Credible Information Sharing in Supply Chains - A Behavioral Assessment of Review Strategies

In laboratory experiments, we compare the ability of trigger strategies with that of (relatively complex) review strategies to coordinate capacity decisions in supply chains when demand forecasts are based on private information. While trigger strategies punish apparently uncooperative behavior (misstated demand forecasts) immediately, review strategies only punish when apparently misstated information culminates over several periods. We contribute to the existing literature on capacity coordination in supply chains by showing that repeated game strategies lead to a significant degree of forecast misrepresentation, although they theoretically support the truth-telling equilibrium. However, forecast misrepresentation is more pronounced in review strategies. This behavioral effect is diametrically opposed to the theoretically predicted benefit of review strategies

A high-throughput effector screen identifies a novel small molecule scaffold for inhibition of ten-eleven translocation dioxygenase 2

Ten-eleven translocation dioxygenases (TETs) are the erasers of 5-methylcytosine (mC), the central epigenetic regulator of mammalian DNA. TETs convert mC to three oxidized derivatives with unique physicochemical properties and inherent regulatory potential, and it initializes active demethylation by the base excision repair pathway. Potent small molecule inhibitors would be useful tools to study TET functions by conditional control. To facilitate the discovery of such tools, we here report a high-throughput screening pipeline and its application to screen and validate 31.5k compounds for inhibition of TET2. Using a homogenous fluorescence assay, we discover a novel quinoline-based scaffold that we further validate with an orthogonal semi-high throughput MALDI-MS assay for direct monitoring of substrate turnover. Structure–activity relationship (SAR) studies involving >20 derivatives of this scaffold led to the identification of optimized inhibitors, and together with computational studies suggested a plausible model for its mode of action

Perturbatively Stable Resummed Small x Evolution Kernels

We present a small x resummation for the GLAP anomalous dimension and its corresponding dual BFKL kernel, which includes all the available perturbative information and nonperturbative constraints. Specifically, it includes all the information coming from next-to-leading order GLAP anomalous dimensions and BFKL kernels, from the constraints of momentum conservation, from renormalization-group improvement of the running coupling and from gluon interchange symmetry. The ensuing evolution kernel has a uniformly stable perturbative expansion. It is very close to the unresummed NLO GLAP kernel in most of the HERA kinematic region, the small x BFKL behaviour being softened by momentum conservation and the running of the coupling. Next-to-leading corrections are small thanks to the constraint of gluon interchange symmetry. This result subsumes all previous resummations in that it combines optimally all the information contained in them.Comment: 44 pages, 12 figures, plain TeX with harvmac. Final version, to be published in Nucl. Phys. B. Discussion of integrated vs. unintegrated pdfs added, see eqns. 5.5-5.7, 6.26-6.29. Figures 6-12 update

Endothelial- and Platelet-Derived Microparticles Are Generated During Liver Resection in Humans.

BACKGROUND Cell-derived plasma microparticles (<1.5 μm) originating from various cell types have the potential to regulate thrombogenesis and inflammatory responses. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that microparticles generated during hepatic surgery co-regulate postoperative procoagulant and proinflammatory events. METHODS In 30 patients undergoing liver resection, plasma microparticles were isolated, quantitated, and characterized as endothelial (CD31+, CD41-), platelet (CD41+), or leukocyte (CD11b+) origin by flow cytometry and their procoagulant and proinflammatory activity was measured by immunoassays. RESULTS During liver resection, the total numbers of microparticles increased with significantly more Annexin V-positive, endothelial and platelet-derived microparticles following extended hepatectomy compared to standard and minor liver resections. After liver resection, microparticle tissue factor and procoagulant activity increased along with overall coagulation as assessed by thrombelastography. Levels of leukocyte-derived microparticles specifically increased in patients with systemic inflammation as assessed by C-reactive protein but are independent of the extent of liver resection. CONCLUSIONS Endothelial and platelet-derived microparticles are specifically elevated during liver resection, accompanied by increased procoagulant activity. Leukocyte-derived microparticles are a potential marker for systemic inflammation. Plasma microparticles may represent a specific response to surgical stress and may be an important mediator of postoperative coagulation and inflammation

