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Die Bromeliaceae umfassen mehr als 3.100 fast ausschließlich neotropische Arten. Bekannt für ihre außergewöhnliche ökologische Vielseitigkeit haben sich Bromelien erfolgreich in terrestrischen und epiphytischen Lebensräumen ausgebreitet.
Eine umfassende Untersuchung des Gefährdungsgrades aller Bromelienarten Panamas und Costa Ricas stand bisher noch aus und ist insbesondere aufgrund des großen Reichtums an Lebensräumen, der beide Länder auszeichnet, und den vielfältigen Veränderungen geboten.
Im Rahmen der vorliegenden Arbeit wurden während der insgesamt etwa achtmonatigen Feldarbeit 54 Exkursionen in Westpanama durchgeführt und Belege von 61% (126 Arten) der für Panama bekannten Arten gesammelt.
Auf der Basis der Feldarbeit und der in verschiedenen Herbarien durchgeführten Studien (Überprüfung und Digitalisierung von > 8.000 Aufsammlungen) wurden Diversität, Endemismus, Areale und räumliche Muster der Artenvielfalt der Bromeliaceae in Panama und Costa Rica erfasst, dokumentiert und analysiert.
Nur drei der derzeit bekannten acht Unterfamilien der Bromeliaceae finden sich in Panama und vier in Costa Rica. Zwanzig Arten werden hier erstmals für Panama gemeldet. Sechs bisher für Panama gemeldete Bromelienarten wurden als irrtümlich gemeldet identifiziert. Die Flora der Bromeliaceae umfasst nun 16 Gattungen und 206 Arten in Panama sowie 18 Gattungen und 199 Arten in Costa Rica.
33 Arten sind endemisch in Panama, 32 Arten in Costa Rica und 36 Arten sind auf das Gebiet beider Länder beschränkt. Die Gattung Werauhia hat ihr Diversitätszentrum in Panama (47 von insgesamt 87 Arten) und Costa Rica (59/87 Arten) und ist gleichzeitig die artenreichste Gattung in beiden Ländern.
In Panama treten 113 Arten (54,9 %) zwischen 1.000 und 2.000 Höhenmetern auf. Die Art mit der niedrigsten Höhengrenze ist Pitcairnia halophila, die am höchsten angetroffene Art ist Werauhia ororiensis.
Für jede der für Panama und Costa Rica (259 Arten) gemeldeten Bromelienarten wurde eine Verbreitungskarte erstellt; für die in beiden Ländern auftretenden 191 Arten wurde darüber hinaus die potenzielle Verbreitung modelliert.
In Panama ist der prämontane Regenwald mit 138 Arten (einschließlich 25 der insgesamt 33 endemischen Arten) die Holdridge-Vegetationszone mit der höchsten Anzahl an Bromelien. In Costa Rica hat der untere Bergregenwald einen besonders hohen Anteil endemischer Bromelien (13 von insgesamt 32 Arten).
In Panama und Costa Rica beherbergen mittlere Höhenlagen den größten Artenreichtum der Bromeliaceae mit Maximalwerten von etwa 125 Arten im Osten Costa Ricas und in Westpanama. Einige Regionen Panamas verfügen nicht über ausgewiesene Schutzgebiete, weisen jedoch einen hohen Artenreichtum an Bromelien auf (z.B. Teile Westpanamas, El Valle de Anton und benachbarte Gebiete sowie die Serranía de Cañazas).
In der hier vorgestellten Klassifizierung des Gefährdungsgrades gemäß den Richtlinien der IUCN werden für Panama 32 Arten als vom Aussterben bedroht (CR), 36 Arten als Stark Gefährdet (EN) und 36 Arten als Gefährdet (VU) eingestuft. In Costa Rica wird Aechmea aquilega als Ausgestorben (EX) eingeschätzt. Vier Arten werden als vom Aussterben bedroht (CR), 30 Arten als Stark Gefährdet (EN) und 39 Arten als Gefährdet (VU) klassifiziert.
