Convolutional Neural Networks for Epileptic Seizure Prediction

Epilepsy is the most common neurological disorder and an accurate forecast of seizures would help to overcome the patient's uncertainty and helplessness. In this contribution, we present and discuss a novel methodology for the classification of intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) for seizure prediction. Contrary to previous approaches, we categorically refrain from an extraction of hand-crafted features and use a convolutional neural network (CNN) topology instead for both the determination of suitable signal characteristics and the binary classification of preictal and interictal segments. Three different models have been evaluated on public datasets with long-term recordings from four dogs and three patients. Overall, our findings demonstrate the general applicability. In this work we discuss the strengths and limitations of our methodology.Comment: accepted for MLESP 201

Analysis of pressure drop and blast pressure leakage of passive air blast safety valves : an experimental and numerical study

The purpose of passive air blast safety valves is to protect people and technical installations in buildings or facilities. In case of explosions, e.g. due to technical failures in an oil- and gas refinery, the safety valve should close in milliseconds with the incident shock wave and substantially reduce the blast-pressure leakage into the building. On the other hand, the safety valve should exhibit a low pressure drop in normal operation in order to reduce the power consumption of the ventilators. One main difficulty in the design of such safety valves is to meet the minimum technical requirements, while ensuring the functionality in intrinsically different operating modes. Therefore, the present study proposes a target-oriented evaluation and optimization procedure for such devices, incorporating comprehensive numerical and experimental investigations. CFD, FEM and FSI analyses are regarded as an appropriate approach to predict valve performance parameters and to gain additional insights into the flow or structural behavior of the safety valve, which serves then as a basis for geometrical optimizations. The introduced procedure is exemplified on an existing passive air blast safety valve as a case study. The performance of the new design is significantly increased in ventilation operation, while meeting the performance criteria in the stress case when subjected to blast loads

Inhibitors of dihydroorotate dehydrogenase cooperate with molnupiravir and N4-hydroxycytidine to suppress SARS-CoV-2 replication

Funding Information: We thank Thorsten Wolff, Daniel Bourquain, Jessica Schulz, and Christian Mache from the Robert-Koch Institute and Martin Beer from the Friedrich Loeffler Institute (FLI) for providing isolates of SARS-CoV-2 variants. We thank Anna Kraft and Gabriele Czerwinski (both FLI) for support in the preparation of samples for pathology, and Catherine Hambly (University of Aberdeen) for help with daily energy expenditure measurements. We would like to thank Cathrin Bierwirth (University Medical Center Göttingen), Isabell Schulz, Anne-Kathrin Donner, and Frank-Thorben Peters for excellent technician assistance and Jasmin Fertey and Alexandra Rockstroh for providing the virus stocks for the mice experiment (Fraunhofer Institute IZI Leipzig). We acknowledge support by the Open Access Publication Funds of the Göttingen University. KMS was a member of the Göttingen Graduate School GGNB during this work. This work was funded by the COVID-19 Forschungsnetzwerk Niedersachsen (COFONI) to MD, by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research Germany ( Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung; BMBF ; OrganSARS , 01KI2058 ) to SP and TM, and by a grant of the Max Planck Foundation to DG. Declaration of interests AS, HK, EP, and DV are employees of Immunic AG and own shares and/or stock-options of the parent company of Immunic AG, Immunic Inc. Some of the Immunic AG employees also hold patents for the Immunic compounds described in this manuscript (WO2012/001,148, WO03006425). KMS, AD, and MD are employees of University Medical Center Göttingen, which has signed a License Agreement with Immunic AG covering the combination of DHODH inhibitors and nucleoside analogs to treat viral infections, including COVID-19 (inventors: MD, KMS, and AD). The other authors declare no conflict of interest.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Influence of Ocean Acidification on a Natural Winter-to-Summer Plankton Succession : First Insights from a Long-Term Mesocosm Study Draw Attention to Periods of Low Nutrient Concentrations

Every year, the oceans absorb about 30% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) leading to a re-equilibration of the marine carbonate system and decreasing seawater pH. Today, there is increasing awareness that these changes-summarized by the term ocean acidification (OA)-could differentially affect the competitive ability of marine organisms, thereby provoking a restructuring of marine ecosystems and biogeochemical element cycles. In winter 2013, we deployed ten pelagic mesocosms in the Gullmar Fjord at the Swedish west coast in order to study the effect of OA on plankton ecology and biogeochemistry under close to natural conditions. Five of the ten mesocosms were left unperturbed and served as controls (similar to 380 mu atm pCO(2)), whereas the others were enriched with CO2-saturated water to simulate realistic end-of-the-century carbonate chemistry conditions (mu 760 mu atm pCO(2)). We ran the experiment for 113 days which allowed us to study the influence of high CO2 on an entire winter-to-summer plankton succession and to investigate the potential of some plankton organisms for evolutionary adaptation to OA in their natural environment. This paper is the first in a PLOS collection and provides a detailed overview on the experimental design, important events, and the key complexities of such a "long-term mesocosm" approach. Furthermore, we analyzed whether simulated end-of-the-century carbonate chemistry conditions could lead to a significant restructuring of the plankton community in the course of the succession. At the level of detail analyzed in this overview paper we found that CO2-induced differences in plankton community composition were non-detectable during most of the succession except for a period where a phytoplankton bloom was fueled by remineralized nutrients. These results indicate: (1) Long-term studies with pelagic ecosystems are necessary to uncover OA-sensitive stages of succession. (2) Plankton communities fueled by regenerated nutrients may be more responsive to changing carbonate chemistry than those having access to high inorganic nutrient concentrations and may deserve particular attention in future studies.Peer reviewe

