Uncertainties in the determination of pyrrolizidine alkaloid levels in naturally contaminated honeys and comparison of results obtained by different analytical approaches

The contamination of honey with hepatotoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) is a well-known hazard for food safety. While management strategies and controls of the honey industry aim to reduce the PA levels, uncertainties remain with regard to the safety of regionally produced and marketed honey. In addition, a previous study showed large differences of results obtained after various periods of storage and apparent differences between the analytical results of different laboratories. Therefore, this study aimed at examining these uncertainties by monitoring the impact of storage on the PA and PA N-oxide (PANO) content of two freshly harvested honeys and on possible demixing effects caused by pollen settling. Additionally, three analytical approaches – target analysis with matrix-matched calibration or standard addition and a sum parameter method – were applied for a comparative analysis of 20 honeys harvested in summer 2016. All samples originated from Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany where the PA plant Jacobaea vulgaris is currently observed on a massive scale. The results of the time series analyses showed that PANO levels markedly decreased within a few weeks and practically reached the LOD 16 weeks after harvest. Tertiary PAs, by contrast, remained stable and did not increase as a consequence of PANO decrease. The experiments on a putative demixing, which may result in a heterogeneous distribution of PAs/PANOs, revealed that there was no such effect during storage of up to 12 weeks. A comparison of the PA/PANO levels obtained by different analytical approaches showed that in some cases the sum parameter method yielded much higher levels than the target approaches, whereas in other cases, the target analysis with standard addition found higher levels than the other two methods. In summary, the results of this study highlight uncertainties regarding the validity and comparability of analytical results and consequently regarding health risk assessment.     

Dominant inheritance in two families with familial Mediterranean fever (FMF)

Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is an autosomal-recessive disease which affects almost exclusively people of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern origin. We examined the possibility of a dominant inheritance of FMF among our 3,000 patients in Israel. Two hundred forty FMF patients were members of 77 families in which the disease affected more than one generation. In 75 of these families the occurrence of FMF in more than one generation was found to be consistent with a recessive mode of inheritance due to a high gene frequency (q) and consanguinity among parents of the patients. In 2 families, one of Ashkenazi and the other of Georgian Iraqi origin, in which FMF occurred in 4 consecutive generations, the mode of inheritance could be explained only by autosomal-dominant inheritance.     

Large macro-dipoles generated in a supramolecular polymer of N,N′,N″-tris(3,7-dimethyloctyl)benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxamide in n-decane

A supramolecular polymer formed by N,N′,N″-tris(3,7-dimethyloctyl)benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxamide (DO₃B) in n-decane (C₁₀) possesses large macro-dipoles naturally generated by three-fold inter-molecular hydrogen bonding aligned along its helical columnar structure connected by defective portions, which are DO₃B molecules containing failure in the hydrogen bond formation, in the order of head to tail arrangement without dipole inversion like type-A polymers.     

Assessing the capability of code smells to explain maintenance problems: an empirical study combining quantitative and qualitative data

Code smells are indicators of deeper design problems that may cause difficulties in the evolution of a software system. This paper investigates the capability of twelve code smells to reflect actual maintenance problems. Four medium-sized systems with equivalent functionality but dissimilar design were examined for code smells. Three change requests were implemented on the systems by six software developers, each of them working for up to four weeks. During that period, we recorded problems faced by developers and the associated Java files on a daily basis. We developed a binary logistic regression model, with “problematic file” as the dependent variable. Twelve code smells, file size, and churn constituted the independent variables. We found that violation of the Interface Segregation Principle (a.k.a. ISP violation) displayed the strongest connection with maintenance problems. Analysis of the nature of the problems, as reported by the developers in daily interviews and think-aloud sessions, strengthened our view about the relevance of this code smell. We observed, for example, that severe instances of problems relating to change propagation were associated with ISP violation. Based on our results, we recommend that code with ISP violation should be considered potentially problematic and be prioritized for refactoring.     