In Panama wurden 184 Arten (89% der insgesamt 206 Arten) in Schutzgebieten nachgewiesen. 122 Arten (59%) wurden sowohl innerhalb als auch außerhalb und 19 Arten (9%) nur außerhalb von Schutzgebieten nachgewiesen. In Costa Rica kommen 182 Bromelienarten (91% der insgesamt 199 Arten) in Schutzgebieten vor, 168 Arten (84%) wurden sowohl innerhalb als auch außerhalb und 14 Arten (7%) nur außerhalb von Schutzgebieten nachgewiesen.
Die Schätzungen zeigen, dass die zu erwartende Gesamtzahl der Bromelienarten in Panama zwischen 224 und 250 Arten liegt, und die zu erwartende Gesamtzahl der Bromelienarten in Costa Rica liegt zwischen 207 und 221 Arten. Den Ergebnissen der Modellierung zufolge wird für eine Anzahl bisher nur für Costa Rica gemeldeter Arten das Auftreten in Panama mit erheblicher Wahrscheinlichkeit prognostiziert (z.B. Guzmania blassi, Werauhia ampla), wie auch umgekehrt das Vorkommen bisher nur für Panama bekannter Arten in Costa Rica (z.B. Aechmea strobilina, Pitcairnia kressii).
Der Erhalt der bestehenden Schutzgebiete sollte ein vorangiges Ziel sein. Darüber hinaus ist es wünschenswert, einige dieser Gebiete auszudehnen und neue Schutzgebiete auszuweisen, um biologisch hochdiverse Gebiete mit einem hohen Anteil endemischer Arten zu schützen.
1 Purpose of the Study:
The purpose of this retrospective study was to assess the volumetric changes of our institutional pediatric neuroblastoma in response to various therapeutic protocols.
2 Materials and Methods:
A retrospective study was conducted on children with neuroblastoma from different anatomical locations including suprarenal, paraspinal, pelvic, mediastinal and cervical neuroblastoma primaries. These children underwent tumor-stage based therapeutic protocols in Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Hospital, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, between January 1996 and July 2008. The study included 72 patients (44 males and 28 females). Patient demographics (age and gender), disease-related symptoms, laboratory results (tumor biomarkers including ferritin, neuron specific enolase, and urine catecholamine) and histopathological reports were collected from the electronic medical archiving system and subsequently analyzed.
Patients were classified into following groups according the anatomical origin of the primary neuroblastoma into:
1) Suprarenal neuroblastoma Group: This group included patients with neuroblastoma arising from the suprarenal gland. This group composed of 54 patients with male to female ratio (32:22).
2) Paravertebral neuroblastoma Group: This group composed of 6 male patients.
3) Mediastinal neuroblastoma Group: This group included patients with mediastinal neuroblastoma and composed of 3 patients (1 male and 2 females).
4) Pelvic neuroblastoma Group: This group included patients with pelvic neuroblastoma and composed of 6 patients (3 males and 3 females).
5) Cervical neuroblastoma Group: This group included patients with cervical neuroblastoma and composed of 2 male patients.
3 Results:
The mean volume of all suprarenal neuroblastoma group involved in the study before therapy was 176.62 cm3 (SD: 234.15) range: 239.4-968.9cm3. The mean initial volume of all suprarenal neuroblastoma group who underwent observation protocol was 86.0378 cm3 (SD: 114.44) range: 5.2-347.94cm3. Volumetric evaluation of suprarenal neuroblastoma following observation (Wait and See) protocol revealed continuous reduction of the tumor volumes in a statistically significant manner during the follow up periods up to 12 months with p value of less than 0.05. The volumetric changes afterwards were statistically insignificant.
The mean initial volume of all suprarenal neuroblastoma group who underwent primary surgery protocol was 42.4 cm3 (SD: 28.5) range: 7.5-90cm3. Complete surgical resection of the tumor was not feasible in all lesions due to local tumor extension and / or infiltration with the associated risk of injury of nearby organs or structures. However statistical analysis of the volumetric changes in the successive follow up periods did not reveal statistical significance.
