Nutzung von Pflanzenextrakten zur Kontrolle der Krautfäule (P. infestans) im ökologischen Kartoffelbau

Der Befall mit dem Erreger der Kraut- und Knollenfäule (P. infestans) hat durch frühzeitigen Verlust der Assimilationsfläche regelmäßig erhebliche Ertragsverluste im Ökologischen Kartoffelbau zur Folge. Neben einer Reihe von vorbeugenden Maßnahmen, inbesondere Wahl toleranter Sorten und Vorkeimen des Pflanzgutes (KARALUS 1995, MEINCK 1999), sind zur direkten effizienten Kontrolle derzeit nur Kupferverbindungen zugelassen. Ein weitgehend unerforschtes Potential zur Kontrolle dieses Oomyceten liegt in der Nutzung von Pflanzenextrakten, diese Wirkung wurde in Feldversuchen untersucht

Application of finite element code Q3DFL0-81 to turbomachinery flow fields

Through-flow and blade-to-blade calculations were made in association with a number of experimental research activities at the Turbopropulsion Laboratory, Naval Postgraduate School. The Q3DFL0-81 code was operated on an IBM 370-3033 mainframe computer. The flow through a single stage axial research compressor was computed and compared with both probe survey and stage performance map measurments. Swirling flow produced by a vaned out-flow generator for a radial diffuser test facility was calculated for both large low-speed and small-scale high-speed versions of the device. Flow through a two-dimensional compressor cascade of "controlled-dif fusion" blade shapes was calculated and the results compared with experimental data, and with predictions obtained using the NASA code QSONIC.Prepared for: Naval Air Systems Command, Washington DChttp://archive.org/details/applicationoffin00schuN0001984WR 41099, N0001984WR 41134N

Circulation and Oxygen Distribution in the Tropical Atlantic Cruise No. 80, Leg 1; October 26 to November 23, 2009 Mindelo (Cape Verde) to Mindelo (Cape Verde)

METEOR cruise 80/1 was a contribution to the SFB 754 “Climate-Biogeochemistry Interactions in the Tropical Ocean”. Shipboard, glider and moored observations are used to study the temporal and spatial variability of physical and biogeochemical parameters within the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) of the tropical North Atlantic. As part of the BMBF “Nordatlantik” project, it further focuses on the equatorial current system including the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) and intermediate currents below. During the cruise, hydrographic station observations were performed using a CTD/O2 rosette, including water sampling for salinity, oxygen, nutrients and other biogeochemical tracers. Underway current measurements were successfully carried out with the 75 kHz ADCP borrowed from R/V POSEIDON during the first part of the cruise, and R/V METEOR’s 38 kHz ADCP during the second part. During M80/1, an intensive mooring program was carried out with 8 mooring recoveries and 8 mooring deployments. Right at the beginning of the cruise, a multidisciplinary mooring near the Cape Verde Islands was recovered and redeployed. Within the framework of SFB 754, two moorings with CTD/O2 profilers were recovered and redeployed with other instrumentation in the center and at the southern rim of the OMZ of the tropical North Atlantic. The equatorial mooring array as part of BMBF “North Atlantic” project consists of 5 current meter moorings along 23°W between 2°S and 2°N. It is aimed at quantifying the variability of the thermocline water supply toward the equatorial cold tongue which develops east of 10°W during boreal summer. Several glider missions were performed during the cruise. One glider was recovered that was deployed two months earlier. Another glider was deployed for two short term missions, near the equator for about 8 days and near 8°N for one day. This glider was equipped with a new microstructure probe in addition to standard sensors, i.e. CTD/O2, chlorophyll and turbidity

Judging Time-to-Passage of looming sounds: evidence for the use of distance-based information

Perceptual judgments are an essential mechanism for our everyday interaction with other moving agents or events. For instance, estimation of the time remaining before an object contacts or passes us is essential to act upon or to avoid that object. Previous studies have demonstrated that participants use different cues to estimate the time to contact or the time to passage of approaching visual stimuli. Despite the considerable number of studies on the judgment of approaching auditory stimuli, not much is known about the cues that guide listeners’ performance in an auditory Time-to-Passage (TTP) task. The present study evaluates how accurately participants judge approaching white-noise stimuli in a TTP task that included variable occlusion periods (portion of the presentation time where the stimulus is not audible). Results showed that participants were able to accurately estimate TTP and their performance, in general, was weakly affected by occlusion periods. Moreover, we looked into the psychoacoustic variables provided by the stimuli and analysed how binaural cues related with the performance obtained in the psychophysical task. The binaural temporal difference seems to be the psychoacoustic cue guiding participants’ performance for lower amounts of occlusion, while the binaural loudness difference seems to be the cue guiding performance for higher amounts of occlusion. These results allowed us to explain the perceptual strategies used by participants in a TTP task (maintaining accuracy by shifting the informative cue for TTP estimation), and to demonstrate that the psychoacoustic cue guiding listeners’ performance changes according to the occlusion period.This study was supported by: Bial FoundationGrant 143/14 (https://www.bial.com/en/bial_foundation.11/11th_symposium.219/ fellows_preliminary_results.235/fellows_ preliminary_results.a569.html); FCT PTDC/EEAELC/112137/2009 (https://www.fct.pt/apoios/projectos/consulta/vglobal_projecto?idProjecto=112137&idElemConcurso=3628); and COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Therapy reduction in patients with Down syndrome and myeloid leukemia: the international ML-DS 2006 trial

