Flood estimations : a view on time dependency in flood-calculation

Die zerstörenden Auswirkungen von Hochwasser sind unbestreitbar und wiederholen sich - Ein hundert jähriges Hochwasser jagt das Nächste. Ingenieure berechnen Hochwasserwelle mit Statistiken Hilfsmittel und der Annahme, dass sich das hydrologische System stationär verhält. Doch sind diese Annahmen haltbar? Wie groß ist der Einfluss der Zeitreihenlänge auf den Hochwasserscheitel? In Österreich und Deutschland gelten Zeitreihen ab einer länge von 30 Jahre als geeignet für die statistische Berechnung - doch ist diese Länge gerechtfertigt? Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, die Länge der Zeitreihe kritisch zu hinterfragen und die dadurch entstehenden Unsicherheiten aufzuzeigen.River Discharge is assumed to follow a stationary process. Engineers do calculate design discharge for structures depending on that crucial assumption, but rarely take a closer look on the length of time window and its effects on the variability of the flood return value. Our goal was to find out, based on the guidelines used in Austria and Germany, how much the length and point of time matters in flood estimation and that the current minimum sample size of 30 years may be too short for a precise HQ value. Moreover, even under strict stationarity, how many years are mandatory in order to reduce the uncertainty and variability of the return level to an acceptable level.Oliver WiederMit deutscher ZusammenfassungUniversität für Bodenkultur Wien, Masterarbeit, 2016(VLID)193601

Cytokine-induced senescence for cancer surveillance

International audienceThe immune response is a first-line systemic defense to curb tumorigenesis and metastasis. Much effort has been invested to design antitumor interventions that would boost the immune system in its fight to defeat or contain cancerous growth. Tumor vaccination protocols, transfer of tumor-associated-antigen-specific T cells, T cell activity-regulating antibodies, and recombinant cytokines are counted among a toolbox filled with immunotherapeutic options. Although the mechanistic underpinnings of tumor immune control remain to be deciphered, these are studied with the goal of cancer cell destruction. In contrast, tumor dormancy is considered as a dangerous equilibrium between cell proliferation and cell death. There is, however, emerging evidence that tumor immune control can be achieved in the absence of overt cancer cell death. Here, we propose cytokine-induced senescence (CIS) by transfer of T helper-1 cells (TH1) or by recombinant cytokines as a novel therapeutic intervention for cancer treatment. Immunity-induced senescence triggers a stable cell cycle arrest of cancer cells. It engages the immune system to construct defensive, isolating barriers around tumors, and prevents tumor growth through the delivery or induction of TH1-cytokines in the tumor microenvironment. Keeping cancer cells in a non-proliferating state is a strategy, which directly copes with the lost homeostasis of aggressive tumors. As most studies show that even after efficient cancer therapies minimal residual disease persists, we suggest that therapies should include immune-mediated senescence for cancer surveillance. CIS has the goal to control the residual tumor and to transform a deadly disease into a state of silent tumor persistence

Ianos: An intelligent application oriented scheduling framework for an HPCN grid

We present the architecture and design of the IANOS scheduling framework. The goal of the new Grid scheduling system is to provide a general job submission framework allowing optimal positioning and scheduling of HPCN applications. The scheduling algorithms used to calculate best-suited resources are based on an objective cost function that exploits information on the parameterization of applications and resources. This standard-based, interoperable scheduling framework comprises four general web services and three modules. The middleware is complemented with one client and one admin console. The implementation is based on proposed Grid and Web services standards (WSRF, WS-Agreement, JSDL, and GLUE). It is agnostic to a specific Grid middleware. The beta version of IANOS has been tested and integrated with UNICORE. The validation of IANOS is in progress by running different types of HPCN applications on a large-scale Grid testbed

Nuclear Translocation of Argonaute 2 in Cytokine-Induced Senescence

International audienceBACKGROUND/AIMS:Cellular senescence, or permanent growth arrest, is known as an effective tumor suppressor mechanism that can be induced by different stressors, such as oncogenes, chemotherapeutics or cytokine cocktails. Previous studies demonstrated that the growth-repressing state of oncogene-induced senescent cells depends on argonaute protein 2 (Ago2)-mediated transcriptional gene silencing and Ago2/Rb corepression of E2F-dependent cell cycle genes. Cytokine-induced senescence (CIS) likewise depends on activation of the p16Ink4a/Rb pathway, and consecutive inactivation of the E2F family of transcription factors. In the present study, we therefore analyzed the role of Ago2 in CIS.METHODS:Human cancer cell lines were treated with interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) to induce senescence. Senescence was determined by growth assays and measurement of senescence-associated β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal) activity, Ago2 translocation by Ago2/ Ki67 immunofluorescence staining and western blot analysis, and gene transcription by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR).RESULTS:IFN-γ and TNF permanently stopped cell proliferation and time-dependently increased SA-β-gal activity. After 24 - 48 h of cytokine treatment, Ago2 translocated from the cytoplasm into the nucleus of Ki67-negative cells, an effect which was shown to be reversible. Importantly, the proinflammatory cytokine cocktail suppressed Ago2-regulated cell cycle control genes, and siRNA-mediated depletion of Ago2 interfered with cytokine-induced growth inhibition.CONCLUSION:IFN-γ and TNF induce a stable cell cycle arrest of cancer cells that is accompanied by a fast nuclear Ago2 translocation and repression of Ago2-regulated cell cycle control genes. As Ago2 downregulation impairs cytokine-induced growth regulation, Ago2 may contribute to tissue homeostasis in human cancers

On Scheduling in UNICORE – Extending the Web Services Agreement based Resource Management Framework ∗

c ○ 2006 by John von Neumann Institute for Computing Permission to make digital or hard copies of portions of this work for personal or classroom use is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. T

Integration of ISS into the VIOLA Meta-scheduling Environment

The authors present the integration of the Intelligent (Grid) Scheduling System into the VIOLA meta-scheduling environment which itself is based on the UNICORE Grid software. The goal of the new, integrated environment is to enable the submission of jobs to the Grid system best-suited for the application workflow. For this purpose a cost function is used that exploits information about the type of application, the characteristics of the system architectures, as well as the availabilities of the resources. This document presents an active collaboration between Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Ecole d'Ingénieurs et d'Architectes (EIF) de Fribourg, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Fraunhofer Institute SCAI, and Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS)