A generalization of consecutive-k-out-of-n:Fsystems

A linear (m, n)-lattice system consists of m ·n elements arranged like the elements of a (m ,n)-matrix, i.e. each of the m rows includes m elements, and each of the n columns includes m elements. A circular (m,n)-lattice system consists of m circles (centered at the same point) and n rays. The intersections of the circle and the rays represent the elements, i.e. each of the circles includes n elements and each of the rays has m elements. A (linear or circular) (m, n)-lattice system is a (linear or circular) connected-X-out-of-(m,n):F lattice system if it fails whenever at least one subset of connected failed components occurs which includes failed components connected in the meaning of connected-X. The paper presents some practical examples and the reliability formulas of simple systems using results of consecutive-k-out-of-n:F systems     

Bioenergetic Alterations of Metabolic Redox Coenzymes as NADH,FAD and FMN by Means of Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Techniques

Metabolic FLIM (fluorescence lifetime imaging) is used to image bioenergetic status in cells and tissue. Whereas an attribution of the fluorescence lifetime of coenzymes as an indicator for cell metabolism is mainly accepted, it is debated whether this is valid for the redox state of cells. In this regard, an innovative algorithm using the lifetime characteristics of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (phosphate) (NAD(P)H) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) to calculate the fluorescence lifetime induced redox ratio (FLIRR) has been reported so far. We extended the FLIRR approach and present new results, which includes FLIM data of the various enzymes, such as NAD(P)H, FAD, as well as flavin mononucleotide (FMN). Our algorithm uses a two-exponential fitting procedure for the NAD(P)H autofluorescence and a three-exponential fit of the flavin signal. By extending the FLIRR approach, we introduced FLIRR1 as protein-bound NAD(P)H related to protein-bound FAD, FLIRR2 as protein-bound NAD(P)H related to free (unbound) FAD and FLIRR3 as protein-bound NAD(P)H related to protein-bound FMN. We compared the significance of extended FLIRR to the metabolic index, defined as the ratio of protein-bound NAD(P)H to free NAD(P)H. The statistically significant difference for tumor and normal cells was found to be highest for FLIRR1.     

Applying “Design Thinking” in the context of media management education

“Design Thinking” – a cross-disciplinary and user centered method – is an approach towards the discovery of solutions and sparks innovative thinking in many ways. It also can be argued, that designers put themselves in the place of the user rather than co-creating with the consumer. Innovation is one of the current keywords across many industries, and many attempt to find new solutions to daily problems. Design Thinking as method allows to understand user needs and understand their principle problems in daily life. The design process uses intensive collaboration in cross-disciplinary settings and is divided into the exploration of the problem space and the solution space to achieve new ways of solving existing problems. Design Thinking has to integrate into the innovation process and into organizational structures right from the beginning. It constitutes a complement to classical analytical processes for problems that require lateral, not linear thinking. This article reviews the practical application of this energetic methodology in the academic context and presents some hands-on examples. The course series has been established by the Entertainment and Media Management Lab. (EMMi Lab.) at the Tampere University of Technology (TUT) and was held in cooperation with students from the University of Tampere (UTA), and the Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK). One course has been held in cooperation with the University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg-Stendal, Germany. This article describes how to train students especially with strong technical background and analytical mind-sets in the development of innovations in the field of media, foster creative thinking, and achieve problem solutions beyond the current state of the art. We present the basic curriculum, course structure, goals & objectives, applied methods, settings, and theoretical aspects of Design Thinking. Our experience and reflections on conducting the courses concludes this article. The article shall be an introductory guide for anyone who intends to organize a similar course in the university context.     