Small x Resummation with Quarks: Deep-Inelastic Scattering

We extend our previous results on small-x resummation in the pure Yang--Mills theory to full QCD with nf quark flavours, with a resummed two-by-two matrix of resummed quark and gluon splitting functions. We also construct the corresponding deep-inelastic coefficient functions, and show how these can be combined with parton densities to give fully resummed deep-inelastic structure functions F_2 and F_L at the next-to-leading logarithmic level. We discuss how this resummation can be performed in different factorization schemes, including the commonly used MSbar scheme. We study the importance of the resummation effects by comparison with fixed-order perturbative results, and we discuss the corresponding renormalization and factorization scale variation uncertainties. We find that for x below 0.01 the resummation effects are comparable in size to the fixed order NNLO corrections, but differ in shape. We finally discuss the phenomenological impact of the small-x resummation, specifically in the extraction of parton distribution from present day experiments and their extrapolation to the kinematics relevant for future colliders such as the LHCComment: 45 pages, 16 figures, plain TeX with harvma

Körnerleguminosen und Bodenfruchtbarkeit - Strategien für einen erfolgreichen Anbau

Der Boden ist eine der wichtigsten Grundlagen unseres Lebens, das erkannte bereits der Bodenkundler und Jurist Friedrich Albert Fallou. Um der großen Bedeutung des Bodens gerecht zu werden, schrieb das „Bundesprogramm Ökologischer Landbau und andere Formen nachhaltiger Landwirtschaft“ (BÖLN*) eine interdisziplinäre Bekanntmachung aus, um praxisnahe Anbaustrategien zu entwickeln, um die Bodenfruchtbarkeit und Pflanzenernährung im Körnerleguminosenanbau zu verbessern. So wurde das interdisziplinäre Bodenfruchtbarkeitsprojekt ins Leben gerufen, in dem Wissenschaft, Beratung und Praxis eng verzahnt waren. Im Laufe des fünfjährigen Projektes kristallisierten sich viele praxisrelevante Erkenntnisse heraus, die nun in der Praxisbroschüre "Körnerleguminosen und Bodenfruchtbarkeit - Strategien für einen erfolgreichen Anbau" nachgelesen werden können

Steigerung der Wertschöpfung ökologisch angebauter Marktfrüchte durch Optimierung des Managements der Bodenfruchtbarkeit

Das interdisziplinäre Bodenfruchtbarkeitsprojekt beschäftigte sich in vier Versuchs- und fünf Projektjahren mit den Zusammenhängen zwischen dem Anbau von Körnerleguminosen und Bodenfruchtbarkeit, insbesondere auf viehschwachen bzw. viehlosen Biobetrieben. In Erhebungen auf 32 Praxisbetrieben konnten bislang allenfalls vermutete Zusammenhänge wie z. B. die Zunahme des Unkrautdeckungsgrades mit zunehmendem Humusgehalt bestätigt werden. Die Ergebnisse deuten auch darauf hin, dass z. B. die Anbauabstände im Erbsenanbau im Vergleich zu praxisüblichen Empfehlungen vergrößert werden müssen, daneben ergaben sich auch interessante neue Anknüpfungspunkte. Hinsichtlich der Leguminosengesundheit ermöglicht die neu entwickelte Differenzialdiagnose, die Ursache für ggf. auftretende „Leguminosenmüdigkeit“ einzugrenzen bzw. Praxisschläge vor dem Anbau auf Krankheitsrisiken zu testen. Im Projekt konnte außerdem gezeigt werden, dass Grüngutkomposte die Wurzelgesundheit von Erbsen deutlich verbessern können. Es wurden darüber hinaus verschiedene Methoden zur Kompostapplikation zu Körnerleguminosen geprüft und für den Praxiseinsatz optimiert. Neben Grüngutkomposten spielt auch Grünguthäcksel eine wichtige Rolle bei der Nährstoffversorgung von Leguminosen. Oberflächlich leicht eingearbeiteter Grünguthäcksel ist in der Lage, das Wachstum der Kulturpflanzen sowohl durch eine unkrautunterdrückende Wirkung als auch durch Schutz vor Verschlämmung sowie erhöhte Wasserinfiltrationsraten zu verbessern. Die Ergebnisse zum Landtechnikeinsatz zeigen, dass schon geringe Belastungen zu Bodenverdichtungen und damit zu Ertragsrückgängen in Erbsen führen, weshalb Maßnahmen zu Reduzierung des Bodendrucks essenziell sind. Hinsichtlich der beikrautunterdrückenden Wirkung des Gemengeanbaus von Erbsen in Kombination mit Hafer konnte gezeigt werden, dass der Gemengeanbau das erhöhte Beikrautaufkommen bei flachwendender Bodenbearbeitung erfolgreich ausgleichen kann und hinsichtlich der Ertragssicherheit Vorteile mit sich bringt. Nicht zuletzt machte das Projekt auf die Vorteile und Potenziale des Wintererbsenanbaus aufmerksam. Über einen fortlaufenden Wissenstransfer war das Projekt von Beginn an in der landwirtschaftlichen Praxis präsent

