Rescue of myeloid lineage-committed preprogenitor cells from cytomegalovirus-infected bone marrow stroma

The effect of murine cytomegalovirus on myelopoiesis was studied in long-term bone marrow culture to find an in vitro correlate for the lethal virus interference with bone marrow reconstitution (W. Mutter, M. J. Reddehase, F. W. Busch, H.-J. Bühring, and U. H. Koszinowski, J. Exp. Med. 167:1645-1658, 1988). The in vitro generation of granulocyte-monocyte progenitors (CFU-GM) discontinued after infection of the stromal cell layer, whereas the proliferation and differentiation of CFU-GM to granulocyte-monocyte colonies remained unaffected. A protocol was established to probe the functional integrity of earlier hematopoietic cells. Pre-CFU-GM (the progenitors of the CFU-GM) could be recovered from an infected bone marrow donor culture by transfer onto an inductive recipient stromal cell layer. Thus, at least in vitro, infection of bone marrow stroma appears to be the only cause of the defect in myelopoiesis

3D modeling of indoor environments by a mobile platform with a laser scanner and panoramic camera

One major challenge of 3DTV is content acquisition. Here, we present a method to acquire a realistic, visually convincing D model of indoor environments based on a mobile platform that is equipped with a laser range scanner and a panoramic camera. The data of the 2D laser scans are used to solve the simultaneous lo- calization and mapping problem and to extract walls. Textures for walls and floor are built from the images of a calibrated panoramic camera. Multiresolution blending is used to hide seams in the gen- erated textures. The scene is further enriched by 3D-geometry cal- culated from a graph cut stereo technique. We present experimental results from a moderately large real environment.

Failure in generating hemopoietic stem cells is the primary cause of death from cytomegalovirus disease in the immunocompromised host

We have shown in a murine model system for cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease in the immunocompromised host that CMV infection interferes with the earliest detectable step in hemopoiesis, the generation of the stem cell CFU-S-I, and thereby prevents the autoreconstitution of bone marrow after sublethal irradiation. The antihemopoietic effect could not be ascribed to a direct infection of stem cells. The failure in hemopoiesis was prevented by adoptive transfer of antiviral CD8+ T lymphocytes and could be overcome by syngeneic bone marrow transplantation. CD8+ T lymphocytes and bone marrow cells both mediated survival, although only CD8+ T lymphocytes were able to limit virus multiplication in host tissues. We concluded that not the cytopathic effect of virus replication in host tissues, but the failure in hemopoiesis, is the primary cause of death in murine CMV disease

Auswirkungen der Feldenkraismethode - Bewusstheit durch Bewegung - unter besonderer Berücksichtigung psychosomatischer Aspekte

Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit den Auswirkungen von Feldenkrais-Bewegungsübungen auf ein Klientel, dass aus freien Stücken an Feldenkraiskursen eines niedergelassenen Feldenkraislehrers teilnimmt, wobei insbesondere gesundheitliche und psychosomatische Aspekte betrachtet werden. Feldenkrais formulierte die theoretischen Grundlagen der Methodik auf einem breiten wissenschaftlichen Fundament verschiedener Fachrichtungen, wie Medizin, Neurobiologie, Psychologie, Physik, Systemtheorie und Anthropologie und lieferte damit eine Erklärung, wie die von ihm entwickelte Bewegungsmethodik Ein uss auf die Entwicklung und die Lernfähigkeit eines jeden Individuums nehmen kann. Der Mensch wird dabei, im Gegensatz zur dualistischen Sichtweise, die in der klassischen Schulmedizin vorherrscht, als ein Ganzes gesehen, in dem die Bereiche Körper und Seele nicht zu trennen sind. Die moderne Neurobiologie bestätigt mit der Anwendung neuer Messmethoden, wie dem funktionellen Magnetresonanztomogramm bedeutende Aussagen der Theorie von Feldenkrais. Systemtheorie und Konstruktivismus sind dabei grundlegend für den feldenkrais'schen Denkansatz und für die heutige Psychosomatik, wie sie unter anderem von von Uexküll beschrieben wird. Der Mensch wird hier als autopoietisches System betrachtet, welches sich selbst ständig reguliert. Somit kann er sich wechselnden Umweltein flüssen anpassen und ist zur Selbstheilung fähig, worin Feldenkraislehrer, respektive Psychotherapeuten ihn unterstützen können. Zunehmend suchen Menschen zur Förderung der persönlichen Weiterentwicklung, wie gleichzeitig zur Bewältigung gesundheitlicher und insbesondere psychosomatischer Probleme Feldenkraiskurse auf. Vor diesem Hintergrund wurden in der Praxis eines niedergelassenen Feldenkraislehrers die Kursteilnehmer vor- und direkt nach der Teilnahme an zehn Feldenkraisstunden, sowie im Langzeitverlauf zu den Auswirkungen befragt. Die 82 erwachsenen Probanden der Studie waren zu 2/3 weiblich, bei einem Durchschnittsalter von 46 Jahren. Die Stichprobe glich in ihrem psychosomatischen Beschwerdestatus der durchschnittlichen Allgemeinbevölkerung, wohingegen ein überdurchschnittlich hohes Schulbildungs- und Berufsausbildungsniveau vorlag. Die Motivation der Kursteilnehmer lag gleichermaßen im Wunsch, die Fähigkeit der Körperwahrnehmung und die Beweglichkeit zu steigern, wie verschiedene Beschwerden und Erkrankungen zu verbessern. Anhand zweier standardisierter psychometrischer Fragebögen, dem Giessener Beschwerdebogen und der Symptom-Checkliste SCL-90-R konnte eine signifikante Verbesserung psychosomatischer und somit gesundheitlicher Beschwerden direkt nach dem Kurs, wie auch im Langzeitverlauf ein halbes Jahr nach Kursende beschrieben werden. Dazu zählen im Einzelnen Gliederschmerzen, Herzbeschwerden, Somatisierungstendenz, Zwanghaftigkeit, Depressivität, Aggressivität und die grundsätzliche psychische Belastung. Mithilfe des neu entwickelten Selbsteinschätzungsfragebogens des Verfassers ergaben sich weitere Hinweise auf die positiven Langzeitauswirkungen nicht nur im seelischen Bereich, sondern in weiteren zentralen Bereichen menschlichen Handelns, namentlich dem Wahrnehmungsbereich, dem kognitiven Bereich und der Beweglichkeit. Die Verbesserungen betrafen mehrere Lebensbereiche, den privaten, wie auch den beruflichen Bereich. Die Sicherheit der Feldenkraismethode gegenüber dem Auftreten unerwünschter Nebenwirkungen wurde ebenfalls dokumentiert. Anhand kontrollierter randomisierter Folgestudien sollten die Ergebnisse abgesichert werden. Der kreative Wissensaustausch von Neurobiologen mit moderner Messtechnik und wissenschaftlich arbeitenden Feldenkraislehrern, die zur Entwicklung spezieller Messmethodik einen Beitrag leisten können, kann zu neuen Erkenntnissen auf den Gebieten des Lernverhaltens, der Reifung und der Gesundheit des Menschen führen.The submitted study deals with the effects of Feldenkrais-exercises on the average population, focusing especially on somatic and psychosomatic aspects. Feldenkrais evolved the methods theoretical basis on a broad scientific fundament, including results from multiple fields such as Verbesserungenvironment as well as to generate self healing skills. This capability can be supported by the Feldenkrais-teacher or the psychotherapist respectively. More and more Feldenkrais-courses are picked up by people searching for support for their personal development or for getting over their health and especially their psychosomatic problems. Against this background, participants of Feldenkrais-courses carried out by a general practitioner were surveyed as well in previous and after ten Feldenkrais-sessions as long-term. 2/3 of the 82 participants were female, the average age was 46 years. Concerning the state of psychosomatic symptoms, the spot check was comparable to the national average but of over averaged education. Their motivation to apply the courses was to improve body-perception, physical agility and to relief health troubles. Using two standard questionnaires (Gießener Beschwerdebogen, SCL-90-R) the study ascertains a significant soothing of psychosomatic and therefor health troubles as well directly after to courses as in long-term perspective after six months, including rheumatic pains, cardiopathy, tendencies of somatisation, obsession, depression, aggression and mental strain. Due to the authors self assessment questionnaire, positive long-term effects in the mental sphere could be confirmed on the one hand. On the other hand lasting positive effects in fundamental fields of human action such as perception, feeling, cognition and physical agility could be stated. Relief was noticed by the participants both in privacy and in professional live. The safeguarding of the Feldenkrais-method regarding undesirable side effects could also be proofed. The prophylactical and therapeutical effects of the Feldenkrais-method in a broad health and psychosomatic sphere revealed in this study should though be guarantied by further controlled studies. The creative knowledge exchange between neurobiologists with their modern measurement-techniques and scientifically working Feldkrais-teachers with their ability to contribute to the development of specialized measure-methods might lead to new acknowledgement regarding the behaviour of learning, human maturing and health

