New Water-Based Adhesives For Flexible Food Packaging Chemical Design, Performance and Toxicological Safety

Today both solvent-borne and reactive solventless polyurethane adhesives are dominating the adhesive market for flexible food packaging. These adhesive technologies are more and more confronted with two market demands: quick converting after lamination and providing a maximum of toxicological safety. There should be no storage times of several days between lamination and delivery to the food packer, as being common for current laminating adhesives. These storage times are necessary today for most solventless and many solvent-based adhesives in order to build up molecular weight and bonding strength for subsequent cut and sealing processes, and in order to reduce low molecular weight ingredients with a toxicological risk potential for the food being packed. New water-borne adhesives make it possible to convert laminates immediately after laminate production and enable food packaging within a very short time period. In addition a maximum of toxicological safety is guaranteed. The key for these benefits is the molecular weight distribution of these new aqueous dispersions. The adhesive performance of the new polyurethane and acrylic based aqueous dispersions has been improved significantly and reach into high performance applications now

Ökologischer Landbau zwischen Vision und Realität

Der Bio-Sektor und seine Akteure scheinen in ihren Strukturen, Funktions- und Handlungsweisen der konventionellen Landwirtschaft immer ähnlicher zu werden. Die daraus resultierenden Effekte und notwendigen Maßnahmen wurden auf der 8.Wissenschaftstagung in Kassel erörtert

Konventionalisierungsfalle? was tun?

Der Öko-Landbau schrieb in den letzten Jahren Erfolgsgeschichte: Der Biosektor und seine Akteure scheinen in ihren Strukturen, Funktions- und Handlungsweisen der konventionellen Landwirtschaft immer ähnlicher zu werden. Während die einen Werte- und Sinnverlust beklagen, begrüßen die anderen Wachstum und öffentliche Anerkennung. Maßnahmen zur Überwindung dieses Spannungsfeldes wurden im März 2005 auf der Wissenschaftstagung zum Ökologischen Landbau im Rahmen eines Symposiums erörtert

Human With No Lysine Kinase 3 (WNK3): A Target Enabling Package (TEP)

The Target Enabling Package (TEP) programme's foundation is built upon the recognition that genetic data is proving to be a powerful tool for target validation. As such, TEPs provide a critical mass of reagents and knowledge on a protein target to allow rapid biochemical and chemical exploration and characterisation of proteins with genetic linkage to key disease areas. TEPs provide an answer to the missing link between genomics and chemical biology, provide a starting point for chemical probe generation and therefore catalyse new biology and disease understanding with the ultimate aim of enabling translation collaborations and target/ drug discovery. We are committed to generating and making available 24 high-quality TEPs by June 2020.SUMMARY OF PROJECT Kinases WNK1-4 regulate cation-chloride cotransporters via phosphorylation of SPAK and OSR1 and thereby control salt homeostasis, cell volume and blood pressure. Gain of function mutations in WNK kinases are found in Gordon’s hypertension syndrome suggesting the WNK pathway as a therapeutic target. WNK3 inhibition in particular has also been shown to reduce cerebral injury after Ischemic stroke. Here we present assays and crystal structures that define (i) the molecular basis for disease mutations; (ii) the multiple functional domains of WNK kinases and their protein interactions; (iii) the binding of small molecule kinase inhibitors and a potential allosteric pocket.The work performed at the SGC has been funded by a grant from the Wellcome [106169/ZZ14/Z]

Modelling the effects of standard prognostic factors in node-positive breast cancer

Prognostic models that predict the clinical course of a breast cancer patient are important in oncology. We propose an approach to constructing such models based on fractional polynomials in which useful transformations of the continuous factors are determined. The idea may be applied with all types of regression model, including Cox regression, the method of choice for survival-time data. We analyse a prospective study of node-positive breast cancer. Seven standard prognostic factors – age, menopausal status, tumour size, tumour grade, number of positive lymph nodes, progesterone and oestrogen receptor concentrations – were investigated in 686 patients, of whom 299 had an event for recurrence-free survival and 171 died. We determine a final model with transformations of prognostic factors and compare it with the more traditional approaches using categorized variables or assuming a straight line relationship. We conclude that analysis using fractional polynomials can extract important prognostic information which the traditional approaches may miss. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaig

Organizing Effects of Sex Steroids on Brain Aromatase Activity in Quail

Preoptic/hypothalamic aromatase activity (AA) is sexually differentiated in birds and mammals but the mechanisms controlling this sex difference remain unclear. We determined here (1) brain sites where AA is sexually differentiated and (2) whether this sex difference results from organizing effects of estrogens during ontogeny or activating effects of testosterone in adulthood. In the first experiment we measured AA in brain regions micropunched in adult male and female Japanese quail utilizing the novel strategy of basing the microdissections on the distribution of aromatase-immunoreactive cells. The largest sex difference was found in the medial bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (mBST) followed by the medial preoptic nucleus (POM) and the tuberal hypothalamic region. A second experiment tested the effect of embryonic treatments known to sex-reverse male copulatory behavior (i.e., estradiol benzoate [EB] or the aromatase inhibitor, Vorozole) on brain AA in gonadectomized adult males and females chronically treated as adults with testosterone. Embryonic EB demasculinized male copulatory behavior, while vorozole blocked demasculinization of behavior in females as previously demonstrated in birds. Interestingly, these treatments did not affect a measure of appetitive sexual behavior. In parallel, embryonic vorozole increased, while EB decreased AA in pooled POM and mBST, but the same effect was observed in both sexes. Together, these data indicate that the early action of estrogens demasculinizes AA. However, this organizational action of estrogens on AA does not explain the behavioral sex difference in copulatory behavior since AA is similar in testosterone-treated males and females that were or were not exposed to embryonic treatments with estrogens

A Measurement of Rb using a Double Tagging Method

The fraction of Z to bbbar events in hadronic Z decays has been measured by the OPAL experiment using the data collected at LEP between 1992 and 1995. The Z to bbbar decays were tagged using displaced secondary vertices, and high momentum electrons and muons. Systematic uncertainties were reduced by measuring the b-tagging efficiency using a double tagging technique. Efficiency correlations between opposite hemispheres of an event are small, and are well understood through comparisons between real and simulated data samples. A value of Rb = 0.2178 +- 0.0011 +- 0.0013 was obtained, where the first error is statistical and the second systematic. The uncertainty on Rc, the fraction of Z to ccbar events in hadronic Z decays, is not included in the errors. The dependence on Rc is Delta(Rb)/Rb = -0.056*Delta(Rc)/Rc where Delta(Rc) is the deviation of Rc from the value 0.172 predicted by the Standard Model. The result for Rb agrees with the value of 0.2155 +- 0.0003 predicted by the Standard Model.Comment: 42 pages, LaTeX, 14 eps figures included, submitted to European Physical Journal

Measurement of the B+ and B-0 lifetimes and search for CP(T) violation using reconstructed secondary vertices

The lifetimes of the B+ and B-0 mesons, and their ratio, have been measured in the OPAL experiment using 2.4 million hadronic Z(0) decays recorded at LEP. Z(0) --> b (b) over bar decays were tagged using displaced secondary vertices and high momentum electrons and muons. The lifetimes were then measured using well-reconstructed charged and neutral secondary vertices selected in this tagged data sample. The results aretau(B+) = 1.643 +/- 0.037 +/- 0.025 pstau(Bo) = 1.523 +/- 0.057 +/- 0.053 pstau(B+)/tau(Bo) = 1.079 +/- 0.064 +/- 0.041,where in each case the first error is statistical and the second systematic.A larger data sample of 3.1 million hadronic Z(o) decays has been used to search for CP and CPT violating effects by comparison of inclusive b and (b) over bar hadron decays, No evidence fur such effects is seen. The CP violation parameter Re(epsilon(B)) is measured to be Re(epsilon(B)) = 0.001 +/- 0.014 +/- 0.003and the fractional difference between b and (b) over bar hadron lifetimes is measured to(Delta tau/tau)(b) = tau(b hadron) - tau((b) over bar hadron)/tau(average) = -0.001 +/- 0.012 +/- 0.008

Survival models with preclustered gene groups as covariates

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>An important application of high dimensional gene expression measurements is the risk prediction and the interpretation of the variables in the resulting survival models. A major problem in this context is the typically large number of genes compared to the number of observations (individuals). Feature selection procedures can generate predictive models with high prediction accuracy and at the same time low model complexity. However, interpretability of the resulting models is still limited due to little knowledge on many of the remaining selected genes. Thus, we summarize genes as gene groups defined by the hierarchically structured Gene Ontology (GO) and include these gene groups as covariates in the hazard regression models. Since expression profiles within GO groups are often heterogeneous, we present a new method to obtain subgroups with coherent patterns. We apply preclustering to genes within GO groups according to the correlation of their gene expression measurements.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We compare Cox models for modeling disease free survival times of breast cancer patients. Besides classical clinical covariates we consider genes, GO groups and preclustered GO groups as additional genomic covariates. Survival models with preclustered gene groups as covariates have similar prediction accuracy as models built only with single genes or GO groups.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The preclustering information enables a more detailed analysis of the biological meaning of covariates selected in the final models. Compared to models built only with single genes there is additional functional information contained in the GO annotation, and compared to models using GO groups as covariates the preclustering yields coherent representative gene expression profiles.</p