Process Oriented Collaboration in Grid-Environments: A Case Study in the Construction Industry

This paper addresses the process-oriented collaboration based on a grid-based platform for the support of virtual organizations (VO), illustrated on the example of the construction industry. Distributed, organizational and IT-structures of teams involved in vintage complex projects cannot be managed with conventional methods in an appropriate manner. Both using a grid platform and grid-based services, in conjunction with semantic methods for consistency saving and goal-oriented process management can increase the efficiency of collaboration processes in large-scale projects. A hybrid grid- and web service-based architecture for the next generation of VO service and a gateway solution was developed integrating the process-oriented perspective and prototypically implemented. The problem, as well as the solution on the basis of the hybrid system architecture combing the benefits of the cutting-edge technologies, the methodical concept for modeling VO processes and their automated execution on a grid platform are discussed in detail

Vascularization and biocompatibility of poly(ε-caprolactone) fiber mats for rotator cuff tear repair

Rotator cuff tear is the most frequent tendon injury in the adult population. Despite current improvements in surgical techniques and the development of grafts, failure rates following tendon reconstruction remain high. New therapies, which aim to restore the topology and functionality of the interface between muscle, tendon and bone, are essentially required. One of the key factors for a successful incorporation of tissue engineered constructs is a rapid ingrowth of cells and tissues, which is dependent on a fast vascularization. The dorsal skinfold chamber model in female BALB/cJZtm mice allows the observation of microhemodynamic parameters in repeated measurements in vivo and therefore the description of the vascularization of different implant materials. In order to promote vascularization of implant material, we compared a porous polymer patch (a commercially available porous polyurethane based scaffold from Biomerix™) with electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL) fiber mats and chitosan-graft-PCL coated electrospun PCL (CS-g-PCL) fiber mats in vivo. Using intravital fluorescence microscopy microcirculatory parameters were analyzed repetitively over 14 days. Vascularization was significantly increased in CS-g-PCL fiber mats at day 14 compared to the porous polymer patch and uncoated PCL fiber mats. Furthermore CS-g-PCL fiber mats showed also a reduced activation of immune cells. Clinically, these are important findings as they indicate that the CS-g-PCL improves the formation of vascularized tissue and the ingrowth of cells into electrospun PCL scaffolds. Especially the combination of enhanced vascularization and the reduction in immune cell activation at the later time points of our study points to an improved clinical outcome after rotator cuff tear repair. © 2020 Gniesmer et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

In vivo analysis of vascularization and biocompatibility of electrospun polycaprolactone fibre mats in the rat femur chamber

In orthopaedic medicine, connective tissues are often affected by traumatic or degenerative injuries, and surgical intervention is required. Rotator cuff tears are a common cause of shoulder pain and disability among adults. The development of graft materials for bridging the gap between tendon and bone after chronic rotator cuff tears is essentially required. The limiting factor for the clinical success of a tissue engineering construct is a fast and complete vascularization of the construct. Otherwise, immigrating cells are not able to survive for a longer period of time, resulting in the failure of the graft material. The femur chamber allows the observation of microhaemodynamic parameters inside implants located in close vicinity to the femur in repeated measurements in vivo. We compared a porous polymer patch (a commercially available porous polyurethane-based scaffold from Biomerix™) with electrospun polycaprolactone (PCL) fibre mats and chitosan (CS)-graft-PCL modified electrospun PCL (CS-g-PCL) fibre mats in vivo. By means of intravital fluorescence microscopy, microhaemodynamic parameters were analysed repetitively over 20 days at intervals of 3 to 4 days. CS-g-PCL modified fibre mats showed a significantly increased vascularization at Day 10 compared with Day 6 and at Day 14 compared with the porous polymer patch and the unmodified PCL fibre mats at the same day. These results could be verified by histology. In conclusion, a clear improvement in terms of vascularization and biocompatibility is achieved by graft-copolymer modification compared with the unmodified material. © 2019 The Authors Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Published by John Wiley & Sons Lt

