TY - JOUR A1 - Zingler, G. A1 - Ott, M. A1 - Blum, G. A1 - Falkenhagen, U. A1 - Naumann, G. A1 - Sokolowska-Köhler, W. A1 - Hacker, Jörg T1 - Clonal analysis of Escherichia coli serotype O6 strains from urinary tract infections N2 - A total of 36 Escherichia coli urinary tract isolates (UTI) of serotype 06, with different combinations of capsule ( K) and flagellin ( H) antigens, were analysed according to the outer membrane pattern (OMP), serum resistance properties, mannose-resistant hemagglutination using various types of erythrocytes, and also for the genetic presence and the expression of Pfimbriae. S fimbriae/F1 C fimbriae, Type 1 fimbriae, aerobactin and hemolysin. Twenty selected strains were further analysed by pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), elaborating genomic profilas by Xba I cleavage and subsequent Southern hybridization to virulence-associated DNA probes. lt could be shown that 06 UTI isolates represent a highly heterogeneaus group of strains according to the occurrence and combination of these traits. Relatedness an the genetic and the phenotypic Ievei was found for some of the strains exhibiting the same 0: K: H: F serotype. DNA Iang-range mapping further indicated some interesting features, according to the copy number and the genomic linkage of virulence genes. KW - Infektionsbiologie KW - E. coli serotype 06 KW - urinary tract infection KW - virulence factors KW - clonal analysis KW - molecular epidemiology Y1 - 1992 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-59786 ER - TY - THES A1 - Zink, Johannes T1 - Algorithms for Drawing Graphs and Polylines with Straight-Line Segments T1 - Algorithmen zum Zeichnen von Graphen und Polygonzügen mittels Strecken N2 - Graphs provide a key means to model relationships between entities. They consist of vertices representing the entities, and edges representing relationships between pairs of entities. To make people conceive the structure of a graph, it is almost inevitable to visualize the graph. We call such a visualization a graph drawing. Moreover, we have a straight-line graph drawing if each vertex is represented as a point (or a small geometric object, e.g., a rectangle) and each edge is represented as a line segment between its two vertices. A polyline is a very simple straight-line graph drawing, where the vertices form a sequence according to which the vertices are connected by edges. An example of a polyline in practice is a GPS trajectory. The underlying road network, in turn, can be modeled as a graph. This book addresses problems that arise when working with straight-line graph drawings and polylines. In particular, we study algorithms for recognizing certain graphs representable with line segments, for generating straight-line graph drawings, and for abstracting polylines. In the first part, we first examine, how and in which time we can decide whether a given graph is a stick graph, that is, whether its vertices can be represented as vertical and horizontal line segments on a diagonal line, which intersect if and only if there is an edge between them. We then consider the visual complexity of graphs. Specifically, we investigate, for certain classes of graphs, how many line segments are necessary for any straight-line graph drawing, and whether three (or more) different slopes of the line segments are sufficient to draw all edges. Last, we study the question, how to assign (ordered) colors to the vertices of a graph with both directed and undirected edges such that no neighboring vertices get the same color and colors are ascending along directed edges. Here, the special property of the considered graph is that the vertices can be represented as intervals that overlap if and only if there is an edge between them. The latter problem is motivated by an application in automated drawing of cable plans with vertical and horizontal line segments, which we cover in the second part. We describe an algorithm that gets the abstract description of a cable plan as input, and generates a drawing that takes into account the special properties of these cable plans, like plugs and groups of wires. We then experimentally evaluate the quality of the resulting drawings. In the third part, we study the problem of abstracting (or simplifying) a single polyline and a bundle of polylines. In this problem, the objective is to remove as many vertices as possible from the given polyline(s) while keeping each resulting polyline sufficiently similar to its original course (according to a given similarity measure). N2 - Graphen stellen ein wichtiges Mittel dar, um Beziehungen zwischen Objekten zu modellieren. Sie bestehen aus Knoten, die die Objekte repräsentieren, und Kanten, die Beziehungen zwischen Paaren von Objekten abbilden. Um Menschen die Struktur eines Graphen zu vermitteln, ist es nahezu unumgänglich den Graphen zu visualisieren. Eine solche Visualisierung nennen wir Graphzeichnung. Eine Graphzeichnung ist geradlinig, wenn jeder Knoten als ein Punkt (oder ein kleines geometrisches Objekt, z. B. ein Rechteck) und jede Kante als eine Strecke zwischen ihren beiden Knoten dargestellt ist. Eine sehr einfache geradlinige Graphzeichnung, bei der alle Knoten eine Folge bilden, entlang der die Knoten durch Kanten verbunden sind, nennen wir Polylinie. Ein Beispiel für eine Polylinie in der Praxis ist eine GPS-Trajektorie. Das zugrundeliegende Straßennetzwerk wiederum kann als Graph repräsentiert werden. In diesem Buch befassen wir uns mit Fragen, die sich bei der Arbeit mit geradlinigen Graphzeichnungen und Polylinien stellen. Insbesondere untersuchen wir Algorithmen zum Erkennen von bestimmten mit Strecken darstellbaren Graphen, zum Generieren von geradlinigen Graphzeichnungen und zum Abstrahieren von Polylinien. Im ersten Teil schauen wir uns zunächst an, wie und in welcher Zeit wir entscheiden können, ob ein gegebener Graph ein Stickgraph ist, das heißt, ob sich seine Knoten als vertikale und horizontale Strecken auf einer diagonalen Geraden darstellen lassen, die sich genau dann schneiden, wenn zwischen ihnen eine Kante liegt. Anschließend betrachten wir die visuelle Komplexität von Graphen. Konkret untersuchen wir für bestimmte Graphklassen, wie viele Strecken für jede geradlinige Graphzeichnung notwendig sind, und, ob drei (oder mehr) verschiedene Streckensteigungen ausreichend sind, um alle Kanten zu zeichnen. Zuletzt beschäftigen wir uns mit der Frage, wie wir den Knoten eines Graphen mit gerichteten und ungerichteten Kanten (geordnete) Farben zuweisen können, sodass keine benachbarten Knoten dieselbe Farbe haben und Farben entlang gerichteter Kanten aufsteigend sind. Hierbei ist die spezielle Eigenschaft der betrachteten Graphen, dass sich die Knoten als Intervalle darstellen lassen, die sich genau dann überschneiden, wenn eine Kanten zwischen ihnen verläuft. Das letztgenannte Problem ist motiviert von einer Anwendung beim automatisierten Zeichnen von Kabelplänen mit vertikalen und horizontalen Streckenverläufen, womit wir uns im zweiten Teil befassen. Wir beschreiben einen Algorithmus, welcher die abstrakte Beschreibung eines Kabelplans entgegennimmt und daraus eine Zeichnung generiert, welche die speziellen Eigenschaften dieser Kabelpläne, wie Stecker und Gruppen von zusammengehörigen Drähten, berücksichtigt. Anschließend evaluieren wir die Qualität der so erzeugten Zeichnungen experimentell. Im dritten Teil befassen wir uns mit dem Abstrahieren bzw. Vereinfachen einer einzelnen Polylinie und eines Bündels von Polylinien. Bei diesem Problem sollen aus einer oder mehreren gegebenen Polylinie(n) so viele Knoten wie möglich entfernt werden, wobei jede resultierende Polylinie ihrem ursprünglichen Verlauf (nach einem gegeben Maß) hinreichend ähnlich bleiben muss. KW - Graphenzeichnen KW - Algorithmische Geometrie KW - Algorithmus KW - Algorithmik KW - Polygonzüge KW - graph drawing KW - complexity KW - algorithms KW - straight-line segments KW - polylines KW - graphs KW - Strecken KW - Graphen Y1 - 2024 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-354756 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zink, Miriam A1 - Seewald, Anne A1 - Rohrbach, Mareike A1 - Brodehl, Andreas A1 - Liedtke, Daniel A1 - Williams, Tatjana A1 - Childs, Sarah J. A1 - Gerull, Brenda T1 - Altered expression of TMEM43 causes abnormal cardiac structure and function in zebrafish JF - International Journal of Molecular Sciences N2 - Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM) is an inherited heart muscle disease caused by heterozygous missense mutations within the gene encoding for the nuclear envelope protein transmembrane protein 43 (TMEM43). The disease is characterized by myocyte loss and fibro-fatty replacement, leading to life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. However, the role of TMEM43 in the pathogenesis of ACM remains poorly understood. In this study, we generated cardiomyocyte-restricted transgenic zebrafish lines that overexpress eGFP-linked full-length human wild-type (WT) TMEM43 and two genetic variants (c.1073C>T, p.S358L; c.332C>T, p.P111L) using the Tol2-system. Overexpression of WT and p.P111L-mutant TMEM43 was associated with transcriptional activation of the mTOR pathway and ribosome biogenesis, and resulted in enlarged hearts with cardiomyocyte hypertrophy. Intriguingly, mutant p.S358L TMEM43 was found to be unstable and partially redistributed into the cytoplasm in embryonic and adult hearts. Moreover, both TMEM43 variants displayed cardiac morphological defects at juvenile stages and ultrastructural changes within the myocardium, accompanied by dysregulated gene expression profiles in adulthood. Finally, CRISPR/Cas9 mutants demonstrated an age-dependent cardiac phenotype characterized by heart enlargement in adulthood. In conclusion, our findings suggest ultrastructural remodeling and transcriptomic alterations underlying the development of structural and functional cardiac defects in TMEM43-associated cardiomyopathy. KW - TMEM43 KW - arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy KW - zebrafish KW - CRISPR/Cas9 Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-286025 SN - 1422-0067 VL - 23 IS - 17 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zinman, Bernard A1 - Inzucchi, Silvio E. A1 - Lachin, John M. A1 - Wanner, Christoph A1 - Ferrari, Roberto A1 - Fitchett, David A1 - Bluhmki, Erich A1 - Hantel, Stefan A1 - Kempthorne-Rawson, Joan A1 - Newman, Jennifer A1 - Johansen, Odd Erik A1 - Woerle, Hans-Juergen A1 - Broedl, Uli C. T1 - Rationale, design, and baseline characteristics of a randomized, placebo-controlled cardiovascular outcome trial of empagliflozin (EMPA-REG OUTCOME (TM)) JF - Cardiovascular Diabetology N2 - Background: Evidence concerning the importance of glucose lowering in the prevention of cardiovascular (CV) outcomes remains controversial. Given the multi-faceted pathogenesis of atherosclerosis in diabetes, it is likely that any intervention to mitigate this risk must address CV risk factors beyond glycemia alone. The SGLT-2 inhibitor empagliflozin improves glucose control, body weight and blood pressure when used as monotherapy or add-on to other antihyperglycemic agents in patients with type 2 diabetes. The aim of the ongoing EMPA-REG OUTCOME (TM) trial is to determine the long-term CV safety of empagliflozin, as well as investigating potential benefits on macro-/microvascular outcomes. Methods: Patients who were drug naive (HbA(1c) >= 7.0% and <= 9.0%), or on background glucose-lowering therapy (HbA(1c) >= 7.0% and <= 10.0%), and were at high risk of CV events, were randomized (1:1:1) and treated with empagliflozin 10 mg, empagliflozin 25 mg, or placebo (double blind, double dummy) superimposed upon the standard of care. The primary outcome is time to first occurrence of CV death, non-fatal myocardial infarction, or non-fatal stroke. CV events will be prospectively adjudicated by an independent Clinical Events Committee. The trial will continue until >= 691 confirmed primary outcome events have occurred, providing a power of 90% to yield an upper limit of the adjusted 95% CI for a hazard ratio of <1.3 with a one-sided a of 0.025, assuming equal risks between placebo and empagliflozin (both doses pooled). Hierarchical testing for superiority will follow for the primary outcome and key secondary outcomes (time to first occurrence of CV death, non-fatal myocardial infarction, non-fatal stroke or hospitalization for unstable angina pectoris) where non-inferiority is achieved. Results: Between Sept 2010 and April 2013, 592 clinical sites randomized and treated 7034 patients (41% from Europe, 20% from North America, and 19% from Asia). At baseline, the mean age was 63 +/- 9 years, BMI 30.6 +/- 5.3 kg/m(2), HbA1c 8.1 +/- 0.8%, and eGFR 74 +/- 21 ml/min/1.73 m(2). The study is expected to report in 2015. Discussion: EMPA REG OUTCOME (TM) will determine the CV safety of empagliflozin in a cohort of patients with type 2 diabetes and high CV risk, with the potential to show cardioprotection. KW - glycemic control KW - blood pressure KW - macrovascular KW - doule blind KW - chronic kidney disease KW - type-1 diabetes mellitus KW - safety KW - metformin KW - add-on KW - albuminuria KW - sulfonylurea KW - efficacy KW - canagliflozin KW - microvascular KW - SGLT2 inhibitor KW - type 2 diabetes KW - body weight KW - empagliflozin Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-116036 SN - 1475-2840 VL - 13 IS - 102 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zinner, C. A1 - Krueger, M. A1 - Reed, J. L. A1 - Kohl-Bareis, M. A1 - Holmberg, H. C. A1 - Sperlich, B. T1 - Exposure to a combination of heat and hyperoxia during cycling at submaximal intensity does not alter thermoregulatory responses JF - Biology of Sport N2 - In this study, we tested the hypothesis that breathing hyperoxic air (F\(_{in}\)O\(_2\) = 0.40) while exercising in a hot environment exerts negative effects on the total tissue level of haemoglobin concentration (tHb); core (T\(_{core}\)) and skin (T\(_{skin}\)) temperatures; muscle activity; heart rate; blood concentration of lactate; pH; partial pressure of oxygen (P\(_a\)O\(_2\)) and carbon dioxide; arterial oxygen saturation (S\(_a\)O\(_2\)); and perceptual responses. Ten well-trained male athletes cycled at submaximal intensity at 21°C or 33°C in randomized order: first for 20 min while breathing normal air (FinO\(_2\) = 0.21) and then 10 min with F\(_{in}\)O\(_2\) = 0.40 (HOX). At both temperatures, S\(_a\)O\(_2\) and P\(_a\)O\(_2\), but not tHb, were increased by HOX. Tskin and perception of exertion and thermal discomfort were higher at 33°C than 21°C (p < 0.01), but independent of F\(_{in}\)O\(_2\). T\(_{core}\) and muscle activity were the same under all conditions (p > 0.07). Blood lactate and heart rate were higher at 33°C than 21°C. In conclusion, during 30 min of submaximal cycling at 21°C or 33°C, T\(_{core}\), T\(_{skin}\) and T\(_{body}\), tHb, muscle activity and ratings of perceived exertion and thermal discomfort were the same under normoxic and hyperoxic conditions. Accordingly, breathing hyperoxic air (F\(_{in}\)O\(_2\) = 0.40) did not affect thermoregulation under these conditions. KW - heat stress KW - hyperthermia KW - skin blood flow KW - thermoregulation KW - vasoconstriction Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-160993 VL - 33 IS - 1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zinner, Christoph A1 - Born, Dennis-Peter A1 - Sperlich, Billy T1 - Ischemic preconditioning does not alter performance in multidirectional high-intensity intermittent exercise JF - Frontiers in Physiology N2 - Purpose: Research dealing with ischemic preconditioning (IPC) has primarily focused on variables associated to endurance performance with little research about the acute responses of IPC on repeated multidirectional running sprint performance. Here we aimed to investigate the effects of IPC of the arms and the legs on repeated running sprint performance with changes-of-direction (COD) movements. Methods: Thirteen moderately-to-well-trained team-sport athletes (7 males; 6 females; age: 24 ± 2 years, size: 175 ± 8 cm, body mass: 67.9 ± 8.1 kg) performed 16 × 30 m all-out sprints (15 s rest) with multidirectional COD movements on a Speedcourt\(^{©}\) with IPC (3 × 5 min) of the legs (IPC\(_{leg}\); 240 mm Hg) or of the arms (remote IPC: IPC\(_{remote}\); 180–190 mm Hg) 45 min before the sprints and a control trial (CON; 20 mm Hg). Results: The mean (±SD) time for the 16 × 30 m multidirectional COD sprints was similar between IPC\(_{leg}\) (Mean t: 16.0 ± 1.8 s), IPC\(_{remote}\) (16.2 ± 1.7 s), and CON (16.0 ± 1.6 s; p = 0.50). No statistical differences in oxygen uptake (mean difference: 0%), heart rate (1.1%) nor muscle oxygen saturation of the vastus lateralis (4.7%) and biceps brachii (7.8%) between the three conditions were evident (all p > 0.05). Conclusions: IPC (3 × 5 min) of the legs (220 mm Hg) or arms (180–190 mm Hg; remote IPC) applied 45 min before 16 × 30 m repeated multidirectional running sprint exercise does not improve sprint performance, oxygen uptake, heart rate nor muscle oxygen saturation of the vastus lateralis muscle when compared to a control trial. KW - team sport KW - agility KW - change of direction KW - muscle oxygen saturation KW - near-infrared spectroscopy Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-159348 VL - 8 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zinner, Christoph A1 - Hauser, Anna A1 - Born, Dennis-Peter A1 - Wehrlin, Jon P. A1 - Holmberg, Hans-Christer A1 - Sperlich, Billy T1 - Influence of Hypoxic Interval Training and Hyperoxic Recovery on Muscle Activation and Oxygenation in Connection with Double-Poling Exercise JF - PLoS One N2 - Here, we evaluated the influence of breathing oxygen at different partial pressures during recovery from exercise on performance at sea-level and a simulated altitude of 1800 m, as reflected in activation of different upper body muscles, and oxygenation of the m. triceps brachii. Ten well-trained, male endurance athletes (25.3±4.1 yrs; 179.2±4.5 cm; 74.2±3.4 kg) performed four test trials, each involving three 3-min sessions on a double-poling ergometer with 3-min intervals of recovery. One trial was conducted entirely under normoxic (No) and another under hypoxic conditions \((Ho; F_iO_2 = 0.165)\). In the third and fourth trials, the exercise was performed in normoxia and hypoxia, respectively, with hyperoxic recovery \((HOX; F_iO_2 = 1.00)\) in both cases. Arterial hemoglobin saturation was higher under the two HOX conditions than without HOX (p<0.05). Integrated muscle electrical activity was not influenced by the oxygen content (best d = 0.51). Furthermore, the only difference in tissue saturation index measured via near-infrared spectroscopy observed was between the recovery periods during the NoNo and HoHOX interventions (P<0.05, d = 0.93). In the case of HoHo the athletes’ \(P_{mean}\) declined from the first to the third interval (P < 0.05), whereas Pmean was unaltered under the HoHOX, NoHOX and NoNo conditions. We conclude that the less pronounced decline in \(P_{mean}\) during 3 x 3-min double-poling sprints in normoxia and hypoxia with hyperoxic recovery is not related to changes in muscle activity or oxygenation. Moreover, we conclude that hyperoxia \((F_iO_2 = 1.00)\) used in conjunction with hypoxic or normoxic work intervals may serve as an effective aid when inhaled during the subsequent recovery intervals. KW - triceps KW - bood KW - medical hypoxia KW - blood KW - arms KW - hyperoxia KW - breathing KW - near-infrared spectroscopy Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-126299 VL - 10 IS - 10 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zinner, Christoph A1 - Morales-Alamo, David A1 - Ørtenblad, Niels A1 - Larsen, Filip J. A1 - Schiffer, Tomas A. A1 - Willis, Sarah J. A1 - Gelabert-Rebato, Miriam A1 - Perez-Valera, Mario A1 - Boushel, Robert A1 - Calbet, Jose A. L. A1 - Holmberg, Hans-Christer T1 - The Physiological Mechanisms of Performance Enhancement with Sprint Interval Training Differ between the Upper and Lower Extremities in Humans JF - Frontiers in Physiology N2 - To elucidate the mechanisms underlying the differences in adaptation of arm and leg muscles to sprint training, over a period of 11 days 16 untrained men performed six sessions of 4–6 × 30-s all-out sprints (SIT) with the legs and arms, separately, with a 1-h interval of recovery. Limb-specific VO2peak, sprint performance (two 30-s Wingate tests with 4-min recovery), muscle efficiency and time-trial performance (TT, 5-min all-out) were assessed and biopsies from the m. vastus lateralis and m. triceps brachii taken before and after training. VO2peak and Wmax increased 3–11% after training, with a more pronounced change in the arms (P < 0.05). Gross efficiency improved for the arms (+8.8%, P < 0.05), but not the legs (−0.6%). Wingate peak and mean power outputs improved similarly for the arms and legs, as did TT performance. After training, VO2 during the two Wingate tests was increased by 52 and 6% for the arms and legs, respectively (P < 0.001). In the case of the arms, VO2 was higher during the first than second Wingate test (64 vs. 44%, P < 0.05). During the TT, relative exercise intensity, HR, VO2, VCO2, VE, and Vt were all lower during arm-cranking than leg-pedaling, and oxidation of fat was minimal, remaining so after training. Despite the higher relative intensity, fat oxidation was 70% greater during leg-pedaling (P = 0.017). The aerobic energy contribution in the legs was larger than for the arms during the Wingate tests, although VO2 for the arms was enhanced more by training, reducing the O2 deficit after SIT. The levels of muscle glycogen, as well as the myosin heavy chain composition were unchanged in both cases, while the activities of 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA-dehydrogenase and citrate synthase were elevated only in the legs and capillarization enhanced in both limbs. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that the variables that predict TT performance differ for the arms and legs. The primary mechanism of adaptation to SIT by both the arms and legs is enhancement of aerobic energy production. However, with their higher proportion of fast muscle fibers, the arms exhibit greater plasticity. KW - high-intensity training KW - lower body KW - performance KW - triceps brachii KW - upper body Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-165257 VL - 7 IS - 426 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zinner, Christoph A1 - Sperlich, Billy A1 - Krueger, Malte A1 - Focke, Tim A1 - Reed, Jennifer A1 - Mester, Joachim T1 - Strength, Endurance, Throwing Velocity and in-Water Jump Performance of Elite German Water Polo Players JF - Journal of Human Kinetics N2 - The purpose of this study was threefold: 1) to assess the eggbeater kick and throwing performance using a number of water polo specific tests, 2) to explore the relation between the eggbeater kick and throwing performance, and 3) to investigate the relation between the eggbeater kick in the water and strength tests performed in a controlled laboratory setting in elite water polo players. Fifteen male water polo players of the German National Team completed dynamic and isometric strength tests for muscle groups (adductor, abductor, abdominal, pectoralis) frequently used during water polo. After these laboratory strength tests, six water polo specific in-water tests were conducted. The eggbeater kick assessed leg endurance and agility, maximal throwing velocity and jump height. A 400 m test and a sprint test examined aerobic and anaerobic performance. The strongest correlation was found between jump height and arm length (p < 0.001, r = 0.89). The laboratory diagnostics of important muscles showed positive correlations with the results of the in-water tests (p < 0.05, r = 0.52-0.70). Muscular strength of the adductor, abdominal and pectoralis muscles was positively related to in-water endurance agility as assessed by the eggbeater kick (p < 0.05; r = 0.53-0.66). Findings from the current study emphasize the need to assess indices of water polo performance both in and out of the water as well as the relation among these parameters to best assess the complex profile of water polo players. KW - physiological characteristics KW - cinematographic analysis KW - penalty throw KW - strength KW - jump height KW - team sports KW - diagnostics KW - anaerobic and aerobic testing Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-148812 VL - 45 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zinner, Christoph A1 - Sperlich, Billy A1 - Wahl, Patrick A1 - Mester, Joachim T1 - Classification of selected cardiopulmonary variables of elite athletes of different age, gender, and disciplines during incremental exercise testing JF - SpringerPlus N2 - Incremental exercise testing is frequently used as a tool for evaluating determinants of endurance performance. The available reference values for the peak oxygen uptake \((VO_{2peak})\), % of \(VO_{2peak}\) , running speed at the lactate threshold \((v_{LT})\), running economy (RE), and maximal running speed \((v_{peak})\) for different age, gender, and disciplines are not sufficient for the elite athletic population. The key variables of 491 young athletes (age range 12–21 years; 250 males, 241 females) assessed during a running step test protocol \((2.4 m s^{−1} ; increase 0.4 m s^{−1} 5 min^{−1})\) were analysed in five subgroups, which were related to combat-, team-, endurance-, sprint- and power-, and racquet-related disciplines. Compared with female athletes, male athletes achieved a higher \(v_{peak}\) (P = 0.004). The body mass, lean body mass, height, abs. \(VO_{2peak} (ml min^{−1})\), rel. \(VO_{2peak} (ml kg^{−1} min^{−1})\), rel. \(VO_{2peak} (ml min^{−1} kg^{−0.75})\), and RE were higher in the male participants compared with the females (P < 0.01). The % of \(VO_2\) at \(v_{LT}\) was lower in the males compared with the females (P < 0.01). No differences between gender were detected for the \(v_{LT}\) (P = 0.17) and % of \(VO_2\) at \(v_{LT}\) (P = 0.42). This study is one of the first to provide a broad spectrum of data to classify nearly 500 elite athletes aged 12–21 years of both gender and different disciplines. KW - performance KW - data KW - competition KW - reference values Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-126275 VL - 4 IS - 544 ER - TY - THES A1 - Zinner, Thomas T1 - Performance Modeling of QoE-Aware Multipath Video Transmission in the Future Internet T1 - Leistungsmodellierung einer Mehrpfad Video Übertragung im zukünftigen Internet unter Berücksichtigung der QoE N2 - Internet applications are becoming more and more flexible to support diverge user demands and network conditions. This is reflected by technical concepts, which provide new adaptation mechanisms to allow fine grained adjustment of the application quality and the corresponding bandwidth requirements. For the case of video streaming, the scalable video codec H.264/SVC allows the flexible adaptation of frame rate, video resolution and image quality with respect to the available network resources. In order to guarantee a good user-perceived quality (Quality of Experience, QoE) it is necessary to adjust and optimize the video quality accurately. But not only have the applications of the current Internet changed. Within network and transport, new technologies evolved during the last years providing a more flexible and efficient usage of data transport and network resources. One of the most promising technologies is Network Virtualization (NV) which is seen as an enabler to overcome the ossification of the Internet stack. It provides means to simultaneously operate multiple logical networks which allow for example application-specific addressing, naming and routing, or their individual resource management. New transport mechanisms like multipath transmission on the network and transport layer aim at an efficient usage of available transport resources. However, the simultaneous transmission of data via heterogeneous transport paths and communication technologies inevitably introduces packet reordering. Additional mechanisms and buffers are required to restore the correct packet order and thus to prevent a disturbance of the data transport. A proper buffer dimensioning as well as the classification of the impact of varying path characteristics like bandwidth and delay require appropriate evaluation methods. Additionally, for a path selection mechanism real time evaluation mechanisms are needed. A better application-network interaction and the corresponding exchange of information enable an efficient adaptation of the application to the network conditions and vice versa. This PhD thesis analyzes a video streaming architecture utilizing multipath transmission and scalable video coding and develops the following optimization possibilities and results: Analysis and dimensioning methods for multipath transmission, quantification of the adaptation possibilities to the current network conditions with respect to the QoE for H.264/SVC, and evaluation and optimization of a future video streaming architecture, which allows a better interaction of application and network. N2 - Die Applikationen im Internet passen sich immer besser an unterschiedliche Anforderungen der Nutzer und variierende Netzwerkbedingungen an. Neue Mechanismen ermöglichen die zielgerichtete Anpassung der Anwendungsqualität und damit der benötigten Bandbreite. Im Falle von Videostreaming ermöglicht der skalierbare Videocodec H.264/SVC, die flexible Veränderung der Bildwiederholungsrate, der Auflösung des Videos und der Bildqualität an die vorhandenen Ressourcen im Netzwerk. Um eine gute vom Nutzer erfahrene Dienstgüte (Quality of Experience, QoE) zu garantieren, muss die Videoqualität richtig angepasst und optimiert werden. Aber nicht nur die Anwendungen des heutigen Internets haben sich verändert. Gerade in den letzten Jahren entstanden neue Netzwerk- und Transporttechnologien, welche eine flexiblere und effizientere Nutzung der Kommunikationsnetze erlauben. Eine dieser Techniken ist die Virtualisierung von Netzwerken. Sie erlaubt es auf einem gemeinsamen physikalischen Netz verschiedene logische Netze zu betreiben, die zum Beispiel Anwendungs-abhängige Adressierung unterstützen, eigene Namensgebung erlauben oder ein individuelles Ressourcen Management ermöglichen. Neuartige Transportmechanismen wie Mehrpfadübertragung auf Netzwerk- und Transportebene des ISO/OSI Stacks streben eine effiziente Ausnutzung der zur Verfügung stehenden Übertragungsmöglichkeiten an. Doch die simultane Übertragung von Daten über heterogene Kommunikationspfade und –technologien führt unausweichlich zu einer Veränderung der Reihenfolge, in der die Pakete ankommen. Es werden zusätzliche Mechanismen und Puffer benötigt, um die ursprüngliche Paketreihenfolge wieder herzustellen und so einen störenden Einfluss auf den Datentransport zu verhindern. Die richtige Dimensionierung dieser Puffer sowie die Klassifizierung des Einflusses von variierenden Pfadparametern wie Bandbreite und Verzögerungen setzen passende Evaluierungsmethoden voraus. Darüber hinaus werden für die Auswahl von geeigneten Pfaden aus einer Menge vorhandener Pfade echtzeitfähige Bewertungsmechanismen benötigt. Eine bessere Interaktion zwischen Applikationen und Netzwerk und der damit verbundene Informationsaustausch ermöglicht die effiziente Anpassung der Applikationsqualität an das Netzwerk und umgekehrt. Diese Doktorarbeit analysiert eine auf Mehrpfadübertragung und skalierbarer Videokodierung basierende Videostreaming Architektur und erarbeitet die folgenden Optimierungsmöglichkeiten und Auswertungen: Analyse- und Dimensionierungsmethoden für Mehrpfadübertragung, Quantifizierung der Anpassungsmöglichkeiten von SVC an das Netzwerk unter Berücksichtigung der QoE und Evaluierung und Optimierung einer zukünftigen Videostreaming Architektur, welche eine stärkere Interaktion zwischen Applikation und Netzwerk ermöglicht. T3 - Würzburger Beiträge zur Leistungsbewertung Verteilter Systeme - 03/12 KW - Videoübertragung KW - H.264 SVC KW - Modellierung KW - Quality-of-Experience KW - Mehrpfadübertragung KW - Multipath Transmission KW - Video Streaming KW - H.264/SVC KW - QoE KW - Performance Modeling Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-72324 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ziouti, Fani A1 - Rummler, Maximilian A1 - Steyn, Beatrice A1 - Thiele, Tobias A1 - Seliger, Anne A1 - Duda, Georg N. A1 - Bogen, Bjarne A1 - Willie, Bettina