Identifying Potential Core Assets in Service-based Systems to Support the Transition to Service-oriented Product Lines

Variability in service-oriented architectures (SOA) is usually addressed through loose coupling of services and dynamic retrieval, composition and binding of services. Facilitating variability can lead to different instances of one SOA. These instances share commonalities, but vary in certain aspects (e. g., in functionality or quality attributes). Current service-based development approaches do not adequately address variability and the management of different SOA instances. To handle different instances and to support systematic variability management, different instances of a service-based system may be treated as members of a product line. Therefore, we present a light-weight method to decide on what services to add to service-based systems to facilitate the transition from individual systems to a service-oriented product line. When adding services to service-based systems, the structural stability of these system decreases. We argue that a decrease in structural stability must be justified by additional value provided by the enhanced service-based systems. Based on the enhanced systems, our method then identifies potential core asset services for a service-oriented product line, taking into account common services within the different systems. Here, core asset services are reusable services that occur in any instance of the SOA. Thus, our method helps with the transition from individual products to a product line. A case study is included to illustrate our method.</p

Facilitating Software Architecting by Ranking Requirements based on their Impact on the Architecture Process

Ranking software requirements helps decide what requirements to implement during a software development project, and when. Currently, requirements ranking techniques focus on resource constraints or stakeholder priorities and neglect the effect of requirements on the software architecture process. However, the order in which requirements are implemented impacts the process of creating architectures and should therefore be chosen carefully. Thus, this paper presents a method for ranking requirements with a focus on the impact of requirements on the architecture process. The proposed method uses stakeholder input and architecture-relevant requirements attributes to create a ranking of requirements. A case study is presented to evaluate the usefulness of the method.</p

Characterization of the mbd cluster encoding the anaerobic 3-methylbenzoyl-CoA central pathway

49 p.-3 tab.-7 fig.The mbd cluster encoding genes of the 3-methylbenzoyl-CoA pathway involved in the anaerobic catabolism of 3-methylbenzoate and m-xylene was characterized for the first time in the denitrifying β-Proteobacterium Azoarcus sp. CIB. The mbdA gene product was identified as a 3-methylbenzoate-CoA ligase required for 3-methylbenzoate activation; its substrate spectrum was unique in activating all three methylbenzoate isomers. An inducible 3-methylbenzoyl-CoA reductase (mbdONQP gene products), displaying significant amino acid sequence similarities to known class I benzoyl-CoA reductases catalysed the ATP-dependent reduction of 3-methylbenzoyl-CoA to a methyldienoyl-CoA. The mbdW gene encodes a methyldienoyl-CoA hydratase that hydrated the methyldienoyl-CoA to a methyl-6-hydroxymonoenoyl-CoA compound. The mbd cluster also contains the genes predicted to be involved in the subsequent steps of the 3-methylbenzoyl-CoA pathway as well as the electron donor system for the reductase activity. Whereas the catabolic mbd genes are organized in two divergent inducible operons, the putative mbdR regulatory gene was transcribed separately and showed constitutive expression. The efficient expression of the mbd genes required the oxygen-dependent AcpR activator, and it was subject of carbon catabolite repression by some organic acids and amino acids. Sequence analyses suggest that the mbd gene cluster was recruited by Azoarcus sp. CIB through horizontal gene transfer. © 2012 Society for Applied Microbiology and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.This work was supported by grants BIO2009-10438 and CSD2007-00005. J.F.J. was the recipient of a predoctoral fellowship from the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid.Peer Reviewe

Identifying Potential Core Assets in Service-based Systems to Support the Transition to Service-oriented Product Lines

Variability in service-oriented architectures (SOA) is usually addressed through loose coupling of services and dynamic retrieval, composition and binding of services. Facilitating variability can lead to different instances of one SOA. These instances share commonalities, but vary in certain aspects (e. g., in functionality or quality attributes). Current service-based development approaches do not adequately address variability and the management of different SOA instances. To handle different instances and to support systematic variability management, different instances of a service-based system may be treated as members of a product line. Therefore, we present a light-weight method to decide on what services to add to service-based systems to facilitate the transition from individual systems to a service-oriented product line. When adding services to service-based systems, the structural stability of these system decreases. We argue that a decrease in structural stability must be justified by additional value provided by the enhanced service-based systems. Based on the enhanced systems, our method then identifies potential core asset services for a service-oriented product line, taking into account common services within the different systems. Here, core asset services are reusable services that occur in any instance of the SOA. Thus, our method helps with the transition from individual products to a product line. A case study is included to illustrate our method

Facilitating Software Architecting by Ranking Requirements based on their Impact on the Architecture Process

Ranking software requirements helps decide what requirements to implement during a software development project, and when. Currently, requirements ranking techniques focus on resource constraints or stakeholder priorities and neglect the effect of requirements on the software architecture process. However, the order in which requirements are implemented impacts the process of creating architectures and should therefore be chosen carefully. Thus, this paper presents a method for ranking requirements with a focus on the impact of requirements on the architecture process. The proposed method uses stakeholder input and architecture-relevant requirements attributes to create a ranking of requirements. A case study is presented to evaluate the usefulness of the method