulses. • Litterfall production was measured in two mono-specific stands of Salix humboldtiana or Tessaria integrifolia, respectively, and two mixed forests dominated by A. inundata or Nectandra angustifolia, during 1998 and the 2000–2002 periods. • Mono-specific stands presented similar productivities (6.8 and 6.5 Mg dry matter ha−1 y−1, respectively), but differed significantly from the two other. The highest litterfall production was obtained during the large flood that occurred during 1998, decreasing later throughout the study period. Leaves were the dominant fraction of litterfall, followed by branches, flowers and fruits. • Only S. humboldtiana, T. integrifolia and A. inundata forests showed distinct patterns of litterfall production, depending on the flooding pulse. N. angustifolia did not show a distinctive litterfall pattern • The forests studied here presented patterns of litter production associated with the flood pulse according to its location along a topographic gradient, that controls the litter productivity of these forests.• Cette étude avait pour but de mesurer la production de litière dans quatre forêts alluviales et d’analyser les relations entre les litières (selon le type de forêt, l’espèce dominante, et des fractions organiques) et les crues du fleuve Paraná (Argentine). • La production de litière a été mesurée dans deux forêts monospécifiques de Salix humboldtiana ou de Tessaria integrifolia, et dans deux forêts mixtes où l’espèce prédominante était soit Albizia inundata soit Nectandra angustifolia. Cette étude a été menée en 1998 puis de 2000 à 2002. • Les forêts monospécifiques présentent des productions de litières similaires (6.8 et 6.5 Mg matière sèche ha−1 ans−1 respectivement) et étaient significativement différentes des deux forêts mixtes. La plus forte production de litière a été obtenue au cours de la grande crue de 1998, puis a diminué progressivement au cours du temps. Les feuilles représentaient la principale fraction des litières, tandis que les branches, les fleurs et les fruits constituent des fractions mineures. • Les forêts dominées par S. humboldtiana, T. integrifolia et A. inundata ont vu leur production de litière évoluer en fonction des crues du fleuve Parana. Ce type de relation entre crue et production de litière n’a pas été détecté dans le cas des forêts de N. angustifolia. • Il existe ainsi une relation entre la production de litière et la hauteur des crues, elle-même conditionnée par un gradient topographique, qui détermine donc la production de litière de ces forêts.We are grateful to R. D’Angelo, R. Zanello, and O. Bejarano for their help in field data collection; and to “National Parks Administration (APN)” for allowing this study. Recognitions to the anonymous reviewers which helped to improve the original manuscript. This research has been partially funded by the PICT-ANPCyT 11928, the PIP-CONICET 6374, and the PID-UNER 2089/01.Peer reviewe

Zwischen Verbetrieblichung und Europäisierung: oder "can the German model survive"?

"Der Beitrag diskutiert den Wandel deutscher Arbeitsbeziehungen in der Exportindustrie durch die doppelte Herausforderung von betrieblichen sowie wohlfahrtsstaatlichen Strukturveränderungen einerseits und europäischer Integration andererseits. Die These des Beitrages ist, dass sich die deutschen Arbeitsbeziehungen zu einem mehrstufigen Verhandlungsmodell verändern, innerhalb dessen die dezentralen Vereinbarungen an Relevanz gewinnen. Allerdings bleibt der Flächentarifvertrag die zentrale Referenzgröße für die Mehrheit der dezentralen Vereinbarungen. Ein prominentes Beispiel fair diese Entwicklung ist das Volkswagen-Projekt '5.000 x 5.000'. Gleichzeitig gibt es gegenläufige Entwicklungen, die zu einer Ausweitung tarifpolitischer Kompetenzen auf der Ebene des Flächentarifvertrages führen: beispielsweise die tarifliche Regelung einer privaten, kapitalgedeckten Zusatzrente. Auf europäischer Regulierungsebene wurde in den 90er Jahren ein wettbewerbspolitisches Paradigma in die europäische Lohnpolitik implementiert. Während institutionalisierte Formen der Koordinierung von Geld- und Lohnpolitik unrealistisch sind, suchen die Gewerkschaften die Basis für eine eigene transnationale Koordinierungspolitik zu legen. Der erste Streik unter dem Euro im Frühjahr 2002 in der deutschen Metallindustrie zeigt, dass weiterhin Handlungsspielräume für nationale Tarifpolitik bestehen." (Autorenreferat)"The article discusses changes in the German industrial relations system stemming from decentralization and changes in the German welfare state as well as the effects of European Integration. It is argued that a multilevel political bargaining structure is emerging characterised by declining coverage and a quantitative and qualitative expansion of decentralised agreements. But the majority of decentralised agreements relate to sectoral collective agreements (Flächentarifvertrag). One important example is the project '5.000 x 5.000' launched by Volkswagen. At the same time developments in the opposite direction are taking place that extending the competences of the collective bargaining partners to private pension schemes. At the European level in the 1990s, a paradigm driven by competitiveness was implemented that dominates wage policy. While institutionalized forms of co-ordination of monetary and wage policy seem to be unrealistic, trade unions are seeking to lay the foundations of a co-ordination policy of their own. The strike in German metal industry 2002 demonstrates that there is space left for national wage policy." (author's abstract