Diagnosis of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma and Chronic Pancreatitis by Measurement of microRNA Abundance in Blood and Tissue

A solid process for diagnosis could have a substantial impact on the successful treatment of pancreatic cancer, for which currently mortality is nearly identical to incidence. Variations in the abundance of all microRNA molecules from peripheral blood cells and pancreas tissues were analyzed on microarrays and in part validated by real-time PCR assays. In total, 245 samples from two clinical centers were studied that were obtained from patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma or chronic pancreatitis and from healthy donors. Utilizing the minimally invasive blood test, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and the corresponding area under the curve (AUC) analysis demonstrated very high sensitivity and specificity of a distinction between healthy people and patients with either cancer or chronic pancreatitis; respective AUC values of 0.973 and 0.950 were obtained. Confirmative and partly even more discriminative diagnosis could be performed on tissue samples with AUC values of 1.0 and 0.937, respectively. In addition, discrimination between cancer and chronic pancreatitis was achieved (AUC = 0.875). Also, several miRNAs were identified that exhibited abundance variations in both tissue and blood samples. The results could have an immediate diagnostic value for the evaluation of tumor reoccurrence in patients, who have undergone curative surgical resection, and for people with a familial risk of pancreatic cancer

Understanding, diagnosing, and treating Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome - State of the art: Report of the 2nd international meeting at the Charité fatigue center.

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a devastating disease affecting millions of people worldwide. Due to the 2019 pandemic of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), we are facing a significant increase of ME/CFS prevalence. On May 11th to 12th, 2023, the second international ME/CFS conference of the Charité Fatigue Center was held in Berlin, Germany, focusing on pathomechanisms, diagnosis, and treatment. During the two-day conference, more than 100 researchers from various research fields met on-site and over 700 attendees participated online to discuss the state of the art and novel findings in this field. Key topics from the conference included: the role of the immune system, dysfunction of endothelial and autonomic nervous system, and viral reactivation. Furthermore, there were presentations on innovative diagnostic measures and assessments for this complex disease, cutting-edge treatment approaches, and clinical studies. Despite the increased public attention due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the subsequent rise of Long COVID-19 cases, and the rise of funding opportunities to unravel the pathomechanisms underlying ME/CFS, this severe disease remains highly underresearched. Future adequately funded research efforts are needed to further explore the disease etiology and to identify diagnostic markers and targeted therapies

Prognoseabschätzung bei Patienten mit chronisch thromboembolischer pulmonaler Hypertonie (CTEPH) mittels ausgewählter Parameter der Spiroergometrie (CPET)