Report of the Second Workshop on the Usage of NetFlow/IPFIX in Network Management

Following the success of the First Workshop on the Usage of NetFlow/IPFIX (Pras et al. in J Netw Syst Manag 17(4), 2009) in 2008, the European EMANICS Network of Excellence organized a second workshop in October 2009, held at Jacobs University Bremen. This report summarizes the workshop and presents its main conclusions.     

Taxonomy for the Network and Service Management Research Field

Network and service management has established itself as a research field in the general area of computer networks. However, up to now, no appropriate organization of the field has been carried out in terms of a comprehensive list of terms and topics. In this paper, we introduce a taxonomy for network and service management. With such a taxonomy, it is possible to better understand the landscape of research as well as to reason about possible future challenges and opportunities. As such, in addition to the taxonomy itself, we also present an initial analysis of the field’s past, present, and future, based on the records of papers submitted and accepted in major conferences in the area, as well as a site survey performed through a questionnaire answered by experts from both industry and academia.     

Researcher dynamics in the generation of emerging topics in life sciences and medicine

Understanding the driving forces that generate emerging topics (ETs or Emerging Research Topics) will assist in the sound development of science and technologies. In the present study, we aim to clarify the researcher dynamics of generating and developing ETs in life sciences and medicine over the past half-century by analyzing the pre-, contemporary-, and post-participation of researchers publishing articles containing the emerging keywords that are elements of ETs. Our results suggest that, while manpower needs for publication have increased, less manpower is actually required to generate ETs these days and that pre-participation in certain research topics has become important to generate regular ETs but not Nobel Prize-class ones. Finally, we discovered that, in this post-genomic era, those researchers who generate ETs also continue to focus on those fields. These trends illustrate a mode shift in the scientific practice of researchers that have generated and developed ETs over the last 50 years as well as highlight the significance of funding projects with high probabilities of generating high-impact ETs.

     

Use of microfibrillated cellulose and dendritic copper for the elaboration of conductive films from water- and ethanol-based dispersions

In this study, microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) and dendritic copper were used as binder and conductive phase for the elaboration of self-standing conductive films and coatings. A filtration technique was used to prepare MFC/Cu films from particle dispersions in water and ethanol. In aqueous slurries copper oxidized and an additional corona treatment or the use of zinc particles as sacrificial anode were necessary to obtain films with conductivities ranging from 70 to 2500 S m^?1, respectively. In ethanol-based MFC/Cu slurries, copper was subjected to limited oxidation. However, the low packing density of conductive particles (below the percolation threshold) led to resistive films which, after densification by calendering, displayed extremely high conductivities, up to 70000 S m^?1. Aqueous MFC/Cu slurries were successfully used for the deposition of conductive coatings on copy paper by Mayer rod coating and screen printing, which were subsequently treated by corona discharge and calendering. The obtained coatings displayed intermediate conductivity (i.e. 95 and 570 S m^?1 for rod coating and screen printing, respectively), which can be further increased using zinc particles or ethanol-based formulations.     

Filtering spam from bad neighborhoods

One of the most annoying problems on the Internet is spam. To fight spam, many approaches have been proposed over the years. Most of these approaches involve scanning the entire contents of e-mail messages in an attempt to detect suspicious keywords and patterns. Although such approaches are relatively effective, they also show some disadvantages. Therefore an interesting question is whether it would be possible to effectively detect spam without analyzing the entire contents of e-mail messages. The contribution of this paper is to present an alternative spam detection approach, which relies solely on analyzing the origin (IP address) of e-mail messages, as well as possible links within the e-mail messages to websites (URIs). Compared to analyzing suspicious keywords and patterns, detection and analysis of URIs is relatively simple. The IP addresses and URIs are compared to various kinds of blacklists; a hit increases the probability of the message being spam. Although the idea of using blacklists is well known, the novel idea proposed within this paper is to introduce the concept of ‘bad neighborhoods’. To validate our approach, a prototype has been developed and tested on our university's mail server. The outcome was compared to SpamAssassin and mail server log files. The result of that comparison was that our prototype showed remarkably good detection capabilities (comparable to SpamAssassin), but puts only a small load on the mail server. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.