Środowiskowe aspekty europejskiego doświadczenia w architekturze krajobrazu

Understanding all the possibilities of environmentally oriented landscape planning will contribute to the effective environmental planning of the territory and nature management in general. Accordingly, the purpose of the study was to investigate the experience of the European countries towards the introduction of an effective system of environmentally oriented landscape planning and improvement of territories, as well as their protection. For this purpose, it is necessary to comprehensively study the strengths and weaknesses of existing developments in the field of environmentally oriented landscape planning in Europe. An analysis of the best practices of environmentally oriented landscape planning in such countries as Great Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, etc. has been conducted. The findings allowed to state that the effectiveness of development and implementation of substantial planning for landscape design depends not only on the volume and depth of research, but to a very large extent from their reasonable and productive organisation. The paper summarises that in environmentally oriented landscape planning, it is first necessary to determine the reasons for planning. Before choosing the object and territory of planning, it is necessary to find out: who are the potential customers and investors – their goals and motivation; what are the problem situations and conflicts in nature management in the area; what is the practical use of the results of landscape planning; the purpose of the territory, including cartographic; the availability of source information, and more. And then make decisions regarding the stages of landscape planning, taking into account the environmental component and, accordingly, the implementation of the idea of landscape planning.Zrozumienie wszystkich aspektów architektury krajobrazu zorientowanej na środowisko przyczyni się do efektywnego planowania środowiskowego terytorium i ogólnie do zarządzania przyrodą. W związku z tym celem badania było zbadanie doświadczeń krajów europejskich w zakresie wprowadzenia efektywnego systemu architektury krajobrazu zorientowanej na środowisko i poprawy obszarów, a także ich ochrony. W tym celu konieczne jest kompleksowe zbadanie mocnych i słabych stron istniejących rozwiązań w dziedzinie architektury krajobrazu zorientowanej na środowisko. Przeprowadzono analizę najlepszych praktyk architektury krajobrazu w takich krajach jak Wielka Brytania, Francja, Niemcy i Holandia. Wyniki pozwoliły stwierdzić, że skuteczność opracowania i wdrożenia planowania merytorycznego do projektowania krajobrazu zależy nie tylko od zakresu i głębokości badań, ale w bardzo dużym stopniu od ich racjonalnej organizacji. Stwierdzono, że w planowaniu krajobrazu zorientowanego na środowisko najpierw należy określić przyczyny planowania. Przed wyborem przedmiotu i terenu planowania należy dowiedzieć się: kim są potencjalni klienci i inwestorzy – ich cele i motywacja; jakie są sytuacje problemowe i konflikty w zarządzaniu przyrodą na danym terenie; jakie jest praktyczne wykorzystanie wyników planowania krajobrazu; cel terytorium, w tym opis kartograficzny; dostępność informacji źródłowych itp. Następnie należy podjąć decyzje dotyczące etapów planowania krajobrazowego z uwzględnieniem komponentu środowiskowego w celu odpowiedniej realizacji idei architektury krajobrazu

Finite-time control for uncertain systems and application to flight control

In this paper, the finite-time control design problem for a class of nonlinear systems with matched and mismatched uncertainty is addressed. The finite-time control scheme is designed by integrating multi power reaching (MPR) law and finite-time disturbance observer (FTDO) into integral sliding mode control, where a novel sliding surface is designed, and the FTDO is applied to estimate the uncertainty. Then the fixed-time reachability of the MPR law is analyzed, and the finite-time stability of the closed-loop system is proven in the framework of Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, numerical simulation and the application to the flight control of hypersonic vehicle (HSV) are provided to show the effectiveness of the designed controller

Effect of Surface Roughness on Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication Performance of Cylindrical Roller Bearing

In order to study the effect of surface roughness on the Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication (EHL) performance of cylindrical roller bearing, an EHL model of cylindrical roller bearing with three dimensional surface cosine roughness based on finite length line contact theory is established. The EHL performance of cylindrical roller bearing is calculated by the Finite Difference Method (FDM) program, with which the effects of surface cosine roughness amplitude, wavelength and texture angle on EHL performance of cylindrical roller bearing are analyzed. The numerical results show that the roughness amplitude, wavelength and texture angle have great influence on the EHL performance in the contact area. The increase of roughness amplitude and wavelength in a reasonable range is beneficial to the enhancement of EHL performance of the cylindrical roller bearing, and the transverse roughness is more favorable to enhance the bearing capacity and reduce the friction coefficient

Lipopolysaccharide preconditioning enhances the efficacy of mesenchymal stem cells transplantation in a rat model of acute myocardial infarction