M. A1 - Jundt, Franziska T1 - Prevention of bone destruction by mechanical loading is not enhanced by the Bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitor CC-292 in myeloma bone disease JF - International Journal of Molecular Sciences N2 - Limiting bone resorption and regenerating bone tissue are treatment goals in myeloma bone disease (MMBD). Physical stimuli such as mechanical loading prevent bone destruction and enhance bone mass in the MOPC315.BM.Luc model of MMBD. It is unknown whether treatment with the Bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitor CC-292 (spebrutinib), which regulates osteoclast differentiation and function, augments the anabolic effect of mechanical loading. CC-292 was administered alone and in combination with axial compressive tibial loading in the MOPC315.BM.Luc model for three weeks. However, neither CC-292 alone nor its use in combination with mechanical loading was more effective in reducing osteolytic bone disease or rescuing bone mass than mechanical stimuli alone, as evidenced by microcomputed tomography (microCT) and histomorphometric analysis. Further studies are needed to investigate novel anti-myeloma and anti-resorptive strategies in combination with physical stimuli to improve treatment of MMBD. KW - multiple myeloma KW - cancer-induced bone disease KW - Bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitor CC-292 KW - skeletal mechanobiology KW - bone adaptation KW - mechanical loading Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-284943 SN - 1422-0067 VL - 22 IS - 8 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zipfel, Julian A1 - Eyrich, Matthias A1 - Schlegel, Paul-Gerhardt A1 - Wiegering, Verena T1 - Disturbed B cell and DC-Homeostasis in Pediatric cGVHD Patients-Cocultivation Experiments and Review of the Literature JF - Clinics in Oncology N2 - B cells and DCs are suspected to play an important role in the pathogenesis of cGvHD, which is a serious complication of HSCT with high morbidity. It is characterized by immune responses of donor immune cells against recipient-derived antigens. athogenesis is not yet fully understood, however reconstitution of B cells after HSCT has similarities to physiologic ontogeny. Immunophenotyping and co-cultivation-experiments of B cells and DCs from pediatric patients with cGvHD as well as healthy donors were conducted. Significant differences between patients and healthy donors were observed with increased memory, transitional, CD69+ and CD86+ phenotype and lower levels of naïve B cells due to apoptosis. Co-cultivation revealed this to be primarily B cell-dependent without major effects of and with DCs. There was a decreased CD11c- phenotype in patients and less apoptosis of DCs. Our data suggest a disturbed homeostasis in B cells with increased memory phenotype in patients, whereas DCs could not influence these differences, therefore DCs are not imposing as promising targets. B cell-dependent approaches should be further investigated. KW - B cell Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-147914 VL - 1 IS - 1097 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zirkel, J. A1 - Cecil, A. A1 - Schäfer, F. A1 - Rahlfs, S. A1 - Ouedraogo, A. A1 - Xiao, K. A1 - Sawadogo, S. A1 - Coulibaly, B. A1 - Becker, K. A1 - Dandekar, T. T1 - Analyzing Thiol-Dependent Redox Networks in the Presence of Methylene Blue and Other Antimalarial Agents with RT-PCR-Supported in silico Modeling JF - Bioinformatics and Biology Insights N2 - BACKGROUND: In the face of growing resistance in malaria parasites to drugs, pharmacological combination therapies are important. There is accumulating evidence that methylene blue (MB) is an effective drug against malaria. Here we explore the biological effects of both MB alone and in combination therapy using modeling and experimental data. RESULTS: We built a model of the central metabolic pathways in P. falciparum. Metabolic flux modes and their changes under MB were calculated by integrating experimental data (RT-PCR data on mRNAs for redox enzymes) as constraints and results from the YANA software package for metabolic pathway calculations. Several different lines of MB attack on Plasmodium redox defense were identified by analysis of the network effects. Next, chloroquine resistance based on pfmdr/and pfcrt transporters, as well as pyrimethamine/sulfadoxine resistance (by mutations in DHF/DHPS), were modeled in silico. Further modeling shows that MB has a favorable synergism on antimalarial network effects with these commonly used antimalarial drugs. CONCLUSIONS: Theoretical and experimental results support that methylene blue should, because of its resistance-breaking potential, be further tested as a key component in drug combination therapy efforts in holoendemic areas. KW - methylene blue KW - malaria KW - elementary mode analysis KW - drug KW - resistance KW - combination therapy KW - pathway KW - metabolic flux Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-123751 N1 - This is an open access article. Unrestricted non-commercial use is permitted provided the original work is properly cited. VL - 6 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zlamy, Manuela A1 - Almanzar, Giovanni A1 - Parson, Walther A1 - Schmidt, Christian A1 - Leierer, Johannes A1 - Weinberger, Birgit A1 - Jeller, Verena A1 - Unsinn, Karin A1 - Eyrich, Matthias A1 - Würzner, Reinhard A1 - Prelog, Martina T1 - Efforts of the human immune system to maintain the peripheral CD8+ T cell compartment after childhood thymectomy JF - Immunity & Ageing N2 - Background Homeostatic mechanisms to maintain the T cell compartment diversity indicate an ongoing process of thymic activity and peripheral T cell renewal during human life. These processes are expected to be accelerated after childhood thymectomy and by the influence of cytomegalovirus (CMV) inducing a prematurely aged immune system. The study aimed to investigate proportional changes and replicative history of CD8+ T cells, of recent thymic emigrants (RTEs) and CD103+ T cells (mostly gut-experienced) and the role of Interleukin-(IL)-7 and IL-7 receptor (CD127)-expressing T cells in thymectomized patients compared to young and old healthy controls. Results Decreased proportions of naive and CD31 + CD8+ T cells were demonstrated after thymectomy, with higher proliferative activity of CD127-expressing T cells and significantly shorter relative telomere lengths (RTLs) and lower T cell receptor excision circles (TRECs). Increased circulating CD103+ T cells and a skewed T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire were found after thymectomy similar to elderly persons. Naive T cells were influenced by age at thymectomy and further decreased by CMV. Conclusions After childhood thymectomy, the immune system demonstrated constant efforts of the peripheral CD8+ T cell compartment to maintain homeostasis. Supposedly it tries to fill the void of RTEs by peripheral T cell proliferation, by at least partly IL-7-mediated mechanisms and by proportional increase of circulating CD103+ T cells, reminiscent of immune aging in elderly. Although other findings were less significant compared to healthy elderly, early thymectomy demonstrated immunological alterations of CD8+ T cells which mimic features of premature immunosenescence in humans. KW - thymectomy KW - naive T cells KW - TRECs KW - TCR diversity KW - CMV KW - CD8 KW - telomeres Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-146497 VL - 13 IS - 3 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zoephel, Judith A1 - Reiher, Wencke A1 - Rexer, Karl-Heinz A1 - Kahnt, Jörg A1 - Wegener, Christian T1 - Peptidomics of the Agriculturally Damaging Larval Stage of the Cabbage Root Fly Delia radicum (Diptera: Anthomyiidae) JF - PLoS One N2 - The larvae of the cabbage root fly induce serious damage to cultivated crops of the family Brassicaceae. We here report the biochemical characterisation of neuropeptides from the central nervous system and neurohemal organs, as well as regulatory peptides from enteroendocrine midgut cells of the cabbage maggot. By LC-MALDI-TOF/TOF and chemical labelling with 4-sulfophenyl isothiocyanate, 38 peptides could be identified, representing major insect peptide families: allatostatin A, allatostatin C, FMRFamide-like peptides, kinin, CAPA peptides, pyrokinins, sNPF, myosuppressin, corazonin, SIFamide, sulfakinins, tachykinins, NPLP1-peptides, adipokinetic hormone and CCHamide 1. We also report a new peptide (Yamide) which appears to be homolog to an amidated eclosion hormone-associated peptide in several Drosophila species. Immunocytochemical characterisation of the distribution of several classes of peptide-immunoreactive neurons and enteroendocrine cells shows a very similar but not identical peptide distribution to Drosophila. Since peptides regulate many vital physiological and behavioural processes such as moulting or feeding, our data may initiate the pharmacological testing and development of new specific peptide-based protection methods against the cabbage root fly and its larva. KW - adult drosophila KW - central-nervous-system KW - blowfly calliphora-vomitoria KW - drosophila melanogaster KW - mass spectometry KW - feeding behavior KW - fruit fly KW - functional characterization KW - immunoreactive neurons KW - neobellieria bullata Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-131727 VL - 7 IS - 7 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zollner, Ursula A1 - Rehn, Monika A1 - Dietl, Johannes T1 - Perinatal Problems in Multiple Births Inconsistent Terminology Y1 - 2010 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-85850 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zoltner, Martin A1 - Krienitz, Nina A1 - Field, Mark C. A1 - Kramer, Susanne T1 - Comparative proteomics of the two T. brucei PABPs suggests that PABP2 controls bulk mRNA JF - PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases N2 - Poly(A)-binding proteins (PABPs) regulate mRNA fate by controlling stability and translation through interactions with both the poly(A) tail and eIF4F complex. Many organisms have several paralogs of PABPs and eIF4F complex components and it is likely that different eIF4F/PABP complex combinations regulate distinct sets of mRNAs. Trypanosomes have five eIF4G paralogs, six of eIF4E and two PABPs, PABP1 and PABP2. Under starvation, polysomes dissociate and the majority of mRNAs, most translation initiation factors and PABP2 reversibly localise to starvation stress granules. To understand this more broadly we identified a protein interaction cohort for both T. brucei PABPs by cryo-mill/affinity purification-mass spectrometry. PABP1 very specifically interacts with the previously identified interactors eIF4E4 and eIF4G3 and few others. In contrast PABP2 is promiscuous, with a larger set of interactors including most translation initiation factors and most prominently eIF4G1, with its two partners TbG1-IP and TbG1-IP2. Only RBP23 was specific to PABP1, whilst 14 RNA-binding proteins were exclusively immunoprecipitated with PABP2. Significantly, PABP1 and associated proteins are largely excluded from starvation stress granules, but PABP2 and most interactors translocate to granules on starvation. We suggest that PABP1 regulates a small subpopulation of mainly small-sized mRNAs, as it interacts with a small and distinct set of proteins unable to enter the dominant pathway into starvation stress granules and localises preferentially to a subfraction of small polysomes. By contrast PABP2 likely regulates bulk mRNA translation, as it interacts with a wide range of proteins, enters stress granules and distributes over the full range of polysomes. KW - Trypanosoma KW - mRNA KW - T. brucei KW - PABPs Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-177126 VL - 12 IS - 7 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zonneveld, Ben J. M. T1 - The DNA weights per nucleus (genome size) of more than 2350 species of the Flora of The Netherlands, of which 1370 are new to science, including the pattern of their DNA peaks JF - Forum Geobotanicum N2 - Besides external characteristics and reading a piece of DNA (barcode), the DNA weight per nucleus (genome size) via flow cytometry is a key value to detect species and hybrids and determine ploidy. In addition, the DNA weight appears to be related to various properties, such as the size of the cell and the nucleus, the duration of mitosis and meiosis and the generation time. Sometimes it is even possible to distinguish between groups or sections, which can lead to new classification of the genera. The variation in DNA weight is also useful to analyze biodiversity, genome evolution and relationships between related taxa. Moreover, it is important to know how large a genome is before one determines the base sequence of the DNA of a plant. Flow cytometry is also important for understanding fundamental processes in plants such as growth and development and recognizing chimeras. In the literature, DNA weight measurements are usually limited to one genus and often only locally (Siljak et al. 2010; Bai et al. 2012). In this study, however, it was decided to investigate all vascular plants from one country. This can also contribute to the protection of rare plants. This study is the first flora in the world whose weight of DNA per nucleus and peak patterns has been determined. More than 6400 plants, representing more than 2350 (sub)species (more than 90%) have been collected, thanks to the help of almost 100 volunteers of Floristisch Onderzoek Nederland (Floron). Multiple specimens of many species have therefore been measured, preferably from different populations, in some cases more than fifty. For 1370 species, these values were not previously published. Moreover, a good number of the remaining 45% are new for The Netherlands. In principle, each species has a fixed weight of DNA per nucleus. It has also been found that, especially between the genera, there are strong differences in the number of peaks that determine the DNA weight, from one to five peaks. This indicates that in a plant or organ there are sometimes nuclei with multiples of its standard DNA weight (multiple ploidy levels). It is impossible to show graphs of more than 2350 species. Therefore, we have chosen to show the peak pattern in a new way in a short formula. Within most genera there are clear differences in the DNA weights per nucleus between the species, in some other genera the DNA weight is hardly variable. Based on about twenty genera that were previously measured completely in most cases (‘t Hart et al. 2003: Veldkamp and Zonneveld 2011; Soes et al. 2012; Dirkse et al. 2014, 2015; Verloove et al. 2017; Zonneveld [et al.] 2000−2018), it can be noted that even if all species of a genus have the same number of chromosomes, there can still be a difference of up to three times in the weight of the DNA. Therefore, a twice larger DNA weight does not have to indicate four sets of chromosomes. Finally, this research has also found clues to examine further the current taxonomy of a number of species or genera. KW - DNA weight KW - Pflanzen KW - genome KW - flora KW - Netherlands Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-189724 UR - http://www.forum-geobotanicum.net/articles/vol_8-2018/zonneveld_flora-of-the-netherlands/zonneveld_flora-of-the-netherlands.pdf SN - 1867-9315 VL - 8 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zopf, Kathrin A1 - Frey, Kathrin R. A1 - Kienitz, Tina A1 - Ventz, Manfred A1 - Bauer, Britta A1 - Quinkler, Marcus T1 - \(Bcl\)I polymorphism of the glucocorticoid receptor and adrenal crisis in primary adrenal insufficiency JF - Endocrine Connections N2 - Context: Patients with primary adrenal insufficiency (PAI) or congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) are at a high risk of adrenal crisis (AC). Glucocorticoid sensitivity is at least partially genetically determined by polymorphisms of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). Objectives: To determine if a number of intercurrent illnesses and AC are associated with the GR gene polymorphism \(Bcl\)I in patients with PAI and CAH. Design and patients: This prospective, longitudinal study over 37.7 ± 10.1 months included 47 PAI and 25 CAH patients. During the study period, intercurrent illness episodes and AC were documented. Results: The study period covered 223 patient years in which 21 AC occurred (9.4 AC/100 pat years). There were no significant differences between \(Bcl\)I polymorphisms (CC (n=29), CG (n=34) and GG (n=9)) regarding BMI, hydrocortisone equivalent daily dose and blood pressure. We did not find a difference in the number of intercurrent illnesses/patient year among \(Bcl\)I polymorphisms (CC (1.5±1.4/pat year), CG (1.2±1.2/pat year) and GG (1.6±2.2/pat year)). The occurrence of AC was not significantly different among the homozygous (GG) genotype (32.5 AC/100 pat years), the CC genotype (6.7 AC/100 pat years) and the CG genotype (4.9 AC/100 pat years). Concomitant hypothyroidism was the highest in the GG genotype group (5/9), compared to others (CC (11/29) and CG (11/34)). Conclusions: Although sample sizes were relatively small and results should be interpreted with caution, this study suggests that the GR gene polymorphism \(Bcl\)I may not be associated with the frequencies of intercurrent illnesses and AC. KW - medicine KW - adrenal crisis KW - adrenal insufficiency KW - cortisol KW - hydrocortisone KW - polyglandular autoimmune syndrome Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-173276 VL - 6 IS - 8 ER - TY - THES A1 - Zoran, Tamara T1 - Multilevel analysis of the human immune response to \(Aspergillus\) \(fumigatus\) infection: Characteristic molecular signatures and individual risk factors T1 - Analysen der humanen Immunantwort auf eine Infektion mit \(Aspergillus\) \(fumigatus\): Charakteristische molekulare Signaturen und individuelle Risikofaktoren N2 - Although the field of fungal infections advanced tremendously, diagnosis of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) in immunocompromised patients continues to be a challenge. Since IPA is a multifactorial disease, investigation from different aspects may provide new insights, helpful for improving IPA diagnosis. This work aimed to characterize the human immune response to Aspergillus fumigatus in a multilevel manner to identify characteristic molecular candidates and risk factors indicating IPA, which may in the future support already established diagnostic assays. We combined in vitro studies using myeloid cells infected with A. fumigatus and longitudinal case-control studies investigating patients post allogeneic stem cell transplantation (alloSCT) suffering from IPA and their match controls. Characteristic miRNA and mRNA signatures indicating A. fumigatus-infected monocyte-derived dendritic cells (moDCs) demonstrated the potential to differentiate between A. fumigatus and Escherichia coli infection. Transcriptome and protein profiling of alloSCT patients suffering from IPA and their matched controls revealed a distinctive IPA signature consisting of MMP1 induction and LGAL2 repression in combination with elevated IL-8 and caspase-3 levels. Both, in vitro and case-control studies, suggested cytokines, matrix-metallopeptidases and galectins are important in the immune response to A. fumigatus. Identified IPA characteristic molecular candidates are involved in numerous processes, thus a combination of these in a distinctive signature may increase the specificity. Finally, low monocyte counts, severe GvHD of the gut (grade ≥ 2) and etanercept administration were significantly associated with IPA diagnosis post alloSCT. Etanercept in monocyte-derived macrophages (MDM) infected with A. fumigatus downregulates genes involved in the NF-κB and TNF-α pathway and affects the secretion of CXCL10. Taken together, identified characteristic molecular signatures and risk factors indicating IPA may in the future in combination with established fungal biomarkers overcome current diagnostic challenges and help to establish tailored antifungal therapy. Therefore, further multicentre studies are encouraged to evaluate reported findings. N2 - Obwohl im Bereich der Erforschung invasiver Pilzinfektionen aktuell enorme Fortschritte erzielt wurden, stellt die Diagnose der Invasiven Pulmonalen Aspergillose (IPA) bei immunsupprimierten Patienten weiterhin eine grosse Herausforderung dar. Da es sich bei der IPA um eine multifaktorielle Erkrankung handelt, können Untersuchungen unter verschiedenen Fragestellungen neue Erkenntnisse liefern, die zur Verbesserung der IPA Diagnose beitragen. In dieser Arbeit wurde die humane Immunantwort auf Aspergillus fumigatus auf mehreren Ebenen untersucht, um charakteristische molekulare Kandidaten und Risikofaktoren zu identifizieren, die auf eine IPA hinweisen um so in Zukunft bereits etablierte diagnostische Tests unterstützen zu können. Wir kombinierten in vitro Studien mit A. fumigatus infizierten, myeloischen Zellen mit longitudinalen Case-Control-Studien, in denen an IPA erkrankte Patienten und ihre passenden Kontrollpatienten nach allogener Stammzelltransplantation (alloSZT) untersucht wurden. Charakteristische miRNA und mRNA Signaturen von A. fumigatus-infizierten Monozyten-abgeleiteten dendritischen Zellen (moDCs) zeigten das Potenzial, zwischen A. fumigatus und Escherichia coli Infektionen zu unterscheiden. Transkriptom- und Protein- Analysen von alloSZT Patienten, die an einer IPA erkrankten, und den passenden Kontrollpatienten ergaben charakteristische IPA Signaturen, bestehend aus einer MMP1 Induktion und einer LGALS2 Repression, in Kombination mit erhöhten IL-8 und Caspase-3 Konzentrationen. Sowohl die in vitro Daten als auch die Fall-Kontroll- Studien zeigten, dass Zytokine, Matrix-Metallopeptidasen und Galectine eine wichtige Rolle bei der Immunantwort auf A. fumigatus spielen. Die in IPA identifizierten charakteristischen molekularen Kandidaten sind an mehreren Prozessen beteiligt, so dass eine Kombination dieser molekularen Kandidaten die Spezifität mittels charakteristischer Signatur erhöhen könnte. Schließlich waren niedrige Monozytenzahlen, eine schwere GvHD des Darms (Grad ≥ 2) und die Anwendung von Etanercept signifikant mit einer IPA Diagnose nach alloSZT assoziiert. Etanercept in Makrophagen, die mit A. fumigatus ko-kultiviert wurden, reguliert Gene herunter, die am NF-κB- und TNF-α-Signalweg beteiligt sind, und beeinflusst die Sekretion von CXCL10. Zusammenfassend lässt sich festhalten, dass die identifizierten charakteristischen molekularen Signaturen und Risikofaktoren, die auf eine IPA hinweisen, in Zukunft in Kombination mit etablierten Pilz-Biomarkern die derzeitigen diagnostischen Limitationen überwinden könnten und dazu beitragen könnten, eine patientenindividuelle antimykotische Therapie zu etablieren. Es werden jedoch weitere multizentrische Studien notwendig sein, um diese Ergebnisse umfassend zu bewerten. KW - Aspergillus fumigatus KW - Immunantwort KW - Risikofaktoren KW - invasive pulmonary aspergillosis KW - immune response KW - risk factors KW - transcriptome profiling Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-298512 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zoran, Tamara A1 - Seelbinder, Bastian A1 - White, Philip Lewis A1 - Price, Jessica Sarah A1 - Kraus, Sabrina A1 - Kurzai, Oliver A1 - Linde, Joerg A1 - Häder, Antje A1 - Loeffler, Claudia A1 - Grigoleit, Goetz Ulrich A1 - Einsele, Hermann A1 - Panagiotou, Gianni A1 - Loeffler, Juergen A1 - Schäuble, Sascha T1 - Molecular profiling reveals characteristic and decisive signatures in patients after allogeneic stem cell transplantation suffering from invasive pulmonary aspergillosis JF - Journal of Fungi N2 - Despite available diagnostic tests and recent advances, diagnosis of pulmonary invasive aspergillosis (IPA) remains challenging. We performed a longitudinal case-control pilot study to identify host-specific, novel, and immune-relevant molecular candidates indicating IPA in patients post allogeneic stem cell transplantation (alloSCT). Supported by differential gene expression analysis of six relevant in vitro studies, we conducted RNA sequencing of three alloSCT patients categorized as probable IPA cases and their matched controls without Aspergillus infection (66 samples in total). We additionally performed immunoassay analysis for all patient samples to gain a multi-omics perspective. Profiling analysis suggested LGALS2, MMP1, IL-8, and caspase-3 as potential host molecular candidates indicating IPA in investigated alloSCT patients. MMP1, IL-8, and caspase-3 were evaluated further in alloSCT patients for their potential to differentiate possible IPA cases and patients suffering from COVID-19-associated pulmonary aspergillosis (CAPA) and appropriate control patients. Possible IPA cases showed differences in IL-8 and caspase-3 serum levels compared with matched controls. Furthermore, we observed significant differences in IL-8 and caspase-3 levels among CAPA patients compared with control patients. With our conceptual work, we demonstrate the potential value of considering the human immune response during Aspergillus infection to identify immune-relevant molecular candidates indicating IPA in alloSCT patients. These human host candidates together with already established fungal biomarkers might improve the accuracy of IPA diagnostic tools. KW - host response KW - invasive pulmonary aspergillosis KW - alloSCT patients KW - galectin-2 KW - caspase-3 KW - matrix metallopeptidase-1 Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-262105 SN - 2309-608X VL - 8 IS - 2 ER - TY - THES A1 - Zott, Maximilian T1 - Extreme Value Theory in Higher Dimensions - Max-Stable Processes and Multivariate Records T1 - Höherdimensionale Extremwerttheorie - Max-Stabile Prozesse und Multivariate Rekorde N2 - Die Extremwerttheorie behandelt die stochastische Modellierung seltener und extremer Ereignisse. Während fundamentale Theorien in der klassischen Stochastik, wie etwa die Gesetze der großen Zahlen oder der zentrale Grenzwertsatz das asymptotische Verhalten der Summe von Zufallsvariablen untersucht, liegt in der Extremwerttheorie der Fokus auf dem Maximum oder dem Minimum einer Menge von Beobachtungen. Die Grenzverteilung des normierten Stichprobenmaximums unter einer Folge von unabhängigen und identisch verteilten Zufallsvariablen kann durch sogenannte max-stabile Verteilungen charakterisiert werden. In dieser Dissertation werden verschiedene Aspekte der Theorie der max-stabilen Zufallsvektoren und stochastischen Prozesse behandelt. Insbesondere wird der Begriff der 'Differenzierbarkeit in Verteilung' eines max-stabilen Prozesses eingeführt und untersucht. Ferner werden 'verallgemeinerte max-lineare Modelle' eingeführt, um einen bekannten max-stabilen Zufallsvektor durch einen max-stabilen Prozess zu interpolieren. Darüber hinaus wird der Zusammenhang von extremwerttheoretischen Methoden mit der Theorie der multivariaten Rekorde hergestellt. Insbesondere werden sogenannte 'vollständige' und 'einfache' Rekorde eingeführt, und deren asymptotisches Verhalten untersucht. N2 - Extreme value theory is concerned with the stochastic modeling of rare and extreme events. While fundamental theories of classical stochastics - such as the laws of small numbers or the central limit theorem - are used to investigate the asymptotic behavior of the sum of random variables, extreme value theory focuses on the maximum or minimum of a set of observations. The limit distribution of the normalized sample maximum among a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables can be characterized by means of so-called max-stable distributions. This dissertation concerns with different aspects of the theory of max-stable random vectors and stochastic processes. In particular, the concept of 'differentiability in distribution' of a max-stable process is introduced and investigated. Moreover, 'generalized max-linear models' are introduced in order to interpolate a known max-stable random vector by a max-stable process. Further, the connection between extreme value theory and multivariate records is established. In particular, so-called 'complete' and 'simple' records are introduced as well as it is examined their asymptotic behavior. KW - Stochastischer Prozess KW - Extremwertstatistik KW - max-stable process KW - max-linear model KW - Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung KW - Rekord Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-136614 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zottnick, Sven H. A1 - Sprenger, Jan A. P. A1 - Finze, Maik A1 - Müller‐Buschbaum, Klaus T1 - Statistic Replacement of Lanthanide Ions in Bis‐salicylatoborate Coordination Polymers for the Deliberate Control of the Luminescence Chromaticity JF - ChemistryOpen N2 - Based on the strand‐like coordination polymer (CP) type \(^{1}\)\(_{∞}\)[Ln(BSB)\(_{3}\)(py)\(_{2}\)], [BSB]−=bis‐salicylatoborate anion, mixed Eu/Tb‐containing compounds of the constitution \(^{1}\)\(_{∞}\)[Eu\(_{x}\)Tb\(_{1-x}\)(BSB)\(_{3}\)(py)\(_{2}\)] were synthesised ionothermally for a phase width of (x=0.25–0.75) and characterized regarding structure and optical properties. Previously, known only for other lanthanides, the mixed 1D−Eu/Tb‐CPs show excellent options for statistic replacement of the Ln‐cations during synthesis yielding solid solutions. The products are highly luminescent, with the chromaticity being a direct function of the amount of the respective Ln‐ions. Corresponding to an overall addition of emission intensities, the green Tb\(^{3+}\) emission and the red Eu\(^{3+}\) emission allow for a chromaticity control that also includes yellow emission. Control of the luminescence colour renders them suitable examples of the versatility of statistic replacement of metal ions in coordination chemistry. In addition, crystallization of [EMIm]\(_{2}\)[YCl\(_{5}\)(py)] illuminates possible other products of the ionothermal reactions of [EMIm][BSB] with LnCl\(_{3}\) constituted by components not being part of the main CPs. KW - borates KW - coordination polymers KW - ionic liquids KW - lanthanides KW - luminescence Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-239953 VL - 10 IS - 2 SP - 164 EP - 170 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zoungrana, Benewinde Jean-Bosco A1 - Conrad, Christopher A1 - Amekudzi, Leonard K. A1 - Thiel, Michael A1 - Dapola Da, Evariste A1 - Forkuor, Gerald A1 - Löw, Fabian T1 - Multi-Temporal Landsat Images and Ancillary Data for Land Use/Cover Change (LULCC) Detection in the Southwest of Burkina Faso, West Africa JF - Remote Sensing N2 - Accurate quantification of land use/cover change (LULCC) is important for efficient environmental management, especially in regions that are extremely affected by climate variability and continuous population growth such as West Africa. In this context, accurate LULC classification and statistically sound change area estimates are essential for a better understanding of LULCC processes. This study aimed at comparing mono-temporal and multi-temporal LULC classifications as well as their combination with ancillary data and to determine LULCC across the heterogeneous landscape of southwest Burkina Faso using accurate classification results. Landsat data (1999, 2006 and 2011) and ancillary data served as input features for the random forest classifier algorithm. Five LULC classes were identified: woodland, mixed vegetation, bare surface, water and agricultural area. A reference database was established using different sources including high-resolution images, aerial photo and field data. LULCC and LULC classification accuracies, area and area uncertainty were computed based on the method of adjusted error matrices. The results revealed that multi-temporal classification significantly outperformed those solely based on mono-temporal data in the study area. However, combining mono-temporal imagery and ancillary data for LULC classification had the same accuracy level as multi-temporal classification which is an indication that this combination is an efficient alternative to multi-temporal classification in the study region, where cloud free images are rare. The LULCC map obtained had an overall accuracy of 92%. Natural vegetation loss was estimated to be 17.9% ± 2.5% between 1999 and 2011. The study area experienced an increase in agricultural area and bare surface at the expense of woodland and mixed vegetation, which attests to the ongoing deforestation. These results can serve as means of regional and global land cover