Zehn Jahre Existenzminimumbericht: Eine Bilanz

Seit zehn Jahren berichtet die Bundesregierung regelmäßig über die Höhe des von der Einkommensteuer zu verschonenden Existenzminimums. Dabei geht es um die verfasssungsrechtliche Koppelung zwischen Sozialhilferecht und Steuerrecht sowie die Entwicklung der steuerfrei zu stellenden Beträge. Welche Bedeutung hat die Berichterstattung zum Existenzminimum? Welche verfassungsrechtlichen, gesetzgeberischen und ökonomischen Wirkungszusammenhänge sind zu beachten? --

Una contribución al estudio del pirapita (Brycon Orbignyanus)

Fil: Thormählen, Ana Luisa. Museo de La Plata. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; Argentin

NTRC Plays a Crucial Role in Starch Metabolism, Redox Balance, and Tomato Fruit Growth

NADPH-thioredoxin reductase C (NTRC) forms a separate thiol-reduction cascade in plastids, combining both NADPHthioredoxin reductase and thioredoxin activities on a single polypeptide. While NTRC is an important regulator of photosynthetic processes in leaves, its function in heterotrophic tissues remains unclear. Here, we focus on the role of NTRC in developing tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) fruits representing heterotrophic storage organs important for agriculture and human diet. We used a fruit-specific promoter to decrease NTRC expression by RNA interference in developing tomato fruits by 60% to 80% compared to the wild type. This led to a decrease in fruit growth, resulting in smaller and lighter fully ripe fruits containing less dry matter and more water. In immature fruits, NTRC downregulation decreased transient starch accumulation, which led to a subsequent decrease in soluble sugars in ripe fruits. The inhibition of starch synthesis was associated with a decrease in the redox-activation state of ADP-Glc pyrophosphorylase and soluble starch synthase, which catalyze the first committed and final polymerizing steps, respectively, of starch biosynthesis. This was accompanied by a decrease in the level of ADP-Glc. NTRC downregulation also led to a strong increase in the reductive states of NAD(H) and NADP(H) redox systems. Metabolite profiling of NTRC-RNA interference lines revealed increased organic and amino acid levels, but reduced sugar levels, implying that NTRC regulates the osmotic balance of developing fruits. These results indicate that NTRC acts as a central hub in regulating carbon metabolism and redox balance in heterotrophic tomato fruits, affecting fruit development as well as final fruit size and qualit

Automatic Face Reenactment

We propose an image-based, facial reenactment system that replaces the face of an actor in an existing target video with the face of a user from a source video, while preserving the original target performance. Our system is fully automatic and does not require a database of source expressions. Instead, it is able to produce convincing reenactment results from a short source video captured with an off-the-shelf camera, such as a webcam, where the user performs arbitrary facial gestures. Our reenactment pipeline is conceived as part image retrieval and part face transfer: The image retrieval is based on temporal clustering of target frames and a novel image matching metric that combines appearance and motion to select candidate frames from the source video, while the face transfer uses a 2D warping strategy that preserves the user's identity. Our system excels in simplicity as it does not rely on a 3D face model, it is robust under head motion and does not require the source and target performance to be similar. We show convincing reenactment results for videos that we recorded ourselves and for low-quality footage taken from the Internet

Estudio biológico y experimental de las adaptaciones (eurihalinidad) del pez vivíparo <i>Jenynsia lineata</i>

El pez vivíparo Jenynsia lineata (Jenyns) (familia Pecflidos) de tan vasta distribución geográfica en la República Argentina, se suponía fundadamente por observaciones ya publicadas, que presentaba un poder de adaptación muy grande a aguas de diferente concentración salina ("eurihalinidad"). Con el fin de comprobar los grados de esta particularidad y otros detalles que incluso podían ser de interés sanitario, me sugirió el profesor Dr. Emiliano J. Mac Donagh la conveniencia de verificar experimentalmente en el laboratorio estas observaciones. Con la ayuda de la ''Asociación Argentina para el Progreso de las Ciencias" que preside el profesor Dr. Bernardo A. Houssay, que me concedió una beca interna de diez meses (1945), he realizado dicho trabajo bajo la dirección del ya citado Dr. Mac Donagh, profesor y Jefe del Departamento de Zoología (Vertebrados) en los laboratorios que están a su cargo en el Instituto del Musco de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata, a quien agradezco en esta oportunidad su guía y valiosos consejos.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

Thioredoxin f1 and NADPH-dependent thioredoxin reductase C have overlapping functions in regulating photosynthetic metabolism and plant growth in response to varying light conditions

Two different thiol-redox-systems exist in plant chloroplasts, the ferredoxin-thioredoxin system, which depends of ferredoxin reduced by the photosynthetic electron-transport chain and, thus, of light, and the NADPH-dependent thioredoxin reductase C (NTRC) system, which relies on NADPH and thus may be linked to sugar metabolism in the dark. Previous studies suggested therefore that the two different systems may have different functions in plants. We now report that there is a previously unrecognized functional redundancy of thioredoxin-f1 and NTRC in regulating photosynthetic metabolism and growth. In Arabidopsis mutants, combined - but not single - deficiencies of thioredoxin-f1 and NTRC led to severe growth inhibition and perturbed light acclimation, accompanied by strong impairments of Calvin-Benson-cycle activity and starch accumulation. Light-activation of key-enzymes of these pathways, fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase and ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase, was almost completely abolished. The subsequent increase in NADPH/NADP+ and ATP/ADP ratios led to increased nitrogen assimilation, NADP-malate dehydrogenase activation and light-vulnerability of photosystem I core-proteins. In an additional approach, reporter studies show that Trx f1 and NTRC proteins are both co-localized in the same chloroplast substructure. Results provide genetic evidence that light and NADPH dependent thiol-redox systems interact at the level of thioredoxin-f1 and NTRC to coordinately participate in the regulation of Calvin-Benson-cycle, starch metabolism and growth in response to varying light conditions

Sputter Deposited Magnetostrictive Layers for SAW Magnetic Field Sensors

For the best possible limit of detection of any thin film-based magnetic field sensor, the functional magnetic film properties are an essential parameter. For sensors based on magnetostrictive layers, the chemical composition, morphology and intrinsic stresses of the layer have to be controlled during film deposition to further control magnetic influences such as crystallographic effects, pinning effects and stress anisotropies. For the application in magnetic surface acoustic wave sensors, the magnetostrictive layers are deposited on rotated piezoelectric single crystal substrates. The thermomechanical properties of quartz can lead to undesirable layer stresses and associated magnetic anisotropies if the temperature increases during deposition. With this in mind, we compare amorphous, magnetostrictive FeCoSiB films prepared by RF and DC magnetron sputter deposition. The chemical, structural and magnetic properties determined by elastic recoil detection, X-ray diffraction, and magneto-optical magnetometry and magnetic domain analysis are correlated with the resulting surface acoustic wave sensor properties such as phase noise level and limit of detection. To confirm the material properties, SAW sensors with magnetostrictive layers deposited with RF and DC deposition have been prepared and characterized, showing comparable detection limits below 200 pT/Hz1/2 at 10 Hz. The main benefit of the DC deposition is achieving higher deposition rates while maintaining similar low substrate temperatures