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)-based regenerative therapy is currently regarded as an alternative approach to salvage the acute myocardial infarcted hearts. However, the efficiency of MSCs transplantation is limited by lower survival rate of engrafted MSCs. In previous study, we found that 1.0 μg/ml Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) could protect MSCs against apoptosis induced by oxidative stress and meanwhile enhance the proliferation of MSCs. Therefore, in the present study, we firstly preconditioned MSCs with 1.0 μg/ml LPS, then transplanted MSCs into ischemic myocardium, and observed the survival and cardiac protective capacity of MSCs in a rat model of acute myocardial infarction. Furthermore, we tried to explore the underlying mechanisms and the role of Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR4) in the signal pathway of LPS-induced cardiac protection.</p> <p>Methods and results</p> <p>Acute myocardial infarction model was developed by left anterior descending coronary artery ligation. 60 rats were divided into 4 groups randomly and given an intramyocardial injection of one of the following treatments: 30 μl PBS (control group), 3 × 10⁶wild MSCs/30 μl (wMSCs group), 3 × 10⁶LPS-preconditioned wild MSCs/30 μl (LPS-wMSCs group), or 3 × 10⁶LPS-preconditioned TLR4 gene deleted MSCs/30 μl (LPS-tMSCs group). After 3 weeks, LPS-preconditioned wild MSCs transplantation ameliorated cardiac function and reduced fibrosis of infarcted myocardium. Vascular density was markedly increased in LPS-wMSCs group compared with other three groups. Survival rate of engrafted MSCs was elevated and apoptosis of myocardium was reduced in infarcted heart. Expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and phospho-Akt was increased in the infarcted myocardium after transplantation of LPS-preconditioned MSCs.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>LPS preconditioning enhanced survival of engrafted MSCs, stimulated expression of VEGF and activated PI3K/Akt pathway. LPS preconditioning before MSCs transplantation resulted in superior therapeutic neovascularization and recovery of cardiac function. LPS preconditioning provided a novel strategy in maximizing biologic and functional properties of MSCs.</p

Consistency maintenance for evolving feature models

Software product line (SPL) techniques handle the construction of customized systems. One of the most common representations of the decisions a customer can make in SPLs is feature models (FMs). An FM represents the relationships among common and variable features in an SPL. Features are a representation of the characteristics in a system that are relevant to customers. FMs are subject to change since the set of features and their relationships can change along an SPL lifecycle. Due to this evolution, the consistency of FMs may be compromised. There exist some approaches to detect and explain inconsistencies in FMs, however this process can take a long time for large FMs. In this paper we present a complementary approach to dealing with inconsistencies in FM evolution scenarios that improves the performance for existing approaches reducing the impact of change to the smallest part of an FM that changes. To achieve our goal, we formalize FMs from an ontological perspective and define constraints that must be satisfied in FMs to be consistent. We define a set of primitive operations that modify FMs and which are responsible for the FM evolution, analyzing their impact on the FM consistency. We propose a set of predefined strategies to keep the consistency for error-prone operations. As a proof-of-concept we present the results of our experiments, where we check for the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach in FMs with thousands of features. Although our approach is limited by the kinds of consistency constraints and the primitive operations we define, the experiments present a significant improvement in performance results in those cases where they are applicable.Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2009-07366Junta de Andalucía TIC-5906Junta de Andalucía P07-TIC-253

A Recalibrated Molecular Clock and Independent Origins for the Cholera Pandemic Clones

Cholera, caused by Vibrio cholerae, erupted globally from South Asia in 7 pandemics, but there were also local outbreaks between the 6th (1899–1923) and 7th (1961–present) pandemics. All the above are serotype O1, whereas environmental or invertebrate isolates are antigenically diverse. The pre 7th pandemic isolates mentioned above, and other minor pathogenic clones, are related to the 7th pandemic clone, while the 6th pandemic clone is in the same lineage but more distantly related, and non-pathogenic isolates show no clonal structure. To understand the origins and relationships of the pandemic clones, we sequenced the genomes of a 1937 prepandemic strain and a 6th pandemic isolate, and compared them with the published 7th pandemic genome. We distinguished mutational and recombinational events, and allocated these and other events, to specific branches in the evolutionary tree. There were more mutational than recombinational events, but more genes, and 44 times more base pairs, changed by recombination. We used the mutational single-nucleotide polymorphisms and known isolation dates of the prepandemic and 7th pandemic isolates to estimate the mutation rate, and found it to be 100 fold higher than usually assumed. We then used this to estimate the divergence date of the 6th and 7th pandemic clones to be about 1880. While there is a large margin of error, this is far more realistic than the 10,000–50,000 years ago estimated using the usual assumptions. We conclude that the 2 pandemic clones gained pandemic potential independently, and overall there were 29 insertions or deletions of one or more genes. There were also substantial changes in the major integron, attributed to gain of individual cassettes including copying from within, or loss of blocks of cassettes. The approaches used open up new avenues for analysing the origin and history of other important pathogens

Cosmc Deficiency Causes Spontaneous Autoimmunity by Breaking B Cell Tolerance

Factors regulating the induction and development of B cell–mediated autoimmunity are not well understood. Here, we report that targeted deletion in murine B cells of X-linked Cosmc, encoding the chaperone required for expression of core 1 O-glycans, causes the spontaneous development of autoimmune pathologies due to a breakdown of B cell tolerance. BC-CosmcKO mice display multiple phenotypic abnormalities, including severe weight loss, ocular manifestations, lymphadenopathy, and increased female-associated mortality. Disruption of B cell tolerance in BC-CosmcKO mice is manifested as elevated self-reactive IgM and IgG autoantibodies. Cosmc-deficient B cells exhibit enhanced basal activation and responsiveness to stimuli. There is also an elevated frequency of spontaneous germinal center B cells in BC-CosmcKO mice. Mechanistically, loss of Cosmc confers enhanced B cell receptor (BCR) signaling through diminished BCR internalization. The results demonstrate that Cosmc, through control of core 1 O-glycans, is a previously unidentified immune checkpoint gene in maintaining B cell tolerance