Picosecond time-resolved pure-rotational coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy for N-2 thermometry

This paper was published in Optics Letters and is made available as an electronic reprint with the permission of OSA. The paper can be found at the following URL on the OSA website: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=ol-34-23-3755. Systematic or multiple reproduction or distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means is prohibited and is subject to penalties under law.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Time-resolved measurement of the local equivalence ratio in a gaseous propane injection process using laser-induced gratings

This paper was published in Optics Express and is made available as an electronic reprint with the permission of OSA. The paper can be found at the following URL on the OSA website: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=oe-14-26-12994. Systematic or multiple reproduction or distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means is prohibited and is subject to penalties under law.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Sizing of single fluorescently stained DNA fragments by scanning microscopy

We describe an approach to determine DNA fragment sizes based on the fluorescence detection of single adsorbed fragments on specifically coated glass cover slips. The brightness of single fragments stained with the DNA bisintercalation dye TOTO‐1 is determined by scanning the surface with a confocal microscope. The brightness of adsorbed fragments is found to be proportional to the fragment length. The method needs only minute amount of DNA, beyond inexpensive and easily available surface coatings, like poly‐l‐lysine, 3‐aminoproyltriethoxysilane and polyornithine, are utilizable. We performed DNA‐sizing of fragment lengths between 2 and 14 kb. Further, we resolved the size distribution before and after an enzymatic restriction digest. At this a separation of buffers or enzymes was unnecessary. DNA sizes were determined within an uncertainty of 7-14%. The proposed method is straightforward and can be applied to standardized microtiter plate

Real-Time Detection of Polymerase Activity Using Supercritical Angle Fluorescence

We investigated the incorporation efficiencies of different fluorescently labelled dNTPs with polymerases by complementary strand synthesis. For this reason single stranded DNA was immobilized on a coverslip and the increase of fluorescence due to the synthesis of the corresponding strand with tagged dNTPs was detected with a supercritical angle fluorescence biosensor in real-time. By comparison of the observed signal intensities it was possible to conclude that the system Cy5-dCTP—Klenow (exonuclease free) fragment gives the best incorporation yield of the investigated enzymes and dNTP

Politische Kommunikation zwischen politischen Eliten und Bevölkerung: Leitfaden für eine sicherheitspolitische Debatte in Deutschland

"Sicherheitspolitik wird von den politischen Eliten in Deutschland auch heute noch wie ein ungeliebtes Stiefkind der politischen Kommunikation behandelt. Die Bundesrepublik hat sich jedoch seit der Wiedervereinigung in ihrem außen- und sicherheitspolitischen Agieren fundamental verändert. Waren die ersten Auslandseinsätze der Bundeswehr noch von langen Debatten begleitet, so stehen deren Streitkräfte heute an zahlreichen Orten der Welt im Einsatz. Eine in einen offenen Kommunikationsprozess eingebettete Begründung dafür erfolgte jedoch von Seiten der verantwortlichen Akteure nicht. Die Bundesregierung entscheidet sich bewusst für ihr ziviles wie militärisches Engagement im internationalen Krisenmanagement mit den dazugehörigen Kosten und Risiken. Da Beschlüsse in einem so sensiblen Politikfeld jedoch nicht abgekoppelt von der Gesellschaft stattfinden dürfen, gilt es, über eine pro-aktive und konsequente Vermittlungsarbeit die Entscheidungen und die sich daraus ergebenden Konsequenzen gegenüber dem Bürger überzeugend zu vertreten und zu verantworten. Nur durch einen offenen Kommunikationsprozess kann die Unterstützung und Legitimation für politische Handlungen erreicht werden. Wichtig hierfür sind nicht nur die Inhalte, sondern auch Form und Struktur des Dialogs." (Autorenreferat

Multi-Step Processing of Spatial Joins

Spatial joins are one of the most important operations for combining spatial objects of several relations. In this paper, spatial join processing is studied in detail for extended spatial objects in twodimensional data space. We present an approach for spatial join processing that is based on three steps. First, a spatial join is performed on the minimum bounding rectangles of the objects returning a set of candidates. Various approaches for accelerating this step of join processing have been examined at the last year’s conference [BKS 93a]. In this paper, we focus on the problem how to compute the answers from the set of candidates which is handled by the following two steps. First of all, sophisticated approximations are used to identify answers as well as to filter out false hits from the set of candidates. For this purpose, we investigate various types of conservative and progressive approximations. In the last step, the exact geometry of the remaining candidates has to be tested against the join predicate. The time required for computing spatial join predicates can essentially be reduced when objects are adequately organized in main memory. In our approach, objects are first decomposed into simple components which are exclusively organized by a main-memory resident spatial data structure. Overall, we present a complete approach of spatial join processing on complex spatial objects. The performance of the individual steps of our approach is evaluated with data sets from real cartographic applications. The results show that our approach reduces the total execution time of the spatial join by factors