Children with myeloid leukemia associated with Down syndrome (ML-DS) have superior outcome compared with non-DS patients, but suffer from higher constitutional cytotoxic drug susceptibility. We analyzed the outcome of 170 pediatric patients with ML-DS enrolled in the prospective, multicenter, open-label, nonrandomized ML-DS 2006 trial by Nordic Society for Pediatric Hematology and Oncology (NOPHO), Dutch Childhood Oncology Group (DCOG), and Acute Myeloid Leukemia–Berlin-Frankfurt-Münster (AML-BFM) study group. Compared with the historical control arm (reduced-intensity protocol for ML-DS patients from the AML-BFM 98 trial), treatment intensity was reduced by lowering the cumulative dose of etoposide (950 to 450 mg/m2) and intrathecal central nervous system prophylaxis while omitting maintenance therapy. Still, 5-year overall survival (89% 6 3% vs 90% 6 4%; Plog-rank 5 .64), event-free survival (EFS; 87% 6 3% vs 89% 6 4%; Plog-rank 5 .71), and cumulative incidence of relapse/ nonresponse (CIR/NR; 6% 6 3% vs 6% 6 2%; PGray 5 .03) did not significantly differ between the ML-DS 2006 trial and the historical control arm. Poor early treatment response (5-year EFS, 58% 6 16% vs 88% 6 3%; Plog rank 5 .0008) and gain of chromosome 8 (CIR/NR, 16% 6 7% vs 3% 6 2%, PGray 5 .02; 5-year EFS, 73% 6 8% vs 91% 6 4%, Plog rank 5 .018) were identified as independent prognostic factors predicting a worse EFS. Five of 7 relapsed patients (71%) with cytogenetic data had trisomy 8. Our study reveals prognostic markers for children with ML-DS and illustrates that reducing therapy did not impair excellent outcome. The trial was registered at EudraCT as #2007-006219-2. (Blood. 2017;129(25): 3314-3321

Compression of Auditory Space during Forward Self-Motion

<div><h3>Background</h3><p>Spatial inputs from the auditory periphery can be changed with movements of the head or whole body relative to the sound source. Nevertheless, humans can perceive a stable auditory environment and appropriately react to a sound source. This suggests that the inputs are reinterpreted in the brain, while being integrated with information on the movements. Little is known, however, about how these movements modulate auditory perceptual processing. Here, we investigate the effect of the linear acceleration on auditory space representation.</p> <h3>Methodology/Principal Findings</h3><p>Participants were passively transported forward/backward at constant accelerations using a robotic wheelchair. An array of loudspeakers was aligned parallel to the motion direction along a wall to the right of the listener. A short noise burst was presented during the self-motion from one of the loudspeakers when the listener’s physical coronal plane reached the location of one of the speakers (null point). In Experiments 1 and 2, the participants indicated which direction the sound was presented, forward or backward relative to their subjective coronal plane. The results showed that the sound position aligned with the subjective coronal plane was displaced ahead of the null point only during forward self-motion and that the magnitude of the displacement increased with increasing the acceleration. Experiment 3 investigated the structure of the auditory space in the traveling direction during forward self-motion. The sounds were presented at various distances from the null point. The participants indicated the perceived sound location by pointing a rod. All the sounds that were actually located in the traveling direction were perceived as being biased towards the null point.</p> <h3>Conclusions/Significance</h3><p>These results suggest a distortion of the auditory space in the direction of movement during forward self-motion. The underlying mechanism might involve anticipatory spatial shifts in the auditory receptive field locations driven by afferent signals from vestibular system.</p> </div

Proteomics as a quality control tool of pharmaceutical probiotic bacterial lysate products

Probiotic bacteria have a wide range of applications in veterinary and human therapeutics. Inactivated probiotics are complex samples and quality control (QC) should measure as many molecular features as possible. Capillary electrophoresis coupled to mass spectrometry (CE/MS) has been used as a multidimensional and high throughput method for the identification and validation of biomarkers of disease in complex biological samples such as biofluids. In this study we evaluate the suitability of CE/MS to measure the consistency of different lots of the probiotic formulation Pro-Symbioflor which is a bacterial lysate of heat-inactivated Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecalis. Over 5000 peptides were detected by CE/MS in 5 different lots of the bacterial lysate and in a sample of culture medium. 71 to 75% of the total peptide content was identical in all lots. This percentage increased to 87–89% when allowing the absence of a peptide in one of the 5 samples. These results, based on over 2000 peptides, suggest high similarity of the 5 different lots. Sequence analysis identified peptides of both E. coli and E. faecalis and peptides originating from the culture medium, thus confirming the presence of the strains in the formulation. Ontology analysis suggested that the majority of the peptides identified for E. coli originated from the cell membrane or the fimbrium, while peptides identified for E. faecalis were enriched for peptides originating from the cytoplasm. The bacterial lysate peptides as a whole are recognised as highly conserved molecular patterns by the innate immune system as microbe associated molecular pattern (MAMP). Sequence analysis also identified the presence of soybean, yeast and casein protein fragments that are part of the formulation of the culture medium. In conclusion CE/MS seems an appropriate QC tool to analyze complex biological products such as inactivated probiotic formulations and allows determining the similarity between lots

Silver staining of proteins in polyacrylamide gels

Silver staining is used to detect proteins after electrophoretic separation on polyacrylamide gels. It combines excellent sensitivity (in the low nanogram range) with the use of very simple and cheap equipment and chemicals. It is compatible with downstream processing, such as mass spectrometry analysis after protein digestion. The sequential phases of silver staining are protein fixation, then sensitization, then silver impregnation and finally image development. Several variants of silver staining are described here, which can be completed in a time range from 2 h to 1 d after the end of the electrophoretic separation. Once completed, the stain is stable for several weeks