91 research outputs found
Zeitverwendung und Lebensqualität in Wien
Erwerbsarbeit hat eine besondere Relevanz für die Lebensqualität. Die Ergebnisse sprechen eindeutig
gegen die in der ökonomischen Theorie übliche Vorstellung, dass Erwerbsarbeit ein notwendiges Übel sei.
Wenn die Befragten ihren Lebensunterhalt verdienen müssen wird als häufigster Wert eine gewünschte
Erwerbsarbeitszeit von 30 Stunden/Woche angegeben. Die gewünschte Erwerbsarbeitszeit liegt damit deutlich
niedriger als die aktuelle Normalarbeitszeit in Österreich. Die häufigste gewünschte Erwerbsarbeitszeit
ohne das Erfordernis seinen Lebensunterhalt zu verdienen liegt bei 20 Stunden. Daran wird sichtbar, dass
Erwerbsarbeit jenseits der Erzielung eines Einkommens eine wichtige Rolle für die Lebensqualität der
Befragten spielt und intrinsische Arbeitsmotivation weit verbreitet ist.
Auf die Frage ob für die gewünschte Zeitverwendung viel mehr, mehr, gleich viel oder weniger als das
aktuelle Einkommen benötigt wird geben rund 33% der Befragten an, dass sie gleich viel oder weniger
Einkommen benötigen. Wenn die Personen dieser Gruppe sich Verringerungen der Erwerbsarbeitszeit
wünschen wären diese gegenüber Reallohnsteigerungen zu bevorzugen, da die Reallohnsteigerungen zu
keiner Steigerung der Lebensqualität anhand der Zeitverwendung führen würden, Verringerungen der Erwerbsarbeitszeit
jedoch schon. Anhand der deutlichen Ergebnisse zu den gewünschten Erwerbsarbeitszeiten
lässt sich für eine Verringerung der Normalarbeitszeit auf bis zu 30 Stunden/Woche argumentieren.
Anhand der Veränderungswünsche der Aktivitätszeiten konnten deutlich unterscheidbare Gruppen (Cluster)
identifiziert werden. Der größte Cluster repräsentiert 51% der Personen und ähnelt sehr stark den
Ergebnissen der gesamten Stichprobe. Darüber hinaus wurden drei weitere Cluster beschreiben die
deutliche Unterschiede dazu aufweisen. 13% der Befragten gehören zum Cluster der "Erwerbsarbeitsverringerer".
Diese haben eine vergleichsweise starke Tendenz zur Verringerung der Erwerbsarbeitszeit
und entsprechend ausgeprägteren Ausweitung vieler anderer Aktivitäten. 10% gehören zum Cluster der
"unzufriedenen Veränderer". Diese sind durch eine ausgeprägte Tendenz zu starken Umschichtung der
aktuellen Zeitverwendung gekennzeichnet. 16% gehören zum Cluster der "zufriedenen Beibehalter". Sie
sind durch einen großen Anteil von Personen gekennzeichnet, die für viele Aktivitäten ihre aktuellen
Aktivitätszeiten beibehalten wollen. (authors' abstract)Series: SRE - Discussion Paper
Stereoselective Synthesis of Tropanes via a Retro-6 p Electrocyclic Ring-Opening / Huisgen [3+2]-Cycloaddition Cascade of Monocyclopropanated Heterocycles. Stereoselektive Synthese von Tropanen über eine 6π-elektrocyclische Ringöffnung/ Huisgen-[3+2]-Cycloadditionskaskade von monocyclopropanierten Heterocyclen
The synthesis of tropanes via a microwave-assisted, stereoselective 6 pi-electrocyclic ring-opening/ Huisgen [3+2]-cycloaddition cascade of cyclopropanated pyrrole and furan derivatives with electron-deficient dipolarophiles is demonstrated. Starting from furans or pyrroles, 8-aza- and 8-oxabicyclo[3.2.1]octanes are accessible in two steps in dia- and enantioselective pure form, being versatile building blocks for the synthesis of pharmaceutically relevant targets, especially for new cocaine analogues bearing various substituents at the C-6/C-7 positions of the tropane ring system. Moreover, the 2-azabicyclo[2.2.2]octane core (isoquinuclidines), being prominently represented in many natural and pharmaceutical products, is accessible via this approach
Structure and dynamics in protic ionic liquids: a combined optical Kerr-effect and dielectric relaxation spectroscopy study
The structure and dynamics of ionic liquids (ILs) are unusual due to the strong interactions between the ions and counter ions. These microscopic properties determine the bulk transport properties critical to applications of ILs such as advanced fuel cells. The terahertz dynamics and slower relaxations of simple alkylammonium nitrate protic ionic liquids (PILs) are here studied using femtosecond optical Kerr-effect spectroscopy, dielectric relaxation spectroscopy, and terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. The observed dynamics give insight into more general liquid behaviour while comparison with glass-forming liquids reveals an underlying power-law decay and relaxation rates suggest supramolecular structure and nanoscale segregation
A Role for the RNA Chaperone Hfq in Controlling Adherent-Invasive Escherichia coli Colonization and Virulence