Volumetric estimation of the tumor in the subsequent follow up periods revealed significant changes within the period first (3-9 month periods). The changes afterwards were statistically non significant. On the other hand, the mean initial volume of all suprarenal neuroblastoma group who underwent combined chemotherapy and Stem cell transplantation protocol only without surgical interference was 99.98cm3 (SD:46.2) range: 48.48-160.48 cm3. In this group the volumetric changes were variable and difference in volumes in follow up was statistically non significant during the follow up period.
The mean initial volume of all abdominal paravertebral neuroblastoma group was 249.197cm3 (SD: 249.63) range: 9.6-934cm3. The mean initial volume of all pelvic neuroblastoma group was 118.88cm3 (SD: 50.61) range: 73.4-173.4cm3. The mean initial volume of all mediastinal neuroblastoma group was 189.7cm3 (SD: 139.057) range: 10.7-415 cm3. The mean initial volume of all cervical neuroblastoma group was 189.7cm3 (SD: 139.057) range: 10.7-415 cm3. The volumetric measurements in the corresponding follow up periods according to the therapeutic protocol of abdominal paravertebral neuroblastoma, pelvic neuroblastoma, mediastinal and cervical neuroblastoma revealed significant change in the tumor volume within the early 3-6 months from the initial therapy while subsequently the tumor volumetric changes were statistically non significant.
4 Conclusion:
In conclusion, the role of MRI volumetry in the evaluation of tumor response is dependent on the risk adapted concept of neuroblastoma with the combination of different imaging modalities as well the therapeutic protocol. MRI Volumetry in addition to new protocols such as Whole-body imaging and 3D visualization techniques are gaining more importance and acceptance.
Quarkonia are very promising probes to study the quark-gluon plasma. The essential baseline for measurements in heavy-ion collisions is high-precision data from proton-proton interactions. However, the basic mechanisms of quarkonium hadroproduction are still being debated. The most common models, the Color-Singlet Model, the non-relativistic QCD approach and the Color-Evaporation Model, are able to describe most of the available cross-section data, despite of their conceptual differences. New measures, such as the polarization, and data at a new energy regime are crucial to test the competing models. Another issue is an eventual interplay between the production process of a quarkonium state and the surrounding pp event. Current Monte Carlo event generators treat the hard scattering independently from the rest of the so-called underlying event. The investigation of possible correlations with the pp event might be very valuable for a detailed understanding of the production processes. ALICE ist the dedicated heavy-ion experiment at the LHC. Its design has been optimized for high-precision measurements in very high track densities and down to low transverse momenta. ALICE is composed of various different detectors at forward and at central rapidities. The most important detectors for this study are the Inner Tracking System and the Time Projection Chamber, allowing to reconstruct and identify electron candidate tracks within eta < 0.9. The Transition Radiation Detector has not been utilized at this stage of the analysis; however, it will strongly improve the particle identification and provide a dedicated trigger in the upcoming beam periods. ...
The present study focuses on specific aspects in the organization of teaching religion in Indonesia. It analyses the position of religion within the Indonesian Basic Law, consequential legislation, and educational policies. How does this framework translate into national and regional policies pertaining to the emergence, institutionalization, and organization of the Hindu class and the Hindu education system in Bali from 1945 to 2008?
Muslim majority Indonesia constitutes an interesting laboratory for doing fundamental research on religious plurality and transformations of religion. The model of organizing the religion class in Indonesia is rooted in a specific historical, socio-cultural, political, and legal context, which is fundamentally different to European models of religious education. In addition, in contrast to classical Islam and modern Islamic states, Indonesia recognizes Asian religions as equal in status with the religions of the book. Besides Islam and Christianity, Hindu Dharma and Buddhism were recognized as state funded religions in 1965. This recognition had important consequences for the Indonesian model of organizing five confessional religion classes and faith-based education systems.
The Balinese are a rare case of a religious and ethnic minority being simultaneously an ethnic and religious majority. Therefore, the Balinese provide an outstanding case to analyze how Indonesia’s religious and educational policies do deal with that particular ethnic and religious minority. In addition, how do the Balinese themselves use the constitutional and legal framework to establish the Hindu religion class in public schools and a private Hindu education system from the level of pre-school to higher education?