A surrogate model for data-driven magnetic stray field calculations

In this contribution we propose a data-driven surrogate model for the prediction of magnetic stray fields in two-dimensional random micro-heterogeneous materials. Since data driven models require thousands of training data sets, FEM simulations appear to be too time consuming. Hence, a stochastic model based on Brownian motion, which utilizes an efficient evaluation of stochastic transition matrices, is applied for the training data generation. For the encoding of the microstructure and the optimization of the surrogate model, two architectures are compared, i.e. the so-called UResNet model and the Fourier Convolutional neural network (FCNN). Here we analyze two FCNNs, one based on the discrete cosine transformation and one based on the complex-valued discrete Fourier transformation. Finally, we compare the magnetic stray fields for independent microstructures (not used in the training set) with results from the FE$^2$ method, a numerical homogenization scheme, to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed surrogate model

Decomposition of Random Errors Inherent to HOAPS-3.2 Near-Surface Humidity Estimates Using Multiple Triple Collocation Analysis

Latent heat fluxes (LHF) play an essential role in the global energy budget and are thus important for understanding the climate system. Satellite-based remote sensing permits a large-scale determination of LHF, which, amongst others, are based on near-surface specific humidity qa. However, the qa random retrieval error (Etot) remains unknown. Here, a novel approach is presented to quantify the error contributions to pixel-level qa of the Hamburg Ocean Atmosphere Parameters and Fluxes from Satellite (HOAPS, version 3.2) dataset. The methodology makes use of multiple triple collocation (MTC) analysis between 1995-2008 over the global ice-free oceans. Apart from satellite records, these datasets include selected ship records extracted from the Seewetteramt Hamburg (SWA) archive and the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS), serving as the in-situ ground reference. The MTC approach permits the derivation of Etot as the sum of model uncertainty EM and sensor noise EN, while random uncertainties due to in-situ measurement errors (Eins) and collocation (EC) are isolated concurrently. Results show an Etot average of 1.1 ± 0.3 g kg-1, whereas the mean EC (Eins) is in the order of 0.5 ± 0.1 g kg-1 (0.5 ± 0.3 g kg-1). Regional analyses indicate a maximum of Etot exceeding 1.5 g kg-1 within humidity regimes of 12-17 g kg-1, associated with the single-parameter, multilinear qa retrieval applied in HOAPS. Multi-dimensional bias analysis reveals that global maxima are located off the Arabian Peninsula

Synthesis, Characterization And Antitumor Activity Of Copper(II) Complexes, [CuL2] [HL1-3=N,N-Diethyl-N'-(R-Benzoyl)Thiourea (R=H, o-Cl and p-NO2)]

The copper (II) complexes (CuL2) were prepared by reaction of Cu(CH3COO)2 with the corresponding derivatives of acylthioureas in a Cu:HL molar ratio of 1:2. Acylthiourea ligands, N,N-diethyl-N'-(R-benzoyl) thiourea (HL1-3) [R=H, o-Cl and p-NO2] were synthesized in high yield (78-83%) and characterized by elemental analysis, infrared spectroscopy, 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy. The complexes CuL2 were characterized by elemental analysis, IR, FAB(+)-MS, magnetic susceptibility measurements, EPR and cyclic voltammetry. The crystal structure of the complex Cu(L2)2 shows a nearly square-planar geometry with two deprotonated ligands (L) coordinated to CuII through the oxygen and sulfur atoms in a cis arrangement. The antitumor activity of the copper(II) complexes with acylthiourea ligands was evaluated in vitro against the mouse mammary adenocarcinoma TA3 cell line. These complexes exhibited much higher cytotoxic activity (IC50 values in the range of 3.9-6.9 μM) than their corresponding ligands (40-240 μM), which indicates that the coordination of the chelate ligands around the CuII enhances the antitumor activity and, furthermore, this result confirmed that the participation of the nitro and chloro substituent groups in the complex activities is slightly relevant. The high accumulation of the complexes Cu(L2)2 and Cu(L3)2 in TA3 tumor cells and the much faster binding to cellular DNA than Cu(L1)2 are consistent with the in vitro cytotoxic activities found for these copper complexes