Adherent-invasive Escherichia coli (AIEC) has been linked with the onset and perpetuation of inflammatory bowel diseases. The AIEC strain LF82 was originally isolated from an ileal biopsy from a patient with Crohn's disease. The pathogenesis of LF82 results from its abnormal adherence to and subsequent invasion of the intestinal epithelium coupled with its ability to survive phagocytosis by macrophages once it has crossed the intestinal barrier. To gain further insight into AIEC pathogenesis we employed the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as an in vivo infection model. We demonstrate that AIEC strain LF82 forms a persistent infection in C. elegans, thereby reducing the host lifespan significantly. This host killing phenotype was associated with massive bacterial colonization of the nematode intestine and damage to the intestinal epithelial surface. C. elegans killing was independent of known LF82 virulence determinants but was abolished by deletion of the LF82 hfq gene, which encodes an RNA chaperone involved in mediating posttranscriptional gene regulation by small non-coding RNAs. This finding reveals that important aspects of LF82 pathogenesis are controlled at the posttranscriptional level by riboregulation. The role of Hfq in LF82 virulence was independent of its function in regulating RpoS and RpoE activity. Further, LF82Δhfq mutants were non-motile, impaired in cell invasion and highly sensitive to various chemical stress conditions, reinforcing the multifaceted function of Hfq in mediating bacterial adaptation. This study highlights the usefulness of simple non-mammalian infection systems for the identification and analysis of bacterial virulence factors
Nanoelectropulse-driven membrane perturbation and small molecule permeabilization
BACKGROUND: Nanosecond, megavolt-per-meter pulsed electric fields scramble membrane phospholipids, release intracellular calcium, and induce apoptosis. Flow cytometric and fluorescence microscopy evidence has associated phospholipid rearrangement directly with nanoelectropulse exposure and supports the hypothesis that the potential that develops across the lipid bilayer during an electric pulse drives phosphatidylserine (PS) externalization. RESULTS: In this work we extend observations of cells exposed to electric pulses with 30 ns and 7 ns durations to still narrower pulse widths, and we find that even 3 ns pulses are sufficient to produce responses similar to those reported previously. We show here that in contrast to unipolar pulses, which perturb membrane phospholipid order, tracked with FM1-43 fluorescence, only at the anode side of the cell, bipolar pulses redistribute phospholipids at both the anode and cathode poles, consistent with migration of the anionic PS head group in the transmembrane field. In addition, we demonstrate that, as predicted by the membrane charging hypothesis, a train of shorter pulses requires higher fields to produce phospholipid scrambling comparable to that produced by a time-equivalent train of longer pulses (for a given applied field, 30, 4 ns pulses produce a weaker response than 4, 30 ns pulses). Finally, we show that influx of YO-PRO-1, a fluorescent dye used to detect early apoptosis and activation of the purinergic P2X(7 )receptor channels, is observed after exposure of Jurkat T lymphoblasts to sufficiently large numbers of pulses, suggesting that membrane poration occurs even with nanosecond pulses when the electric field is high enough. Propidium iodide entry, a traditional indicator of electroporation, occurs with even higher pulse counts. CONCLUSION: Megavolt-per-meter electric pulses as short as 3 ns alter the structure of the plasma membrane and permeabilize the cell to small molecules. The dose responses of cells to unipolar and bipolar pulses ranging from 3 ns to 30 ns duration support the hypothesis that a field-driven charging of the membrane dielectric causes the formation of pores on a nanosecond time scale, and that the anionic phospholipid PS migrates electrophoretically along the wall of these pores to the external face of the membrane
Identification of Genes Contributing to the Virulence of Francisella tularensis SCHU S4 in a Mouse Intradermal Infection Model