products validation, as they provide a new validated data set with uncertainty estimates in heterogeneous ecosystems prone to classification errors. KW - Burkina Faso KW - West Africa KW - multi-temporal images KW - mono-temporal image KW - ancillary data KW - LULCC Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-125866 VL - 7 IS - 9 ER - TY - THES A1 - Zube, Christina T1 - Neuronal representation and processing of chemosensory communication signals in the ant brain N2 - Ants heavily rely on olfaction for communication and orientation and ant societies are characterized by caste- and sex-specific division of labor. Olfaction plays a key role in mediating caste-specific behaviours. I investigated whether caste- and sex-specific differences in odor driven behavior are reflected in specific differences and/or adaptations in the ant olfactory system. In particular, I asked the question whether in the carpenter ant, Camponotus floridanus, the olfactory pathway exhibits structural and/or functional adaptations to processing of pheromonal and general odors. To analyze neuroanatomical specializations, the central olfactory pathway in the brain of large (major) workers, small (minor) workers, virgin queens, and males of the carpenter ant C. floridanus was investigated using fluorescent tracing, immunocytochemistry, confocal microscopy and 3D-analyzes. For physiological analyzes of processing of pheromonal and non-pheromonal odors in the first odor processing neuropil , the antennal lobe (AL), calcium imaging of olfactory projection neurons (PNs) was applied. Although different in total glomerular volumes, the numbers of olfactory glomeruli in the ALs were similar across the female worker caste and in virgin queens. Here the AL contains up to ~460 olfactory glomeruli organized in 7 distinct clusters innervated via 7 antennal sensory tracts. The AL is divided into two hemispheres regarding innervations of glomeruli by PNs with axons leaving via a dual output pathway. This pathway consists of the medial (m) and lateral (l) antenno-cerebral tract (ACT) and connects the AL with the higher integration areas in the mushroom bodies (MB) and the lateral horn (LH). M- and l-ACT PNs differ in their target areas in the MB calyx and the LH. Three additional ACTs (mediolateral - ml) project to the lateral protocerebrum only. Males had ~45% fewer glomeruli compared to females and one of the seven sensory tracts was absent. Despite a substantially smaller number of glomeruli, males possess a dual PN output pathway to the MBs. In contrast to females, however, only a small number of glomeruli were innervated by projection neurons of the m-ACT. Whereas all glomeruli in males were densely innervated by serotonergic processes, glomeruli innervated by sensory tract six lacked serotonergic innervations in the female castes. It appears that differences in general glomerular organization are subtle among the female castes, but sex-specific differences in the number, connectivity and neuromodulatory innervations of glomeruli are substantial and likely to promote differences in olfactory behavior. Calcium imaging experiments to monitor pheromonal and non-pheromonal processing in the ant AL revealed that odor responses were reproducible and comparable across individuals. Calcium responses to both odor groups were very sensitive (10-11 dilution), and patterns from both groups were partly overlapping indicating that processing of both odor classes is not spatially segregated within the AL. Intensity response patterns to the pheromone components tested (trail pheromone: nerolic acid; alarm pheromone: n-undecane), in most cases, remained invariant over a wide range of intensities (7-8 log units), whereas patterns in response to general odors (heptanal, octanol) varied across intensities. Durations of calcium responses to stimulation with the trail pheromone component nerolic acid increased with increasing odor concentration indicating that odor quality is maintained by a stable pattern (concentration invariance) and intensity is mainly encoded in the response durations of calcium activities. For n-undecane and both general odors increasing response dynamics were only monitored in very few cases. In summary, this is the first detailed structure-function analyses within the ant’s central olfactory system. The results contribute to a better understanding of important aspects of odor processing and olfactory adaptations in an insect’s central olfactory system. Furthermore, this study serves as an excellent basis for future anatomical and/or physiological experiments. N2 - Für Ameisen spielt die olfaktorische Kommunikation und Orientierung eine zentrale Rolle hinsichtlich der Organisation des Ameisenstaates. Ob sich kasten- und geschlechtsspezifische Verhaltensunterschiede auf neuronaler Ebene und besonders im olfaktorischen System der Ameise widerspiegeln ist die zentrale Frage meiner Arbeit. Im Speziellen stellte ich die Frage, ob sich in der olfaktorischen Bahn der Rossameise Camponotus floridanus strukturelle oder funktionelle Anpassungen an die Verarbeitung von Pheromonen und generellen Düften aufzeigen lassen. Zur Analyse hinsichtlich neuroanatomischer Spezialisierungen wurde die olfaktorische Bahn im Gehirn von großen und kleinen Arbeiterinnen, Jungköniginnen und Männchen der Rossameise C. floridanus mittels Fluoreszenzmassenfärbungen, Immunzytochemie, konfokaler Laserscanningmikroskopie und 3D-Auswertung untersucht. Um die Verarbeitung von Pheromonen und generellen Düften im primären olfaktorischen Neuropil, dem Antennallobus (AL), auf physiologischer Ebene zu charakterisieren wurden olfaktorische Projektionsneurone mittels Calcium Imaging untersucht. Obwohl sich das glomeruläre Gesamtvolumen der ALs zwischen Arbeiterinnenkasten und Jungköniginnen unterscheidet, lag die Gesamtzahl der Glomeruli im AL in einem ähnlichen Bereich. Der AL besteht in allen drei weiblichen Kasten aus bis zu 460 Glomeruli, die in sieben Clustern angeordnet sind und von sieben sensorischen Eingangstrakten innerviert werden. Der AL unterteilt sich in zwei Hemispheren, deren entsprechende Glomeruli von Projektionsneuronen innverviert werden, die vom AL über die Nervenbahn des “dual output pathway” in höhere Hirnregionen projizieren. Diese Nervenbahn besteht aus dem medialen (m) und lateralen (l) Antennocerebraltrakt (ACT) und verbindet den AL mit höheren Integrationszentren wie den Pilzkörpern (MB) und dem lateralen Horn (LH). M- und l-ACT unterscheiden sich in ihren Zielregionen im MB Calyx und dem LH. Drei weitere ACTs (mediolateral – ml) projizieren ausschließlich ins laterale Protocerebrum. Männchen besitzen ca. 45% weniger Glomeruli im Vergleich zur Weibchenkaste. Ihnen fehlt weiterhin einer der sieben sensorischen Eingangstrakte vollständig. Trotz der wesentlich geringeren Anzahl an Glomeruli, besitzen auch Männchen den “dual output pathway”. Im Gegensatz zu den Weibchen ist allerdings nur eine geringe Anzahl an Glomeruli durch m-ACT Projektionsneurone innerviert. Ein weiterer Unterschied im AL von Männchen und Weibchen findet sich in den Glomeruli des sensorische Trakts Nummer sechs, die bei Weibchen keinerlei serotonerge Innervierung aufweisen während beim Männchen der gesamte AL dichte serotonerge Verzweigungen besitzt. Es zeigt sich somit, dass die kastenspezifischen Unterschiede in der allgmeinen glomerulären Organisation des AL innerhalb der Weibchenkaste nur sehr fein sind. Im Gegensatz dazu sind die geschlechtsspezifischen Unterschiede in Anzahl, Konnektivität und neuromodulatorischer Innervierung von Glomeruli zwischen Weibchen- und Männchen wesentlich ausgeprägter was Unterschiede in olfaktorisch geprägten Verhaltensweisen begünstigen könnte. Die Calcium Imaging Experimente zur Untersuchung der Verarbeitung von Pheromonen und generellen Düften im AL der Ameise zeigten, dass Duftantworten reproduzierbar und zwischen Individuen vergleichbar waren. Die Sensitivität des Calcium Signals lag für beide Duftgruppen in einem sehr niedrigen Bereich (Verdünnung 10-11). Die Antortmuster beider Duftgruppen überlappten zum Teil, was die Annahme zuläßt, dass die Verarbeitung von Pheromonen und generellen Düften keiner räumlichen Trennung innerhalb des AL unterliegt. Die Intensität der Antwortmuster auf die Pheromonkomponenten (Spurpheromon: Nerolsäure; Alarmpheromon: n-Undecan) blieben in den meisten Fällen über einen weiten Konzentrationsbereich konstant (7-8 log Einheiten). Die Dauer der Calciumantwort nach Stimulation mit Nerolsäure verlängerte sich mit steigender Duftkonzentration. Dies läßt für das Spurpheromon den Schluß zu, dass die Duftqualität in einem konstanten Duftmuster (Konzentrationsinvarianz) repräsentiert und die Duftintensität über die Dauer des Calciumsignals abgebildet wird. Da die Antwortmuster auf generelle Düfte (Heptanal, Octanol) dagegen sehr viel stärker innerhalb des getesteten Konzentrationsbereichs varrieren ließ sich für n-Undecan und die beiden generellen Düfte eine solche Dynamik nur in einigen wenigen Fällen beobachtet. Zusammenfassend ist diese Studie die erste strukturelle und funktionelle Studie des olfaktorischen Systems der Ameise. Die Ergebnisse tragen zu einem besseren Verständnis der neuronalen Adaptationen und Mechanismen hinsichtlich Duftverarbeitung im zentralen Nervensystem von Insekten bei. Außerdem liefert diese Studie eine wichtige Grundlage für zukünftige neuroanatomische und –physiologische Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiet der Neurobiologie der Insekten. KW - Gehirn KW - Neuroethologie KW - Neuroanatomie KW - Geruchswahrnehmung KW - Neuronale Plastizität KW - Insekten KW - Antennallobus KW - Glomeruli KW - olfaktorische Bahn KW - Camponotus floridanus KW - Dufverarbeitung KW - antennal lobe KW - glomeruli KW - olfactory pathway KW - Campontous floridanus KW - odor processing Y1 - 2008 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-30383 ER - TY - THES A1 - Zude, Ingmar T1 - Characterization of virulence-associated traits of Escherichia coli bovine mastitis isolates T1 - Charakterisierung Virulenz-assozierter Eigenschaften von Escherichia coli Isolaten boviner Mastitis N2 - Bacterial mastitis is caused by invasion of the udder, bacterial multiplication and induction of inflammatory responses in the bovine mammary gland. Disease severity and the cause of disease are influenced by environmental factors, the cow’s immune response as well as bacterial traits. Escherichia coli (E. coli) is one of the main causes of acute bovine mastitis, but although pathogenic E. coli strains can be classified into different pathotypes, E. coli causing mastitis cannot unambiguously be distinguished from commensal E. coli nor has a common set of virulence factors been described for mastitis isolates. This project focussed on the characterization of virulence- associated traits of E. coli mastitis isolates in comprehensive analyses under conditions either mimicking initial pathogenesis or conditions that E. coli mastitis isolates should encounter while entering the udder. Virulence-associated traits as well as fitness traits of selected bovine mastitis or faecal E. coli strains were identified and analyzed in comparative phenotypic assays. Raw milk whey was introduced to test bacterial fitness in native mammary secretion known to confer antimicrobial effects. Accordingly, E. coli isolates from bovine faeces represented a heterogeneous group of which some isolates showed reduced ability to survive in milk whey whereas others phenotypically resembled mastitis isolates that represented a homogeneous group in that they showed similar survival and growth characteristics in milk whey. In contrast, mastitis isolates did not exhibit such a uniform phenotype when challenged with iron shortage, lactose as sole carbon source and lingual antimicrobial peptide (LAP) as a main defensin of milk. Reduced bacterial fitness could be related to LAP suggesting that bacterial adaptation to an intramammary lifestyle requires resistance to host defensins present in mammary secretions, at least LAP. E. coli strain 1303 and ECC-1470 lack particular virulence genes associated to mastitis isolates. To find out whether differences in gene expression may contribute to the ability of E. coli variants to cause mastitis, the transcriptome of E. coli model mastitis isolates 1303 and ECC-1470 were analyzed to identify candidate genes involved in bacterium-host interaction, fitness or even pathogenicity during bovine mastitis. DNA microarray analysis was employed to assess the transcriptional response of E. coli 1303 and ECC-1470 upon cocultivation with MAC-T immortalized bovine mammary gland epithelial cells to identify candidate genes involved in bacterium-host interaction. Additionally, the cell adhesion and invasion ability of E. coli strain 1303 and ECC-1470 was investigated. The transcriptonal response to the presence of host cells rather suggested competition for nutrients and oxygen between E. coli and MAC-T cells than marked signs of adhesion and invasion. Accordingly, mostly fitness traits that may also contribute to efficient colonization of the E. coli primary habitat, the gut, have been utilized by the mastitis isolates under these conditions. In this study, RNA-Seq was employed to assess the bacterial transcriptional response to milk whey. According to our transcriptome data, the lack of positively deregulated and also of true virulence-associated determinants in both of the mastitis isolates indicated that E. coli might have adapted by other means to the udder (or at least mammary secretion) as an inflammatory site. We identified traits that promote bacterial growth and survival in milk whey. The ability to utilize citrate promotes fitness and survival of E. coli that are thriving in mammary secretions. According to our results, lactoferrin has only weak impact on E. coli in mammary secretions. At the same time bacterial determinants involved in iron assimilation were negatively regulated, suggesting that, at least during the first hours, iron assimilation is not a challenge to E. coli colonizing the mammary gland. It has been hypothesized that cellular iron stores cause temporary independency to extracellular accessible iron. According to our transcriptome data, this hypothesis was supported and places iron uptake systems beyond the speculative importance that has been suggested before, at least during early phases of infection. It has also been shown that the ability to resist extracytoplasmic stress, by oxidative conditions as well as host defensins, is of substantial importance for bacterial survival in mammary secretions. In summary, the presented thesis addresses important aspects of host-pathogen interaction and bacterial conversion to hostile conditions during colonization of the mastitis inflammatory site, the mammary gland. N2 - Bei der bakteriellen Mastitis handelt es sich um eine Infektion der bovinen Milchdrüse, ausgelöst durch Eintritt und Wachstum der Bakterien im Euter der Kuh. Krankheitsverlauf und Ursache werden beeinflusst durch Umweltfaktoren, das Immunsystem des Wirtes und die Eigenschaften des bakteriellen Erregers. Die Spezies Escherichia coli (E. coli) ist einer der häufigsten Erreger der akuten bovinen Mastitis. Generell können pathogene E. coli -Stämme entsprechend ihres Infektionsortes in verschiedene Pathotypen klassifiziert werden, die durch eine individuelle Kombination verschiedener Virulenzfaktoren gekennzeichnet sind. Eine eindeutige Unterscheidung von E. coli –Mastitiserregern und kommensalen E. coli -Stämmen ist bisher nicht beschrieben. Diese Studie befasst sich mit der Charakterisierung virulenz-assozierter Eigenschaften von E. coli –Isolaten der bovinen Mastitis. Dazu wurden Untersuchungen unter Bedingungen durchgeführt, die denen während der Anfangsphase der Mastitis entsprechen. Die Virulenz und Fitness-assoziierten Eigenschaften ausgewählter E. coli Mastitis- und Fäkalisolate wurden in vergleichenden phenotypischen Assays identifiziert und analysiert. Zur Untersuchung der bakteriellen Fitness in Milchdrüsensekreten wurde native Molke mit antimikrobiellen Eigenschaften von Rohmilch genutzt. Dabei stellte sich heraus dass E. coli Fäkalisolate eine heterogene Gruppe bilden. Innerhalb dieser Gruppe wiesen einige Isolate eine verminderte Überlebensrate auf. Andere Fäkalisolate zeigten eine höhere Überlebensrate, ähnlich der Überlebensrate von Mastitiserregern. Im Gegensatz zum ihrem grundsätzlich guten Überleben in Molke zeigten Mastitisisolate keine einheitlichen phänotypischen Merkmale bei Wachstum mit 1) Lactose als einziger Kohlenstoffquelle, 2) Eisenlimitierung, oder 3) unter Einfluss von lingualem antimikrobiellem Peptid (LAP), einem bedeutenden Defensin der Wirtsantwort im Euter. Die verminderte Fähigkeit in Milchdrüsensekreten zu überleben korrelierte mit der konzentrationsabhängigen Überlebensfähigkeit in Gegenwart von LAP. Dies lässt vermuten dass eine Anpassung der Bakterien an die Lebensbedingungen in der bovinen Milchdrüse der Resistenz gegenüber Defensinen (u.a. LAP) bedarf. Den Mastitis-isolaten E. coli 1303 und ECC 1470 fehlen diverse Virulenzgene die bereits mit Mastitis assoziiert werden konnten. Um zu bestimmen ob Unterschiede in der Genexpression beider E. coli Isolate dazu beitragen Mastitis auszulösen, wurden Transkriptomanalysen durchgeführt. Dabei sollten vor allem Kandidatengene bestimmt werden, die an der Wirt-Pathogen-Interaktion beteiligt sind oder zur bakteriellen Fitness oder Virulenz der Erreger beitragen. Auf der Basis von DNA Microarrays wurde die Genexpression von E. coli 1303 und ECC 1470 in Gegenwart von immortalisierten Zellen des bovinen Milchdrüsenepithels (MAC-T) bestimmt. Zusätzlich wurde die Fähigkeit zur Zelladhäsion und Internalisierung beider Isolate untersucht. Die bakterielle Transkriptionsantwort in Gegenwart der Wirtszellen ergab, dass Erreger und Wirtszellen eher um den Bedarf an Nährstoffen und Sauerstoff konkurrierten, anstatt deutliche Anzeichen der Zelladhäsion oder Invasion zu zeigen. Beide Isolate nutzten vornehmlich Fitnesseigenschaften, die auch bei der Besiedlung des Darms als dem primären Habitat von E. coli verwendet werden. In dieser Studie wurde außerdem die Genexpression von E. coli 1303 und ECC 1470 in Reaktion auf Molke aus Rohmilch mittels Gesamt-Transkriptom-Sequenzierung (RNA Seq) untersucht. Die Transkriptomanalyse ergab keine wirklich deregulierten virulenz-assozierten Gene in einer der beiden E. coli Mastitis Isolate. Ferner konnten Eigenschaften identifiziert werden, die zum Wachstum und Überleben in nativer Molke beitragen. Die Fähigkeit, Citrat zu verwerten, begünstigt das erfolgreiche Überleben in Milchdrüsensekten und stellt einen wichtigen Fitnessfaktor dar. Unsere Transkriptomdaten bestätigen dass Lactoferrin nur geringen Einfluss auf das Wachstum, von E. coli in Milchdrüsensekreten, hat. Die Expression bakterieller Determinanten, die an der Aufnahme von Eisen beteiligt sind, wurde herunterreguliert. Dies lässt darauf schließen dass Eisenaufnahme in den ersten Stunden der Kolonisierung durch die Erreger keine essentielle Fitnesseigenschaft darstellt. Vermutlich reicht die intrazelluläre Menge an Eisen aus, um eine zeitweise Unabhängigkeit von extrazellular verfügbarem Eisen zu ermöglichen. Diese These konnte durch unsere Transkriptomdaten gestützt werden und stellt eine wichtige Entdeckung in Bezug auf die Verfügbarkeit von Eisen während der Kolonisierung der Milchdrüse dar. Unsere Daten zeigen, dass die Resistenz gegenüber extrazellulärem Stress durch oxidative Bedingungen und Defensine des Wirtes von großer Bedeutung für das bakterielle Überleben in Milchdrüsensekreten ist. Die vorliegende Thesis befasst sich mit wichtigen Aspekten der Wirt-Pathogen-Interaktion und der Anpassung an die antimikrobiellen Bedingungen während der Kolonisierung der Milchdrüse als Ort der Infektion. KW - Escherichia coli KW - mastitis KW - infection KW - virulence KW - transcriptome analysis KW - Kuh KW - Brustdrüsenentzündung KW - Virulenz Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-100934 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zugmaier, G. A1 - Topp, M. S. A1 - Alekar, S. A1 - Viardot, A. A1 - Horst, H.-A. A1 - Neumann, S. A1 - Stelljes, M. A1 - Bargou, R. C. A1 - Goebeler, M. A1 - Wessiepe, D. A1 - Degenhard, E. A1 - Goekbuget, N. A1 - Klinger, M. T1 - Long-term follow-up of serum immunoglobulin levels in blinatumomab-treated patients with minimal residual disease-positive B-precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia JF - Blood Cancer Journal N2 - No abstract available. KW - stem-cell transplantation KW - free survival KW - engaging aantibody KW - Rituximab KW - lymphoma KW - hypogammaglobulinemia KW - lineage Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-115433 SN - 2044-5385 VL - 4 IS - e244 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zukher, Inna A1 - Novikova, Maria A1 - Tikhonov, Anton A1 - Nesterchuk, Mikhail V. A1 - Osterman, Ilya A. A1 - Djordjevic, Marko A1 - Sergiev, Petr V. A1 - Sharma, Cynthia M. A1 - Severinov, Konstantin T1 - Ribosome-controlled transcription termination is essential for the production of antibiotic microcin C JF - Nucleic Acids Research N2 - Microcin C (McC) is a peptide-nucleotide antibiotic produced by Escherichia coli cells harboring a plasmid-borne operon mccABCDE. The heptapeptide MccA is converted into McC by adenylation catalyzed by the MccB enzyme. Since MccA is a substrate for MccB, a mechanism that regulates the MccA/MccB ratio likely exists. Here, we show that transcription from a promoter located upstream of mccA directs the synthesis of two transcripts: a short highly abundant transcript containing the mccA ORF and a longer minor transcript containing mccA and downstream ORFs. The short transcript is generated when RNA polymerase terminates transcription at an intrinsic terminator located in the intergenic region between the mccA and mccB genes. The function of this terminator is strongly attenuated by upstream mcc sequences. Attenuation is relieved and transcription termination is induced when ribosome binds to the mccA ORF. Ribosome binding also makes the mccA RNA exceptionally stable. Together, these two effects-ribosome induced transcription termination and stabilization of the message-account for very high abundance of the mccA transcript that is essential for McC production. The general scheme appears to be evolutionary conserved as ribosome-induced transcription termination also occurs in a homologous operon from Helicobacter pylori. KW - escherichia coli KW - messenger-RNA decay KW - translation KW - expression KW - synthetase KW - enterobacteria KW - inhibitors KW - maturation KW - target KW - stability Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-114839 SN - 0305-1048 VL - 42 IS - 19 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zullo, Alberto A1 - Fleckenstein, Johannes A1 - Schleip, Robert A1 - Hoppe, Kerstin A1 - Wearing, Scott A1 - Klingler, Werner T1 - Structural and Functional Changes in the Coupling of Fascial Tissue, Skeletal Muscle, and Nerves During Aging JF - Frontiers in Physiology N2 - Aging is a one-way process associated with profound structural and functional changes in the organism. Indeed, the neuromuscular system undergoes a wide remodeling, which involves muscles, fascia, and the central and peripheral nervous systems. As a result, intrinsic features of tissues, as well as their functional and structural coupling, are affected and a decline in overall physical performance occurs. Evidence from the scientific literature demonstrates that senescence is associated with increased stiffness and reduced elasticity of fascia, as well as loss of skeletal muscle mass, strength, and regenerative potential. The interaction between muscular and fascial structures is also weakened. As for the nervous system, aging leads to motor cortex atrophy, reduced motor cortical excitability, and plasticity, thus leading to accumulation of denervated muscle fibers. As a result, the magnitude of force generated by the neuromuscular apparatus, its transmission along the myofascial chain, joint mobility, and movement coordination are impaired. In this review, we summarize the evidence about the deleterious effect of aging on skeletal muscle, fascial tissue, and the nervous system. In particular, we address the structural and functional changes occurring within and between these tissues and discuss the effect of inflammation in aging. From the clinical perspective, this article outlines promising approaches for analyzing the composition and the viscoelastic properties of skeletal muscle, such as ultrasonography and elastography, which could be applied for a better understanding of musculoskeletal modifications occurring with aging. Moreover, we describe the use of tissue manipulation techniques, such as massage, traction, mobilization as well as acupuncture, dry needling, and nerve block, to enhance fascial repair. KW - aging KW - connective tissue KW - fascia KW - skeletal muscle KW - nerve Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-206890 SN - 1664-042X VL - 11 IS - 592 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zupanc, Günther K. H. A1 - Rössler, Wolfgang T1 - Government funding of research beyond biomedicine: challenges and opportunities for neuroethology JF - Journal of Comparative Physiology A N2 - Curiosity-driven research is fundamental for neuroethology and depends crucially on governmental funding. Here, we highlight similarities and differences in funding of curiosity-driven research across countries by comparing two major funding agencies—the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States and the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG). We interviewed representatives from each of the two agencies, focusing on general funding trends, levels of young investigator support, career-life balance, and international collaborations. While our analysis revealed a negative trend in NSF funding of biological research, including curiosity-driven research, German researchers in these areas have benefited from a robust positive trend in DFG funding. The main reason for the decrease in curiosity-driven research in the US is that the NSF has only partially been able to compensate for the funding gap resulting from the National Institutes of Health restricting their support to biomedical research using select model organisms. Notwithstanding some differences in funding programs, particularly those relevant for scientists in the postdoctoral phase, both the NSF and DFG clearly support curiosity-driven research. KW - German Research Foundation KW - Government research funding KW - National Science Foundation KW - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft KW - neuroethology Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-325113 VL - 208 IS - 3 ER - TY - THES A1 - Zusan, Andreas T1 - The Effect of Morphology on the Photocurrent Generation in Organic Solar Cells T1 - Der Einfluss der Morphologie auf die Generierung von Photostrom in organischen Solarzellen N2 - Organic solar cells have great potential to become a low-cost and clean alternative to conventional photovoltaic technologies based on the inorganic bulk material silicon. As a highly promising concept in the field of organic photovoltaics, bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells consist of a mixture of an electron donating and an electron withdrawing component. Their degree of intermixing crucially affects the generation of photocurrent. In this work, the effect of an altered blend morphology on polaron pair dissociation, charge carrier transport, and nongeminate recombination is analyzed by the charge extraction techniques time delayed collection field (TDCF) and open circuit corrected transient charge extraction (OTRACE). Different comparative studies cover a broad range of material systems, including polymer and small-molecule donors in combination with different fullerene acceptors. The field dependence of polaron pair dissociation is analyzed in blends based on the polymer pBTTT-C16, allowing a systematic tuning of the blend morphology by varying the acceptor type and fraction. The effect of both excess photon energy and intercalated phases are minor compared to the influence of excess fullerene, which reduces the field dependence of photogeneration. The study demonstrates that the presence of neat fullerene domains is the major driving force for efficient polaron pair dissociation that is linked to the delocalization of charge carriers. Furthermore, the influence of the processing additive diiodooctane (DIO) is analyzed using the photovoltaic blends PBDTTT-C:PC71BM and PTB7:PC71BM. The study reveals amulti-tiered alteration of the blend morphology of PBDTTT-C based blends upon a systematic increase of the amount of DIO. Domains on the hundred nanometers length scale in the DIO-free blend are identified as neat fullerene agglomerates embedded in an intermixed matrix. With the addition of the additive, 0.6% and 1% DIO already substantially reduces the size of these domains until reaching the optimum 3% DIO mixture, where a 7.1% power conversion efficiency is obtained. It is brought into connection with the formation of interpenetrating polymer and fullerene phases. Similar to PBDTTT-C, the morphology of DIO-free PTB7:PC71BM blends is characterized by large fullerene domains being decreased in size upon the addition of 3% DIO. OTRACE measurements reveal a reduced Langevin-type, super-second order recombination in both blends. It is demonstrated that the deviation from bimolecular recombination kinetics cannot be fully attributed to the carrier density dependence of the mobility but is rather related to trapping in segregated PC71BM domains. Finally, with regard to small-molecule donors, a higher yield of photogeneration and balanced transport properties are identified as the dominant factors enhancing the efficiency of vacuum deposited MD376:C60 relative to its solution processed counterpart MD376:PC61BM. The finding is explained by a higher degree of dimerization of the merocyanine dye MD376 and a stronger donor-acceptor interaction at the interface in the case of the vacuum deposited blend. N2 - Organische Solarzellen sind dank der Möglichkeit einer preisgünstigen und umweltfreundlichen Herstellung eine erfolgversprechende Alternative zu konventionellen Photovoltaiktechnologien, bei denen heutzutage hauptsächlich Silizium zum Einsatz kommt. Ein aussichtsreiches Konzept ist dabei die Heterogemisch (bulk heterojunction , BHJ)-Solarzelle. Deren aktive Schicht besteht aus einer Elektron-gebenden und einer Elektron-entziehenden Komponente, wobei die Generierung von Photostrom entscheidend von der Durchmischung beider Materialien abhängt. Dieser Einfluss der Morphologie auf die Trennung von Polaronpaaren, den Transport von freien Ladungsträgern und deren nichtgeminale Rekombination wird durch die Verwendung der Ladungsextraktionsmethoden time delayed collection field (TDCF) sowie open circuit corrected transient charge extraction (OTRACE) in dieser Arbeit im Detail untersucht. Die vorgestellten Studien umfassen mit Polymeren und kleinen Molekülen als Donatoren sowie verschiedenen Fulleren-Akzeptoren unterschiedlichste Materialsysteme. Der erste Teil der Arbeit befasst sich mit der feldabhängigen Trennung von Polaronpaaren in Solarzellen, die unter Verwendung des Polymers pBTTT-C16 hergestellt werden. Das Materialsystem erlaubt eine systematische Anpassung der Morphologie durch Art und Anteil des Akzeptors. Die Untersuchungen zeigen, dass sowohl Überschussenergie als auch interkalierte Phasen lediglich eine geringe Auswirkung auf die Photogenerierung haben, diese jedoch stark von der Fullerenmenge im Gemisch beeinflusst wird. Das Ergebnis verdeutlicht, dass reine Fullerendomänen die treibende Kraft für eine effiziente Trennung von Polaronpaaren sind, was mit der Delokalisierung von Ladungsträgern verknüpft wird. Im zweiten Teil wird der Einfluss des Additivs Diiodooktan (DIO) auf das Materialsystem PBDTTT-C:PC71BM untersucht. Die Studie zeigt eine mehrstufige Änderung der Morphologie bei einer schrittweisen Erhöhung der verwendeten DIO Menge. Wird das Heterogemisch PBDTTT-C:PC71BM ohne DIO hergestellt, ist dessen Nanostruktur durch große Agglomerate geprägt, die als reine Fullerendomänen identifiziert werden. Bereits die Verwendung von 0.6% und 1% DIO führt zu einer deutlichen Verkleinerung dieser Domänen, wobei erst die maximale Effizienz der mit 3% DIO hergestellten Solarzelle mit der Ausbildung von vernetzten Polymer- und Fullerenphasen in Verbindung gebracht wird. Vergleichbar