Impact of sorbic acid on germinant receptor-dependent and -independent germination pathways in Bacillus cereus

Amino acid- and inosine-induced germination of Bacillus cereus ATCC 14579 spores was reversibly inhibited in the presence of 3 mM undissociated sorbic acid. Exposure to high hydrostatic pressure, Ca-dipicolinic acid (DPA), and bryostatin, an activator of PrkC kinase, negated this inhibition, pointing to specific blockage of signal transduction in germinant receptor-mediated germination

Analysis of acid-stressed Bacillus cereus reveals a major oxidative response and inactivation-associated radical formation

Acid stress resistance of the food-borne human pathogen Bacillus cereus may contribute to its survival in acidic environments, such as encountered in soil, food and the human gastrointestinal tract. The acid stress responses of B. cereus strains ATCC 14579 and ATCC 10987 were analysed in aerobically grown cultures acidified to pH values ranging from pH 5.4 to pH 4.4 with HCI. Comparative phenotype and transcriptome analyses revealed three acid stressinduced responses in this pH range: growth rate reduction, growth arrest and loss of viability. These physiological responses showed to be associated with metabolic shifts and the induction of general stress response mechanisms with a major oxidative component, including upregulation of catalases and superoxide dismutases. Flow cytometry analysis in combination with the hydroxyl (OH center dot) and peroxynitrite (ONOO-)-specific fluorescent probe 3'-(phydroxyphenyl) fluorescein (HPF) showed excessive radicals to be formed in both B. cereus strains in bactericidal conditions only. Our study shows that radicals can indicate acid-induced malfunctioning of cellular processes that lead to cell death

Regulering van de Nederlandse trustsector

__Abstract__ Op 1 maart 2004 is de Wet toezicht trustkantoren (Wtt) in werking getreden. Doelstelling van deze wet is ‘het bevorderen van de integriteit van het financiële stelsel’ door middel van ‘regulering van de (Nederlandse) trustsector’. Een belangrijk deel van de bestaande gedragsregels in de trustbranche heeft hiermee een wettelijke basis verkregen. Beoogd is zo een bijdrage te leveren aan het tegengaan van misbruik van trustkantoren. Naast de bestuursrechtelijke handhaving van de Wtt door De Nederlandsche Bank, kan deze wet ook strafrechtelijk worden gehandhaafd op basis van de Wet op de Economische Delicten (WED). Regulering van de Nederlandse trustsector behandelt de wijze waarop het misbruik van trustkantoren zich in de praktijk afspeelt en de mate waarin de Nederlandse wetgever de internationale standaarden van regulering en toezicht betreffende trustkantoren heeft geïmplementeerd. Tevens wordt de manier besproken en toegelicht waarop de keuze voor een sanctiestelsel tot stand komt bij de handhaving van financiële wetgeving betreffende trustkantoren, met in het bijzonder de keuze voor een sanctiestelsel bij de handhaving van de Wtt

Design and evaluation of an architecture for future smart grid service provisioning

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in cloud technologies. Using current cloud solutions, it is however difficult to create customizable multi-tenant applications, especially if the application must support varying Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees. Software Product Line Engineering (SPLE) and feature modeling techniques are commonly used to address these issues in non-cloud applications, but these techniques cannot be ported directly to a cloud context, as the common approaches are geared towards customization of on-premise deployed applications, and do not support multi-tenancy. In this paper, we propose an architecture for the development and management of customizable Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, built using SPLE techniques. In our approach, each application is a composition of services, where individual services correspond to specific application functionalities, referred to as features. A feature-based methodology is described to abstract and convert the application information required at different stages of the application life-cycle: development, customization and deployment. We specifically focus on how development feature models can be adapted ensuring a one-to-one correspondence between features and services exists, ensuring the composition of services yields an application containing the corresponding features. These runtime features can then be managed using feature placement techniques. The proposed approach enables developers to define significantly less features, while limiting the amount of automatically generated features in the application runtime stage. Conversion times between models are shown to be in the order of milliseconds, while execution times of management algorithms are shown to improve by 5 to 17% depending on the application case

Reticular fibroblasts in peripheral lymphoid organs identified by a monoclonal antibody.

peer reviewedWe have produced a panel of monoclonal antibodies directed against nonlymphoid cells in central and peripheral lymphoid organs. In this paper we present the reactivity of one of these antibodies, ER-TR7. This antibody detects reticular fibroblasts, which constitute the cellular framework of lymphoid and nonlymphoid organs and their products. In frozen sections of the spleen incubated with this antibody, the red pulp and white pulp are clearly delineated. Furthermore, the major white pulp compartments--the follicles and periarteriolar lymphoid sheath as well as the marginal zone--are recognized by their characteristic labeling patterns. In lymph nodes, the capsule, sinuses, follicles, paracortex, and medullary cords are clearly delineated. In the thymus and bone marrow no such specialized compartments were demonstrated. ER-TR7 reacts with an intracellular component of fibroblasts. Since ER-TR7 does not react with purified laminin, collagen types I-V, fibronectin, heparan sulfate proteoglycan, entactin, or nidogen, it detects a hitherto uncharacterized antigen. The possible role of the ER-TR7 positive reticular fibroblasts in the cellular organization of peripheral lymphoid organs will be discussed