GaAsSb/InAlAs PA DHBTs Grown by Production MBE

The epi material growth of GaAsSb based DHBTs with InAlAs emitters are investigated using a 4 × 100mm multi-wafer production Riber 49 MBE reactor fully equipped with real-time in-situ sensors including an absorption band edge spectroscope and an optical-based flux monitor. The state-of-the-art hole mobilities are obtained from 100nm thick carbon-doped GaAsSb. A Sb composition variation of less than ± 0.1 atomic percent across a 4 × 100mm platen configuration has been achieved. The large area InAlAs/GaAsSb/InP DHBT device demonstrates excellent DC characteristics,such as BVCEO＞6V and a DC current gain of 45 at 1kA/cm2 for an emitter size of 50μm × 50μm. The devices have a 40nm thick GaAsSb base with p-doping of 4. 5 × 1019cm-3 . Devices with an emitter size of 4μm × 30μm have a current gain variation less than 2% across the fully processed 100mm wafer. ft and fmax are over 50GHz,with a power efficiency of 50% ,which are comparable to standard power GaAs HBT results. These results demonstrate the potential application of GaAsSb/InP DHBT for power amplifiers and the feasibility of multi-wafer MBE for mass production of GaAsSb-based HBTs.     

Categorization of ambient media projects on their business models, innovativeness, and characteristics—evaluation of Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Award Projects of 2010

Ambient Media describe media environments, where the medium is embedded within the natural environment. They follow the anytime, anywhere, and anyhow principle for media access. The Nokia Ubimedia MindTreks Awards have been established a few years ago to explore the potential of ambient media. In this article we analyze the total project portfolio submitted to the 4th Nokia Ubimedia MindTrek Awards in 2010 according to their business value, innovativeness, and use of ambient media. The aim of this article is to gain insights into the general characteristics of ambient media, their properties, and business functions. The article rounds up in providing a substantial framework and guidelines for ambient media developers in their product designs.     

Differential Impact of Hyperglycemia in Critically Ill Patients: Significance in Acute Myocardial Infarction but Not in Sepsis?

Hyperglycemia is a common condition in critically ill patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU). These patients represent an inhomogeneous collective and hyperglycemia might need different evaluation depending on the underlying disorder. To elucidate this, we investigated and compared associations of severe hyperglycemia (>200 mg/dL) and mortality in patients admitted to an ICU for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) or sepsis as the two most frequent admission diagnoses. From 2006 to 2009, 2551 patients 69 (58–77) years; 1544 male; 337 patients suffering from type 2 diabetes (T2DM)) who were admitted because of either AMI or sepsis to an ICU in a tertiary care hospital were investigated retrospectively. Follow-up of patients was performed between May 2013 and November 2013. In a Cox regression analysis, maximum glucose concentration at the day of admission was associated with mortality in the overall cohort (HR = 1.006, 95% CI: 1.004–1.009; p < 0.001) and in patients suffering from myocardial infarction (HR = 1.101, 95% CI: 1.075–1.127; p < 0.001) but only in trend in patients admitted to an ICU for sepsis (HR = 1.030, 95% CI: 0.998–1.062; p = 0.07). Severe hyperglycemia was associated with adverse intra-ICU mortality in the overall cohort (23% vs. 13%; p < 0.001) and patients admitted for AMI (15% vs. 5%; p < 0.001) but not for septic patients (39% vs. 40%; p = 0.48). A medical history of type 2 diabetes (n = 337; 13%) was not associated with increased intra-ICU mortality (15% vs. 15%; p = 0.93) but in patients with severe hyperglycemia and/or a known medical history of type 2 diabetes considered in combination, an increased mortality in AMI patients (intra-ICU 5% vs. 13%; p < 0.001) but not in septic patients (intra-ICU 38% vs. 41%; p = 0.53) could be evidenced. The presence of hyperglycemia in critically ill patients has differential impact within the different etiological groups. Hyperglycemia in AMI patients might identify a sicker patient collective suffering from pre-diabetes or undiagnosed diabetes with its’ known adverse consequences, especially in the long-term. Hyperglycemia in sepsis might be considered as adaptive survival mechanism to hypo-perfusion and consecutive lack of glucose in peripheral cells. AMI patients with hyperglycemic derailment during an ICU-stay should be closely followed-up and extensively screened for diabetes to improve patients’ outcome.     