zu PBDTTT-C weist auch PTB7:PC71BM große Fullerendomänen und deren bessere Dispersion durch die Verwendung von 3% DIO auf. In beiden Fällen zeigt OTRACE eine reduzierte Langevin-artige Rekombination sowie die Abweichung von einem bimolekularen Verhalten. Da diese erhöhte Rekombinationsordnung nicht mit der Ladungsträgerdichtenabhängigkeit der Mobilität erklärt werden kann, wird sie dem Einfangen von Ladungsträgern in Fullerendomänen zugeordnet. Im letzten Teil wird gezeigt, dass eine ergiebigere Photogenerierung sowie ausgeglichene Transporteigenschaften eine erhöhte Bauteileffizienz von aufgedampften MD376:C60 Solarzellen im Vergleich zum flüssigprozessierten Pendant MD376:PC61BM bedingen. Die Beobachtung wird mit einer verbesserten Dimerisation des Merocyanins MD376 und einer stärkeren Donator-Akzeptor-Wechselwirkung an der Grenzfläche erklärt. KW - Organische Solarzelle KW - Photostrom KW - Ladungsträgergenerierung KW - geminale Rekombination KW - nichtgeminale Rekombination KW - Elektronentransport KW - Photovoltaik KW - Rekombination Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-117852 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zusan, Andreas A1 - Gieseking, Björn A1 - Zerson, Mario A1 - Dyakonov, Vladimir A1 - Magerle, Robert A1 - Deibel, Carsten T1 - The Effect of Diiodooctane on the Charge Carrier Generation in Organic Solar Cells Based on the Copolymer PBDTTT-C JF - Scientific Reports N2 - Microstructural changes and the understanding of their effect on photocurrent generation are key aspects for improving the efficiency of organic photovoltaic devices. We analyze the impact of a systematically increased amount of the solvent additive diiodooctane (DIO) on the morphology of PBDTTT-C:PC71BM blends and related changes in free carrier formation and recombination by combining surface imaging, photophysical and charge extraction techniques. We identify agglomerates visible in AFM images of the 0% DIO blend as PC71BM domains embedded in an intermixed matrix phase. With the addition of DIO, a decrease in the size of fullerene domains along with a demixing of the matrix phase appears for 0.6% and 1% DIO. Surprisingly, transient absorption spectroscopy reveals an efficient photogeneration already for the smallest amount of DIO, although the largest efficiency is found for 3% DIO. It is ascribed to a fine-tuning of the blend morphology in terms of the formation of interpenetrating donor and acceptor phases minimizing geminate and nongeminate recombination as indicated by charge extraction experiments. An increase in the DIO content to 10% adversely affects the photovoltaic performance, most probably due to an inefficient free carrier formation and trapping in a less interconnected donor-acceptor network. KW - electronic properties and materials KW - photonic devices Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-125022 VL - 5 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zvirblis, G. S. A1 - Gorboulev, Valentin G. A1 - Rubtsov, P. M. A1 - Chernov, B. K. A1 - Golova, Yu. B. A1 - Pozmogova, G. E. A1 - Skryabin, K. G. A1 - Bayev, A. A. T1 - Genetic engineering of peptide hormones : III. Cloning of cDNA of porcine growth hormone and construction of gene for expression of hormone in bacteria N2 - Results are presented of cloning cDNA of procine growth hormone, analysis of its primary structure, and creation of a construction capable of expression of this cDNA in Esqheriahia coti cells. It is shown that in the population of mRNA coding porcine growth hormone, heterogeneity is noted which is manifested not only at the level of the nucleotide sequence, but also is reflected in the amino acid sequence of the mature hormone. Y1 - 1988 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-46958 ER - TY - THES A1 - Zwettler, Fabian Ulrich T1 - Expansionsmikroskopie kombiniert mit hochauflösender Fluoreszenzmikroskopie T1 - Expansion Microscopy combined with Super-Resolution Fluorescence Microscopy N2 - Fluorescence microscopy is a form of light microscopy that has developed during the 20th century and is nowadays a standard tool in Molecular and Cell biology for studying the structure and function of biological molecules. High-resolution fluorescence microscopy techniques, such as dSTORM (direct Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy) allow the visualization of cellular structures at the nanometre scale (10−9 m). This has already made it possible to decipher the composition and function of various biopolymers, such as proteins, lipids and nucleic acids, up to the three-dimensional (3D) structure of entire organelles. In practice, however, it has been shown that these imaging methods and their further developments still face great challenges in order to achieve an effective resolution below ∼ 10 nm. This is mainly due to the nature of labelling biomolecules. For the detection of molecular structures, immunostaining is often performed as a standard method. Antibodies to which fluorescent molecules are coupled, recognize and bind specifcally and with high affnity to the molecular section of the target structure, also called epitope or antigen. The fluorescent molecules serve as reporter molecules which are imaged with the use of a fluorescence microscope. However, the size of these labels with a length of about 10-15 nm in the case of immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies, cause a detection of the fluorescent molecules shifted to the real position of the studied antigen. In dense regions where epitopes are located close to each other, steric hindrance between antibodies can also occur and leads to an insuffcient label density. Together with the shifted detection of fluorescent molecules, these factors can limit the achievable resolution of a microscopy technique. Expansion microscopy (ExM) is a recently developed technique that achieves a resolution improvement by physical expansion of an investigated object. Therefore, biological samples such as cultured cells, tissue sections, whole organs or isolated organelles are chemically anchored into a swellable polymer. By absorbing water, this so-called superabsorber increases its own volume and pulls the covalently bound biomolecules isotropically apart. Routinely, this method achieves a magnifcation of the sample by about four times its volume. But protocol variants have already been developed that result in higher expansion factors of up to 50-fold. Since the ExM technique includes in the frst instance only the sample treatment for anchoring and magnifcation of the sample, it can be combined with various standard methods of fluorescence microscopy. In theory, the resolution of the used imaging technique improves linearly with the expansion factor of the ExM treated sample. However, an insuffcient label density and the size of the antibodies can here again impair the effective achievable resolution. The combination of ExM with high-resolution fluorescence microscopy methods represents a promising strategy to increase the resolution of light microscopy. In this thesis, I will present several ExM variants I developed which show the combination of ExM with confocal microscopy, SIM (Structured Illumination Microscopy), STED (STimulated Emission Depletion) and dSTORM. I optimized existing ExM protocols and developed different expansion strategies, which allow the combination with the respective imaging technique. Thereby, I gained new structural insights of isolated centrioles from the green algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii by combining ExM with STED and confocal microscopy. In another project, I combined 3D-SIM imaging with ExM and investigated the molecular structure of the so-called synaptonemal complex. This structure is formed during meiosis in eukaryotic cells and contributes to the exchange of genetic material between homologous chromosomes. Especially in combination with dSTORM, the ExM method showed its high potential to overcome the limitations of modern fluorescence microscopy techniques. In this project, I expanded microtubules in mammalian cells, a polymer of the cytoskeleton as well as isolated centrioles from C. reinhardtii. By labelling after expansion of the samples, I was able to signifcantly reduce the linkage error of the label and achieve an improved label density. In future, these advantages together with the single molecule sensitivity and high resolution obtained by the dSTORM method could pave the way for achieving molecular resolution in fluorescence microscopy N2 - Die Fluoreszenzmikroskopie ist eine Form der Lichtmikroskopie, die sich im Laufe des 20. Jahrhunderts entwickelt hat und heutzutage standardmäßig in der Molekular-und Zellbiologie zur Erforschung von Aufbau und Funktion biologischer Moleküle eingesetzt wird. Hochauflösende Verfahren der Fluoreszenzmikroskopie, wie die dSTORM (direct Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy) Technik, ermöglichen die Visualisierung zellulärer Strukturen im Nanometer-Größenbereich (10−9 m). Dadurch konnte bereits die Zusammensetzung und Funktion unterschiedlicher Biopolymere, wie die von Proteinen, Lipiden und Nukleinsäuren, bis hin zum dreidimensionalen (3D) Aufbau ganzer Organellen entschlüsselt werden. In der Praxis zeigt sich jedoch, dass diese Bildgebungsverfahren und ihre Weiterentwicklungen immer noch vor großen Herausforderungen stehen, bevor eine effektive Auflösung von unter ∼10 nm erreicht werden kann. Die größte Hürde stellt die Art und Weise der Markierung von Biomolekülen dar. Bei dieser wird zum Nachweis molekularer Strukturen häufig die sogenannte Immunfärbung als Standardmethode eingesetzt. Antikörper, welche mit Fluoreszenzmolekülen gekoppelt werden, erkennen und binden hierbei spezifisch und mit hoher Affinität den Molekülabschnitt der Zielstruktur, auch Epitop oder Antigen genannt. Die Fluoreszenzmoleküle dienen als Reportermoleküle, welche mit Hilfe eines Fluoreszenzmikroskops abgebildet werden. Die Größe der Antikörper, mit einer Länge von etwa 10-15 nm im Falle von Immunglobulin G (IgG) Antikörpern, bewirkt jedoch eine Detektion der fluoreszierenden Moleküle verschoben zur eigentlichen Lage des untersuchten Antigens. In Regionen mit räumlich dicht nebeneinander liegenden Epitopen kann es zusätzlich zur sterischen Hinderung zwischen den Antikörpern kommen. Dies führt zu einer unzureichenden Markierungsdichte und stellt - zusammen mit der verschobenen Detektion der Fluoreszenzmoleküle - eine Limitierung der zu erreichenden Auflösung dar. Die Expansionsmikroskopie (ExM) ist ein neu entwickeltes Verfahren, welches eine Auflösungsverbesserung durch die physikalische Expansion eines untersuchten Objekts erreicht. Hierbei werden biologische Proben, wie beispielsweise kultivierte Zellen, Gewebeschnitte, ganze Organe oder isolierte Organellen, chemisch in ein quellbares Polymer verankert. Durch Absorption von Wasser vergrößert dieser sogenannte Superabsorber sein eigenes Volumen und zieht während der räumlichen Expansion die kovalent gebundenen Biomoleküle isotrop auseinander. Standardmäßig wird durch dieses Verfahren eine Vergrößerung der Proben um etwa das vierfache Volumen erreicht, wobei bereits Protokollvarianten entwickelt wurden, die eine bis zu 50-fache Expansion erzielt haben. Da die ExM-Technik zunächst nur die Probenbehandlung zur Verankerung und Vergrößerung der Probe selbst beinhaltet, kann sie mit unterschiedlichen Standardmethoden der Fluoreszenzmikroskopie kombiniert werden. Dadurch verbessert sich die Auflösung des verwendeten Bildgebungsverfahrens theoretisch linear um den Faktor der Volumenvergrößerung der ExM behandelten Probe. Eine unzureichende Markierungsdichte und die Größe der verwendeten Antikörper können auch hier die effektiv erreichbare Auflösung beeinträchtigen. Die Kombination der ExM mit hochauflösenden Verfahren der Fluoreszenzmikroskopie stellt eine vielversprechende Strategie zur Erhöhung der bisher erreichbaren Auflösung in der Lichtmikroskopie dar. In dieser Arbeit werde ich mehrere von mir entwickelte ExM Varianten vorstellen, welche die Kombination von ExM mit konfokaler Mikroskopie, SIM (Structured Illumination Microscopy), STED (STimulated Emission Depletion) und dSTORM zeigen. Um die Verbindung mit dem jeweiligen Bildgebungsverfahren zu ermöglichen, optimierte ich bestehende ExM-Protokolle und entwickelte unterschiedliche Expansionsstrategien. Dadurch konnte ich neue strukturelle Erkenntnisse von isolierten Zentriolen aus der Grünalge Chlamydomonas reinhardtii durch die Verbindung von ExM mit STED und konfokaler Mikroskopie gewinnen. In einem weiteren Projekt kombinierte ich 3D-SIM mit ExM und untersuchte den molekularen Aufbau des sogenannten synaptonemalen Komplexes. Diese Struktur bildet sich in eukaryotischen Zellen während der Reifeteilung (Meiose) aus und trägt zum Austausch des genetischen Materials zwischen homologen Chromosomen bei. Vor allem in Verbindung mit dSTORM zeigte sich das hohe Potential der ExM-Methode, die bisherigen Limitierungen moderner Techniken der Fluoreszenzmikroskopie zu überwinden. In diesem Projekt expandierte ich Mikrotubuli in Säugetierzellen, ein Polymer des Zytoskeletts, sowie isolierte Zentriolen aus C. reinhardtii. Dadurch, dass die Markierung erst nach dem Expandieren der Proben erfolgte, gelang es, den Abstandsfehler der Markierung deutlich zu verringern und eine verbesserte Markierungsdichte zu erreichen. Diese Vorteile könnten in Verbindung mit der Einzelmolekülsensititvität und hohen Auflösung der dSTORM Methode Wegbereiter zur Erreichung einer molekularen Auflösung sein KW - Fluoreszenzmikroskopie KW - Expansionsmikroskopie KW - Einzelmolekül-Lokalisationsmikroskopie KW - Zentriolen KW - Synaptonemaler Komplex Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-212362 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zwink, Nadine A1 - Jenetzky, Ekkehart A1 - Schmiedeke, Eberhard A1 - Schmidt, Dominik A1 - Märzheuser, Schmidt A1 - Grasshoff-Derr, Sabine A1 - Holland-Cunz, Stefan A1 - Weih, Sandra A1 - Hosie, Stuart A1 - Reifferscheid, Peter A1 - Ameis, Helen A1 - Kujath, Christina A1 - Rissmann, Anke A1 - Obermayr, Florian A1 - Schwarzer, Nicole A1 - Bartels, Enrika A1 - Reutter, Heiko A1 - Brenner, Hermann T1 - Assisted reproductive techniques and the risk of anorectal malformations: a German case-control study JF - Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases N2 - Background: The use of assisted reproductive techniques (ART) for treatment of infertility is increasing rapidly worldwide. However, various health effects have been reported including a higher risk of congenital malformations. Therefore, we assessed the risk of anorectal malformations (ARM) after in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Methods: Data of the German Network for Congenital Uro-REctal malformations (CURE-Net) were compared to nationwide data of the German IVF register and the Federal Statistical Office (DESTATIS). Odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) were determined to quantify associations using multivariable logistic regression accounting for potential confounding or interaction by plurality of births. Results: In total, 295 ARM patients born between 1997 and 2011 in Germany, who were recruited through participating pediatric surgeries from all over Germany and the German self-help organisation SoMA, were included. Controls were all German live-births (n = 10,069,986) born between 1997 and 2010. Overall, 30 cases (10%) and 129,982 controls (1%) were born after IVF or ICSI, which translates to an odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of 8.7 (5.9-12.6) between ART and ARM in bivariate analyses. Separate analyses showed a significantly increased risk for ARM after IVF (OR, 10.9; 95% CI, 6.2-19.0; P < 0.0001) as well as after ICSI (OR, 7.5; 95% CI, 4.6-12.2; P < 0.0001). Furthermore, separate analyses of patients with isolated ARM, ARM with associated anomalies and those with a VATER/VACTERL association showed strong associations with ART (ORs 4.9, 11.9 and 7.9, respectively). After stratification for plurality of birth, the corresponding odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) were 7.7 (4.6-12.7) for singletons and 4.9 (2.4-10.1) for multiple births. Conclusions: There is a strongly increased risk for ARM among children born after ART. Elevations of risk were seen after both IVF and ICSI. Further, separate analyses of patients with isolated ARM, ARM with associated anomalies and those with a VATER/VACTERL association showed increased risks in each group. An increased risk of ARM was also seen among both singletons and multiple births. KW - metaanalysis KW - in-vitro fertilization KW - reproductive medicine KW - anal atresia KW - imperforate anus KW - anorectal malformation KW - birth defects KW - prevalence KW - assisted reproductive techniques KW - congenital malformations KW - descriptive epidemiology KW - infants born KW - children born KW - IVF-methods KW - technology Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-134036 VL - 7 IS - 65 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zwirner, Johann A1 - Anders, Sven A1 - Bohnert, Simone A1 - Burkhardt, Ralph A1 - Da Broi, Ugo A1 - Hammer, Niels A1 - Pohlers, Dirk A1 - Tse, Rexson A1 - Ondruschka, Benjamin T1 - Screening for fatal traumatic brain injuries in cerebrospinal fluid using blood-validated CK and CK−MB immunoassays JF - Biomolecules N2 - A single, specific, sensitive biochemical biomarker that can reliably diagnose a traumatic brain injury (TBI) has not yet been found, but combining different biomarkers would be the most promising approach in clinical and postmortem settings. In addition, identifying new biomarkers and developing laboratory tests can be time-consuming and economically challenging. As such, it would be efficient to use established clinical diagnostic assays for postmortem biochemistry. In this study, postmortem cerebrospinal fluid samples from 45 lethal TBI cases and 47 controls were analyzed using commercially available blood-validated assays for creatine kinase (CK) activity and its heart-type isoenzyme (CK–MB). TBI cases with a survival time of up to two hours showed an increase in both CK and CK–MB with moderate (CK–MB: AUC = 0.788, p < 0.001) to high (CK: AUC = 0.811, p < 0.001) diagnostic accuracy. This reflected the excessive increase of the brain-type CK isoenzyme (CK–BB) following a TBI. The results provide evidence that CK immunoassays can be used as an adjunct quantitative test aid in diagnosing acute TBI-related fatalities. KW - cerebrospinal fluid KW - creatine kinase KW - fatal traumatic brain injury KW - postmortem biochemistry Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-242769 SN - 2218-273X VL - 11 IS - 7 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zwirner, Johann A1 - Bohnert, Simone A1 - Franke, Heike A1 - Garland, Jack A1 - Hammer, Niels A1 - Möbius, Dustin A1 - Tse, Rexson A1 - Ondruschka, Benjamin T1 - Assessing protein biomarkers to detect lethal acute traumatic brain injuries in cerebrospinal fluid JF - Biomolecules N2 - Diagnosing traumatic brain injury (TBI) from body fluids in cases where there are no obvious external signs of impact would be useful for emergency physicians and forensic pathologists alike. None of the previous attempts has so far succeeded in establishing a single biomarker to reliably detect TBI with regards to the sensitivity: specificity ratio in a post mortem setting. This study investigated a combination of body fluid biomarkers (obtained post mortem), which may be a step towards increasing the accuracy of biochemical TBI detection. In this study, serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from 30 acute lethal TBI cases and 70 controls without a TBI-related cause of death were evaluated for the following eight TBI-related biomarkers: brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), ferritin, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), interleukin 6 (IL-6), lactate dehydrogenase, neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL), neuron-specific enolase and S100 calcium-binding protein B. Correlations among the individual TBI biomarkers were assessed, and a specificity-accentuated threshold value analysis was conducted for all biomarkers. Based on these values, a decision tree modelling approach was performed to assess the most accurate biomarker combination to detect acute lethal TBIs. The results showed that 92.45% of acute lethal TBIs were able to be diagnosed using a combination of IL-6 and GFAP in CSF. The probability of detecting an acute lethal TBI was moderately increased by GFAP alone and considerably increased by the remaining biomarkers. BDNF and NGAL were almost perfectly correlated (p = 0.002; R\(^2\) = 0.944). This study provides evidence that acute lethal TBIs can be detected to a high degree of statistical accuracy using forensic biochemistry. The high inter-individual correlations of biomarkers may help to estimate the CSF concentration of an unknown biomarker, using extrapolation techniques. KW - biomarker combination KW - glial fibrillary acidic protein KW - interleukin-6 KW - post mortem biochemistry KW - traumatic brain injury Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-248587 SN - 2218-273X VL - 11 IS - 11 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zyberaj, Jetmir A1 - Seibel, Sebastian A1 - Schowalter, Annika F. A1 - Pötz, Lennart A1 - Richter-Killenberg, Stefanie A1 - Volmer, Judith T1 - Developing sustainable careers during a pandemic: the role of psychological capital and career adaptability JF - Sustainability N2 - The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has not only had negative effects on employees' health, but also on their prospects to gain and maintain employment. Using a longitudinal research design with two measurement points, we investigated the ramifications of various psychological and organizational resources on employees' careers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, in a sample of German employees (N = 305), we investigated the role of psychological capital (PsyCap) for four career-related outcomes: career satisfaction, career engagement, coping with changes in career due to COVID-19, and career-related COVID-19 worries. We also employed leader–member exchange (LMX) as a moderator and career adaptability as a mediating variable in these relationships. Results from path analyses revealed a positive association between PsyCap and career satisfaction and career coping. Furthermore, PsyCap was indirectly related to career engagement through career adaptability. However, moderation analysis showed no moderating role of LMX on the link between PsyCap and career adaptability. Our study contributes to the systematic research concerning the role of psychological and organizational resources for employees' careers and well-being, especially for crisis contexts. KW - psychological capital KW - career adaptability KW - LMX KW - career engagement KW - career satisfaction KW - career coping KW - COVID-19 Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-267286 SN - 2071-1050 VL - 14 IS - 5 ER - TY - THES A1 - Züfle, Marwin Otto T1 - Proactive Critical Event Prediction based on Monitoring Data with Focus on Technical Systems T1 - Proaktive Vorhersage kritischer Ereignisse auf der Grundlage von Beobachtungsdaten mit Schwerpunkt auf technischen Systemen N2 - The importance of proactive and timely prediction of critical events is steadily increasing, whether in the manufacturing industry or in private life. In the past, machines in the manufacturing industry were often maintained based on a regular schedule or threshold violations, which is no longer competitive as it causes unnecessary costs and downtime. In contrast, the predictions of critical events in everyday life are often much more concealed and hardly noticeable to the private individual, unless the critical event occurs. For instance, our electricity provider has to ensure that we, as end users, are always supplied with sufficient electricity, or our favorite streaming service has to guarantee that we can watch our favorite series without interruptions. For this purpose, they have to constantly analyze what the current situation is, how it will develop in the near future, and how they have to react in order to cope with future conditions without causing power outages or video stalling. In order to analyze the performance of a system, monitoring mechanisms are often integrated to observe characteristics that describe the workload and the state of the system and its environment. Reactive systems typically employ thresholds, utility functions, or models to determine the current state of the system. However, such reactive systems cannot proactively estimate future events, but only as they occur. In the case of critical events, reactive determination of the current system state is futile, whereas a proactive system could have predicted this event in advance and enabled timely countermeasures. To achieve proactivity, the system requires estimates of future system states. Given the gap between design time and runtime, it is typically not possible to use expert knowledge to a priori model all situations a system might encounter at runtime. Therefore, prediction methods must be integrated into the system. Depending on the available monitoring data and the complexity of the prediction task, either time series forecasting in combination with thresholding or more sophisticated machine and deep learning models have to be trained. Although numerous forecasting methods have been proposed in the literature, these methods have their advantages and disadvantages depending on the characteristics of the time series under consideration. Therefore, expert knowledge is required to decide which forecasting method to choose. However, since the time series observed at runtime cannot be known at design time, such expert knowledge cannot be implemented in the system. In addition to selecting an appropriate forecasting method, several time series preprocessing steps are required to achieve satisfactory forecasting accuracy. In the literature, this preprocessing is often done manually, which is not practical for autonomous computing systems, such as Self-Aware Computing Systems. Several approaches have also been presented in the literature for predicting critical events based on multivariate monitoring data using machine and deep learning. However, these approaches are typically highly domain-specific, such as financial failures, bearing failures, or product failures. Therefore, they require in-depth expert knowledge. For this reason, these approaches cannot be fully automated and are not transferable to other use cases. Thus, the literature lacks generalizable end-to-end workflows for modeling, detecting, and predicting failures that require only little expert knowledge. To overcome these shortcomings, this thesis presents a system model for meta-self-aware prediction of critical events based on the LRA-M loop of Self-Aware Computing Systems. Building upon this system model, this thesis provides six further contributions to critical event prediction. While the first two contributions address critical event prediction based on univariate data via time series forecasting, the three subsequent contributions address critical event prediction for multivariate monitoring data using machine and deep learning algorithms. Finally, the last contribution addresses the update procedure of the system model. Specifically, the seven main contributions of this thesis can be summarized as follows: First, we present a system model for meta self-aware prediction of critical events. To handle both univariate and multivariate monitoring data, it offers univariate time series forecasting for use cases where a single observed variable is representative of the state of the system, and machine learning algorithms combined with various preprocessing techniques for use cases where a large number of variables are observed to characterize the system’s state. However, the two different modeling alternatives are not disjoint, as univariate time series forecasts can also be included to estimate future monitoring data as additional input to the machine learning models. Finally, a feedback loop is incorporated to monitor the achieved prediction quality and trigger model updates. We propose a novel hybrid time series forecasting method for univariate, seasonal time series, called Telescope. To this end, Telescope automatically preprocesses the time series, performs a kind of divide-and-conquer technique to split the time series into multiple components, and derives additional categorical information. It then forecasts the components and categorical information separately using a specific state-of-the-art method for each component. Finally, Telescope recombines the individual predictions. As Telescope performs both preprocessing and forecasting automatically, it represents a complete end-to-end approach to univariate seasonal time series forecasting. Experimental results show that Telescope achieves enhanced forecast accuracy, more reliable forecasts, and a substantial speedup. Furthermore, we apply Telescope to the scenario of predicting critical events for virtual machine auto-scaling. Here, results show that Telescope considerably reduces the average response time and significantly reduces the number of service level objective violations. For the automatic selection of a suitable forecasting method, we introduce two frameworks for recommending forecasting methods. The first framework extracts various time series characteristics to learn the relationship between them and forecast accuracy. In contrast, the other framework divides the historical observations into internal training and validation parts to estimate the most appropriate forecasting method. Moreover, this framework also includes time series preprocessing steps. Comparisons between the proposed forecasting method recommendation frameworks and the individual state-of-the-art forecasting methods and the state-of-the-art forecasting method recommendation approach show that the proposed frameworks considerably improve the forecast accuracy. With regard to multivariate monitoring data, we first present an end-to-end workflow to detect critical events in technical systems in the form of anomalous machine states. The end-to-end design includes raw data processing, phase segmentation, data resampling, feature extraction, and machine tool anomaly detection. In addition, the workflow does not rely on profound domain knowledge or specific monitoring variables, but merely assumes standard machine monitoring data. We evaluate the end-to-end workflow using data from a real CNC machine. The results indicate that conventional frequency analysis does not detect the critical machine conditions well, while our workflow detects the critical events very well with an F1-score of almost 91%. To predict critical events rather than merely detecting them, we compare different modeling alternatives for critical event prediction in the use case of time-to-failure prediction of hard disk drives. Given that failure records are typically significantly less frequent than instances representing the normal state, we employ different oversampling strategies. Next, we compare the prediction quality of binary class modeling with downscaled multi-class modeling. Furthermore, we integrate univariate time series forecasting into the feature generation process to estimate future monitoring data. Finally, we model the time-to-failure using not only classification models but also regression models. The results suggest that multi-class modeling provides the overall best prediction quality with respect to practical requirements. In addition, we prove that forecasting the features of the prediction model significantly improves the critical event prediction quality. We propose an end-to-end workflow for predicting critical events of industrial machines. Again, this approach does not rely on expert knowledge except for the definition of monitoring data, and therefore represents a generalizable workflow for predicting critical events of industrial machines. The workflow includes feature extraction, feature handling, target class mapping, and model learning with integrated hyperparameter tuning via a grid-search technique. Drawing on the result of the previous contribution, the workflow models the time-to-failure prediction in terms of multiple classes, where we compare different labeling strategies for multi-class classification. The evaluation using real-world