A qualitative examination was conducted basing on a combination of theoretical and empirical investigations. The province of Bali and three educational institutions were chosen, because the Balinese were the reformers of Indonesian Hindu Dharma and the inventors of the Hindu education system. As the study focuses on constitutional and legal contexts of the Hindu class and the Hindu education system, teachers’ professional education, and composition of curricula and textbooks, a qualitative approach was applied combining ethnographic fieldwork and case study research. In consequence, the subject positions the study in the academic disciplines of Religious Studies and Area Studies. Data were collected through bibliographical surveys and fieldwork.
The amended 1945 Basic Law and consequential legislation give the same right to state sanctioned religions. The state is based on “One Supreme Lordship” prescribing national monotheism or monism. Indonesia’s spirited statehood is based on a religious, but not confessional interpretation. In addition, the strategy to manage religious plurality is authoritarian, as positive freedom of religion is limited to six state-funded religions, whereas negative religious freedom is not provided for. Despite the equal status of the six state funded religions, discriminative practices prevail with regard to funding those Asian religions. Notwithstanding, the Muslim majority Pancasila state can serve a model function for countries with illiberal politics in the Muslim world.
The first objective of strategic and educational policies is to mould a citizen who has faith in God, follows the commands of God, and has morals. The dimension of spiritual intelligence in education is a particular Indonesian dimension of education, which Indonesian educational planners added to the UNESCO standards of student-centered learning throughout life. Indonesia organizes the religion class and faith-based education systems in a confessional but pluralistic style. The citizens are required to attend the religious class in the religion they adhere to instructed by a teacher of the same belief from elementary to higher education. In addition, the religious mark is a compulsory item in the school report, and whether a pupil/student stays back or is promoted to the next level depends, amongst other factors, on how the religion teacher grades the student.
Unlike the Muslim or Christian based education systems, the Hindu education system is still marginal and minuscule. Its funding is discriminative. Funding and expansion are linked to national policies, and the personal networks of Hindu agents are given the mandate to organize the Hindu administration and education system.
The intriguing effects of electroweak induced parity violation (PV) in molecules have yet to be observed, but experiments on molecular PV promise to provide fascinating insights. They potentially offer a novel testing ground for the low energy sector of the standard model and, in addition, a successful measurement of PV differences between the two enantiomers of a chiral molecule could promote a deeper understanding of molecular chirality, by essentially establishing a new link between particle physics and biochemistry. A key challenge in the design of such experiments is the identification of suitable molecules, which in turn requires widely applicable computational schemes for the prediction of PV experimental signals. To this end, a quasirelativistic density functional theory approach to the calculation of PV effects in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra of chiral molecules has been developed and implemented during the course of this thesis. It includes relativistic as well as electron--correlation effects and has been used extensively in the screening of molecules possibly suited for a first observation of molecular PV. Some relevant compound classes have been identified, but none of their selected representatives are predicted to exhibit PV NMR frequency shifts that can be detected under current experimental restrictions. In order to advance the design of molecules which exhibit particularly large PV signals in experiments, systematic effects on PV NMR frequency splittings such as scaling with nuclear charge, conformational dependence and the impact of atomic substitution around the NMR active nucleus have been studied. Previously predicted scaling laws were confirmed and it was determined that the environment of the NMR active nucleus, both in terms of conformation and atomic composition, can be tuned to increase PV frequency shifts by several orders of magnitude. In addition to molecules suited for NMR experiments, a fascinating chiral actinide compound was studied with regard to PV frequency shifts in vibrational spectra. This compound displays the largest such shift ever predicted for an existing molecule, which lies well within the attainable experimental resolution. The challenge now lies in making it compatible with current experimental setups.
