The gut microbiome is increasingly recognized for its impact on host fitness, but it remains poorly understood how naturally variable environments influence gut microbiome diversity and composition. We studied changes in the gut microbiome of ten genotypes of water fleas Daphnia magna in submerged mesocosm enclosures in a eutrophic lake over a period of 16 weeks, from early summer to autumn. The m

Semantic Dispositionalism is roughly the view that meaning a certain thing by a word, or possessing a certain concept, consists in being disposed to do something, e.g., infer a certain way. Its main problem is that it seems to have so many and disparate exceptions. People can fail to infer as required due to lack of logical acumen, intoxication, confusion, deviant theories, neural malfunctioning,

The relationship between emotion regulation, social interaction and different types of restricted and repetitive behaviors is poorly understood. In the present study, structural equation modeling based on information about 239 individuals with autism was used to examine whether emotion regulation and social communication were associated with self-injury and stereotyped behaviors. Results showed th

Drones are increasingly becoming a ubiquitous feature of society. They are being used for a multiplicity of applications for military, leisure, economic, and academic purposes. Their application in academia, especially as social science research tools, has seen a sharp uptake in the last decade. This has been possible due, largely, to significant developments in computerization and miniaturization

Human protein HC is a member of the lipocalin superfamily with unique properties since it carries a covalently bound fluorescent chromophore mediating the linkage of the major part of protein HC to several plasma proteins, with IgA as the dominating complex partner. Native protein HC displays characteristic absorption and fluorescence spectra similar to those of glycated proteins with advanced gly

Over decades it has been unclear how individual migratory songbirds cross large ecological barriers such as seas or deserts. By deploying light-level geolocators on four songbird species weighing only about 12 g, we found that these otherwise mainly nocturnal migrants seem to regularly extend their nocturnal flights into the day when crossing the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea. The propor

Urine glycosaminoglycans (GAG) concentrations were measured in 150 patients with primary glomerulonephritides: endocapillary glomerulonephritis, mesangial proliferative glomerulonephritis, IgA nephropathy, membranous glomerulonephritis and minimal change nephropathy, and in 63 healthy controls and 19 patients with diabetes nephropathy. The urine GAG to creatinine ratios (GCR) were significantly re

BACKGROUND: The diagnosis of renal amyloidosis is normally established by kidney biopsy. In order to advance the determination of the diagnosis and the initiation of the therapy, fast and cheap, non-invasive diagnostic techniques are required.METHODS: Urine excretion of glycosaminoglycans (GAG) was measured in 10 patients with AA amyloidosis and 5 patients with AL amyloidosis and compared to 25 co

The serum levels of cystatin C and creatinine were determined in a population comprising 69 children, 1-16 years old, and including children with both normal and reduced glomerular filtration rate (GFR) as determined by Cr-EDTA clearance measurement. The overall correlation between the reciprocal cystatin C concentration and GFR was significantly stronger (p < 0.05) than that between the reciproca

High-grade (HG) gastroenteropancreatic (GEP) neuroendocrine neoplasms (NEN) are rare but have a very poor prognosis and represent a severely understudied class of tumours. Molecular data for HG GEP-NEN are limited and treatment strategies for the carcinoma subgroup (HG GEP-NEC) are extrapolated from small-cell lung cancer (SCLC). After pathological re-evaluation, we analysed DNA from tumours and m

The smart factories that are already beginning to appear employ a completely new approach to product creation. Smart products are uniquely identifiable and know both their current status and alternative routes to achieving their target state. Smart factories allow individual customer requirements to be met, meaning that even one-off items can be manufactured profitably. In smart industry, dynamic

Message authentication codes (MACs) using polynomial evaluation have the advantage of requiring a very short key even for very large messages. We describe a low complexity software polynomial evaluation procedure, that for large message sizes gives a MAC that has about the same low software complexity as for bucket hashing but requires only small keys and has better security characteristics.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the changes in vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) and calcitonin gene-related peptide(CGRP) and P2Y6-mediated signaling following experimental subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) and transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (tMCAO). VIP and CGRP are among the most powerful vasodilators known to man while P2Y6 mediates strong vasoconstriction in cerebral blood

Using a nonlocal version of the center-manifold theorem and a normal form reduction, we prove the existence of small-amplitude generalized solitary-wave solutions and modulated solitary-wave solutions to the steady gravity-capillary Whitham equation with weak surface tension. Through the application of the center-manifold theorem, the nonlocal equation for the solitary wave profiles is reduced to