production data of an industrial press demonstrates that the workflow is capable of predicting six different time-to-failure windows with a macro F1-score of 90%. When scaling the time-to-failure classes down to a binary prediction of critical events, the F1-score increases to above 98%. Finally, we present four update triggers to assess when critical event prediction models should be re-trained during on-line application. Such re-training is required, for instance, due to concept drift. The update triggers introduced in this thesis take into account the elapsed time since the last update, the prediction quality achieved on the current test data, and the prediction quality achieved on the preceding test data. We compare the different update strategies with each other and with the static baseline model. The results demonstrate the necessity of model updates during on-line application and suggest that the update triggers that consider both the prediction quality of the current and preceding test data achieve the best trade-off between prediction quality and number of updates required. We are convinced that the contributions of this thesis constitute significant impulses for the academic research community as well as for practitioners. First of all, to the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose a fully automated, end-to-end, hybrid, component-based forecasting method for seasonal time series that also includes time series preprocessing. Due to the combination of reliably high forecast accuracy and reliably low time-to-result, it offers many new opportunities in applications requiring accurate forecasts within a fixed time period in order to take timely countermeasures. In addition, the promising results of the forecasting method recommendation systems provide new opportunities to enhance forecasting performance for all types of time series, not just seasonal ones. Furthermore, we are the first to expose the deficiencies of the prior state-of-the-art forecasting method recommendation system. Concerning the contributions to critical event prediction based on multivariate monitoring data, we have already collaborated closely with industrial partners, which supports the practical relevance of the contributions of this thesis. The automated end-to-end design of the proposed workflows that do not demand profound domain or expert knowledge represents a milestone in bridging the gap between academic theory and industrial application. Finally, the workflow for predicting critical events in industrial machines is currently being operationalized in a real production system, underscoring the practical impact of this thesis. N2 - Die Bedeutung einer proaktiven und rechtzeitigen Vorhersage von kritischen Ereignissen nimmt immer weiter zu, sei es in der Fertigungsindustrie oder im Privatleben. In der Vergangenheit wurden Maschinen in der Fertigungsindustrie oft auf der Grundlage eines regelmäßigen Zeitplans oder aufgrund von Grenzwertverletzungen gewartet, was heutzutage nicht mehr wettbewerbsfähig ist, da es unnötige Kosten und Ausfallzeiten verursacht. Im Gegensatz dazu sind die Vorhersagen von kritischen Ereignissen im Alltag oft wesentlich versteckter und für die Privatperson kaum spürbar, es sei denn das kritische Ereignis tritt ein. So muss zum Beispiel unser Stromanbieter dafür sorgen, dass wir als Endverbraucher immer ausreichend mit Strom versorgt werden, oder unser Streaming-Dienst muss garantieren, dass wir unsere Lieblingsserie jederzeit ohne Unterbrechungen anschauen können. Hierzu müssen diese ständig analysieren wie der aktuelle Zustand ist, wie er sich in naher Zukunft entwickeln wird und wie sie reagieren müssen, um die zukünftigen Bedingungen zu bewältigen, ohne dass es zu Stromausfällen oder Videoabbrüchen kommt. Zur Analyse der Leistung eines Systems werden häufig Überwachungsmechanismen integriert, um Merkmale zu beobachten, die die Arbeitslast und den Zustand des Systems und seiner Umgebung abbilden. Reaktive Systeme verwenden typischerweise Schwellenwerte, Nutzenfunktionen oder Modelle, um den aktuellen Zustand des Systems zu bestimmen. Allerdings können solche reaktiven Systeme zukünftige Ereignisse nicht proaktiv abschätzen, sondern lediglich sobald diese eintreten. Bei kritischen Ereignissen ist die reaktive Bestimmung des aktuellen Systemzustands jedoch zwecklos, während ein proaktives System dieses Ereignis im Voraus hätte vorhersagen und rechtzeitig Gegenmaßnahmen einleiten können. Um Proaktivität zu erreichen, benötigt das System Abschätzungen über zukünftige Systemzustände. Angesichts der Kluft zwischen Entwurfszeit und Laufzeit ist es typischerweise nicht möglich Expertenwissen zu verwenden, um alle Situationen zu modellieren, auf die ein System zur Laufzeit stoßen könnte. Daher müssen Vorhersagemethoden in das System integriert werden. Abhängig von den verfügbaren Überwachungsdaten und der Komplexität der Vorhersageaufgabe müssen entweder Zeitreihenprognosen in Kombination mit Schwellenwerten oder ausgefeiltere Modelle des „Machine Learning“ und „Deep Learning“ trainiert werden. Obwohl in der Literatur schon zahlreiche Zeitreihenprognosemethoden vorgeschlagen wurden, haben alle diese Methoden in Abhängigkeit der Eigenschaften der betrachteten Zeitreihen ihre Vor- und Nachteile. Daher ist Expertenwissen erforderlich, um zu entscheiden, welche Zeitreihenprognosemethode gewählt werden sollte. Da jedoch die zur Laufzeit beobachteten Zeitreihen zur Entwurfszeit nicht bekannt sein können, lässt sich ein solches Expertenwissen nicht im System integrieren. Zusätzlich zur Auswahl einer geeigneten Zeitreihenprognosemethode sind mehrere Zeitreihenvorverarbeitungsschritte erforderlich, um eine zufriedenstellende Prognosegenauigkeit zu erreichen. In der Literatur wird diese Vorverarbeitung oft manuell durchgeführt, was für autonome Computersysteme, wie z. B. „Self-Aware Computing Systems“, nicht praktikabel ist. Hinsichtlich der Vorhersage kritischer Ereignisse auf der Grundlage multivariater Überwachungsdaten wurden in der Literatur auch bereits mehrere Ansätze unter Verwendung von „Machine Learning“ und „Deep Learning“ vorgestellt. Diese Ansätze sind jedoch typischerweise sehr domänenspezifisch, wie z. B. für finanzielle Zusammenbrüche, Lagerschäden oder Produktfehler. Aus diesem Grund erfordern sie umfassendes Expertenwissen. Durch den spezifischen Zuschnitt auf die jeweilige Domäne können diese Ansätze nicht vollständig automatisiert werden und sind nicht auf andere Anwendungsfälle übertragbar. Somit fehlt es in der Literatur an verallgemeinerbaren Ende-zu-Ende Prozessen zur Modellierung, Erkennung und Vorhersage von Ausfällen, die lediglich wenig Expertenwissen erfordern. Um diese Unzulänglichkeiten zu überwinden, wird in dieser Arbeit ein Systemmodell zur meta-selbstbewussten Vorhersage kritischer Ereignisse vorgestellt, das auf der LRA-M-Schleife von „Self-Aware Computing Systems“ basiert. Aufbauend auf diesem Systemmodell liefert diese Arbeit sechs weitere Beiträge zur Vorhersage kritischer Ereignisse. Während sich die ersten beiden Beiträge mit der Vorhersage kritischer Ereignisse auf der Basis univariater Daten mittels Zeitreihenprognose befassen, adressieren die drei folgenden Beiträge die Vorhersage kritischer Ereignisse für multivariate Überwachungsdaten unter Verwendung von „Machine Learning“ und „Deep Learning“ Algorithmen. Der letzte Beitrag schließlich behandelt das Aktualisierungsverfahren des Systemmodells. Im Einzelnen lassen sich die sieben Hauptbeiträge dieser Arbeit wie folgt zusammenfassen: Zunächst stellen wir ein Systemmodell für die meta-selbstbewusste Vorhersage von kritischen Ereignissen vor. Um sowohl univariate als auch multivariate Überwachungsdaten verarbeiten zu können, bietet es univariate Zeitreihenprognosen für Anwendungsfälle, in denen eine einzelne Beobachtungsgröße repräsentativ für den Zustand des Systems ist, sowie „Machine Learning“ und „Deep Learning“ Algorithmen in Kombination mit verschiedenen Vorverarbeitungstechniken für Anwendungsfälle, in denen eine große Anzahl von Variablen beobachtet wird, um den Zustand des Systems zu charakterisieren. Die beiden unterschiedlichen Modellierungsalternativen sind jedoch nicht disjunkt, da auch univariate Zeitreihenprognosen einbezogen werden können, um zukünftige Überwachungsdaten als zusätzliche Eingabe für die „Machine Learning“ und „Deep Learning“ Modelle zu schätzen. Schließlich ist eine Rückkopplungsschleife eingebaut, die die erreichte Vorhersagequalität überwacht und gegebenenfalls Modellaktualisierungen auslöst. Wir präsentieren eine neuartige, hybride Zeitreihenvorhersagemethode für univariate, saisonale Zeitreihen, die wir Telescope nennen. Telescope verarbeitet die Zeitreihe automatisch vor, führt eine Art „Divide-and-Conquer“ Technik durch, welche die Zeitreihe in mehrere Komponenten unterteilt, und leitet zusätzliche kategoriale Informationen ab. Anschließend prognostiziert es die Komponenten und kategorialen Informationen getrennt voneinander mit einer spezifischen Methode für jede Komponente. Abschließend setzt Telescope die einzelnen Vorhersagen wieder zusammen. Da Telescope alle Vorverarbeitungsschritte und Vorhersagen automatisch durchführt, stellt es einen vollständigen Ende-zu-Ende Ansatz für univariate, saisonale Zeitreihenvorhersagen dar. Experimentelle Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Telescope eine verbesserte Vorhersagegenauigkeit, zuverlässigere Vorhersagen und eine erhebliche Beschleunigung erreicht. Darüber hinaus wenden wir Telescope für die Vorhersage kritischer Ereignisse bei der automatischen Skalierung von virtuellen Maschinen an. Die Ergebnisse belegen, dass Telescope die durchschnittliche Antwortzeit erheblich reduziert und die Anzahl der Verletzungen der Service Level Zielvorgaben signifikant verringert. Für die automatische Auswahl einer geeigneten Zeitreihenprognosemethode führen wir zwei Empfehlungssysteme ein. Das erste System extrahiert verschiedene Zeitreihencharakteristika, um die Beziehung zwischen ihnen und der Prognosegenauigkeit zu erlernen. Im Gegensatz dazu unterteilt das zweite System die historischen Beobachtungen in interne Trainings- und Validierungsteile, um die am besten geeignete Zeitreihenprognosemethode zu schätzen. Außerdem beinhaltet letzteres System auch Zeitreihenvorverarbeitungsschritte. Vergleiche zwischen den vorgeschlagenen Empfehlungssystemen für Zeitreihenprognosemethoden und den einzelnen Prognosemethoden sowie dem Ansatz zur Empfehlung von Zeitreihenprognosemethoden nach dem Stand der Technik ergeben, dass die vorgeschlagenen Systeme die Prognosegenauigkeit erheblich verbessern. Im Hinblick auf multivariate Überwachungsdaten stellen wir zunächst einen Ende-zu-Ende Prozess vor, mit dem kritische Ereignisse in technischen Systemen in Form von anomalen Maschinenzuständen erkannt werden können. Der Ende-zu-Ende Entwurf umfasst die Rohdatenverarbeitung, die Phasensegmentierung, das Datenresampling, die Merkmalsextraktion und die Maschinenanomalieerkennung. Darüber hinaus stützt sich der Prozess explizit nicht auf tiefgreifendes Domänenwissen oder spezifische Überwachungsgrößen, sondern setzt lediglich gängige Maschinenüberwachungsdaten voraus. Wir evaluieren den Ende-zu-Ende Prozess anhand von Daten einer realen CNC-Maschine. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die konventionelle Frequenzanalyse die kritischen Maschinenzustände nicht gut erkennt, während unser Prozess die kritischen Ereignisse mit einem F1-Wert von fast 91% sehr gut identifiziert. Um kritische Ereignisse vorherzusagen, anstatt sie nur reaktiv zu erkennen, vergleichen wir verschiedene Modellierungsalternativen für die Vorhersage kritischer Ereignisse im Anwendungsfall der Vorhersage der Zeit bis zum nächsten Fehler von Festplattenlaufwerken. Da Fehlerdatensätze typischerweise wesentlich seltener sind als Instanzen, die den Normalzustand repräsentieren, setzen wir verschiedene Strategien zum Erzeugen künstlicher Fehlerinstanzen ein. Im nächsten Schritt vergleichen wir die Vorhersagequalität der binären Klassenmodellierung mit der herunterskalierten Mehrklassenmodellierung. Des Weiteren integrieren wir die univariate Zeitreihenprognose in den Merkmalsgenerierungsprozess, um so die zukünftigen Überwachungsdaten zu schätzen. Schließlich modellieren wir die Zeit bis zum nächsten Fehler nicht nur mithilfe von Klassifikationsmodellen, sondern auch mit Regressionsmodellen. Die Ergebnisse legen nahe, dass die Mehrklassenmodellierung die insgesamt beste Vorhersagequalität hinsichtlich praktischer Anforderungen liefert. Außerdem belegen wir, dass die Prognose der Merkmale des Vorhersagemodells mittels univariater Zeitreihenprognose die Qualität der Vorhersage kritischer Ereignisse signifikant verbessert. Wir stellen einen Ende-zu-Ende Prozess für die Vorhersage kritischer Ereignisse von Industriemaschinen vor. Auch dieser Ansatz verlässt sich nicht auf Expertenwissen, mit Ausnahme der Definition von Überwachungsdaten, und stellt daher einen verallgemeinerbaren Prozess für die Vorhersage kritischer Ereignisse von Industriemaschinen dar. Der Prozess umfasst Merkmalsextraktion, Merkmalsverarbeitung, Zielklassenzuordnung und Modelllernen mit integrierter Hyperparameter-Abstimmung mittels einer Gittersuchtechnik. Ausgehend von den Ergebnissen des vorherigen Beitrags modelliert der Prozess die Vorhersage der Zeit bis zum nächsten Fehler in Form mehrerer Klassen, wobei wir verschiedene Beschriftungsstrategien für die Mehrklassenklassifizierung vergleichen. Die Evaluierung anhand realer Produktionsdaten einer großen Industriepresse demonstriert, dass der Prozess in der Lage ist, sechs verschiedene Zeitfenster für bevorstehende Fehler mit einem Makro F1-Wert von 90% vorherzusagen. Wenn man die Klassen der Zeit bis zum nächsten Fehler auf eine binäre Vorhersage von kritischen Ereignissen herunterskaliert, steigt der F1-Wert sogar auf über 98%. Schließlich stellen wir vier Aktualisierungsauslöser vor, um zu bestimmen, wann Modelle zur Vorhersage kritischer Ereignisse während der Online-Anwendung neu trainiert werden sollten. Ein solches Neutraining ist bspw. aufgrund von Konzeptdrift erforderlich. Die in dieser Arbeit vorgestellten Aktualisierungsauslöser berücksichtigen die Zeit, die seit der letzten Aktualisierung verstrichen ist, die auf den aktuellen Testdaten erreichte Vorhersagequalität und die auf den vorangegangenen Testdaten erreichte Vorhersagequalität. Wir vergleichen die verschiedenen Aktualisierungsstrategien miteinander und mit dem statischen Ausgangsmodell. Die Ergebnisse veranschaulichen die Notwendigkeit von Modellaktualisierungen während der Online-Anwendung und legen nahe, dass die Aktualisierungsauslöser, die sowohl die Vorhersagequalität der aktuellen als auch der vorangegangenen Testdaten berücksichtigen, den besten Kompromiss zwischen Vorhersagequalität und Anzahl der erforderlichen Aktualisierungen erzielen. Wir sind der festen Überzeugung, dass die Beiträge dieser Arbeit sowohl für die akademische Forschungsgemeinschaft als auch für die praktische Anwendung wichtige Impulse darstellen. Zuallererst sind wir unseres Wissens nach die ersten, die eine vollautomatische, hybride, komponentenbasierte, Ende-zu-Ende Prognosemethode für saisonale Zeitreihen vorschlagen, die auch die Zeitreihenvorverarbeitung beinhaltet. Durch die Verbindung einer zuverlässig hohen Vorhersagegenauigkeit mit einer zuverlässig niedrigen Zeit bis zum Ergebnis eröffnet diese viele neue Möglichkeiten für Anwendungen, die genaue Vorhersagen innerhalb eines festen Zeitraums erfordern, um rechtzeitig Gegenmaßnahmen ergreifen zu können. Darüber hinaus bieten die vielversprechenden Ergebnisse der Empfehlungssysteme für Zeitreihenprognosemethoden neue Ansätze zur Verbesserung der Vorhersageleistung für alle Arten von Zeitreihen, nicht nur für saisonale Zeitreihen. Ferner sind wir die ersten, die die Schwachstellen des bisherigen Stands der Technik bei der Empfehlung von Zeitreihenprognosemethoden aufgedeckt haben. Hinsichtlich der Beiträge zur Vorhersage kritischer Ereignisse mittels multivariater Überwachungsdaten haben wir bereits eng mit Industriepartnern zusammengearbeitet,wodurch die hohe praktische Relevanz der Beiträge dieser Arbeit verdeutlicht wird. Der automatisierte Ende-zu-Ende Entwurf der vorgeschlagenen Prozesse, die kein tiefes Domänen- oder Expertenwissen erfordern, stellt einen Meilenstein in der Überbrückung der Kluft zwischen akademischer Theorie und industrieller Anwendung dar. Diese Tatsache wird insbesondere dadurch untermauert, dass der Prozess zur Vorhersage kritischer Ereignisse in Industriemaschinen derzeit bereits in einem realen Produktionssystem operationalisiert wird. KW - Prognose KW - Automation KW - Zeitreihe KW - Forecasting KW - Zeitreihenvorhersage KW - Failure Prediction KW - Fehlervorhersage KW - End-to-End Automation KW - Ende-zu-Ende Automatisierung Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-255757 ER - TY - THES A1 - Zürn, Michael T1 - The Dual Nature of Utility - Categorical and Comparative Evaluations in Economic Decisions T1 - Die Dualität des Nutzens - kategoriale und komparative Bewertungen in ökonomischen Entscheidungen N2 - Utility is perhaps the most central concept in modern economic theorizing. However, the behaviorist reduction to Revealed Preference not only removed the psychological content of utility but experimental investigations also exposed numerous anomalies in this theory. This program of research focused on the psychological processes by which utility judgments are generated. For this purpose, the standard assumption of a homogeneous concept is substituted by the Utilitarian Duality Hypothesis. In particular, judgments concerning categorical utility (uCat) infer an object's category based on its attributes which may subsequently allow the transfer of evaluative information like feelings or attitudes. In contrast, comparative utility (uCom) depends on the distance to a reference value on a specific dimension of comparison. Importantly, dimensions of comparison are manifold and context dependent. In a series of experiments, we show that the resulting Dual Utility Model is able to explain several known anomalies in a parsimonious fashion. Moreover, we identify central factors determining the relative weight assigned to both utility components. Finally, we discuss the implications of the Utilitarian Duality for both, the experimental practice in economics as well as the consequences for economic theorizing. In sum, we propose that the Dual Utility Model can serve as an integrative framework for both the rational model and its anomalies. N2 - Der Nutzen ist wohl eines der meist beachteten Konzepte der ökonomischen Theorie. Allerdings entfernte die behavioristische Reduktion auf offenbarte Präferenzen nicht nur den psychologischen Inhalt des Nutzens, sondern zeigte darüber hinaus in experimentellen Untersuchungen auch zahlreiche Anomalien der Theorie auf. Das vorliegende Forschungsprogramm stellt die psychologischen Prozesse in den Vordergrund, mittels derer Nutzen beurteilt wird. Zu diesem Zweck wird die verbreitete Annahme eines homogenen Konzepts durch die Zwei-Nutzen-Hypothese ersetzt. Im Besonderen bestimmen Urteile über den kategorialen Nutzen (uCat) anhand der Attribute eines Objekts zunächst dessen Kategorie, wodurch daraufhin bewertende Informationen, wie z.B. Gefühle oder Einstellungen, auf das Objekt übertragen werden können. Demgegenüber bestimmt sich der komparative Nutzen (uCom) über die Abweichung von einem Referenzwert in einer bestimmten Vergleichsdimension, welche generell zahlreich und kontextabhängig sein können. In einer Serie von Experimenten wird gezeigt, dass das resultierende Zwei-Nutzen-Modell eine Reihe von bekannten Anomalien in einer sparsamen Weise erklären kann. Darüber hinaus werden zentrale Faktoren identifiziert, welche die relative Gewichtung beider Nutzenkomponenten bestimmen. Schließlich werden die Implikationen der Zwei-Nutzen-Hypothese für die experimentelle Praxis und die ökonomische Theorie diskutiert. Zusammenfassend wird ausgeführt, dass das entwickelte Zwei-Nutzen-Modell als integrativer Rahmen für sowohl das rationale Modell als auch für seine Anomalien dienen kann. KW - Nutzen KW - Psychologie KW - Ultimatum Game KW - transaction utility KW - preference construction KW - utility KW - revealed preference KW - Wert KW - Preisvergleich KW - Nutzenvergleich Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-120141 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zürn, Michael A1 - Strack, Fritz T1 - When More Is Better – Consumption Priming Decreases Responders’ Rejections in the Ultimatum Game JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - During the past decades, economic theories of rational choice have been exposed to outcomes that were severe challenges to their claim of universal validity. For example, traditional theories cannot account for refusals to cooperate if cooperation would result in higher payoffs. A prominent illustration are responders’ rejections of positive but unequal payoffs in the Ultimatum Game. To accommodate this anomaly in a rational framework one needs to assume both a preference for higher payoffs and a preference for equal payoffs. The current set of studies shows that the relative weight of these preference components depends on external conditions and that consumption priming may decrease responders’ rejections of unequal payoffs. Specifically, we demonstrate that increasing the accessibility of consumption-related information accentuates the preference for higher payoffs. Furthermore, consumption priming increased responders’ reaction times for unequal payoffs which suggests an increased conflict between both preference components. While these results may also be integrated into existing social preference models, we try to identify some basic psychological processes underlying economic decision making. Going beyond the Ultimatum Game, we propose that a distinction between comparative and deductive evaluations may provide a more general framework to account for various anomalies in behavioral economics. KW - Ultimatum Game KW - comparison KW - consumption priming KW - evaluation KW - cognitive processes Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-189989 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 8 IS - 2226 ER - TY - THES A1 - Önal-Hartmann, Cigdem T1 - Emotional Modulation of Motor Memory Formation T1 - Emotionale Modulation des Motorischen Gedächtnises N2 - Hintergründe: Wie eine Vielzahl von Studien belegt, kann das explizite Gedächtnis, das die bewusste Erinnerung an enkodierte Informationen beinhaltet, durch Emotionen beeinflusst werden, und zwar über den Einfluss auf verschiedene Verarbeitungsebenen (Enkodierung, Konsolidierung, Abruf usw.). Bisher wenig untersucht ist, ob und wie Emotionen Vorgänge der motorischen Gedächtnisbildung, die nicht auf bewusster Erinnerung beruhen und sich stattdessen durch Veränderungen im Verhalten darstellen, modulieren. Experiment 1: Das Ziel des ersten Experimentes war es, den Einfluss von Emotionen auf motorisches Lernen zu untersuchen. Vier Gruppen von Probanden mussten in einer motorischen Lernaufgabe schnelle, seitliche Bewegungen mit dem Daumen ausführen. Während dieser Aufgabe hörten die Probanden emotionale Klänge, die in Valenz und Arousal variierten: 1. Valenz negativ/ Arousal niedrig (V-/A-), 2. Valenz negativ/ Arousal hoch (V-/A+), 3. Valenz positiv/ Arousal niedrig (V+/A-), 4. Valenz positiv/ Arousal hoch (V+/A+). Die deskriptive Analyse aller Daten sprach für beste Ergebnisse für das motorische Lernen in der Bedingung V-/A-, aber die Unterschiede zwischen den Bedingungen waren nicht signifikant. Die Interaktion zwischen Valenz und Arousal emotionaler Töne scheint demnach motorische Enkodierungsprozesse zu modulieren, jedoch müssen zukünftige Studien mit unterschiedlichen emotionalen Stimuli die Annahme weiter untersuchen, dass negative Stimuli mit niedrigem Arousal während der Enkodierung einen fördernden Effekt auf das motorische Kurzzeitgedächtnis haben. Experiment 2: Die Absicht des zweiten Experimentes war es, die Auswirkungen emotionaler Interferenzen auf die Konsolidierung beim Sequenzlernen zu untersuchen. Sechs Gruppen von Probanden trainierten zuerst in getrennten Sitzungen eine SRTT-Aufgabe (serial reaction time task). Um die Konsolidierung der neu erlernten Fertigkeit zu modulieren, wurden die Probanden nach dem Training einer von drei unterschiedlichen Klassen emotionaler Stimuli (positiv, negativ oder neutral) ausgesetzt. Diese bestanden aus einem Set emotionaler Bilder, die mit emotional kongruenten Musikstücken oder neutralen Klängen kombiniert waren. Bei den Probandengruppen wurde die emotionale Interferenz nach zwei unterschiedlichen Zeitintervallen realisiert, entweder direkt nach der Trainingssitzung oder sechs Stunden später. 72 Stunden nach der Trainingssitzung wurde jede Gruppe erneut mit der SRTT-Aufgabe getestet. Die Leistung in diesem Nachtest wurde mittels Reaktionszeit und Genauigkeit bei der Ausführung der Zielsequenz analysiert. Die emotionale Interferenz beeinflusste weder die Nachtestergebnisse für die Reaktionszeit noch die für die Genauigkeit. Allerdings konnte eine Steigerung der expliziten Sequenzerkennung durch erregende negative Stimuli festgestellt werden, wenn diese direkt nach der ersten Trainingseinheit (0h) dargeboten wurden. Diese Ergebnisse lassen vermuten, dass die Konsolidierung der expliziten Aspekte prozeduralen Lernens in einer stärkeren Wechselwirkung mit emotionalen Interferenzen stehen könnte als die der impliziten Aspekte. Die Konsolidierung unterschiedlicher Ebenen des Fertigkeitserwerbs könnte demnach von unterschiedlichen Mechanismen gesteuert werden. Da Performanz und explizites Sequenzerkennen nicht korrelierten, vermuten wir, dass implizite und explizite Modalitäten bei der Durchführung der SRTT-Aufgabe nicht komplementär sind. Experiment 3: Es sollte untersucht werden, ob es eine Präferenz der linken Gehirnhemisphäre bei der Kontrolle von Flexionsreaktionen auf positive Stimuli gibt und der rechten Hemisphäre bei der Kontrolle von Extensionsreaktionen auf negative Stimuli. Zu diesem Zweck sollten rechtshändige Probanden einen Joystick zu sich ziehen oder von sich weg drücken, nachdem sie einen positiven oder negativen Stimulus in ihrem linken oder rechten Gesichtsfeld gesehen hatten. Die Flexionsreaktionen waren bei positiven Stimuli schneller, Extensionsreaktion hingegen bei negativen Stimuli. Insgesamt war die Performanz am schnellsten, wenn die emotionalen Stimuli im linken Gesichtsfeld präsentiert wurden. Dieser Vorrang der rechten Gehirnhemisphäre war besonders deutlich für negative Stimuli, wohingegen die Reaktionszeiten auf positive Bilder keine hemisphärische Differenzierung zeigten. Wir konnten keine Interaktion zwischen Gesichtsfeld und Reaktionstyp belegen, auch fand sich keine Dreifachinteraktion zwischen Valenz, Gesichtsfeld und Reaktionstyp. In unserem experimentellen Kontext scheint die Interaktion zwischen Valenz und Gesichtsfeld stärker zu sein als die Interaktion zwischen Valenz und motorischem Verhalten. Auf Grund dieser Ergebnisse vermuten wir, dass unter gewissen Bedingungen eine Hierarchisierung der asymmetrischen Muster Vorrang hat, die möglicherweise andere vorhandene Asymmetrien maskieren könnte. N2 - Background: There is extensive evidence that explicit memory, which involves conscious recall of encoded information, can be modulated by emotions; emotions may influence encoding, consolidation or retrieval of information. However, less is known about the modulatory effects of emotions on procedural processes like motor memory, which do not depend upon conscious recall and are instead demonstrated through changes in behaviour. Experiment 1: The goal of the first experiment was to examine the influence of emotions on motor learning. Four groups of subjects completed a motor learning task performing brisk isometric abductions with their thumb. While performing the motor task, the subjects heard emotional sounds varying in arousal and valence: (1) valence negative / arousal low (V-/A-), (2) valence negative / arousal high (V-/A+), (3) valence positive / arousal low (V+/A-), and (4) valence positive / arousal high (V+/A+). Descriptive analysis of the complete data set showed best performances for motor learning in the V-/A- condition, but the differences between the conditions did not reach significance. Results suggest that the interaction between valence and arousal may modulate motor encoding processes. Since limitations of the study cannot be ruled out, future studies with different emotional stimuli have to test the assumption that exposure to low arousing negative stimuli during encoding has a facilitating effect on short term motor memory. Experiment 2: The purpose of the second experiment was to investigate the effects of emotional interference on consolidation of sequential learning. In different sessions, 6 groups of subjects were initially trained on a serial reaction time task (SRTT). To modulate consolidation of the newly learned skill, subjects were exposed, after the training, to 1 of 3 (positive, negative or neutral) different classes of emotional stimuli which consisted of a set of emotional pictures combined with congruent emotional musical pieces or neutral sound. Emotional intervention for each subject group was done in 2 different time intervals (either directly after the training session, or 6 h later). After a 72 h post-training interval, each group was retested on the SRTT. Re-test performance was evaluated in terms of response times and accuracy during performance of the target sequence. Emotional intervention did not influence either response times or accuracy of re-testing SRTT task performance. However, explicit awareness of sequence knowledge was enhanced by arousing negative stimuli applied at 0 h after training. These findings suggest that consolidation of explicit aspects of procedural learning may be more responsive toward emotional interference than are implicit aspects. Consolidation of different domains of skill acquisition may be governed by different mechanisms. Since skill performance did not correlate with explicit awareness we suggest that implicit and explicit modes of SRTT performance are not complementary. Experiment 3: The aim of the third experiment was to analyze if the left hemisphere preferentially controls flexion responses towards positive stimuli, while the right hemisphere is specialized towards extensor responses to negative pictures. To this end, right-handed subjects had to pull or push a joystick subsequent to seeing a positive or a negative stimulus in their left or right hemifield. Flexion responses were faster for positive stimuli, while negative stimuli were associated with faster extensions responses. Overall, performance was fastest when emotional stimuli were presented to the left visual hemifield. This right hemisphere superiority was especially clear for negative stimuli, while reaction times towards positive pictures showed no hemispheric difference. We did not find any interaction between hemifield and response type. Neither was there a triple interaction between valence, hemifield and response type. In our experimental context the interaction between valence and hemifield seems to be stronger than the interaction between valence and motor behaviour. From these results we suppose that under certain conditions a hierarchy scaling of the asymmetry patterns prevails, which might mask any other existing asymmetries. KW - Motorisches Lernen KW - Gefühl KW - Motorisches Gedächtnis KW - Emotionen KW - Konsolidierung KW - Motor Memory KW - Emotion Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-64838 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Özdağ Acarlı, Ayşe Nur A1 - Klein, Thomas A1 - Egenolf, Nadine A1 - Sommer, Claudia A1 - Üçeyler, Nurcan T1 - Subepidermal Schwann cell counts correlate with skin innervation - an exploratory study JF - Muscle & Nerve N2 - Introduction/Aims Schwann cell clusters have been described at the murine dermis-epidermis border. We quantified dermal Schwann cells in the skin of patients with small-fiber neuropathy (SFN) compared with healthy controls to correlate with the clinical phenotype. Methods Skin punch biopsies from the lower legs of 28 patients with SFN (11 men, 17 women; median age, 54 [range, 19-73] years) and 9 healthy controls (five men, four women, median age, 34 [range, 25-69] years) were immunoreacted for S100 calcium-binding protein B as a Schwann cell marker, protein-gene product 9.5 as a pan-neuronal marker, and CD207 as a Langerhans