Beteiligung als Strategie und Strukturelement einer Energiewende in Ostdeutschland

Zuerst erschienen im Lang-Verlag: Keppler, Dorothee; Zöllner, Jan; Rau, Irina; Rupp, Johannes: Beteiligung als Strategie und Strukturelement einer Energiewende in Ostdeutschland. - In: Keppler, Dorothee; Nölting, Benjamin; Schröder, Carolin (Hg.): Neue Energie im Osten - Gestaltung des Umbruchs : Perspektiven für eine zukunftsfähige sozial-ökologische Energiewende. - Frankfurt am Main [u.a.] : Lang, 2011. - ISBN: 978-3-631-61009-1. - S. 187–206

Technical Solutions for Local Service Insertion in DVB-NGH Single Frequency Networks

Current digital terrestrial television networks make use of either single frequency networks (SFN) or multifrequency networks (MFN). These network topologies are not ideally suited for delivery of both global and local services in an efficient way. MFNs enable the efficient transmission of local services but need a significant amount of frequency spectrum. The basic principle of SFNs is that all transmitters radiate the same signal synchronized in time and frequency, therefore are especially suitable for global services due to mutual support of the signal by multiple transmitters. Without violating the SFN principle, local services meant to address sub-regions of an SFN must therefore be transmitted throughout the whole network, causing inefficient distribution of local services. This paper describes the complementary techniques adopted by the next generation mobile broadcasting standard digital video broadcasting - next generation handheld for providing global and local contents in SFN topologies: hierarchical modulation (H-LSI) and orthogonal local services insertion (O-LSI) techniques. H-LSI uses hierarchical modulation to transmit local services on top of the global services in areas close to the transmitters, by transmitting the local services in the low priority stream and the global services in the high priority stream. The O-LSI scheme specifies groups of OFDM subcarriers in specific OFDM symbols for the exclusive use of particular transmitters to transmit local services. For both techniques, the transmission of local content through the whole SFN network can be scheduled in a way that different local areas do not interfere with each other. In addition to the description of both H-LSI and O-LSI schemes, the applicability of these approaches in terms of network topologies, implementation issues, and performance evaluation are analyzed.López Sánchez, J.; Zöllner, J.; Atungsiri, S.; Stare, E.; Gómez Barquero, D. (2014). Technical Solutions for Local Service Insertion in DVB-NGH Single Frequency Networks. IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting. 60(2):293-301. doi:10.1109/TBC.2014.2322502S29330160

SIMD vectorization for simultaneous solution of locally varying linear systems with multiple right hand sides

Developments in numerical simulation of flows and high performance computing influence one another. More detailed simulation methods create a permanent need for more computational power, while new hardware developments often require changes to the software to exploit new hardware features. This dependency is very pronounced in the case of vector-units which are featured by all modern processors to increase their numerical throughput but require vectorization of the software to be used efficiently. We study the vectorization of a simulation method that exhibits an inherent level of vector-parallelism. This is of particular interest as SIMD operations will hopefully be available with std::simd in a future C++ standard. The simulation method considered here results in the simultaneous solution of multiple sparse linear systems of equations which only differ by their main diagonal and right hand sides. Such structure arises in the simulation of unsteady flow in turbomachinery by means of a frequency domain approach called harmonic balance

Multi-trait analysis characterizes the genetics of thyroid function and identifies causal associations with clinical implications

To date only a fraction of the genetic footprint of thyroid function has been clarified. We report a genome-wide association study meta-analysis of thyroid function in up to 271,040 individuals of European ancestry, including reference range thyrotropin (TSH), free thyroxine (FT4), free and total triiodothyronine (T3), proxies for metabolism (T3/FT4 ratio) as well as dichotomized high and low TSH levels. We revealed 259 independent significant associations for TSH (61% novel), 85 for FT4 (67% novel), and 62 novel signals for the T3 related traits. The loci explained 14.1%, 6.0%, 9.5% and 1.1% of the total variation in TSH, FT4, total T3 and free T3 concentrations, respectively. Genetic correlations indicate that TSH associated loci reflect the thyroid function determined by free T3, whereas the FT4 associations represent the thyroid hormone metabolism. Polygenic risk score and Mendelian randomization analyses showed the effects of genetically determined variation in thyroid function on various clinical outcomes, including cardiovascular risk factors and diseases, autoimmune diseases, and cancer. In conclusion, our results improve the understanding of thyroid hormone physiology and highlight the pleiotropic effects of thyroid function on various diseases

A first update on mapping the human genetic architecture of COVID-19

peer reviewe

Whole-genome sequencing reveals host factors underlying critical COVID-19

Critical COVID-19 is caused by immune-mediated inflammatory lung injury. Host genetic variation influences the development of illness requiring critical care1 or hospitalization2,3,4 after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The GenOMICC (Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care) study enables the comparison of genomes from individuals who are critically ill with those of population controls to find underlying disease mechanisms. Here we use whole-genome sequencing in 7,491 critically ill individuals compared with 48,400 controls to discover and replicate 23 independent variants that significantly predispose to critical COVID-19. We identify 16 new independent associations, including variants within genes that are involved in interferon signalling (IL10RB and PLSCR1), leucocyte differentiation (BCL11A) and blood-type antigen secretor status (FUT2). Using transcriptome-wide association and colocalization to infer the effect of gene expression on disease severity, we find evidence that implicates multiple genes—including reduced expression of a membrane flippase (ATP11A), and increased expression of a mucin (MUC1)—in critical disease. Mendelian randomization provides evidence in support of causal roles for myeloid cell adhesion molecules (SELE, ICAM5 and CD209) and the coagulation factor F8, all of which are potentially druggable targets. Our results are broadly consistent with a multi-component model of COVID-19 pathophysiology, in which at least two distinct mechanisms can predispose to life-threatening disease: failure to control viral replication; or an enhanced tendency towards pulmonary inflammation and intravascular coagulation. We show that comparison between cases of critical illness and population controls is highly efficient for the detection of therapeutically relevant mechanisms of disease

Modeling the Security of Steganographic Systems

We present a model of steganographic systems which allows to evaluate their security. We especially want to establish an analogy to the known-plaintext-attack which is commonly used to rate cryptographic systems. This models main statement is that the embedding operation of a steganographic system should work indeterministic from the attackers point of view. This is proved by means of information theory