Alterations in Serum Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Eicosanoids in Patients with Mild to Moderate Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)

Smoking is a major risk factor for several diseases including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). To better understand the systemic effects of cigarette smoke exposure and mild to moderate COPD—and to support future biomarker development—we profiled the serum lipidomes of healthy smokers, smokers with mild to moderate COPD (GOLD stages 1 and 2), former smokers, and never-smokers (n = 40 per group) (ClinicalTrials.gov registration: {"type":"clinical-trial","attrs":{"text":"NCT01780298","term_id":"NCT01780298"}}NCT01780298). Serum lipidome profiling was conducted with untargeted and targeted mass spectrometry-based lipidomics. Guided by weighted lipid co-expression network analysis, we identified three main trends comparing smokers, especially those with COPD, with non-smokers: a general increase in glycero(phospho)lipids, including triglycerols; changes in fatty acid desaturation (decrease in ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, and an increase in monounsaturated fatty acids); and an imbalance in eicosanoids (increase in 11,12- and 14,15-DHETs (dihydroxyeicosatrienoic acids), and a decrease in 9- and 13-HODEs (hydroxyoctadecadienoic acids)). The lipidome profiles supported classification of study subjects as smokers or non-smokers, but were not sufficient to distinguish between smokers with and without COPD. Overall, our study yielded further insights into the complex interplay between smoke exposure, lung disease, and systemic alterations in serum lipid profiles.     

Diet Prevents Social Stress-Induced Maladaptive Neurobehavioural and Gut Microbiota Changes in a Histamine-Dependent Manner

Exposure to repeated social stress may cause maladaptive emotional reactions that can be reduced by healthy nutritional supplementation. Histaminergic neurotransmission has a central role in orchestrating specific behavioural responses depending on the homeostatic state of a subject, but it remains to be established if it participates in the protective effects against the insults of chronic stress afforded by a healthy diet. By using C57BL/6J male mice that do not synthesize histamine (Hdc^−/−) and their wild type (Hdc^+/+) congeners we evaluated if the histaminergic system participates in the protective action of a diet enriched with polyunsaturated fatty acids and vitamin A on the deleterious effect of chronic stress. Behavioural tests across domains relevant to cognition and anxiety were performed. Hippocampal synaptic plasticity, cytokine expression, hippocampal fatty acids, oxylipins and microbiota composition were also assessed. Chronic stress induced social avoidance, poor recognition memory, affected hippocampal long-term potentiation, changed the microbiota profile, brain cytokines, fatty acid and oxylipins composition of both Hdc^−/− and Hdc^+/+ mice. Dietary enrichment counteracted stress-induced deficits only in Hdc^+/+ mice as histamine deficiency prevented almost all the diet-related beneficial effects. Interpretation: Our results reveal a previously unexplored and novel role for brain histamine as a mediator of many favorable effects of the enriched diet. These data present long-reaching perspectives in the field of nutritional neuropsychopharmacology.     

Endocrine disrupting nonylphenols are ubiquitous in food

4-Nonylphenols (NPs) are common products of biodegradation of a widely used group of nonionic surfactants, the nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs). These compounds are known to be persistent, toxic, and estrogen active. There is a worldwide scientific and public discussion on the potential consequences of human long term dietary exposure to such endocrine disrupters. Despite numerous determinations of NPs in environmental samples no systematical reports exist relating to concentrations of NPs in food. We analyzed NPs in 60 different foodstuff commercially available in Germany. The results indicate that NPs are ubiquitous in food. The concentrations of NPs on a fresh weight basis varied between 0.1 and 19.4 microg/kg regardless of the fat content of the foodstuff. Based on data on German food consumption rates and these first analyses of NPs in food, the daily intake for an adult was calculated to be 7.5 microg/day NPs. For infants exclusively fed with breast milk or infant formulas daily intakes of 0.2 microg/day and 1.4 microg/day NPs, respectively, can be estimated.     

Acquired segmental iris dilator muscle synkinesis due to deglutition

Six healthy male subjects aged 21-35 years participated in the present study. The subjects were exposed to dim light (150 lux) or bright light (3000 lux) at eye level, from 19.00 to 21.30 h for 5 days. Rectal temperature and wrist activity were monitored throughout the study period. Rectal temperature nadir was delayed significantly after the bright light exposure. Ease in sleep initiation and overall sleep quality, measured by questionnaire, were aggravated significantly by the evening bright light exposure. These results suggest that strong illumination at night may disturb nocturnal sleep.