cell marker. Intraepidermal nerve fiber density (IENFD) and subepidermal Schwann cell counts were determined. Results Skin samples of patients with SFN showed lower IENFD (P < .05), fewer Schwann cells per millimeter (P < .01), and fewer Schwann cell clusters per millimeter (P < .05) than controls. When comparing SFN patients with reduced (n = 13; median age, 53 [range, 19-73] years) and normal distal (n = 15, median age, 54 [range, 43-68] years) IENFD, the number of solitary Schwann cells per millimeter (p < .01) and subepidermal nerve fibers associated with Schwann cell branches (P < .05) were lower in patients with reduced IENFD. All three parameters correlated positively with distal IENFD (P < .05 to P < .01), whereas no correlation was found between Schwann cell counts and clinical pain characteristics. Discussion Our data raise questions about the mechanisms underlying the interdependence of dermal Schwann cells and skin innervation in SFN. The temporal course and functional impact of Schwann cell presence and kinetics need further investigation. KW - intraepidermal nerve fiber density KW - small-fiber neuropathy KW - skin punch biopsy KW - Schwann cell KW - neuropathic pain KW - innervation Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-318726 VL - 65 IS - 4 SP - 471 EP - 479 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Üceyler, Nurcan A1 - Häuser, Winfried A1 - Sommer, Claudia T1 - Systematic review with meta-analysis: Cytokines in fibromyalgia syndrome N2 - Background: To perform a systematic review and meta-analysis on cytokine levels in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Methods: Through December 2010 we systematically reviewed the databases PubMed, MEDLINE, and PsycINFO and screened the reference lists of 22 review articles for suitable original articles. Original articles investigating cytokines in patients with FMS were included. Data were extracted by two independent authors. Differences of the cytokine levels of FMS patients and controls were summarized by standardized mean differences (SMD) using a random effects model. Study quality was assessed applying methodological scores: modified Center of Evidence Based Medicine, Newcastle-Ottawa-Scale, and Würzburg Methodological Quality Score. Results: Twenty-five articles were included investigating 1255 FMS patients and 800 healthy controls. Data of 13/25 studies entered meta-analysis. The overall methodological quality of studies was low. The results of the majority of studies were not comparable because methods, investigated material, and investigated target cytokines differed. Systematic review of the selected 25 articles revealed that FMS patients had higher serum levels of interleukin (IL)-1 receptor antagonist, IL-6, and IL-8, and higher plasma levels of IL-8. Meta-analysis of eligible studies showed that FMS patients had higher plasma IL-6 levels compared to controls (SMD = -0.34 [-0.64, -0.03] 95% CI; p = 0.03). The majority of investigated cytokines were not different between patients and controls. Conclusions: The pathophysiological role of cytokines in FMS is still unclear. Studies of higher quality and with higher numbers of subjects are needed. KW - Fibromyalgie Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-69189 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ünzelmann, M. A1 - Bentmann, H. A1 - Figgemeier, T. A1 - Eck, P. A1 - Neu, J. N. A1 - Geldiyev, B. A1 - Diekmann, F. A1 - Rohlf, S. A1 - Buck, J. A1 - Hoesch, M. A1 - Kalläne, M. A1 - Rossnagel, K. A1 - Thomale, R. A1 - Siegrist, T. A1 - Sangiovanni, G. A1 - Di Sante, D. A1 - Reinert, F. T1 - Momentum-space signatures of Berry flux monopoles in the Weyl semimetal TaAs JF - Nature Communications N2 - Since the early days of Dirac flux quantization, magnetic monopoles have been sought after as a potential corollary of quantized electric charge. As opposed to magnetic monopoles embedded into the theory of electromagnetism, Weyl semimetals (WSM) exhibit Berry flux monopoles in reciprocal parameter space. As a function of crystal momentum, such monopoles locate at the crossing point of spin-polarized bands forming the Weyl cone. Here, we report momentum-resolved spectroscopic signatures of Berry flux monopoles in TaAs as a paradigmatic WSM. We carried out angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy at bulk-sensitive soft X-ray energies (SX-ARPES) combined with photoelectron spin detection and circular dichroism. The experiments reveal large spin- and orbital-angular-momentum (SAM and OAM) polarizations of the Weyl-fermion states, resulting from the broken crystalline inversion symmetry in TaAs. Supported by first-principles calculations, our measurements image signatures of a topologically non-trivial winding of the OAM at the Weyl nodes and unveil a chirality-dependent SAM of the Weyl bands. Our results provide directly bulk-sensitive spectroscopic support for the non-trivial band topology in the WSM TaAs, promising to have profound implications for the study of quantum-geometric effects in solids. Weyl semimetals exhibit Berry flux monopoles in momentum-space, but direct experimental evidence has remained elusive. Here, the authors reveal topologically non-trivial winding of the orbital-angular-momentum at the Weyl nodes and a chirality-dependent spin-angular-momentum of the Weyl bands, as a direct signature of the Berry flux monopoles in TaAs. KW - electronic properties and materials KW - topological insulators Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-260719 VL - 12 IS - 1 ER - TY - THES A1 - Ünzelmann, Maximilian T1 - Interplay of Inversion Symmetry Breaking and Spin-Orbit Coupling – From the Rashba Effect to Weyl Semimetals T1 - Zusammenspiel aus Inversionssymmetriebruch und Spin-Bahn-Kopplung – Vom Rashba-Effekt zu Weyl-Halbmetallen N2 - Breaking inversion symmetry in crystalline solids enables the formation of spin-polarized electronic states by spin-orbit coupling without the need for magnetism. A variety of interesting physical phenomena related to this effect have been intensively investigated in recent years, including the Rashba effect, topological insulators and Weyl semimetals. In this work, the interplay of inversion symmetry breaking and spin-orbit coupling and, in particular their general influence on the character of electronic states, i.e., on the spin and orbital degrees of freedom, is investigated experimentally. Two different types of suitable model systems are studied: two-dimensional surface states for which the Rashba effect arises from the inherently broken inversion symmetry at the surface, and a Weyl semimetal, for which inversion symmetry is broken in the three-dimensional crystal structure. Angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy provides momentum-resolved access to the spin polarization and the orbital composition of electronic states by means of photoelectron spin detection and dichroism with polarized light. The experimental results shown in this work are also complemented and supported by ab-initio density functional theory calculations and simple model considerations. Altogether, it is shown that the breaking of inversion symmetry has a decisive influence on the Bloch wave function, namely, the formation of an orbital angular momentum. This mechanism is, in turn, of fundamental importance both for the physics of the surface Rashba effect and the topology of the Weyl semimetal TaAs. N2 - Wird die Inversionssymmetrie kristalliner Festkörper gebrochen, ermöglicht dies die Ausbildung von spinpolarisierten elektronischen Zuständen durch Spin-Bahn-Kopplung ohne die Notwendigkeit von Magnetismus. In den vergangenen Jahren wurde eine Vielzahl interessanter physikalischer Phänomene diskutiert, die mit diesem Effekt zusammenhängen, darunter der Rashba-Effekt, topologische Isolatoren sowie Weyl-Halbmetalle. In dieser Arbeit wird das Zusammenspiel von Inversionssymetriebruch und Spin-Bahn-Kopplung sowie insbesondere deren Einfluss auf die Eigenschaften der elektronischen Zustände, also auf die Spin- und Orbital-Freiheitsgrade, experimentell untersucht. Zwei verschiedene Arten geeigneter Modellsysteme werden dazu betrachtet: zweidimensionale Oberflächenzustände, in denen der Rashba-Effekt aufgrund der an der Oberfläche inhärent gebrochenen Inverisonssymetrie auftritt, und ein Weyl-Halbmetall, dessen dreidimensionale Kristallstruktur kein Inversionszentrum besitzt. Winkelaufgelöste Photoelektronenspektroskopie bietet einen impulsaufgelösten Zugang zur Spinpolarisation sowie zur orbitalen Zusammensetzung der elektronischen Zustände mittels Photoelektronenspindetektion und Dichroismus mit polarisiertem Licht. Die in dieser Arbeit gezeigten experimentellen Ergebnisse werden außerdem durch ab-initio Dichtefunktionaltheorierechnungen sowie einfachen Modellbetrachtungen ergänzt und untermauert. Insgesamt zeigt sich, dass das Brechen von Inversionssymmetrie einen entscheidenden Einfluss auf die Bloch-Wellenfunktion hat, nämlich die Ausbildung eines orbitalen Bahndrehimpulses. Dieser Mechanismus ist wiederum von grundlegender Bedeutung sowohl für die Physik des Oberflächen- Rashba-Effekts als auch für die Topologie desWeyl-Halbmetalls TaAs. KW - Rashba-Effekt KW - Inversion Symmetry Breaking KW - Topologie KW - ARPES KW - Spin-Orbit Coupling KW - Orbital Angular Momentum Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-283104 ER - TY - THES A1 - Üreyen, Soner T1 - Multivariate Time Series for the Analysis of Land Surface Dynamics - Evaluating Trends and Drivers of Land Surface Variables for the Indo-Gangetic River Basins T1 - Multivariate Zeitreihen zur Analyse von Landoberflächendynamiken - Auswertung von Trends und Treibern von Landoberflächenvariablen für Flusseinzugsgebiete der Indus-Ganges Ebene N2 - The investigation of the Earth system and interplays between its components is of utmost importance to enhance the understanding of the impacts of global climate change on the Earth's land surface. In this context, Earth observation (EO) provides valuable long-term records covering an abundance of land surface variables and, thus, allowing for large-scale analyses to quantify and analyze land surface dynamics across various Earth system components. In view of this, the geographical entity of river basins was identified as particularly suitable for multivariate time series analyses of the land surface, as they naturally cover diverse spheres of the Earth. Many remote sensing missions with different characteristics are available to monitor and characterize the land surface. Yet, only a few spaceborne remote sensing missions enable the generation of spatio-temporally consistent time series with equidistant observations over large areas, such as the MODIS instrument. In order to summarize available remote sensing-based analyses of land surface dynamics in large river basins, a detailed literature review of 287 studies was performed and several research gaps were identified. In this regard, it was found that studies rarely analyzed an entire river basin, but rather focused on study areas at subbasin or regional scale. In addition, it was found that transboundary river basins remained understudied and that studies largely focused on selected riparian countries. Moreover, the analysis of environmental change was generally conducted using a single EO-based land surface variable, whereas a joint exploration of multivariate land surface variables across spheres was found to be rarely performed. To address these research gaps, a methodological framework enabling (1) the preprocessing and harmonization of multi-source time series as well as (2) the statistical analysis of a multivariate feature space was required. For development and testing of a methodological framework that is transferable in space and time, the transboundary river basins Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna (IGBM) in South Asia were selected as study area, having a size equivalent to around eight times the size of Germany. These basins largely depend on water resources from monsoon rainfall and High Mountain Asia which holds the largest ice mass outside the polar regions. In total, over 1.1 billion people live in this region and in parts largely depend on these water resources which are indispensable for the world's largest connected irrigated croplands and further domestic needs as well. With highly heterogeneous geographical settings, these river basins allow for a detailed analysis of the interplays between multiple spheres, including the anthroposphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and atmosphere. In this thesis, land surface dynamics over the last two decades (December 2002 - November 2020) were analyzed using EO time series on vegetation condition, surface water area, and snow cover area being based on MODIS imagery, the DLR Global WaterPack and JRC Global Surface Water Layer, as well as the DLR Global SnowPack, respectively. These data were evaluated in combination with further climatic, hydrological, and anthropogenic variables to estimate their influence on the three EO land surface variables. The preprocessing and harmonization of the time series was conducted using the implemented framework. The resulting harmonized feature space was used to quantify and analyze land surface dynamics by means of several statistical time series analysis techniques which were integrated into the framework. In detail, these methods involved (1) the calculation of trends using the Mann-Kendall test in association with the Theil-Sen slope estimator, (2) the estimation of changes in phenological metrics using the Timesat tool, (3) the evaluation of driving variables using the causal discovery approach Peter and Clark Momentary Conditional Independence (PCMCI), and (4) additional correlation tests to analyze the human influence on vegetation condition and surface water area. These analyses were performed at annual and seasonal temporal scale and for diverse spatial units, including grids, river basins and subbasins, land cover and land use classes, as well as elevation-dependent zones. The trend analyses of vegetation condition mostly revealed significant positive trends. Irrigated and rainfed croplands were found to contribute most to these trends. The trend magnitudes were particularly high in arid and semi-arid regions. Considering surface water area, significant positive trends were obtained at annual scale. At grid scale, regional and seasonal clusters with significant negative trends were found as well. Trends for snow cover area mostly remained stable at annual scale, but significant negative trends were observed in parts of the river basins during distinct seasons. Negative trends were also found for the elevation-dependent zones, particularly at high altitudes. Also, retreats in the seasonal duration of snow cover area were found in parts of the river basins. Furthermore, for the first time, the application of the causal discovery algorithm on a multivariate feature space at seasonal temporal scale revealed direct and indirect links between EO land surface variables and respective drivers. In general, vegetation was constrained by water availability, surface water area was largely influenced by river discharge and indirectly by precipitation, and snow cover area was largely controlled by precipitation and temperature with spatial and temporal variations. Additional analyses pointed towards positive human influences on increasing trends in vegetation greenness. The investigation of trends and interplays across spheres provided new and valuable insights into the past state and the evolution of the land surface as well as on relevant climatic and hydrological driving variables. Besides the investigated river basins in South Asia, these findings are of great value also for other river basins and geographical regions. N2 - Die Untersuchung von Erdsystemkomponenten und deren Wechselwirkungen ist von großer Relevanz, um das Prozessverständnis sowie die Auswirkungen des globalen Klimawandels auf die Landoberfläche zu verbessern. In diesem Zusammenhang liefert die Erdbeobachtung (EO) wertvolle Langzeitaufnahmen zu einer Vielzahl an Landoberflächenvariablen. Diese können als Indikator für die Erdsystemkomponenten genutzt werden und sind essenziell für großflächige Analysen. Flusseinzugsgebiete sind besonders geeignet um Landoberflächendynamiken mit multivariaten Zeitreihen zu analysieren, da diese verschiedene Sphären des Erdsystems umfassen. Zur Charakterisierung der Landoberfläche stehen zahlreiche EO-Missionen mit unterschiedlichen Eigenschaften zur Verfügung. Nur einige wenige Missionen gewährleisten jedoch die Erstellung von räumlich und zeitlich konsistenten Zeitreihen mit äquidistanten Beobachtungen über großräumige Untersuchungsgebiete, wie z.B. die MODIS Sensoren. Um bisherige EO-Analysen zu Landoberflächendynamiken in großen Flusseinzugsgebieten zu untersuchen, wurde eine Literaturrecherche durchgeführt, wobei mehrere Forschungslücken identifiziert wurden. Studien untersuchten nur selten ein ganzes Einzugsgebiet, sondern konzentrierten sich lediglich auf Teilgebietsgebiete oder regionale Untersuchungsgebiete. Darüber hinaus wurden transnationale Einzugsgebiete nur unzureichend analysiert, wobei sich die Studien größtenteils auf ausgewählte Anrainerstaaten beschränkten. Auch wurde die Analyse von Umweltveränderungen meistens anhand einer einzigen EO-Landoberflächenvariable durchgeführt, während eine synergetische Untersuchung von sphärenübergreifenden Landoberflächenvariablen kaum unternommen wurde. Um diese Forschungslücken zu adressieren, ist ein methodischer Ansatz notwendig, der (1) die Vorverarbeitung und Harmonisierung von Zeitreihen aus mehreren Quellen und (2) die statistische Analyse eines multivariaten Merkmalsraums ermöglicht. Für die Entwicklung und Anwendung eines methodischen Frameworks, das raum-zeitlich übertragbar ist, wurden die transnationalen Einzugsgebiete Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra und Meghna (IGBM) in Südasien, deren Größe etwa der achtfachen Fläche von Deutschland entspricht, ausgewählt. Diese Einzugsgebiete hängen weitgehend von den Wasserressourcen des Monsunregens und des Hochgebirges Asiens ab. Insgesamt leben über 1,1 Milliarden Menschen in dieser Region und sind zum Teil in hohem Maße von diesen Wasserressourcen abhängig, die auch für die größten zusammenhängenden bewässerten Anbauflächen der Welt und auch für weitere inländische Bedarfe unerlässlich sind. Aufgrund ihrer sehr heterogenen geographischen Gegebenheiten ermöglichen diese Einzugsgebiete eine detaillierte sphärenübergreifende Analyse der Wechselwirkungen, einschließlich der Anthroposphäre, Biosphäre, Kryosphäre, Hydrosphäre, Lithosphäre und Atmosphäre. In dieser Dissertation wurden Landoberflächendynamiken der letzten zwei Jahrzehnte anhand von EO-Zeitreihen zum Vegetationszustand, zu Oberflächengewässern und zur Schneebedeckung analysiert. Diese basieren auf MODIS-Aufnahmen, dem DLR Global WaterPack und dem JRC Global Surface Water Layer sowie dem DLR Global SnowPack. Diese Zeitreihen wurden in Kombination mit weiteren klimatischen, hydrologischen und anthropogenen Variablen ausgewertet. Die Harmonisierung des multivariaten Merkmalsraumes ermöglichte die Analyse von Landoberflächendynamiken unter Nutzung von statistischen Methoden. Diese Methoden umfassen (1) die Berechnung von Trends mittels des Mann-Kendall und des Theil-Sen Tests, (2) die Berechnung von phänologischen Metriken anhand des Timesat-Tools, (3) die Bewertung von treibenden Variablen unter Nutzung des PCMCI Algorithmus und (4) zusätzliche Korrelationstests zur Analyse des menschlichen Einflusses auf den Vegetationszustand und die Wasseroberfläche. Diese Analysen wurden auf jährlichen und saisonalen Zeitskalen und für verschiedene räumliche Einheiten durchgeführt. Für den Vegetationszustand wurden weitgehend signifikant positive Trends ermittelt. Analysen haben gezeigt, dass landwirtschaftliche Nutzflächen am meisten zu diesen Trends beitragen haben. Besonders hoch waren die Trends in ariden Regionen. Bei Oberflächengewässern wurden auf jährlicher Ebene signifikant positive Trends festgestellt. Auf Pixelebene wurden jedoch sowohl regional als auch saisonal Cluster mit signifikant negativen Trends identifiziert. Die Trends für die Schneebedeckung blieben auf jährlicher Ebene weitgehend stabil, jedoch wurden in Teilen der Einzugsgebiete zu bestimmten Jahreszeiten signifikant negative Trends beobachtet. Die negativen Trends wurden auch für höhenabhängige Zonen festgestellt, insbesondere in hohen Lagen. Außerdem wurden in Teilen der Einzugsgebiete Rückgänge bei der saisonalen Dauer der Schneebedeckung ermittelt. Darüber hinaus ergab die Untersuchung des multivariaten Merkmalsraums auf kausale Zusammenhänge auf saisonaler Ebene erstmals Aufschluss über direkte und indirekte Relationen zwischen EO-Landoberflächenvariablen und den entsprechenden Einflussfaktoren. Zusammengefasst wurde die Vegetation durch die Wasserverfügbarkeit, die Oberflächengewässer durch den Abfluss und indirekt durch den Niederschlag sowie die Schneebedeckung durch Niederschlag und Temperatur mit räumlichen und saisonalen Unterschieden kontrolliert. Zusätzliche Analysen wiesen auf einen positiven Zusammenhang zwischen dem menschlichen Einfluss und den zunehmenden Trends in der Vegetationsfläche hin. Diese sphärenübergreifenden Untersuchungen zu Trends und Wechselwirkungen liefern neue und wertvolle Einblicke in den vergangenen Zustand von Landoberflächendynamiken sowie in die relevanten klimatischen und hydrologischen Einflussfaktoren. Neben den untersuchten Einzugsgebieten in Südasien sind diese Erkenntnisse auch für weitere Einzugsgebiete und geographische Regionen von großer Bedeutung. KW - Multivariate Analyse KW - Zeitreihe KW - Fernerkundung KW - Geographie KW - Multivariate Time Series KW - River Basins KW - Earth Observation KW - Remote Sensing Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-291941 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Üçeyler, Nurcan A1 - Biko, Lydia A1 - Hose, Dorothea A1 - Hoffmann, Lukas A1 - Sommer, Claudia T1 - Comprehensive and differential long-term characterization of the alpha-galactosidase A deficient mouse model of Fabry disease focusing on the sensory system and pain development JF - Molecular Pain N2 - Fabry disease is an X-linked lysosomal storage disorder due to impaired activity of alpha-galactosidase A with intracellular accumulation of globotriaosylceramide. Associated small fiber pathology leads to characteristic pain in Fabry disease. We systematically assessed sensory system, physical activity, metabolic parameters, and morphology of male and female mice with alpha-galactosidase A deficiency (Fabry ko) from 2 to 27 months of age and compared results with those of age- and gender-matched wild-type littermates of C57Bl/6J background. Results From the age of two months, male and female Fabry mice showed mechanical hypersensitivity (p < 0.001 each) compared to wild-type littermates. Young Fabry ko mice of both genders were hypersensitive to heat stimulation (p < 0.01) and developed heat hyposensitivity with aging (p < 0.05), while cold hyposensitivity was present constantly in young (p < 0.01) and old (p < 0.05) Fabry ko mice compared to wild-type littermates. Stride angle increased only in male Fabry ko mice with aging (p < 0.01) in comparison to wild-type littermates. Except for young female mice, male (p < 0.05) and female (p < 0.01) Fabry ko mice had a higher body weight than wild-type littermates. Old male Fabry ko mice were physically less active than their wild-type littermates (p < 0.05), had lower chow intake (p < 0.001), and lost more weight (p < 0.001) in a one-week treadmill experiment than wild-type littermates. Also, Fabry ko mice showed spontaneous pain protective behavior and developed orofacial dysmorphism resembling patients with Fabry disease. Conclusions. Mice with alpha-galactosidase A deficiency show age-dependent and distinct deficits of the sensory system. alpha-galactosidase A-deficient mice seem to model human Fabry disease and may be helpful when studying the pathophysiology of Fabry-associated pain. KW - Fabry disease KW - alpha-galactosidase A KW - mouse model KW - pain Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-147562 VL - 12 IS - 1744806916646370 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Üçeyler, Nurcan A1 - Buchholz, Hans-Georg A1 - Kewenig, Susanne A1 - Ament, Stephan-Johann A1 - Birklein, Frank A1 - Schreckenberger, Mathias A1 - Sommer, Claudia T1 - Cortical Binding Potential of Opioid Receptors in Patients With Fibromyalgia Syndrome and Reduced Systemic Interleukin-4 Levels – A Pilot Study JF - Frontiers in Neuroscience N2 - Objective: We investigated cerebral opioid receptor binding potential in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) using positron-emission-tomography (PET) and correlated our results with patients’ systemic interleukin-4 (IL-4) gene expression. Methods: In this pilot study, seven FMS patients (1 man, 6 women) agreed to participate in experimental PET scans. All patients underwent neurological examination, were investigated with questionnaires for pain, depression, and FMS symptoms. Additionally, blood for IL-4 gene expression analysis was withdrawn at two time points with a median latency of 1.3 years. Patients were investigated in a PET scanner using the opioid receptor ligand F-18-fluoro-ethyl-diprenorphine ([18F]FEDPN) and results were compared with laboratory normative values. Results: Neurological examination was normal in all FMS patients. Reduced opioid receptor binding was found in mid cingulate cortex compared to healthy controls (p < 0.005). Interestingly, three patients with high systemic IL-4 gene expression had increased opioid receptor binding in the fronto-basal cortex compared to those with low IL-4 gene expression (p < 0.005). Conclusion: Our data give further evidence for a reduction in cortical opioid receptor availability in FMS patients as another potential central nervous system contributor to pain in FMS. KW - fibromyalgia syndrome KW - PET KW - brain KW - opioid KW - IL-4 Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-204457 SN - 1662-453X VL - 14 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Üçeyler, Nurcan A1 - Homola, György A. A1 - González, Hans Guerrero A1 - Kramer, Daniela A1 - Wanner, Christoph A1 - Weidemann, Frank A1 - Solymosi, László A1 - Sommer, Claudia T1 - Increased Arterial Diameters in the Posterior Cerebral Circulation in Men with Fabry Disease N2 - A high load of white matter lesions and enlarged basilar arteries have been shown in selected patients with Fabry disease, a disorder associated with an increased stroke risk. We studied a large cohort of patients with Fabry disease to differentially investigate white matter lesion load and cerebral artery diameters. We retrospectively analyzed cranial magnetic resonance imaging scans of 87 consecutive Fabry patients, 20 patients with ischemic stroke, and 36 controls. We determined the white matter lesion load applying the Fazekas score on fluid-attenuated inversion recovery sequences and measured the diameters of cerebral arteries on 3D-reconstructions of the time-of-flight-MR-angiography scans. Data of different Fabry patient subgroups (males – females; normal – impaired renal function) were compared with data of patients with stroke and controls. A history of stroke or transient ischemic attacks was present in 4/30 males (13%) and 5/57 (9%) females with Fabry disease, all in the anterior circulation. Only one man with Fabry disease showed confluent cerebral white matter lesions in the Fazekas score assessment (1%). Male Fabry patients had a larger basilar artery (p<0.01) and posterior cerebral artery diameter (p<0.05) compared to male controls. This was independent of disease severity as measured by renal function and did not lead to changes in arterial blood flow properties. A basilar artery diameter of >3.2 mm distinguished between men with Fabry disease and controls (sensitivity: 87%, specificity: 86%, p<0.001), but not from stroke patients. Enlarged arterial diameters of the posterior circulation are present only in men with Fabry disease independent of disease severity. KW - Arterial Diameters KW - ischemic stroke KW - magnetic resonance imaging KW - stroke KW - cerebral arteries KW - renal system KW - central nervous system KW - blood flow KW - lesions Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-112614 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Üçeyler, Nurcan A1 - Kahn, Ann-Kathrin A1 - Kramer, Daniela A1 - Zeller, Daniel A1 - Casanova-Molla, Jordi A1 - Wanner, Christoph A1 - Weidemann, Frank A1 - Katsarava, Zaza A1 - Sommer, Claudia T1 - Impaired small fiber conduction in patients with Fabry disease: a neurophysiological case–control study JF - BMC Neurology N2 - Background Fabry disease is an inborn lysosomal storage disorder which is associated with small fiber neuropathy. We set out to investigate small fiber conduction in Fabry patients using pain-related evoked potentials (PREP). Methods In this case–control study we prospectively studied 76 consecutive Fabry patients for electrical small fiber conduction in correlation with small fiber function and morphology. Data were compared with healthy controls using non-parametric statistical tests. All patients underwent neurological examination and were investigated with pain and depression questionnaires. Small fiber function (quantitative sensory testing, QST), morphology (skin punch biopsy), and electrical conduction (PREP) were assessed and correlated. Patients were stratified for gender and disease severity as reflected by renal function. Results All Fabry patients (31 men, 45 women) had small fiber neuropathy. Men with Fabry disease showed impaired cold (p < 0.01) and warm perception (p < 0.05), while women did not differ from controls. Intraepidermal nerve fiber density (IENFD) was reduced at the lower leg (p < 0.001) and the back (p < 0.05) mainly of men with impaired renal function. When investigating A-delta fiber conduction with PREP, men but not women with Fabry disease had lower amplitudes upon stimulation at face (p < 0.01), hands (p < 0.05), and feet (p < 0.01) compared to controls. PREP amplitudes further decreased with advance in disease severity. PREP amplitudes and warm (p < 0.05) and cold detection thresholds (p < 0.01) at the feet correlated positively in male patients. Conclusion Small fiber conduction is impaired in men with Fabry disease and worsens with advanced disease severity. PREP are well-suited to measure A-delta fiber conduction. KW - Fabry disease KW - Pain-related evoked potentials KW - Small fiber neuropathy KW - A-delta fibers Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-96527 UR - http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2377/13/47 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Üçeyler, Nurcan A1 - Kewenig, Susanne A1 - Kafke, Waldemar A1 - Kittel-Schneider, Sarah A1 - Sommer, Claudia T1 - Skin cytokine expression in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome is not different from controls N2 - Background Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic pain syndrome of unknown etiology. There is increasing evidence for small nerve fiber impairment in a subgroup of patients with FMS. We investigated whether skin cytokine and delta opioid receptor (DOR) gene expression in FMS patients differs from controls as one potential contributor to small nerve fiber sensitization. Methods We investigated skin punch biopsies of 25 FMS patients, ten patients with monopolar depression but no pain, and 35 healthy controls. Biopsies were obtained from the lateral upper thigh and lower calf. Gene expression of the pro-inflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF), interleukin (IL)-6, and IL-8 and of the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 was analyzed using quantitative real-time PCR and normalizing data to 18sRNA as housekeeping gene. Additionally, we assessed DOR gene expression. Results All cytokines and DOR were detectable in skin samples of FMS patients, patients with depression, and healthy controls without intergroup difference. Also, gene expression was not different in skin of the upper and lower leg within and between the groups and in FMS patient subgroups. Conclusions Skin cytokine and DOR gene expression does not differ between patients with FMS and controls. Our results do not support a role of the investigated cytokines in sensitization of peripheral nerve fibers as a potential mechanism