Разработка мероприятий по регулированию напряжения на подстанциях Асиновского энергоузла

Целью работы является разработка и анализ мероприятий по регулированию напряжения на подстанциях Асиновского энергоузла. В процессе исследование проводилось оценка и выбор технического резерва мощности в ЭЭС, оценка величины резерва генерируемой мощности без учета плановых ремонтов, определение надежности питания узла нагрузки В результате исследование произведен расчет режима максимальных и минимальных нагрузок. Экономическая эффективность достигается за счет применение современных управляемых устройств положительно сказывается на надежности и качестве электроснабжения потребителя.The aim of this work is the development and analysis of measures for regulation of voltage in substations asinovskiy power unit. In the process the study was conducted assessment and selection of the technical capacity reserve in EPS, estimation of reserve generation capacity excluding scheduled maintenance, the determination of the reliability of power supply of the load node As a result, the study calculated the maximum and minimum loads. Economic efficiency is achieved through the use of modern managed devices has a positive effect on the reliability and quality of electricity supply to consumers

Personalization in Serious and Persuasive Games and Gamified Interactions

© Lennart Nacke, 2015. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in CHI PLAY '15 Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, https://doi.org/10.1145/2793107.2810260Serious and persuasive games and gamified interactions have become popular in the last years, especially in the realm of behavior change support systems. They have been used as tools to support and influence human behavior in a variety of fields, such as health, sustainability, education, and security. It has been shown that personalized serious and persuasive games and gamified interactions can increase effectivity of supporting behavior change compared to "one-size-fits all"-systems. However, how serious games and gamified interactions can be personalized, which factors can be used to personalize (e.g. personality, gender, persuadability, player types, gamification user types, states, contextual/situational variables), what effect personalization has (e.g. on player/user experience) and whether there is any return on investment is still largely unexplored. This full-day workshop aims at bringing together the academic and industrial community as well as the gaming and gamification community to jointly explore these topics and define a future roadmap.Österreichische ForschungsförderungsgesellschaftPeer-reviewe

Cross-competition of CD8+ T cells shapes the immunodominance hierarchy during boost vaccination

CD8+ T cell responses directed against multiple pathogen-derived epitopes are characterized by defined immunodominance hierarchy patterns. A possible explanation for this phenomenon is that CD8+ T cells of different specificities compete for access to epitopes on antigen-presenting cells, and that the outcome of this so-called cross-competition reflects the number of induced T cells. In our study using a vaccinia virus infection model, we found that T cell cross-competition is highly relevant during boost vaccination, thereby shaping the immunodominance hierarchy in the recall. We demonstrate that competition was of no importance during priming and was unaffected by the applied route of immunization. It strongly depended on the timing of viral antigen expression in infected APCs, and it was characterized by poor proliferation of T cells recognizing epitopes derived from late viral proteins. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of the functional importance of T cell cross-competition during a viral infection. Our findings provide a basis for novel strategies for how boost vaccination to defined antigens can be selectively improved. They give important new insights into the design of more efficient poxviral vectors for immunotherapy

Visual Awareness in Binocular Rivalry Modulates Induced Pupil Fluctuations

When a visual stimulus oscillates in luminance, pupil size follows this oscillation. Recently, it has been demonstrated that such induced pupil oscillations can be used to tag which stimulus is covertly attended. Here we ask whether this “pupil frequency tagging” approach can be extended to visual awareness, specifically to inferring perceptual dominance in Binocular Rivalry between complex stimuli. We presented two distinct stimuli, a face and a house, to each eye and modulated their luminance at 1.7 Hz either in counter-phase (180° phase shift), with a 90° phase shift or in phase (0° control). In some conditions, we additionally asked observers to attend either of the stimuli. The luminance modulation was sufficiently subtle that rivalry dynamics did not differ among these conditions, and was also indistinguishable from unmodulated presentation of the stimuli. For the 180° and the 90° phase-shifted stimuli, we found that the phase of the pupil response relative to the stimuli was modulated by perceptual dominance; that is, the relative phase depended on the stimulus the observer was aware of. In turn, this perceptually dominant stimulus could be decoded from the phase of the pupil response significantly above chance. Neither percept dependence of the phase nor significant decoding was found for the 0° control condition. Our results show that visual awareness modulates pupil responses and provide proof of principle that dominance in rivalry for complex stimuli can be inferred from induced pupil fluctuations