Background: Francisella tularensis is a highly virulent human pathogen. The most virulent strains belong to subspecies tularensis and these strains cause a sometimes fatal disease. Despite an intense recent research effort, there is very limited information available that explains the unique features of subspecies tularensis strains that distinguish them from other F. tularensis strains and that explain their high virulence. Here we report the use of targeted mutagenesis to investigate the roles of various genes or pathways for the virulence of strain SCHU S4, the type strain of subspecies tularensis. Methodology/Principal Findings: The virulence of SCHU S4 mutants was assessed by following the outcome of infection after intradermal administration of graded doses of bacteria. By this route, the LD\u2085\u2080 of the SCHU S4 strain is one CFU. The virulence of 20 in-frame deletion mutants and 37 transposon mutants was assessed. A majority of the mutants did not show increased prolonged time to death, among them notably \u394pyrB and \u394recA. Of the remaining, mutations in six unique targets, tolC, rep, FTT0609, FTT1149c, ahpC, and hfq resulted in significantly prolonged time to death and mutations in nine targets, rplA, wbtI, iglB, iglD, purL, purF, ggt, kdtA, and glpX, led to marked attenuation with an LD\u2085\u2080 of >10\ub3 CFU. In fact, the latter seven mutants showed very marked attenuation with an LD\u2085\u2080 of 6510\u2077 CFU. Conclusions/Significance: The results demonstrate that the characterization of targeted mutants yielded important information about essential virulence determinants that will help to identify the so far little understood extreme virulence of F. tularensis subspecies tularensis.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye
Plasma lipid profiles discriminate bacterial from viral infection in febrile children
Fever is the most common reason that children present to Emergency Departments. Clinical signs and symptoms suggestive of bacterial infection are often non-specific, and there is no definitive test for the accurate diagnosis of infection. The 'omics' approaches to identifying biomarkers from the host-response to bacterial infection are promising. In this study, lipidomic analysis was carried out with plasma samples obtained from febrile children with confirmed bacterial infection (n = 20) and confirmed viral infection (n = 20). We show for the first time that bacterial and viral infection produces distinct profile in the host lipidome. Some species of glycerophosphoinositol, sphingomyelin, lysophosphatidylcholine and cholesterol sulfate were higher in the confirmed virus infected group, while some species of fatty acids, glycerophosphocholine, glycerophosphoserine, lactosylceramide and bilirubin were lower in the confirmed virus infected group when compared with confirmed bacterial infected group. A combination of three lipids achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.911 (95% CI 0.81 to 0.98). This pilot study demonstrates the potential of metabolic biomarkers to assist clinicians in distinguishing bacterial from viral infection in febrile children, to facilitate effective clinical management and to the limit inappropriate use of antibiotics
High Functional Diversity is Related to High Nitrogen Availability in a Deciduous Forest – Evidence from a Functional Trait Approach
Plasma lipid profiles discriminate bacterial from viral infection in febrile children
Fever is the most common reason that children present to Emergency Departments. Clinical signs and symptoms suggestive of bacterial infection are often non-specific, and there is no definitive test for the accurate diagnosis of infection. The 'omics' approaches to identifying biomarkers from the host-response to bacterial infection are promising. In this study, lipidomic analysis was carried out with plasma samples obtained from febrile children with confirmed bacterial infection (n = 20) and confirmed viral infection (n = 20). We show for the first time that bacterial and viral infection produces distinct profile in the host lipidome. Some species of glycerophosphoinositol, sphingomyelin, lysophosphatidylcholine and cholesterol sulfate were higher in the confirmed virus infected group, while some species of fatty acids, glycerophosphocholine, glycerophosphoserine, lactosylceramide and bilirubin were lower in the confirmed virus infected group when compared with confirmed bacterial infected group. A combination of three lipids achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of 0.911 (95% CI 0.81 to 0.98). This pilot study demonstrates the potential of metabolic biomarkers to assist clinicians in distinguishing bacterial from viral infection in febrile children, to facilitate effective clinical management and to the limit inappropriate use of antibiotics
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