of small fiber pathology in FMS. KW - Fibromyalgia syndrome KW - Skin biopsy KW - Monopolar depression KW - Cytokines KW - Opioid receptor Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-110624 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Üçeyler, Nurcan A1 - Kewenig, Susanne A1 - Kittel-Schneider, Sarah A1 - Fallgatter, Andreas J. A1 - Sommer, Claudia T1 - Increased cortical activation upon painful stimulation in fibromyalgia syndrome JF - BMC Neurology N2 - Background Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain and associated symptoms. We investigated cerebral activation in FMS patients by functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Methods Two stimulation paradigms were applied: a) painful pressure stimulation at the dorsal forearm; b) verbal fluency test (VFT). We prospectively recruited 25 FMS patients, ten patients with unipolar major depression (MD) without pain, and 35 healthy controls. All patients underwent neurological examination and all subjects were investigated with questionnaires (pain, depression, FMS, empathy). Results FMS patients had lower pressure pain thresholds than patients with MD and controls (p < 0.001) and reported higher pain intensity (p < 0.001). Upon unilateral pressure pain stimulation fNIRS recordings revealed increased bilateral cortical activation in FMS patients compared to controls (p < 0.05). FMS patients also displayed a stronger contralateral activity over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in direct comparison to patients with MD (p < 0.05). While all three groups performed equally well in the VFT, a frontal deficit in cortical activation was only found in patients with depression (p < 0.05). Performance and cortical activation correlated negatively in FMS patients (p < 0.05) and positively in patients with MD (p < 0.05). Conclusion Our data give further evidence for altered central nervous processing in patients with FMS and the distinction between FMS and MD. KW - fibromyalgia syndrome KW - depression KW - cortical activation KW - pain KW - near-infrared spectroscopy Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-125230 VL - 15 IS - 210 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Üçeyler, Nurcan A1 - Schließer, Mira A1 - Evdokimov, Dimitar A1 - Radziwon, Jakub A1 - Feulner, Betty A1 - Unterecker, Stefan A1 - Rimmele, Florian A1 - Walter, Uwe T1 - Reduced midbrain raphe echogenicity in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome JF - PloS One N2 - Objectives The pathogenesis of fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is unclear. Transcranial ultrasonography revealed anechoic alteration of midbrain raphe in depression and anxiety disorders, suggesting affection of the central serotonergic system. Here, we assessed midbrain raphe echogenicity in FMS. Methods Sixty-six patients underwent transcranial sonography, of whom 53 were patients with FMS (27 women, 26 men), 13 patients with major depression and physical pain (all women), and 14 healthy controls (11 women, 3 men). Raphe echogenicity was graded visually as normal or hypoechogenic, and quantified by digitized image analysis, each by investigators blinded to the clinical diagnosis. Results Quantitative midbrain raphe echogenicity was lower in patients with FMS compared to healthy controls (p<0.05), but not different from that of patients with depression and accompanying physical pain. Pain and FMS symptom burden did not correlate with midbrain raphe echogenicity as well as the presence and severity of depressive symptoms. Conclusion We found reduced echogenicity of the midbrain raphe area in patients with FMS and in patients with depression and physical pain, independent of the presence or severity of pain, FMS, and depressive symptoms. Further exploration of this sonographic finding is necessary before this objective technique may enter diagnostic algorithms in FMS and depression. KW - midbrain KW - fibromyalgia KW - depression KW - pain KW - ultrasound imaging KW - neuropathic pain KW - diagnostic medicine KW - migraine Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-300639 VL - 17 IS - 11 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Üçeyler, Nurcan A1 - Schröter, Nils A1 - Kafke, Waldemar A1 - Kramer, Daniela A1 - Wanner, Christoph A1 - Weidemann, Frank A1 - Sommer, Claudia T1 - Skin Globotriaosylceramide 3 Load Is Increased in Men with Advanced Fabry Disease JF - PLoS ONE N2 - Background The X-chromosomally linked life-limiting Fabry disease (FD) is associated with deposits of the sphingolipid globotriaosylceramide 3 (Gb3) in various tissues. Skin is easily accessible and may be used as an additional diagnostic and follow-up medium. Our aims were to visualize skin Gb3 deposits in FD patients applying immunofluorescence and to determine if cutaneous Gb3 load correlates with disease severity. Methods At our Fabry Center for Interdisciplinary Therapy we enrolled 84 patients with FD and 27 healthy controls. All subjects underwent 5-mm skin punch biopsy at the lateral lower leg and the back. Skin samples were processed for immunohistochemistry using antibodies against CD77 (i.e. Gb3). Cutaneous Gb3 deposition was quantified in a blinded manner and correlated to clinical data. Results We found that Gb3 load was higher in distal skin of male FD patients compared to healthy controls (p<0.05). Men (p<0.01) and women (p<0.05) with a classic FD phenotype had higher distal skin Gb3 load than healthy controls. Men with advanced disease as reflected by impaired renal function, and men and women with small fiber neuropathy had more Gb3 deposits in distal skin samples than males with normal renal function (p<0.05) and without small fiber neuropathy. Gb3 deposits were not different between patients with and without enzyme replacement therapy. Conclusions Immunofluorescence on minimally invasive skin punch biopsies may be useful as a tool for assessment and follow-up in FD patients. KW - biopsy KW - neuropathy KW - Fabry disease KW - renal system KW - immunofluorescence KW - enzyme replacement therapy KW - skin diseases KW - nerve fibers Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-178856 VL - 11 IS - 11 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Üçeyler, Nurcan A1 - Schäfer, Kristina A. A1 - Mackenrodt, Daniel A1 - Sommer, Claudia A1 - Müllges, Wolfgang T1 - High-Resolution Ultrasonography of the Superficial Peroneal Motor and Sural Sensory Nerves May Be a Non-invasive Approach to the Diagnosis of Vasculitic Neuropathy JF - Frontiers in Neurology N2 - High-resolution ultrasonography (HRUS) is an emerging new tool in the investigation of peripheral nerves. We set out to assess the utility of HRUS performed at lower extremity nerves in peripheral neuropathies. Nerves of 26 patients with polyneuropathies of different etiologies and 26 controls were investigated using HRUS. Patients underwent clinical, laboratory, electrophysiological assessment, and a diagnostic sural nerve biopsy as part of the routine work-up. HRUS was performed at the sural, tibial, and the common, superficial, and deep peroneal nerves. The superficial peroneal nerve longitudinal diameter (LD) distinguished best between the groups: patients with immune-mediated neuropathies (n = 13, including six with histology-proven vasculitic neuropathy) had larger LD compared to patients with non-immune-mediated neuropathies (p < 0.05) and to controls (p < 0.001). Among all subgroups, patients with vasculitic neuropathy showed the largest superficial peroneal nerve LD (p < 0.001) and had a larger sural nerve cross-sectional area when compared with disease controls (p < 0.001). Enlargement of the superficial peroneal and sural nerves as detected by HRUS may be a useful additional finding in the differential diagnosis of vasculitic and other immune-mediated neuropathies. KW - peripheral neuropathy KW - nerve ultrasonography KW - vasculitis KW - sural nerve KW - superficial peroneal nerve Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-146671 VL - 7 IS - 48 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Üçeyler, Nurcan A1 - Sommer, Claudia T1 - High-Dose Capsaicin for the Treatment of Neuropathic Pain: What We Know and What We Need to Know JF - Pain and Therapy N2 - Neuropathic pain is a frequent and disabling condition with diverse underlying etiologies and is often difficult to treat. Systemic drug treatment is often limited in efficacy. Furthermore, adverse effects may be a limiting factor when trying to reach the necessary dose. Analgesics that can be applied topically have the potential to largely overcome this problem. They may be of particular advantage in localized neuropathic pain syndromes such as postherpetic neuralgia or small fiber neuropathy. Capsaicin, the pungent component of chili peppers, is a natural ligand of the transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 channel and has long been used as topically applicable cream with concentrations of 0.025 to 0.075%. In 2009, a high-concentration transdermal capsaicin 8% patch (Qutenza ; Acorda Therapeutics, Inc., Ardsley, NY, USA; Astellas Pharma Europe Ltd., Chertsey, Surrey, UK) was introduced for the treatment of peripheral neuropathic pain syndromes other than of diabetic origin in adults. It has since been widely used in diverse neuropathic pain disorders. In this review article, we summarize current knowledge on Qutenza, its advantages and problems, and expose unmet needs. KW - transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) KW - analgesia KW - capsaicin KW - neuropathic pain KW - qutenza Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-120669 SN - 2193-651X VL - 3 IS - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Üçeyler, Nurcan A1 - Topuzoğlu, Tengü A1 - Schießer, Peter A1 - Hahnenkamp, Saskia A1 - Sommer, Claudia T1 - IL-4 Deficiency Is Associated with Mechanical Hypersensitivity in Mice JF - PLoS One N2 - Interleukin-4 (IL-4) is an anti-inflammatory and analgesic cytokine that induces opioid receptor transcription. We investigated IL-4 knockout (ko) mice to characterize their pain behavior before and after chronic constriction injury (CCI) of the sciatic nerve as a model for neuropathic pain. We investigated opioid responsivity and measured cytokine and opioid receptor gene expression in the peripheral and central nervous system (PNS, CNS) of IL-4 ko mice in comparison with wildtype (wt) mice. Naïve IL-4 ko mice displayed tactile allodynia (wt: 0.45 g; ko: 0.18 g; p<0.001), while responses to heat and cold stimuli and to muscle pressure were not different. No compensatory changes in the gene expression of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF), IL-1β, IL-10, and IL-13 were found in the PNS and CNS of naïve IL-4 ko mice. However, IL-1β gene expression was stronger in the sciatic nerve of IL-4 ko mice (p<0.001) 28 days after CCI and only IL-4 ko mice had elevated IL-10 gene expression (p = 0.014). Remarkably, CCI induced TNF (p<0.01), IL-1β (p<0.05), IL-10 (p<0.05), and IL-13 (p<0.001) gene expression exclusively in the ipsilateral spinal cord of IL-4 ko mice. The compensatory overexpression of the anti-inflammatory and analgesic cytokines IL-10 and IL-13 in the spinal cord of IL-4 ko mice may explain the lack of genotype differences for pain behavior after CCI. Additionally, CCI induced gene expression of μ, κ, and δ opioid receptors in the contralateral cortex and thalamus of IL-4 ko mice, paralleled by fast onset of morphine analgesia, but not in wt mice. We conclude that a lack of IL-4 leads to mechanical sensitivity; the compensatory hyperexpression of analgesic cytokines and opioid receptors after CCI, in turn, protects IL-4 ko mice from enhanced pain behavior after nerve lesion. KW - mouse models KW - animal behavior KW - sciatic nerves KW - spinal cord KW - opioids KW - cytokines KW - gene expression KW - mice Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-137924 VL - 6 IS - 12 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Üçeyler, Nurcan A1 - Valet, Michael A1 - Kafke, Waldemar A1 - Tölle, Thomas R. A1 - Sommer, Claudia T1 - Local and Systemic Cytokine Expression in Patients with Postherpetic Neuralgia N2 - Background Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) is the painful complication of a varicella zoster virus reactivation. We investigated the systemic and local gene expression of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokine expression in patients with PHN. Methods Thirteen patients with PHN at the torso (Th4-S1) were recruited. Skin punch biopsies were obtained from the painful and the contralateral painless body area for intraepidermal nerve fiber density (IENFD) and cytokine profiling. Additionally, blood was withdrawn for systemic cytokine expression and compared to blood values of healthy controls. We analyzed the gene expression of selected pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines (tumor necrosis factor-alpha [TNF] and interleukins [IL]-1β, IL-2, and IL-8). Results IENFD was lower in affected skin compared to unaffected skin (p<0.05), while local gene expression of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines did not differ except for two patients who had 7fold higher IL-6 and 10fold higher IL-10 gene expression in the affected skin compared to the contralateral unaffected skin sample. Also, the systemic expression of cytokines in patients with PHN and in healthy controls was similar. Conclusion While the systemic and local expression of the investigated pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines was not different from controls, this may have been influenced by study limitations like the low number of patients and different disease durations. Furthermore, other cytokines or pain mediators need to be considered. KW - neuropathic pain KW - cytokines KW - pain sensation KW - gene expression KW - nerve fibres KW - RNA extraction KW - shingles KW - skin tumors Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-113041 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Čuklina, Jelena A1 - Hahn, Julia A1 - Imakaev, Maxim A1 - Omasits, Ulrich A1 - Förstner, Konrad U. A1 - Ljubimov, Nikolay A1 - Goebel, Melanie A1 - Pessi, Gabriella A1 - Fischer, Hans-Martin A1 - Ahrens, Christian H. A1 - Gelfand, Mikhail S. A1 - Evguenieva-Hackenberg, Elena T1 - Genome-wide transcription start site mapping of Bradyrhizobium japonicum grown free-living or in symbiosis - a rich resource to identify new transcripts, proteins and to study gene regulation JF - BMC Genomics N2 - Background Differential RNA-sequencing (dRNA-seq) is indispensable for determination of primary transcriptomes. However, using dRNA-seq data to map transcriptional start sites (TSSs) and promoters genome-wide is a bioinformatics challenge. We performed dRNA-seq of Bradyrhizobium japonicum USDA 110, the nitrogen-fixing symbiont of soybean, and developed algorithms to map TSSs and promoters. Results A specialized machine learning procedure for TSS recognition allowed us to map 15,923 TSSs: 14,360 in free-living bacteria, 4329 in symbiosis with soybean and 2766 in both conditions. Further, we provide proteomic evidence for 4090 proteins, among them 107 proteins corresponding to new genes and 178 proteins with N-termini different from the existing annotation (72 and 109 of them with TSS support, respectively). Guided by proteomics evidence, previously identified TSSs and TSSs experimentally validated here, we assign a score threshold to flag 14 % of the mapped TSSs as a class of lower confidence. However, this class of lower confidence contains valid TSSs of low-abundant transcripts. Moreover, we developed a de novo algorithm to identify promoter motifs upstream of mapped TSSs, which is publicly available, and found motifs mainly used in symbiosis (similar to RpoN-dependent promoters) or under both conditions (similar to RpoD-dependent promoters). Mapped TSSs and putative promoters, proteomic evidence and updated gene annotation were combined into an annotation file. Conclusions The genome-wide TSS and promoter maps along with the extended genome annotation of B. japonicum represent a valuable resource for future systems biology studies and for detailed analyses of individual non-coding transcripts and ORFs. Our data will also provide new insights into bacterial gene regulation during the agriculturally important symbiosis between rhizobia and legumes. KW - Bradyrhizobium KW - RNA-seq KW - Promoter prediction KW - Genome re-annotation KW - Internal transcription start site KW - Nodule KW - Transcription start site KW - Proteogenomics KW - Antisense RNA Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-164565 VL - 17 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Şen, Sinan A1 - Orhan, Gül A1 - Sertel, Serkan A1 - Schmitter, Marc A1 - Schindler, Hans J. A1 - Lux, Christopher J. A1 - Giannakopoulos, Nikolaos Nikitas T1 - Comparison of acupuncture on specific and non‐specific points for the treatment of painful temporomandibular disorders: A randomised controlled trial JF - Journal of Oral Rehabilitation N2 - Background and Objective The aim of this single‐centre, two‐arm, parallel‐group, double‐blinded, randomised controlled trial was to investigate the disputed specific effectiveness of acupuncture by comparing acupuncture on specific and non‐specific points among patients with non‐chronic, painful TMDs. Methods Following predefined eligibility criteria, 49 consecutive patients of both sexes were recruited to the study. All subjects were diagnosed with a non‐chronic (Graded Chronic Pain Scale grade <3) painful TMD, as assessed using the Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandibular Disorders (DC/TMD). Patients were randomly assigned to group A (acupuncture on specific points) or group B (acupuncture on non‐specific points) after the initial examination (T0). Both acupuncture treatment sessions were conducted by a trained dentist once a week for four weeks. The examination was repeated five weeks (T5) after T0 by one calibrated examiner who was unaware of the study groups. Characteristic pain intensity (CPI) was evaluated as the main outcome criterion and compared between times and treatment groups by means of non‐parametric tests (significance level set at P = .05). Secondary outcomes comprised the maximum corrected active mouth‐opening without pain (MAO); patients’ expectations regarding acupuncture treatment and pain development; depressivity; and oral health‐related quality of life (OHRQoL). Results A total of 41 patients (38 female) successfully completed the study (mean age: 40.17 ± 16.61). The two groups did not differ significantly at any time in terms of age and CPI. However, CPI was significantly (P < .05) lower at T5 than at T0 for both groups (29.66 and 30.35% lower in group A and group B, respectively). An increase in MAO was observed at T5 for both groups but was significant for group B only (P = .016). All patients had positive expectations of acupuncture therapy, and the two groups did not differ significantly at T5 with regard to the extent to which their expectations had been fulfilled by the treatment (P = .717). Comparison of T0 and T5 showed a statistically significant reduction of depressivity for group A (P = .0205), but no significant change for group B (P = .329). At T5, OHRQoL had improved significantly for both groups (group A, P = .018; group B, P < .001) compared with at T0. Conclusions Acupuncture on both specific and non‐specific points reduces the non‐dysfunctional pain of TMD patients. The effect of acupuncture on painful TMD cannot be attributed to the specific point selection. KW - acupuncture KW - effectiveness KW - oro‐facial pain KW - randomised controlled trial KW - temporomandibular disorders Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-215419 VL - 47 IS - 7 SP - 783 EP - 795 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Šebeková, K. A1 - Stürmer, M. A1 - Fazeli, G. A1 - Bahner, U. A1 - Stäb, F. A1 - Heidland, A. T1 - Is vitamin D deficiency related to accumulation of advanced glycation end products, markers of inflammation, and oxidative stress in diabetic subjects? JF - BioMed Research International N2 - Objectives. In diabetes accumulated advanced glycation end products (AGEs) are involved in the striking cardiovascular morbidity/mortality. We asked whether a hypovitaminosis D associates with an increased formation and toxicity of AGEs in diabetes. Methods. In 276 diabetics (160M/116 F, age: 65.0 ± 13.4; 43 type 1,T1DM, and 233 type 2 patients, T2DM) and 121 nondiabetic controls (60 M/61 F; age: 58.6 ± 15.5 years) routine biochemistry, levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D\(_{3}\) (25-(OH)D), skin autofluorescence (SAF), plasma AGE-associated fluorescence (AGE-FL), N\(^{ε}\) -(carboxymethyl) lysine (CML), soluble receptor for AGEs (sRAGE), soluble vascular adhesion protein-1 (sVAP-1), high sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), and renal function (eGFR) were determined. Results. In the diabetics SAF and AGE-Fl were higher than those of the controls and correlated with age, duration of diabetes, and degree of renal impairment. In T2DM patients but not in T1DM the age-dependent rise of SAF directly correlated with hs-CRP and sVAP-1. 25-(OH)D levels in diabetics and nondiabetics were lowered to a similar degree averaging 22.5 ng/mL. No relationship between 25-(OH)D and studied markers except for sVAP-1 was observed in the diabetics. Conclusion. In diabetics hypovitaminosis D does not augment accumulation of AGEs and studied markers of microinflammation and oxidative stress except for sVAP-1. KW - vascular adhesion protein-1 KW - end-stage renal failure KW - microvascular complications KW - cardiovascular disease KW - 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D\(_{3}\) KW - serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D KW - skin autofluorescence KW - beta cell function KW - sensitive amine oxidase Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-149197 VL - 2015 IS - 958097 ER - TY - CHAP ED - Brill, Michael ED - Jonsson, Gudberg ED - Schwab, Frank T1 - Research Network on Methodology for the Analysis of Social Interaction. Proceedings of the ninth meeting of MASI. T1 - Forschungsnetzwerk zur Methodik der Analyse sozialer Interaktionen. Berichte des neunten Meetings von MASI. N2 - T-pattern analysis supports studies of various aspects of human or animal behavior as well as interaction between human subjects and animal or artificial agents. The following proceedings give an overiew on the application of T-pattern analysis in different research fields like media, gaming, human behaviour, social and organisational interaction as well as sports and health. KW - Verhaltensmuster KW - T-Pattern KW - Theme KW - human behaviour KW - social interaction KW - detection KW - Verhaltensanalyse KW - Interaktion KW - Nonverbal KW - MASI KW - Untersuchungsinstrument KW - Muster KW - Bewegung KW - Gestik Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-147135 SN - 978-3-945459-16-4 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Search for dark matter in events with heavy quarks and missing transverse momentum in pp collisions with the ATLAS detector JF - European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields N2 - This article reports on a search for dark matter pair production in association with bottom or top quarks in 20.3 fb\(^{−1}\) of pp collisions collected at \(\sqrt {s}\) = 8 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events with large missing transverse momentum are selected when produced in association with high-momentum jets of which one or more are identified as jets containing b-quarks. Final states with top quarks are selected by requiring a high jet multiplicity and in some cases a single lepton. The data are found to be consistent with the Standard Model expectations and limits are set on the mass scale of effective field theories that describe scalar and tensor interactions between dark matter and Standard Model particles. Limits on the dark-matter–nucleon cross-section for spin-independent and spin-dependent interactions are also provided. These limits are particularly strong for low-mass dark matter. Using a simplified model, constraints are set on the mass of dark matter and of a coloured mediator suitable to explain a possible signal of annihilating dark matter. KW - dark matter KW - proton-proton collision KW - ATLAS detector Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-150089 VL - 75 IS - 2 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Search for Higgs boson pair production in the b\(\overline{b}\)b\(\overline{b}\) final state from pp collisions at \(\sqrt {s}\) = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector JF - European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields N2 - A search for Higgs boson pair production pp → hh is performed with 19.5 fb\(^{−1}\) of proton–proton collision data at \(\sqrt {s}\) = 8 TeV, which were recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2012. The decay products of each Higgs boson are reconstructed as a high-momentum b\(\overline{b}\) system with either a pair of small-radius jets or a single large-radius jet, the latter exploiting jet substructure techniques and associated b-tagged track-jets. No evidence for resonant or non-resonant Higgs boson pair production is observed. The data are interpreted in the context of the Randall–Sundrum model with a warped extra dimension as well as the two-Higgs-doublet model. An upper limit on the cross-section for pp → G\(^{*}_{KK}\) → hh → b\(\overline{b}\)b\(\overline{b}\) of 3.2(2.3) fb is set for a Kaluza–Klein graviton G\(^{*}_{KK}\) mass of 1.0(1.5) TeV, at the 95 % confidence level. The search for non-resonant Standard Model hh production sets an observed 95 % confidence level upper limit on the production cross-section σ(pp → hh → b\(\overline{b}\)b\(\overline{b}\)) of 202 fb, compared to a Standard Model prediction of σ(pp → hh → b\(\overline{b}\)b\(\overline{b}\)) = 3.6±0.5 fb. KW - Higgs boson KW - proton-proton collision KW - ATLAS detector KW - pair production Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-150119 VL - 75 IS - 9 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Search for invisible decays of the Higgs boson produced in association with a hadronically decaying vector boson in pp collisions at \(\sqrt {s}\) = TeV with the ATLAS detector JF - European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields N2 - A search for Higgs boson decays to invisible particles is performed using 20.3 fb\(^{−1}\) of pp collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The process considered is Higgs boson production in association with a vector boson (V = W or Z) that decays hadronically, resulting in events with two or more jets and large missing transverse momentum. No excess of candidates is observed in the data over the background expectation. The results are used to constrain VH production followed by H decaying to invisible particles for the Higgs boson mass range 115 < m\(_{H}\) < 300 GeV. The 95 % confidence-level observed upper limit on σ\(_{VH}\) × BR(H → inv.) varies from 1.6 pb at 115 GeV to 0.13 pb at 300 GeV. Assuming Standard Model production and including the gg → H contribution as signal, the results also lead to an observed upper limit of 78 % at 95 % confidence level on the branching ratio of Higgs bosons decays to invisible particles at a mass of 125 GeV. KW - Higgs boson KW - ATLAS detector KW - decays Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-150126 VL - 75 IS - 7 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Search for invisible particles produced in association with single-top-quarks in proton-proton collisions at \(\sqrt {s}\) = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector JF - European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields N2 - A search for the production of single-top-quarks in association with missing energy is performed in proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of \(\sqrt {s}\) =8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the large hadron collider using data collected in 2012, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb\(^{−1}\). In this search, the W boson from the top quark is required to decay into an electron or a muon and a neutrino. No deviation from the standard model prediction is observed, and upper limits are set on the production cross-section for resonant and non-resonant production of an invisible exotic state in association with a right-handed top quark. In the case of resonant production, for a spin-0 resonance with a mass of 500 GeV, an effective coupling strength above 0.15 is excluded at 95 % confidence level for the top quark and an invisible spin-1/2 state with mass between 0 and 100 GeV. In the case of non-resonant production, an effective coupling strength above 0.2 is excluded at 95 % confidence level for the top quark and an invisible spin-1 state with mass between 0 and 657 GeV. KW - single-top-quarks KW - proton-proton collision KW - ATLAS detector Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-150134 VL - 75 IS - 2 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Search for metastable heavy charged particles with large ionisation energy loss in pp collisions at \(\sqrt {s}\) = 8 TeV using the ATLAS experiment JF - European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields N2 - Many extensions of the Standard Model predict the existence of charged heavy long-lived particles, such as R-hadrons or charginos. These particles, if produced at the Large Hadron Collider, should be moving non-relativistically and are therefore identifiable through the measurement of an anomalously large specific energy loss in the ATLAS pixel detector. Measuring heavy long-lived particles through their track parameters in the vicinity of the interaction vertex provides sensitivity to metastable particles with lifetimes from 0.6 ns to 30 ns. A search for such particles with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is presented, based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 18.4 fb\(^{−1}\) of pp collisions at \(\sqrt {s}\) = 8 TeV. No significant deviation from the Standard Model background expectation is observed, and lifetime-dependent upper limits on R-hadrons and chargino production are set. Gluino R-hadrons with 10 ns lifetime and masses up to 1185 GeV are excluded at 95 % confidence level, and so are charginos with 15 ns lifetime and masses up to 482 GeV. KW - ATLAS detector KW - charged heavy long-lived particles KW - proton-proton collision Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-150149 VL - 75 IS - 9 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at \(\sqrt {s}\) = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector JF - European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields N2 - Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb\(^{−1}\) of \(\sqrt {s}\) = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between E\(^{miss}_{T}\) > 150 GeV and E\(^{miss}_{T}\) > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presented. KW - ATLAS detector KW - energetic jet KW - proton-proton collision Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-150152 VL - 75 IS - 7 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Measurement of the production and lepton charge asymmetry of bosons in Pb+Pb collisions at \(\sqrt {^{S}NN}\) with the ATLAS detector JF - European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields N2 - A measurement of W boson production in lead-lead collisions at \(\sqrt {^{S}NN}\)=2.76 TeV is presented. It is based on the analysis of data collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2011 corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 0.14 nb\(^{-1}\) and 0.15 nb\(^{-1}\) in the muon and electron decay channels, respectively. The differential production yields and lepton charge asymmetry are each measured as a function of the average number of participating nucleons ⟨N\(_{part}\)⟩ and absolute pseudorapidity of the charged lepton. The results are compared to predictions based on next-to-leading-order QCD calculations. These measurements are, in principle, sensitive to possible nuclear modifications to the parton distribution functions and also provide information on scaling of W boson production in multi-nucleon systems. KW - Higgs boson KW - lead-lead collision Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-149889 VL - 75 IS - 1 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Search