The long sought molecular function of membrane raft-associated flotillin proteins is slowly becoming resolved, partially owing to the increasing knowledge about their interaction partners. Being ubiquitously expressed and evolutionarily highly conserved, flotillins carry out important cellular functions, one of which is the regulation of signal transduction pathways. This study shows that the signaling adaptor protein fibroblast growth factor receptor substrate 2 (FRS2) directly interacts both in vivo and in vitro with flotillin-1 (flot-1). FRS2 is an important docking protein of many receptor tyrosine kinases. It regulates downstream signaling by forming molecular complexes with other adaptor proteins and tyrosine phosphatases, and seems to be a critical mediator of sustained extracellular signal regulated kinase (ERK) activity. Flot-1 has also been implicated in the regulation of ERK activity upon EGF and FGF stimuli. Furthermore, flot-1 forms signalosomes with EGFR and the downstream components of the MAP kinase pathway. The newly discovered interaction between FRS2 and flot-1 was shown to be mediated by the phosphotyrosine binding (PTB) domain and, to a lesser extent, the C-terminus (CT) of FRS2 and by the C-terminus of flot-1. Flot-1 coprecipitated together with FRS2 from murine tissues and cell lysates, demonstrating that this interaction also takes place in vivo. Interestingly, flot-2, which shows a high homology to flot-1 and forms stable oligomeric complexes with it, does not appear to directly interact with FRS2. Novel insights into the functional role of the interaction between flot-1 and FRS2 were provided by the results showing that depletion of flot-1 affects the cellular localization of FRS2. In hepatocytes stably depleted of flot-1, FRS2 appeared to be more soluble. Furthermore, upon pervanadate stimulation of the cells, a small fraction of FRS2 was recruited into detergent resistant membranes, but the recruitment did not take place in the absence of flot-1. Triggered by the same stimulus, a fraction of FRS2 was translocated to the nucleus independently of flot-1. Overexpression of FRS2 has previously been shown to result in increased ERK activation. However, in cells depleted of flot-1, FRS2 was not able to compensate for the compromised ERK activation after EGF or FGF stimulation. This might imply that FRS2 and flot-1 are functionally interconnected and that FRS2 resides upstream of flot-1. Taken together, the results presented here indicate that this complex may be involved in the control of signaling downstream of receptor tyrosine kinases and is important for ensuring a proper signaling response. In the absence of flot-1, increased Tyr phosphorylation of FRS2 was observed. It is known that Tyr and Thr phosphorylation of FRS2 are reciprocally regulated. Since ERK is a known executor of the FRS2 Thr phosphorylation, and ERK activity was shown to be severely diminished upon flot-1 depletion, the increased Tyr phosphorylation of FRS2 was in agreement with this and might be a direct consequence of a decreased ERK activity upon flot-1 depletion. FRS2 owes its name to the major and the first described function of this protein as a substrate for FGFR. PTB domain of FRS2 was published to constitutively bind the juxtamembrane domain of FGFR. In this study, the PTB domain was mapped to be involved in the constitutive interaction with flot-1 and the competition was shown to exist between flot-1 and FGFR1 for binding to FRS2. Another novel interaction partner of FRS2 was discovered in the present study. Cbl-associated protein (CAP) is an adaptor protein with three SH3 domains and it plays a role during insulin signaling by recruiting the signaling complex to lipid rafts. CAP was previously shown to interact with flot-1 via the SoHo domain, and this interaction was found to be crucial for the lipid raft recruitment of other signaling components. Both the PTB domain and CT of FRS2 were found to mediate the interaction with CAP, whereas in CAP, the SoHo domain, together with the third SH3 domain, seems to bind to FRS2. SH3 domains mediate the assembly of specific protein complexes by binding to proline rich sequences, several of which are present in FRS2. Due to overlapping interaction domains, FRS2 and flot-1 competed for the binding to CAP. However, the interaction with neither CAP nor flot-1 was necessary for the observed nuclear translocation of FRS2. Since CAP is expressed as several tissue- and developmental stage-specific isoforms, a further aim of this study was to analyze the expression of its isoforms in mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs). Many new isoforms were discovered here which have not been described in the literature so far. They all contain the SoHo domain and three SH3 domains, but differ among themselves by the presence and length of a proline-rich region that preceeds the SoHo domain and by a novel 20-amino acid (AA) stretch between the second and the third SH3 domain. The length of the proline-rich region turned out to be an important factor determining the strength of the interaction with FRS2. The interaction was found to be weakened by the increasing length of this region. The new isoforms possessing the 20-AA stretch are specifically expressed in murine muscular tissues, with the highest level in the heart. During adipogenesis, we observed a shift in the abundance of the isoforms, in that only the isoforms without the insertion were shown to be upregulated on mRNA level. However, during myogenesis, preferentially expressed isoforms were those with the insertion. The collected data implicate that isoforms with the 20-AA insertion might be more ubiquitous in nondifferentiated/embryonic cells and that the observed "isoform-switch" might be dependent on the cell fate and differentiation state.