In dieser retrospektiven Studie sind ausgehend von 527 der Gesamtkohorte 345 Patienten mit einer CTEPH analysiert worden. Die Stratifizierung der Patienten erfolgte in zwei Gruppen: Der konventionellen Gruppe, in der Patienten eine medikamentöse PH-Therapie erhalten haben, und der interventionellen Gruppe, in der Patienten eine Intervention in Form einer pulmonalen Endarteriektomie (PEA) oder einer pulmonalen Ballonangioplastie (BPA) erhalten haben. Der Beobachtungszeitraum erstreckte sich vom 01.01.2002 bis zum 31.12.2020. In der gesamten Nachbeobachtungszeit (Median: 3.5 Jahre; mean ± SD, 4.4 ± 3.6 Jahre) starben ins-gesamt 78 Patienten, entsprechend einem Prozentsatz von 22.6 % (n = 345), davon in der konventionellen Gruppe 29 % (n = 60) und in der interventionellen Gruppe 13 % (n = 18). Die wichtigste Schlussfolgerung der vorliegenden Arbeit ist der prädiktive Vorhersagewert der Überlebenswahrscheinlichkeit der mittels CPET bestimmten maximal Sauerstoffaufnahme VO2 (Peak) für Patienten, die aus verschiedensten Gründen keiner interventionellen Therapie im Sinne der etablierten pulmonale Endarteriektomie (PEA) oder der pulmonale Ballonangioplastie (BPA) zugänglich sind. Die in dieser Studie untersuchten Parameter, die zu Beginn des Beobachtungszeitraums. d. h. vor der Intervention, erhoben wurden, lassen in der interventionellen Gruppe keine verlässliche Vorhersage für das Überleben zu. In der konventionellen Gruppe konnten in der vorliegenden Arbeit jedoch eine Vielzahl an prognoserelevanten Parametern identifiziert werden. Maßgeblich sind dies neben der bereits erwähnten VO2 (Peak) [% SW] die Parameter PET CO2 in Ruhe und an der AT, die VE/VCO2 in Ruhe und an der AT. Der VE/VCO2-Slope und die PET CO2 (Peak) sind ebenso prognoserelevant. Größere Studienkollektive mit einem längeren Beobachtungszeitraum könnten sich mit einer höheren Sensitivität auch der Frage widmen, ob es nicht doch einen relevanten CPET-Parameter zur Prognoseabschätzung auch bei interventionell versorgten Patienten gibt. Ein Ansatz da-für wäre CPET-Untersuchungen in definierten Zeitintervallen nach der operativen Intervention. Weiterführende Studien sollten zudem unter diesem Aspekt auch die Frage des Einsatzes der CPET über die Basisdiagnostik hinaus als Verlaufsparameter untersuchen und außerdem auf längere Beobachtungsphasen ausgedehnt werden, um weitere Langzeitdaten erheben zu können

GGF10 – Grid Workflow Workshop – User Tools & Languages Hoheisel 2004 User Tools and Languages for Graph-based Grid Workflows

One of the main objectives of Grid computing is the abstraction from the hardware infrastructure as well as hiding implementation details of software components from the user. A modern Grid infrastructure should enable the user not only to execute single tasks on specified hardware resources but also to compose and execute complex Grid applications o

Dynamic Workflows for Grid Applications

In the Grid computing community, there are several approaches to execute not only single tasks on single Grid resources but also to support workflow schemes that enable the composition and execution of complex Grid applications. The most commonly used workflow model for this purpose is the Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG). Within the establishment of the Fraunhofer Resource Grid, we developed a Grid Job Definition Language (GJobDL) that is based on the concept of Petri nets instead of DAGs to support the graph-based definition of arbitrary workflows on an abstract level. During the workflow execution, the abstract workflow must be concretized in order to be mapped onto the real Grid environment. This requires dynamic completion of the workflow based on actual information. It may be necessary to introduce new tasks – such as data transfers, deployment of software, authorization request, and data retrievals. These tasks can be represented by sub Petri nets that replace parts of the existent Petri net during runtime of the Grid application. We also propose a concept for fault management of entire job workflows by explicitly modeling the fault management within the workflow model. This fault management can be user-defined or be realized automatically by introducing new tasks enabling fault management based on fault management templates.

A Grid workflow language using high-level Petri nets

One approach to application programming for the Grid is to implement services with often-used functionality on high-performance Grid hosts and provide them to the users located at clients. Complex applications are created by using several services and specifying the workflow between them. We discuss how the workflow of Grid applications can be described in an intuitive way as a High-Level Petri Net (HLPN), in order to orchestrate and execute distributed applications on the Grid automatically. Petri Nets provide an intuitive graphical workflow description, which is easier to use than script-based descriptions and is much more expressive than directed acyclic graphs (DAG). In addition, the workflow description can be analysed for certain properties such as deadlocks and liveness, using standard algorithms for HLPNs. We propose a platform-independent, XML-based language, called Grid Workflow Description Language (GWorkflowDL), and show how it can be adapted to particular Grid platforms. As two example target platforms, we discuss Java/RMI and the current WSRF standard.