Die Ibbenbürener Aa oberhalb des Aasees sowie drei Nebengewässer wurden über einen Zeitraum von 12 Monaten (April 1981-April 1982) hydrochemisch untersucht. Im Herbst 1981 und im Frühjahr 1982 wurde anhand einer auf den Makrozoobenthos beschränkten Saprobienanalyse von 9 Probestellen der Aa sowie von 2 Probestellen eines durch Fabrikabwässer beeinflußten Vorfluters die Gewässergüte bestimmt. Im Winter 1981/82 beobachtete Mikroorganismenkolonien (vornehmlich Abwasserpilz und Schwefelbakterien) wurden kartographiert und stichprobenartig mikroskopiert. Im Gegensatz zur Aussage der Gewässergütekarte von NRW (Stand 1980) weisen die erhobenen hydrochemischen und hydrobiologischen Kenndaten der Ibbenbürener Aa oberhalb des Aasees auf eine Verschlechterung der Gewässergüte nach Güteklasse 11-111 ("kritisch belastet") hin. Der durch Fabrikabwässer beeinflußte Vorfluter mußte in die Güteklasse 11I ("stark verschmutzt") eingeordnet werden. Durch das im Winter beobachtete z. T. extrem starke Pilztreiben des Abwasserpilzes Leptomitus lacteus ist diese Güteklasse auch für einen Teil der Nebengewässer angezeigt. Mögliche Ursachen der ermittelten Güteklasse(n) werden diskutiert.
Feedforward inhibition and synaptic scaling are important adaptive processes that control the total input a neuron can receive from its afferents. While often studied in isolation, the two have been reported to co-occur in various brain regions. The functional implications of their interactions remain unclear, however. Based on a probabilistic modeling approach, we show here that fast feedforward inhibition and synaptic scaling interact synergistically during unsupervised learning. In technical terms, we model the input to a neural circuit using a normalized mixture model with Poisson noise. We demonstrate analytically and numerically that, in the presence of lateral inhibition introducing competition between different neurons, Hebbian plasticity and synaptic scaling approximate the optimal maximum likelihood solutions for this model. Our results suggest that, beyond its conventional use as a mechanism to remove undesired pattern variations, input normalization can make typical neural interaction and learning rules optimal on the stimulus subspace defined through feedforward inhibition. Furthermore, learning within this subspace is more efficient in practice, as it helps avoid locally optimal solutions. Our results suggest a close connection between feedforward inhibition and synaptic scaling which may have important functional implications for general cortical processing.
The structural analysis of the redox complex between the soluble cytochrome c552 and the membrane-integral cytochrome ba3 oxidase of Thermus thermophilus is complicated by the transient nature of this protein-protein interaction. Using NMR-based chemical shift perturbation mapping, however, we identified the contact regions between cytochrome c552 and the CuA domain, the fully functional water-soluble fragment of subunit II of the ba3 oxidase. First we determined the complete backbone resonance assignments of both proteins for each redox state. Subsequently, two-dimensional [15N,1H]TROSY spectra recorded for each redox partner both in free and complexed state indicated those surface residues affected by complex formation between the two proteins. This chemical shift analysis performed for both redox states provided a topological description of the contact surface on each partner molecule. Remarkably, very pronounced indirect effects, which were observed on the back side of the heme cleft only in the reduced state, suggested that alterations of the electron distribution in the porphyrin ring due to formation of the protein-protein complex are apparently sensed even beyond the heme propionate groups. The contact residues of each redox partner, as derived from the chemical shift perturbation mapping, were employed for a protein-protein docking calculation that provided a structure ensemble of 10 closely related conformers representing the complex between cytochrome c552 and the CuA domain. Based on these structures, the electron transfer pathway from the heme of cytochrome c552 to the CuA center of the ba3 oxidase has been predicted.