Long-Term Behavior of Defined Mixed Cultures of Geobacter sulfurreducens and Shewanella oneidensis in Bioelectrochemical Systems

This work aims to investigate the long-term behavior of interactions of electrochemically active bacteria in bioelectrochemical systems. The electrochemical performance and biofilm characteristics of pure cultures of Geobacter sulfurreducens and Shewanella oneidensis are being compared to a defined mixed culture of both organisms. While S. oneidensis pure cultures did not form cohesive and stable biofilms on graphite anodes and only yielded 0.034 ± 0.011 mA/cm2 as maximum current density by feeding of each 5 mM lactate and acetate, G. sulfurreducens pure cultures formed 69 μm thick, area-wide biofilms with 10 mM acetate as initial substrate concentration and yielded a current of 0.39 ± 0.09 mA/cm2. Compared to the latter, a defined mixed culture of both species was able to yield 38% higher maximum current densities of 0.54 ± 0.07 mA/cm2 with each 5 mM lactate and acetate. This increase in current density was associated with a likewise increased thickness of the anodic biofilm to approximately 93 μm. It was further investigated whether a sessile incorporation of S. oneidensis into the mixed culture biofilm, which has been reported previously for short-term experiments, is long-term stable. The results demonstrate that S. oneidensis was not stably incorporated into the biofilm; rather, the planktonic presence of S. oneidensis has a positive effect on the biofilm growth of G. sulfurreducens and thus on current production

Citrate influences microbial Fe hydroxide reduction via a dissolution-disaggregation mechanism

Microbial reduction of ferric iron is partly dependent on Fe hydroxide particle size. Nanosized Fe hydroxides greatly exceed the bioavailability of their counterparts larger than 1 μm. Citrate as a low molecular weight organic acid can likewise stabilize colloidal suspensions against aggregation by electrostatic repulsion but also increase Fe bioavailability by enhancing Fe hydroxide solubility. The aim of this study was to see whether adsorption of citrate onto surfaces of large ferrihydrite aggregates results in the formation of a stable colloidal suspension by electrostatic repulsion and how this effect influences microbial Fe reduction. Furthermore, we wanted to discriminate between citrate-mediated colloid stabilization out of larger aggregates and ferrihydrite dissolution and their influence on microbial Fe hydroxide reduction. Dissolution kinetics of ferrihydrite aggregates induced by different concentrations of citrate and humic acids were compared to microbial reduction kinetics with Geobacter sulfurreducens. Dynamic light scattering results showed the formation of a stable colloidal suspension and colloids with hydrodynamic diameters of 69 (± 37) to 165 (± 65) nm for molar citrate:Fe ratios of 0.1 to 0.5 and partial dissolution of ferrihydrite at citrate:Fe ratios ≥ 0.1. No dissolution or colloid stabilization was detected in the presence of humic acids. Adsorption of citrate, necessary for dissolution, reversed the surface charge and led to electrostatic repulsion between sub-aggregates of ferrihydrite and colloid stabilization when the citrate:Fe ratio was above a critical value (≤ 0.1). Lower ratios resulted in stronger ferrihydrite aggregation instead of formation of a stable colloidal suspension, owing to neutralization of the positive surface charge. At the same time, microbial ferrihydrite reduction increased from 0.029 to 0.184 mM h-1 indicating that colloids stabilized by citrate addition enhanced microbial Fe reduction. Modelling of abiotic dissolution kinetics revealed that colloid stabilization was most pronounced at citrate:Fe ratios of 0.1 – 0.5, whereas higher ratios led to enhanced dissolution of both colloidal and larger aggregated fractions. Mathematical simulation of the microbial reduction kinetics under consideration of partial dissolution and colloid stabilization showed that the bioaccessibility increases in the order large aggregates < stable colloids < Fe-citrate. These findings indicate that much of the organic acid driven mobilization of Fe oxy(hydr)oxides is most likely due to colloid formation and stabilization rather than solubilisation