for resonant diboson production in the ℓℓq\(\overline{q}\) final state in pp collisions at \(\sqrt {s}\) = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector JF - European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields N2 - This paper reports on a search for narrow resonances in diboson production in the ℓℓq\(\overline{q}\) final state using pp collision data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20 fb\(^{−1}\) collected at \(\sqrt {s}\) = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. No significant excess of data events over the Standard Model expectation is observed. Upper limits at the 95 % confidence level are set on the production cross section times branching ratio for Kaluza–Klein gravitons predicted by the Randall–Sundrum model and for Extended Gauge Model W′ bosons. These results lead to the exclusion of mass values below 740 and 1590 GeV for the graviton and W′ boson respectively. KW - ATLAS detector KW - proton-proton collision KW - diboson production KW - resonances Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-150171 VL - 75 IS - 2 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Observation and measurements of the production of prompt and non-prompt J/ψ mesons in association with a Z boson in pp collisions at \(\sqrt {s}\)=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector JF - European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields N2 - The production of a Z boson in association with a J/ψ meson in proton–proton collisions probes the production mechanisms of quarkonium and heavy flavour in association with vector bosons, and allows studies of multiple parton scattering. Using 20.3fb\(^{−1}\) of data collected with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at \(\sqrt {s}\) = 8 TeV, the first measurement of associated Z+J/ψ production is presented for both prompt and non-prompt J/ψ production, with both signatures having a significance in excess of 5σ. The inclusive production cross-sections for Z boson production (analysed in μ\(^{+}\)μ\(^{−}\) or e\(^{+}\)e\(^{−}\) decay modes) in association with prompt and non-prompt J/ψ(→μ\(^{+}\)μ\(^{−}\)) are measured relative to the inclusive production rate of Z bosons in the same fiducial volume to be (36.8±6.7±2.5)×10\(^{−7}\) and (65.8±9.2±4.2)×10\(^{−7}\) respectively. Normalised differential production cross-section ratios are also determined as a function of the J/ψ transverse momentum. The fraction of signal events arising from single and double parton scattering is estimated, and a lower limit of 5.3 (3.7)mb at 68 (95)% confidence level is placed on the effective cross-section regulating double parton interactions. KW - ATLAS detector KW - Z boson KW - proton-proton-collision Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-149970 VL - 75 IS - 5 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Performance of the ATLAS muon trigger in pp collisions at \(\sqrt {s}\)= 8 TeV JF - European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields N2 - The performance of the ATLAS muon trigger system is evaluated with proton–proton collision data collected in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. It is primarily evaluated using events containing a pair of muons from the decay of Z bosons. The efficiency of the single-muon trigger is measured for muons with transverse momentum 25 < p\(_{T}\) < 100GeV, with a statistical uncertainty of less than 0.01 % and a systematic uncertainty of 0.6 %. The pT range for efficiency determination is extended by using muons from decays of J/ψ mesons, W bosons, and top quarks. The muon trigger shows highly uniform and stable performance. The performance is compared to the prediction of a detailed simulation. KW - LHC KW - proton-proton-collistion Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-150032 VL - 75 IS - 3 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Search for W' → tb → qqbb decays in pp collisions at \(\sqrt {s}\) = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector JF - European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields N2 - A search for a massive W′ gauge boson decaying to a top quark and a bottom quark is performed with the ATLAS detector in pp collisions at the LHC. The dataset was taken at a centre-of-mass energy of \(\sqrt {s}\) = 8 TeV and corresponds to 20.3 fb\(^{−1}\) of integrated luminosity. This analysis is done in the hadronic decay mode of the top quark, where novel jet substructure techniques are used to identify jets from high-momentum top quarks. This allows for a search for high-mass W′ bosons in the range 1.5–3.0  TeV. b-tagging is used to identify jets originating from b-quarks. The data are consistent with Standard Model background-only expectations, and upper limits at 95 % confidence level are set on the W′ → tb cross section times branching ratio ranging from 0.16 pb to 0.33 pb for left-handed W′ bosons, and ranging from 0.10 pb to 0.21 pb for W′ bosons with purely right-handed couplings. Upper limits at 95 % confidence level are set on the W′-boson coupling to tb as a function of the W′ mass using an effective field theory approach, which is independent of details of particular models predicting a W′ boson. KW - ATLAS detector KW - proton-proton collision Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-150068 VL - 75 IS - 4 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Measurement of the inelastic proton–proton cross-section at √s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector JF - Nature Communications N2 - The dependence of the rate of proton–proton interactions on the centre-of-mass collision energy, √s, is of fundamental importance for both hadron collider physics and particle astrophysics. The dependence cannot yet be calculated from first principles; therefore, experimental measurements are needed. Here we present the first measurement of the inelastic proton–proton interaction cross-section at a centre-of-mass energy, √s, of 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected by requiring hits on scintillation counters mounted in the forward region of the detector. An inelastic cross-section of 60.3±2.1 mb is measured for ξ>5×10−6, where ξ is calculated from the invariant mass, MX, of hadrons selected using the largest rapidity gap in the event. For diffractive events, this corresponds to requiring at least one of the dissociation masses to be larger than 15.7 GeV. KW - Physical Sciences KW - Particle physics Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-140960 VL - 2 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Determination of spin and parity of the Higgs boson in the WW\(^{*}\)→eνμν decay channel with the ATLAS detector JF - European Physical Journal C: Particles and Fields N2 - Studies of the spin and parity quantum numbers of the Higgs boson in the WW\(^{*}\)→eνμν final state are presented, based on proton–proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb\(^{-1}\) at a centre-of-mass energy of \(\sqrt {s}\)=8 TeV. The Standard Model spin-parity J\(^{CP}\)=0\(^{++}\) hypothesis is compared with alternative hypotheses for both spin and CP. The case where the observed resonance is a mixture of the Standard-Model-like Higgs boson and CP-even (J\(^{CP}\)=0\(^{++}\)) or CP-odd (J\(^{CP}\)=0\(^{+-}\)) Higgs boson in scenarios beyond the Standard Model is also studied. The data are found to be consistent with the Standard Model prediction and limits are placed on alternative spin and CP hypotheses, including CP mixing in different scenarios. KW - Higgs boson KW - spin KW - parity Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-149632 VL - 75 IS - 5 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Measurement of the inclusive cross-sections of single top-quark and top-antiquark \(t\)-channel production in \(pp\) collisions at \(\sqrt{s}\) = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector JF - Journal of High Energy Physics N2 - A measurement of the \(t\)-channel single-top-quark and single-top-antiquark production cross-sections in the lepton+jets channel is presented, using 3.2 fb\(^{−1}\) of proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2015. Events are selected by requiring one charged lepton (electron or muon), missing transverse momentum, and two jets with high transverse momentum, exactly one of which is required to be \(b\)-tagged. Using a binned maximum-likelihood fit to the discriminant distribution of a neural network, the cross-sections are determined to be \({σ(tq)}\) = 156 ± 5 (stat.) ± 27 (syst.) ± 3 (lumi.) pb for single top-quark production and \(σ(\overline{t}q)\) = 91 ± 4 (stat.) ± 18 (syst.) ± 2 (lumi.) pb for single top-antiquark production, assuming a top-quark mass of 172.5 GeV. The cross-section ratio is measured to be \(R_{t}\) = \(σ(tq)/σ(\overline{t}q)\) = 1.72 ± 0.09 (stat.) ± 0.18 (syst.). All results are in agreement with Standard Model predictions. KW - High energy physics KW - Hadron-Hadron scattering (experiments) Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-173357 VL - 2017 IS - 04 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Measurement of charged-particle distributions sensitive to the underlying event in \(\sqrt{s}\) = 13 TeV proton-proton collisions with the ATLAS detector at the LHC JF - Journal of High Energy Physics N2 - We present charged-particle distributions sensitive to the underlying event, measured by the ATLAS detector in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, in low-luminosity Large Hadron Collider fills corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.6 nb\(^{−1}\). The distributions were constructed using charged particles with absolute pseudorapidity less than 2.5 and with transverse momentum greater than 500 MeV, in events with at least one such charged particle with transverse momentum above 1 GeV. These distributions characterise the angular distribution of energy and particle flows with respect to the charged particle with highest transverse momentum, as a function of both that momentum and of charged-particle multiplicity. The results have been corrected for detector effects and are compared to the predictions of various Monte Carlo event generators, experimentally establishing the level of underlying-event activity at LHC Run 2 energies and providing inputs for the development of event generator modelling. The current models in use for UE modelling typically describe this data to 5% accuracy, compared with data uncertainties of less than 1%. KW - High energy physics KW - Hadron-Hadron scattering (experiments) Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-173361 VL - 2017 IS - 03 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Searches for the \(Z\)γ decay mode of the Higgs boson and for new high-mass resonances in \({pp}\) collisions at \(\sqrt{s}\) = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector JF - Journal of High Energy Physics N2 - This article presents searches for the \({Zγ}\) decay of the Higgs boson and for narrow high-mass resonances decaying to \(Z\)γ, exploiting \(Z\) boson decays to pairs of electrons or muons. The data analysis uses 36.1 fb\(^{−1}\) of \({pp}\) collisions at \(\sqrt{s}=13\) recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The data are found to be consistent with the expected Standard Model background. The observed (expected — assuming Standard Model \({pp} → H → {Z}γ\) production and decay) upper limit on the production cross section times the branching ratio for \({pp} → H → {Z}γ\) is 6.6. (5.2) times the Standard Model prediction at the 95% confidence level for a Higgs boson mass of 125.09 GeV. In addition, upper limits are set on the production cross section times the branching ratio as a function of the mass of a narrow resonance between 250 GeV and 2.4 TeV, assuming spin-0 resonances produced via gluon-gluon fusion, and spin-2 resonances produced via gluon-gluon or quark-antiquark initial states. For high-mass spin-0 resonances, the observed (expected) limits vary between 88 fb (61 fb) and 2.8 fb (2.7 fb) for the mass range from 250 GeV to 2.4 TeV at the 95% confidence level. KW - High energy physics KW - Hadron-Hadron scattering (experiments) KW - Higgs physics Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-172751 VL - 2017 IS - 10 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Measurement of the W boson polarization in top quark decays with the ATLAS detector JF - Journal of High Energy Physics N2 - This paper presents measurements of the polarization of W bosons in top quark decays, derived from \(t\overline{t}\) events with missing transverse momentum, one charged lepton and at least four jets, or two charged leptons and at least two jets. Data from pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV were collected with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 1.04 fb\(^{−1}\). The measured fractions of longitudinally, left- and right-handed polarization are F\(_0\) = 0.67 ± 0.07, F\(_L\) = 0.32 ± 0.04 and F\(_R\) = 0.01 ± 0.05, in agreement with the Standard Model predictions. As the polarization of the W bosons in top quark decays is sensitive to the Wtb vertex Lorentz structure and couplings, the measurements were used to set limits on anomalous contributions to the Wtb couplings. KW - hadron-hadron scattering Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127417 VL - 06 IS - 88 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Search for a fermiophobic Higgs boson in the diphoton decay channel with the ATLAS detector JF - The European Physical Journal C N2 - A search for a fermiophobic Higgs boson using diphoton events produced in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of √s=7 TeV is performed using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.9 fb\(^{−1}\) collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. A specific benchmark model is considered where all the fermion couplings to the Higgs boson are set to zero and the bosonic couplings are kept at the Standard Model values (fermiophobic Higgs model). The largest excess with respect to the background-only hypothesis is found at 125.5 GeV, with a local significance of 2.9 standard deviations, which reduces to 1.6 standard deviations when taking into account the look-elsewhere effect. The data exclude the fermiophobic Higgs model in the ranges 110.0–118.0 GeV and 119.5–121.0 GeV at 95 % confidence level. KW - unconverted photon KW - Higgs boson signal KW - photon energy scale KW - invariant mass resolution KW - diphoton invariant mass Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127427 VL - 72 IS - 2157 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Search for a heavy top-quark partner in final states with two leptons with the ATLAS detector at the LHC JF - Journal of High Energy Physics N2 - The results of a search for direct pair production of heavy top-quark partners in 4.7 fb\(^{−1}\) of integrated luminosity from pp collisions at √s=7 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC are reported. Heavy top-quark partners decaying into a top quark and a neutral non-interacting particle are searched for in events with two leptons in the final state. No excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed. Limits are placed on the mass of a supersymmetric scalar top and of a spin-1/2 top-quark partner. A spin-1/2 top-quark partner with a mass between 300 GeV and 480 GeV, decaying to a top quark and a neutral non-interacting particle lighter than 100 GeV, is excluded at 95% confidence level. KW - hadron-hadron scattering Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127511 VL - 11 IS - 094 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Search for top and bottom squarks from gluino pair production in final states with missing transverse energy and at least three b-jets with the ATLAS detector JF - The European Physical Journal C N2 - This letter reports the results of a search for top and bottom squarks from gluino pair production in 4.7 fb\(^{−1}\) of pp collisions at √s=7 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The search is performed in events with large missing transverse momentum and at least three jets identified as originating from a b-quark. Exclusion limits are presented for a variety of gluino-mediated models with gluino masses up to 1 TeV excluded. KW - SM Background KW - jet response KW - direct pair production KW - visible cross section KW - jet energy scale KW - Anti-k Jet KW - PDF set KW - validation region Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127523 VL - 72 IS - 2174 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Performance of missing transverse momentum reconstruction in proton-proton collisions at √s=7 TeV with ATLAS JF - The European Physical Journal C N2 - The measurement of missing transverse momentum in the ATLAS detector, described in this paper, makes use of the full event reconstruction and a calibration based on reconstructed physics objects. The performance of the missing transverse momentum reconstruction is evaluated using data collected in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV in 2010. Minimum bias events and events with jets of hadrons are used from data samples corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 0.3 nb\(^{−1}\) and 600 nb\(^{−1}\) respectively, together with events containing a Z boson decaying to two leptons (electrons or muons) or a W boson decaying to a lepton (electron or muon) and a neutrino, from a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 36 pb\(^{−1}\). An estimate of the systematic uncertainty on the missing transverse momentum scale is presented KW - momentum scale KW - Atlas detector KW - pp collision KW - systematic uncertainty KW - transverse momentum Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127530 VL - 72 IS - 1844 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Measurement of inclusive two-particle angular correlations in pp collisions with the ATLAS detector at the LHC JF - Journal of High Energy Physics N2 - We present a measurement of two-particle angular correlations in proton- proton collisions at √s=900 GeV and 7 TeV. The collision events were collected during 2009 and 2010 with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider using a single-arm minimum bias trigger. Correlations are measured for charged particles produced in the kinematic range of transverse momentum p\(_T\)  > 100 MeV and pseudorapidity |η| < 2.5. A complex structure in pseudorapidity and azimuth is observed at both collision energies. Results are compared to PYTHIA 8 and HERWIG++ as well as to the AMBT2B, DW and Perugia 2011 tunes of PYTHIA 6. The data are not satisfactorily described by any of these models. KW - hadron-hadron scattering Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127350 VL - 05 IS - 157 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Search for heavy neutrinos and right-handed W bosons in events with two leptons and jets in pp collisions at \(\sqrt{s}\)=7TeV with the ATLAS detector JF - The European Physical Journal C N2 - This letter reports on a search for hypothetical heavy neutrinos, N, and right-handed gauge bosons, W R, in events with high transverse momentum objects which include two reconstructed leptons and at least one hadronic jet. The results were obtained from data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.1 fb\(^{−1}\) collected in proton–proton collisions at √s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. No excess above the Standard Model background expectation is observed. Excluded mass regions for Majorana and Dirac neutrinos are presented using two approaches for interactions that violate lepton and lepton-flavor numbers. One approach uses an effective operator framework, the other approach is guided by the Left–Right Symmetric Model. The results described in this letter represent the most stringent limits to date on the masses of heavy neutrinos and W\(_R\) bosons obtained in direct searches. KW - dilepton invariant mass, KW - heavy neutrino KW - non-prompt lepton KW - Anti-k Jet KW - fake lepton Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127796 VL - 72 IS - 2056 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Measurement of τ polarization in W→τν decays with the ATLAS detector in pp collisions at s√=7 TeV JF - The European Physical Journal C N2 - In this paper, a measurement of τ polarization in W→τν decays is presented. It is measured from the energies of the decay products in hadronic τ decays with a single final state charged particle. The data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 24 pb\(^{−1}\), were collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in 2010. The measured value of the τ polarization is P\(_τ\)=−1.06±0.04 (stat)\(^{+0.05}_{−0.07}\) (syst), in agreement with the Standard Model prediction, and is consistent with a physically allowed 95 % CL interval [−1,−0.91]. Measurements of τ polarization have not previously been made at hadron colliders. KW - total systematic uncertainty KW - energy scale uncertainty KW - multijet background KW - electroweak background KW - jet energy KW - Monte Carlo methods KW - signal template KW - track momentum KW - calorimeter KW - detector track KW - transverse momentum KW - ATLAS detector KW - jet axis KW - multijet event KW - track multipilicty Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127807 VL - 72 IS - 2062 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Measurement of event shapes at large momentum transfer with the ATLAS detector in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV JF - The European Physical Journal C N2 - A measurement of event shape variables is presented for large momentum transfer proton-proton collisions using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Six event shape variables calculated using hadronic jets are studied in inclusive multi-jet events in 35 pb\(^{−1}\) of integrated luminosity at a center-of-mass energy of √s=7 TeV. These measurements are compared to predictions by three Monte Carlo event generators containing leading-logarithmic parton showers matched to leading order matrix elements for 2→2 and 2→n (n=2,…,6) scattering. Measurements of the third-jet resolution parameter, aplanarity, thrust, sphericity, and transverse sphericity are generally well described. The mean value of each event shape variable is evaluated as a function of the average momentum of the two leading jets p\(_{T,1}\) and p\(_{T,2}\), with a mean p\(_T\) approaching 1 TeV. KW - JES uncertainty KW - event shape variable KW - jet energy scale KW - event shape observable KW - jet cross section KW - high jet multiplicity KW - jet calibration KW - parton shower KW - energy scale KW - MC program KW - hadronic final state KW - jet transverse momentum KW - MC event generator KW - systematic uncertainty Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127813 VL - 72 IS - 2211 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Search for anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking with the ATLAS detector based on a disappearing-track signature in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV JF - The European Physical Journal C N2 - In models of anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking (AMSB), the lightest chargino is predicted to have a lifetime long enough to be detected in collider experiments. This letter explores AMSB scenarios in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV by attempting to identify decaying charginos which result in tracks that appear to have few associated hits in the outer region of the tracking system. The search was based on data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.02 fb\(^{−1}\) collected with the ATLAS detector in 2011. The p\(_T\) spectrum of candidate tracks is found to be consistent with the expectation from Standard Model background processes and constraints on the lifetime and the production cross section were obtained. In the minimal AMSB framework with m\(_{3/2}\)<32 TeV, m\(_0\)<1.5 TeV, tanβ=5 and μ>0, a chargino having mass below 92 GeV and a lifetime between 0.5 ns and 2 ns is excluded at 95 % confidence level. KW - chargino decay KW - anomaly mediation KW - supersymmetry KW - symmetry breaking KW - scattering KW - chargino lifetime KW - sparticle cascade decay KW - chargino mass KW - track data analysis KW - transverse momentum momentum spectrum KW - background KW - Monte Carlo KW - experimental results KW - sparticle pair production KW - chargino --> neutralino pi KW - CERN LHC Coll KW - ATLAS KW - 7000 GeV-cms Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127850 VL - 72 IS - 1993 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - A search for \(t\overline t\) resonances with the ATLAS detector in 2.05 fb\(^{−1}\) of proton-proton collisions at √s=7 TeV JF - European Physical Journal C N2 - A search for top quark pair resonances in final states containing at least one electron or muon has been performed with the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The search uses a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.05 fb\(^{−1}\), which was recorded in 2011 at a proton-proton centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. No evidence for a resonance is found and limits are set on the production cross-section times branching ratio to \(t\overline t\) for narrow and wide resonances. For narrow Z′ bosons, the observed 95 % Bayesian credibility level limits range from 9.3 pb to 0.95 pb for masses in the range of m Z′=500 GeV to m\(_{Z′}\)=1300 GeV. The corresponding excluded mass region for a leptophobic topcolour Z′ boson (Kaluza-Klein gluon excitation in the Randall-Sundrum model) is m\(_{Z′}\)<880 GeV (m\(_{gKK}\)<1130 GeV). KW - dilepton invariant mass KW - dilepton channel KW - jet channel KW - top quark mass KW - heavy flavour quark KW - reconstructed mass spectrum KW - muon channel KW - single top production KW - electron energy deposition KW - multijet background KW - non-prompt lepton KW - light quark jet KW - jet sample KW - pair invariant mass KW - event selcetion cut Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127959 VL - 72 IS - 2083 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Measurement of W\(^{±}\)Z production in proton-proton collisions at √s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector JF - European Physical Journal C N2 - A study of W\(^{±}\)Z production in proton-proton collisions at √s=7 TeV is presented using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb\(^{−1}\) collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2011. In total, 317 candidates, with a background expectation of 68±10 events, are observed in double-leptonic decay final states with electrons, muons and missing transverse momentum. The total cross-section is determined to be σ\(^{tot}_{WZ}\)=19.0\(^{+1.4}_{−1.3}\)(stat.)±0.9(syst.)±0.4(lumi.) pb, consistent with the Standard Model expectation of 17.6\(^{+1.1}_{−1.0}\) pb. Limits on anomalous triple gauge boson couplings are derived using the transverse momentum spectrum of Z bosons in the selected events. The cross-section is also presented as a function of Z boson transverse momentum and diboson invariant mass. KW - ATLAS Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127963 VL - 72 IS - 2173 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Search for high-mass resonances decaying to dilepton final states in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector JF - Journal of High Energy Physics N2 - The ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is used to search for high-mass resonances decaying to an electron-positron pair or a muon-antimuon pair. The search is sensitive to heavy neutral Z′ gauge bosons, Randall-Sundrum gravitons, Z* bosons, techni-mesons, Kaluza-Klein Z/γ bosons, and bosons predicted by Torsion models. Results are presented based on an analysis of pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.9 fb\(^{−1}\) in the e\(^+\)e\(^−\) channel and 5.0 fb\(^{−1}\) in the μ\(^+\)μ\(^−\)channel. A Z′ boson with Standard Model-like couplings is excluded at 95 % confidence level for masses below 2.22 TeV. A Randall-Sundrum graviton with coupling k/\(\overline M_{Pl}\)=0.1 is excluded at 95 % confidence level for masses below 2.16 TeV. Limits on the other models are also presented, including Technicolor and Minimal Z′ Models. KW - hadron-hadron scattering Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127974 VL - 11 IS - 138 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Search for anomalous production of prompt like-sign lepton pairs at √s=7TeV with the ATLAS detector JF - Journal of High Energy Physics N2 - An inclusive search for anomalous production of two prompt, isolated leptons with the same electric charge is presented. The search is performed in a data sample corresponding to 4.7 fb\(^{−1}\) of integrated luminosity collected in 2011 at √s=7TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Pairs of leptons (e\(^{±}\)e\(^{±}\), e\(^{±}\)μ\(^{±}\), and μ\(^{±}\)μ\(^{±}\)) with large transverse momentum are selected, and the dilepton invariant mass distribution is examined for any deviation from the Standard Model expectation. No excess is found, and upper limits on the production cross section of like-sign lepton pairs from physics processes beyond the Standard Model are placed as a function of the dilepton invariant mass within a fiducial region close to the experimental selection criteria. The 95% confidence level upper limits on the cross section of anomalous e\(^{±}\)e\(^{±}\), e\(^{±}\)μ\(^{±}\), or μ\(^{±}\)μ\(^{±}\) production range between 1.7 fb and 64 fb depending on the dilepton mass and flavour combination. KW - hadron-hadron scattering Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127983 VL - 12 IS - 7 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Measurements of the pseudorapidity dependence of the total transverse energy in proton-proton collisions at √s=7 TeV with ATLAS JF - Journal of High Energy Physics N2 - This paper describes measurements of the sum of the transverse energy of particles as a function of particle pseudorapidity, η, in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy, √s=7 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The measurements are performed in the region |η| < 4.8 for two event classes: those requiring the presence of particles with a low transverse momentum and those requiring particles with a significant transverse momentum. In the second dataset measurements are made in the region transverse to the hard scatter. The distributions are compared to the predictions of various Monte Carlo event generators, which generally tend to underestimate the amount of transverse energy at high |η|. KW - hadron-hadron scattering Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127998 VL - 11 IS - 033 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment JF - The European Physical Journal C N2 - This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W→eν and W→μν decays, using data from pp collisions at s√=7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb\(^{−1}\). Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse momentum, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f\(_0\), f\(_L\) and f\(_R\) over two ranges of W transverse momentum (p\(^W_T\)):3550 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For p\(^W_T\)>50 GeV, the values of f\(_0\) and f\(_L\)−f\(_R\), averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be: f\(_0\)=0.127±0.030±0.108 and f\(_L\)−f\(_R\)=0.252±0.017±0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects. KW - good agreement KW - transverse plane KW - Atlas detector KW - transverse momentum KW - helicity fraction KW - Pp Collision KW - lepton flavour KW - systematic effect Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127615 VL - 72 IS - 2001 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Rapidity gap cross sections measured with the ATLAS detector in pp collisions at √s=7TeV JF - The European Physical Journal C N2 - Pseudorapidity gap distributions in proton-proton collisions at √s=7 TeV are studied using a minimum bias data sample with an integrated luminosity of 7.1 μb\(^{−1}\). Cross sections are measured differentially in terms of Δη\(^F\), the larger of the pseudorapidity regions extending to the limits of the ATLAS sensitivity, at η=±4.9, in which no final state particles are produced above a transverse momentum threshold pcutT. The measurements span the region 0<Δη\(^F\)<8 for 200MeV