Parenchymal and vascular Aβ-deposition and its effects on the degeneration of neurons and cognition in Alzheimer's disease

The deposition of the amyloid β-protein (Aβ) is one of the pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Aβ-deposits show the morphology of senile plaques and cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA). Senile plaques and vascular Aβ-deposits occur first in neocorti-cal areas. Then, they expand hierarchically into further brain regions. The distribution of Aβ plaques throughout the entire brain, thereby correlates with the clinical status of the patients. Imaging techniques for Aβ make use of the hierarchical distribution of Aβ to distinguish AD patients from non-AD patients. However, pathology seen in AD patients represents a late stage of a pathological process starting 10–30 years earlier in cognitively normal individuals. In addition to the fibrillar amyloid of senile plaques, oligomeric and monomeric Aβ is found in the brain. Recent studies revealed that oligomeric Aβ is presumably the most toxic Aβ-aggregate, which interacts with glutamatergic synapses. In doing so, dendrites are presumed to be the primary target for Aβ-toxicity. In addition, vascular Aβ-deposits can lead to capillary occlusion and blood flow disturbances presumably contributing to the alteration of neurons in addition to the direct neurotoxic effects of Aβ. All these findings point to an important role of Aβ and its aggregates in the neurodegenerative process of AD. Since there is already significant neuron loss in AD patients, treatment strategies aimed at reducing the amyloid load will presumably not cure the symptoms of dementia but they may stop disease progression. Therefore, it seems to be necessary to protect the brain from Aβ-toxicity already in stages of the disease with minor neuron loss before the onset of cognitive symptoms

Degradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and long chain alkanes at 6070 ° C by Thermus and Bacillus spp

Although polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and alkanesare biodegradable at ambient temperature, in some cases low bioavailabilities are thereason for slow biodegradation. Considerably higher mass transfer rates and PAH solubilities and hence bioavailabilities can be obtained at higher temperatures. Mixed and pure cultures of aerobic, extreme thermophilic microorganisms (Bacillus spp., Thermus sp.) were used to degrade PAH compounds and PAH/alkane mixtures at 65 °C. The microorganismsused grew on hydrocarbons as sole carbon and energy source. Optimal growthtemperatures were in the range of 60-70 °C at pH values of 6-7. The conversion of PAH with 3-5 rings (acenaphthene, fluoranthene, pyrene, benzo[e]pyrene) was demonstrated. Efficient PAH biodegradation required a second, degradable liquid phase. Thermus brockii Hamburg metabolized up to 40 mg (l h)-1 pyrene and 1000 mg(1 h)-1 hexadecane at 70 °C. Specific growth rates of 0.43 h-1 were measured for this strain with hexadecane/pyrene mixtures as the sole carbon and energy source in a 2-liter stirred bioreactor. About 0.7 g cell dry weight were formed from 1 g hydrocarbon. The experiments demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of extreme thermophilic PAH and alkane biodegradatio

Degradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and long chain alkanes at 6070 degrees C by Thermus and Bacillus spp

Although polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and alkanesare biodegradable at ambient temperature, in some cases low bioavailabilities are thereason for slow biodegradation. Considerably higher mass transfer rates and PAH solubilities and hence bioavailabilities can be obtained at higher temperatures. Mixed and pure cultures of aerobic, extreme thermophilic microorganisms (Bacillus spp., Thermus sp.) were used to degrade PAH compounds and PAH/alkane mixtures at 65 °C. The microorganismsused grew on hydrocarbons as sole carbon and energy source. Optimal growthtemperatures were in the range of 60–70 °C at pH values of 6–7. The conversion of PAH with 3–5 rings (acenaphthene, fluoranthene, pyrene, benzo[e]pyrene) was demonstrated. Efficient PAH biodegradation required a second, degradable liquid phase. Thermus brockii Hamburg metabolized up to 40 mg (l h)-1 pyrene and 1000 mg(1 h)-1 hexadecane at 70 °C. Specific growth rates of 0.43 h-1 were measured for this strain with hexadecane/pyrene mixtures as the sole carbon and energy source in a 2-liter stirred bioreactor. About 0.7 g cell dry weight were formed from 1 g hydrocarbon. The experiments demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of extreme thermophilic PAH and alkane biodegradation.ISSN:0923-9820ISSN:1572-972

Inflection-Tolerant Ontology-Based Named Entity Recognition for Real-Time Applications

A growing number of applications users daily interact with have to operate in (near) real-time: chatbots, digital companions, knowledge work support systems - just to name a few. To perform the services desired by the user, these systems have to analyze user activity logs or explicit user input extremely fast. In particular, text content (e.g. in form of text snippets) needs to be processed in an information extraction task. Regarding the aforementioned temporal requirements, this has to be accomplished in just a few milliseconds, which limits the number of methods that can be applied. Practically, only very fast methods remain, which on the other hand deliver worse results than slower but more sophisticated Natural Language Processing (NLP) pipelines. In this paper, we investigate and propose methods for real-time capable Named Entity Recognition (NER). As a first improvement step, we address word variations induced by inflection, for example present in the German language. Our approach is ontology-based and makes use of several language information sources like Wiktionary. We evaluated it using the German Wikipedia (about 9.4B characters), for which the whole NER process took considerably less than an hour. Since precision and recall are higher than with comparably fast methods, we conclude that the quality gap between high speed methods and sophisticated NLP pipelines can be narrowed a bit more without losing real-time capable runtime performance