In der modernen Festkörperphysik spielen elektronisch stark korrelierte Systeme mit ihrem komplexen Vielteilchenverhalten eine zentrale Rolle. Insbesondere das Wechselspiel zwischen thermischen und Quantenfluktuationen in den Ladungs- und Spinfreiheitsgraden führt zur Entstehung verschiedenster neuartiger Grundzustände.
Die vorliegende Dissertation „Ultrasonic and Magnetic Investigations in frustrated Lowdimensional Spin Systems“ beschäftigt sich mit den besonderen physikalischen Eigenschaften niedrig dimensionaler Spinsysteme. Diese Materialklasse, die auch zu den stark korrelierten Systemen zählt, wird seit vielen Jahren intensiv sowohl experimentell als auch theoretisch untersucht. Auf theoretischer Seite sind die niedrigdimensionalen Spinsysteme besonders interessant, da sie als Modellsysteme die exakte Beschreibung des Grundzustandes und des Anregungsspektrums ermöglichen. Von experimenteller Seite ist es in den letzten Jahrzehnten gelungen, verschiedenste Materialklassen niedrigdimensionaler Spinsysteme zu synthetisieren.
In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden die grundlegenden Theorien und physikalischen Konzepte niedrigdimensionaler Spinsysteme diskutiert. Insbesondere auch die Spin-Phonon-Wechselwirkung dieser Materialien, die für die hier beobachteten elastischen Anomalien verantwortlich ist. Weiterhin wird auch das elastische Verhalten bei magnetischen Phasenübergängen beschrieben.
Da die Ultraschallexperimente einen Schwerpunkt dieser Arbeit bilden, wird der Versuchsaufbau zur phasenempfindlichen Detektion von Schallgeschwindigkeit und Ultraschalldämfung ausführlich beschrieben. Diese Messmethode ist ideal zur Untersuchung der Spin-Phonon Wechselwirkung geeignet.
Conceptual design of an ALICE Tier-2 centre integrated into a multi-purpose computing facility
(2012)
This thesis discusses the issues and challenges associated with the design and operation of a data analysis facility for a high-energy physics experiment at a multi-purpose computing centre. At the spotlight is a Tier-2 centre of the distributed computing model of the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The design steps, examined in the thesis, include analysis and optimization of the I/O access patterns of the user workload, integration of the storage resources, and development of the techniques for effective system administration and operation of the facility in a shared computing environment. A number of I/O access performance issues on multiple levels of the I/O subsystem, introduced by utilization of hard disks for data storage, have been addressed by the means of exhaustive benchmarking and thorough analysis of the I/O of the user applications in the ALICE software framework. Defining the set of requirements to the storage system, describing the potential performance bottlenecks and single points of failure and examining possible ways to avoid them allows one to develop guidelines for selecting the way how to integrate the storage resources. The solution, how to preserve a specific software stack for the experiment in a shared environment, is presented along with its effects on the user workload performance. The proposal for a flexible model to deploy and operate the ALICE Tier-2 infrastructure and applications in a virtual environment through adoption of the cloud computing technology and the 'Infrastructure as Code' concept completes the thesis. Scientific software applications can be efficiently computed in a virtual environment, and there is an urgent need to adapt the infrastructure for effective usage of cloud resources.