Radiocarbon Measurements and the Holocene and Late Würm Sealevel Rise

researc

Paleotemperature Changes in the Upper and Middle Pleistocene

Aus festländischen und marinen Daten wird gefolgert, daß die Glazialzeiten des mittleren und oberen Pleistozäns zeitlich von gleicher Größenordnung waren. Die Temperaturen der einzelnen Eiszeiten waren nicht genau gleich: jede jüngere Eiszeit war ein wenig kälter als die vorhergehende; das gleiche gilt für die Interglaziale. Mit allen bekannten Daten wird eine generalisierte Paläotemperatur-Kurve konstruiert, welche den Trend der Temperatur-Entwicklung vom Mindel bis heute (ca. 400 000 Jahre) zeigt.researc

Bosnia and the destruction of cultural heritage

Located at numerous historical interfaces (i.e. between Eastern and Western Christendom, and between the Ottoman and Habsburg empires), Bosnia and Herzegovina boasts an exquisite cultural heritage, with a rich ethnic and religious diversity. Unlike other Yugoslav countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina was home to a demographic patchwork comprising three principal ethno-national/ethno-religious groups: Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Bosnian Croats (Roman Catholics) and Bosnian Serbs (Orthodox Christians). This proved to be the trigger point for a very aggressive race for territory and ethno-national exclusivism in Bosnia after the breakup of Yugoslavia. This, among other things, resulted in the systematic and deliberate destruction of cultural and religious heritage during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War

Physical Aspects Of Chemotaxis And Proliferation Of Dictyostelium Discoideum Amoeba

In this dissertation, we explore two aspects of Dictyostelium discoideum life cycle, chemotaxis and proliferation. We use Shannon's information theory to study the physical limits of chemotaxis due to the stochastic process of ligands binding and unbinding to cell receptors (receptor noise). Using microfluidic experiments, we show that cells acquire much more information than the contemporary application of this theory allows. Next, we investigate how cells modify their extracellular environment by secreting enzymes that degrade chemoattractants and show that simple first order degradation leads to the significant improvement of the receptor signal-to-noise ratio of chemical gradients. Finally, we investigate the seemingly solitary vegetative phase of the same cells and find that they synchronize their growth after transferring from suspension culture to substrate. We show that this synchronization can be suppressed using microfluidic flow experiments, indicating that the synchronization is a collective behavior mediated by a diffusible molecule

Systems approaches and algorithms for discovery of combinatorial therapies

Effective therapy of complex diseases requires control of highly non-linear complex networks that remain incompletely characterized. In particular, drug intervention can be seen as control of signaling in cellular networks. Identification of control parameters presents an extreme challenge due to the combinatorial explosion of control possibilities in combination therapy and to the incomplete knowledge of the systems biology of cells. In this review paper we describe the main current and proposed approaches to the design of combinatorial therapies, including the empirical methods used now by clinicians and alternative approaches suggested recently by several authors. New approaches for designing combinations arising from systems biology are described. We discuss in special detail the design of algorithms that identify optimal control parameters in cellular networks based on a quantitative characterization of control landscapes, maximizing utilization of incomplete knowledge of the state and structure of intracellular networks. The use of new technology for high-throughput measurements is key to these new approaches to combination therapy and essential for the characterization of control landscapes and implementation of the algorithms. Combinatorial optimization in medical therapy is also compared with the combinatorial optimization of engineering and materials science and similarities and differences are delineated.Comment: 25 page

MADNet: microarray database network web server

MADNet is a user-friendly data mining and visualization tool for rapid analysis of diverse high-throughput biological data such as microarray, phage display or even metagenome experiments. It presents biological information in the context of metabolic and signalling pathways, transcription factors and drug targets through minimal user input, consisting only of the file with the experimental data. These data are integrated with information stored in various biological databases such as NCBI nucleotide and protein databases, metabolic and signalling pathway databases (KEGG), transcription regulation (TRANSFAC©) and drug target database (DrugBank). MADNet is freely available for academic use at http://www.bioinfo.hr/madnet

Prebiotic-Induced Anti-tumor Immunity Attenuates Tumor Growth

Growing evidence supports the importance of gut microbiota in the control of tumor growth and response to therapy. Here, we select prebiotics that can enrich bacterial taxa that promote anti-tu- mor immunity. Addition of the prebiotics inulin or mucin to the diet of C57BL/6 mice induces anti-tu- mor immune responses and inhibition of BRAF mutant melanoma growth in a subcutaneously implanted syngeneic mouse model. Mucin fails to inhibit tumor growth in germ-free mice, indicating that the gut microbiota is required for the activation of the anti-tumor immune response. Inulin and mucin drive distinct changes in the microbiota, as inulin, but not mucin, limits tumor growth in synge- neic mouse models of colon cancer and NRAS mutant melanoma and enhances the efficacy of a MEK inhibitor against melanoma while delaying the emergence of drug resistance. We highlight the importance of gut microbiota in anti-tumor immunity and the potential therapeutic role for prebiotics in this process

PROMISING THE DREAM: changing destination image of London through the effect of website place

Drawing on theories of place identity and social identity, this study aims to fill a gap in place identity studies regarding the effect of a place website on the destination image of customers/visitors/tourists. The research addresses three questions: (1) what are the main impacts of tourists’ attitude on place identity and the place website, (2) what are the factors that influence destination image, and (3) what are the main impacts of a favorable destination image? The favorability of a destination image is reflected by the extent to which visitors positively regard that place website. Results reveal the importance of the destination image in enhancing the intention to revisit and recommend. Also, visitors’ satisfaction impacts on their intention to revisit and recommend the place. Significant implications for place managers and researchers are highlighted