Post-mortem volatiles of vertebrate tissue

Volatile emission during vertebrate decay is a complex process that is understood incompletely. It depends on many factors. The main factor is the metabolism of the microbial species present inside and on the vertebrate. In this review, we combine the results from studies on volatile organic compounds (VOCs) detected during this decay process and those on the biochemical formation of VOCs in order to improve our understanding of the decay process. Micro-organisms are the main producers of VOCs, which are by- or end-products of microbial metabolism. Many microbes are already present inside and on a vertebrate, and these can initiate microbial decay. In addition, micro-organisms from the environment colonize the cadaver. The composition of microbial communities is complex, and communities of different species interact with each other in succession. In comparison to the complexity of the decay process, the resulting volatile pattern does show some consistency. Therefore, the possibility of an existence of a time-dependent core volatile pattern, which could be used for applications in areas such as forensics or food science, is discussed. Possible microbial interactions that might alter the process of decay are highlighted

Synopse - A Model-Based DSS for the Evaluation of Flight Schedules for Cargo Airlines

this paper we describe such a DSS called "SYNOPSE" which has been developed at WINFORS (University of Cologne) in collaboration with the planning division of Lufthansa Cargo AG. SYNOPSE stands for "System zur Netzoptimierung und Planung Strategischer Entscheidungen". According to the DDMparadigm [12] of the DSS concept the architecture of any specific DSS can be described by three modules - the data, model, and dialog component. The data component of a DSS consists of a database and a database management system with the database containing all the factual information necessary to describe a concrete planning situation. The model component contains one or more quantitative planning models associated with appropriate solvers. Here a planning model is defined as a "constructive problem description" by which the relationships between courses of actions and consequences are translated into the form of a "mathematical/computational problem". The combination of models, data, and solvers is controlled by the model management system. The dialog component can best be interpreted as the language of interaction between planner and system, i.e. a so called action-language describing the planners actions, and a so called presentation-language describing the computers presentation of results from model calculations [11]. Given an estimated amount of service requests and a candidate flight schedule our models calculate the maximal possible contribution to profit which can be obtained by fulfilling service requests according to the flight schedule. Thus, although the approach taken by SYNOPSE is evaluative, i.e. no plans are suggested, the models we use are optimization models which, given market-demand, transportation and handling capacities, construct an optimal assignment between d..

Primary clarithromycin resistance in Italy assessed on Helicobacter pylori DNA sequences by TaqMan real-time polymerase chain reaction

Helicobacter pylori clarithromycin resistance is increasing worldwide and different mutations are involved in its mechanisms. Recently, molecular methods have been proposed to assess these mutations