Improving Network-on-Chip-based Turbo Decoder Architectures

In this work novel results concerning Networkon- Chip-based turbo decoder architectures are presented. Stemming from previous publications, this work concentrates first on improving the throughput by exploiting adaptive-bandwidth-reduction techniques. This technique shows in the best case an improvement of more than 60 Mb/s. Moreover, it is known that double-binary turbo decoders require higher area than binary ones. This characteristic has the negative effect of increasing the data width of the network nodes. Thus, the second contribution of this work is to reduce the network complexity to support doublebinary codes, by exploiting bit-level and pseudo-floatingpoint representation of the extrinsic information. These two techniques allow for an area reduction of up to more than the 40 % with a performance degradation of about 0.2 d

Endothelial- and Platelet-Derived Microparticles Are Generated During Liver Resection in Humans

BACKGROUND Cell-derived plasma microparticles (<1.5 μm) originating from various cell types have the potential to regulate thrombogenesis and inflammatory responses. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that microparticles generated during hepatic surgery co-regulate postoperative procoagulant and proinflammatory events. METHODS In 30 patients undergoing liver resection, plasma microparticles were isolated, quantitated, and characterized as endothelial (CD31+, CD41-), platelet (CD41+), or leukocyte (CD11b+) origin by flow cytometry and their procoagulant and proinflammatory activity was measured by immunoassays. RESULTS During liver resection, the total numbers of microparticles increased with significantly more Annexin V-positive, endothelial and platelet-derived microparticles following extended hepatectomy compared to standard and minor liver resections. After liver resection, microparticle tissue factor and procoagulant activity increased along with overall coagulation as assessed by thrombelastography. Levels of leukocyte-derived microparticles specifically increased in patients with systemic inflammation as assessed by C-reactive protein but are independent of the extent of liver resection. CONCLUSIONS Endothelial and platelet-derived microparticles are specifically elevated during liver resection, accompanied by increased procoagulant activity. Leukocyte-derived microparticles are a potential marker for systemic inflammation. Plasma microparticles may represent a specific response to surgical stress and may be an important mediator of postoperative coagulation and inflammation

Profiles of cognitive impairment in chronic heart failure—A cluster analytic approach

BackgroundCognitive impairment is a major comorbidity in patients with chronic heart failure (HF) with a wide range of phenotypes. In this study, we aimed to identify and compare different clusters of cognitive deficits.MethodsThe prospective cohort study “Cognition.Matters-HF” recruited 147 chronic HF patients (aged 64.5 ± 10.8 years; 16.2% female) of any etiology. All patients underwent extensive neuropsychological testing. We performed a hierarchical cluster analysis of the cognitive domains, such as intensity of attention, visual/verbal memory, and executive function. Generated clusters were compared exploratively with respect to the results of cardiological, neurological, and neuroradiological examinations without correction for multiple testing.ResultsDendrogram and the scree plot suggested three distinct cognitive profiles: In the first cluster, 42 patients (28.6%) performed without any deficits in all domains. Exclusively, the intensity of attention deficits was seen in the second cluster, including 55 patients (37.4%). A third cluster with 50 patients (34.0%) was characterized by deficits in all cognitive domains. Age (p = 0.163) and typical clinical markers of chronic HF, such as ejection fraction (p = 0.222), 6-min walking test distance (p = 0.138), NT-proBNP (p = 0.364), and New York Heart Association class (p = 0.868) did not differ between clusters. However, we observed that women (p = 0.012) and patients with previous cardiac valve surgery (p = 0.005) prevailed in the “global deficits” cluster and the “no deficits” group had a lower prevalence of underlying arterial hypertension (p = 0.029). Total brain volume (p = 0.017) was smaller in the global deficit cluster, and serum levels of glial fibrillary acidic protein were increased (p = 0.048).ConclusionApart from cognitively healthy and globally impaired HF patients, we identified a group with deficits only in the intensity of attention. Women and patients with previous cardiac valve surgery are at risk for global cognitive impairment when suffering HF and could benefit from special multimodal treatment addressing the psychosocial condition