Policy Report 2007

Der Bericht über Migration und Asyl bietet einen Gesamtüberblick über die wichtigsten politischen Diskussionen und Entwicklungen in den Bereichen Migration und Asyl in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland im Jahr 2007. Dabei werden auch die Implementation von EU-Gesetzgebung in nationales Recht beschrieben sowie Erfahrungen mit der Umsetzung von EU-Gesetzgebung dargestellt.The Policy Report 2007 of the German National Contact Point provides an overview of the most important political discussions, statutory developments and administrative practice in Germany in the areas of immigration and asylum. In addition, the report demonstrates the state of domestic implementation of European Community law. A synthesis report compares the main developments in the Member States, putting them into perspective

More Than 200 Genes Required for Methane Formation from H2 and CO2 and Energy Conservation Are Present in Methanothermobacter marburgensis and Methanothermobacter thermautotrophicus

The hydrogenotrophic methanogens Methanothermobacter marburgensis and Methanothermobacter thermautotrophicus can easily be mass cultured. They have therefore been used almost exclusively to study the biochemistry of methanogenesis from H2 and CO2, and the genomes of these two model organisms have been sequenced. The close relationship of the two organisms is reflected in their genomic architecture and coding potential. Within the 1,607 protein coding sequences (CDS) in common, we identified approximately 200 CDS required for the synthesis of the enzymes, coenzymes, and prosthetic groups involved in CO2 reduction to methane and in coupling this process with the phosphorylation of ADP. Approximately 20 additional genes, such as those for the biosynthesis of F430 and methanofuran and for the posttranslational modifications of the two methyl-coenzyme M reductases, remain to be identified

Conflict Processing in the Rat Brain: Behavioral Analysis and Functional μPET Imaging Using [18F]Fluorodeoxyglucose

Conflicts in spatial stimulus–response tasks occur when the task-relevant feature of a stimulus implies a response toward a certain location which does not match the location of stimulus presentation. This conflict leads to increased error rates and longer reaction times, which has been termed Simon effect. A model of dual route processing (automatic and intentional) of stimulus features has been proposed, predicting response conflicts if the two routes are incongruent. Although there is evidence that the prefrontal cortex, notably the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), plays a crucial role in conflict processing, the neuronal basis of dual route architecture is still unknown. In this study, we pursue a novel approach using positron emission tomography (PET) to identify relevant brain areas in a rat model of an auditory Simon task, a neuropsychological interference task, which is commonly used to study conflict processing in humans. For combination with PET we used the metabolic tracer [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose, which accumulates in metabolically active brain cells during the behavioral task. Brain areas involved in conflict processing are supposed to be activated when automatic and intentional route processing lead to different responses (dual route model). Analysis of PET data revealed specific activation patterns for different task settings applicable to the dual route model as established for response conflict processing. The rat motor cortex (M1) may be part of the automatic route or involved in its facilitation, while premotor (M2), prelimbic, and ACC seemed to be essential for inhibiting the incorrect, automatic response, indicating conflict monitoring functions. Our findings and the remarkable similarities to the pattern of activated regions reported during conflict processing in humans demonstrate that our rodent model opens novel opportunities to investigate the anatomical basis of conflict processing and dual route architecture

Bericht 2007 über Migration und Asyl

Der Bericht über Migration und Asyl bietet einen Gesamtüberblick über die wichtigsten politischen Diskussionen und Entwicklungen in den Bereichen Migration und Asyl in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland im Jahr 2007. Dabei werden auch die Implementation von EU-Gesetzgebung in nationales Recht beschrieben sowie Erfahrungen mit der Umsetzung von EU-Gesetzgebung dargestellt.The Policy Report 2007 of the German National Contact Point provides an overview of the most important political discussions, statutory developments and administrative practice in Germany in the areas of immigration and asylum. In addition, the report demonstrates the state of domestic implementation of European Community law. A synthesis report compares the main developments in the Member States, putting them into perspective

Darstellung des Standes und der Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten von Kernspaltungsreaktoren : Studie A.4.1.a, A.4.1.b und A.4.1.c

Die verschiedenen Anwendungsmöglichkeiten der Kernenergie sind die folgenden; sie sind - bis auf die Erzeugung von Strom - im wesentlichen nach der erforderlichen Temperatur der bei der Anwendung umgewandelten Wärmeenergie geordnet: - Erzeugung von Strom - Erzeugung von Fernwärme und Nahwärme - Erzeugung von Prozeßdampf (und Injektionsdampf) - Erzeugung von Fernenergie - Umwandlung von Erdgas - Veredlung fossiler Energieträger, insbesondere von Kohle - Erzeugung von Wasserstoff (Elektrolyse und Thermolyse