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Immunosorbent turnip vein clearing virus (TVCV) particles displaying the IgG-binding domains D and E of Staphylococcus aureus protein A (PA) on every coat protein (CP) subunit (TVCVPA) were purified from plants via optimized and new protocols. The latter used polyethylene glycol (PEG) raw precipitates, from which virions were selectively re-solubilized in reverse PEG concentration gradients. This procedure improved the integrity of both TVCVPA and the wild-type subgroup 3 tobamovirus. TVCVPA could be loaded with more than 500 IgGs per virion, which mediated the immunocapture of fluorescent dyes, GFP, and active enzymes. Bi-enzyme ensembles of cooperating glucose oxidase and horseradish peroxidase were tethered together on the TVCVPA carriers via a single antibody type, with one enzyme conjugated chemically to its Fc region, and the other one bound as a target, yielding synthetic multi-enzyme complexes. In microtiter plates, the TVCVPA-displayed sugar-sensing system possessed a considerably increased reusability upon repeated testing, compared to the IgG-bound enzyme pair in the absence of the virus. A high coverage of the viral adapters was also achieved on Ta2O5 sensor chip surfaces coated with a polyelectrolyte interlayer, as a prerequisite for durable TVCVPA-assisted electrochemical biosensing via modularly IgG-assembled sensor enzymes.
This work presents the Multi-Bees-Tracker (MBT3D) algorithm, a Python framework implementing a deep association tracker for Tracking-By-Detection, to address the challenging task of tracking flight paths of bumblebees in a social group. While tracking algorithms for bumblebees exist, they often come with intensive restrictions, such as the need for sufficient lighting, high contrast between the animal and background, absence of occlusion, significant user input, etc. Tracking flight paths of bumblebees in a social group is challenging. They suddenly adjust movements and change their appearance during different wing beat states while exhibiting significant similarities in their individual appearance. The MBT3D tracker, developed in this research, is an adaptation of an existing ant tracking algorithm for bumblebee tracking. It incorporates an offline trained appearance descriptor along with a Kalman Filter for appearance and motion matching. Different detector architectures for upstream detections (You Only Look Once (YOLOv5), Faster Region Proposal Convolutional Neural Network (Faster R-CNN), and RetinaNet) are investigated in a comparative study to optimize performance. The detection models were trained on a dataset containing 11359 labeled bumblebee images. YOLOv5 reaches an Average Precision of AP = 53, 8%, Faster R-CNN achieves AP = 45, 3% and RetinaNet AP = 38, 4% on the bumblebee validation dataset, which consists of 1323 labeled bumblebee images. The tracker’s appearance model is trained on 144 samples. The tracker (with Faster R-CNN detections) reaches a Multiple Object Tracking Accuracy MOTA = 93, 5% and a Multiple Object Tracking Precision MOTP = 75, 6% on a validation dataset containing 2000 images, competing with state-of-the-art computer vision methods. The framework allows reliable tracking of different bumblebees in the same video stream with rarely occurring identity switches (IDS). MBT3D has much lower IDS than other commonly used algorithms, with one of the lowest false positive rates, competing with state-of-the-art animal tracking algorithms. The developed framework reconstructs the 3-dimensional (3D) flight paths of the bumblebees by triangulation. It also handles and compares two alternative stereo camera pairs if desired.
Kartellrecht vs. Datenschutzrecht: Rechtsgrundlagen für die Datenverarbeitung in sozialen Netzwerken
(2023)
Optical Fibers as Dosimeter Detectors for Mixed Proton/Neutron Fields - A Biological Dosimeter
(2023)
In recent years, proton therapy has gained importance as a cancer treatment modality due to its conformality with the tumor and the sparing of healthy tissue. However, in the interaction of the protons with the beam line elements and patient tissues, potentially harmful secondary neutrons are always generated. To ensure that this neutron dose is as low as possible, treatment plans could be created to also account for and minimize the neutron dose. To monitor such a treatment plan, a compact, easy to use, and inexpensive dosimeter must be developed that not only measures the physical dose, but which can also distinguish between proton and neutron contributions. To that end, plastic optical fibers with scintillation materials (Gd₂O₂S:Tb, Gd₂O₂S:Eu, and YVO₄:Eu) were irradiated with protons and neutrons. It was confirmed that sensors with different scintillation materials have different sensitivities to protons and neutrons. A combination of these three scintillators can be used to build a detector array to create a biological dosimeter.
Hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂), a strong oxidizer, is a commonly used sterilization agent employed during aseptic food processing and medical applications. To assess the sterilization efficiency with H₂O₂, bacterial spores are common microbial systems due to their remarkable robustness against a wide variety of decontamination strategies. Despite their widespread use, there is, however, only little information about the detailed time-resolved mechanism underlying the oxidative spore death by H₂O₂. In this work, we investigate chemical and morphological changes of individual Bacillus atrophaeus spores undergoing oxidative damage using optical sensing with trapping Raman microscopy in real-time. The time-resolved experiments reveal that spore death involves two distinct phases: (i) an initial phase dominated by the fast release of dipicolinic acid (DPA), a major spore biomarker, which indicates the rupture of the spore’s core; and (ii) the oxidation of the remaining spore material resulting in the subsequent fragmentation of the spores’ coat. Simultaneous observation of the spore morphology by optical microscopy corroborates these mechanisms. The dependence of the onset of DPA release and the time constant of spore fragmentation on H₂O₂ shows that the formation of reactive oxygen species from H₂O₂ is the rate-limiting factor of oxidative spore death.
Im Verfahren gegen die Österreichische Post AG (Rs. C-300/21) befasste sich der EuGH erstmals mit dem in Art. 82 DS-GVO geregelten datenschutzrechtlichen Schadensersatzanspruch. Mit den Klarstellungen des EuGH verschieben sich die Probleme nun stärker zu den „klassischen“ Fragen des Schadensersatzrechts im Zivilprozess. Relevant sind dabei vor allem Aspekte der Darlegungs- und Beweislast und deren Besonderheiten mit Blick auf den Ersatz immaterieller Schäden. Der Beitrag fokussiert sich auf die Voraussetzungen und den dabei zu führenden Tatsachenbeweis bei der Klage des Betroffenen gegen den Verantwortlichen auf Ersatz immaterieller Schäden.
Melting probes are a proven tool for the exploration of thick ice layers and clean sampling of subglacial water on Earth. Their compact size and ease of operation also make them a key technology for the future exploration of icy moons in our Solar System, most prominently Europa and Enceladus. For both mission planning and hardware engineering, metrics such as efficiency and expected performance in terms of achievable speed, power requirements, and necessary heating power have to be known.
Theoretical studies aim at describing thermal losses on the one hand, while laboratory experiments and field tests allow an empirical investigation of the true performance on the other hand. To investigate the practical value of a performance model for the operational performance in extraterrestrial environments, we first contrast measured data from terrestrial field tests on temperate and polythermal glaciers with results from basic heat loss models and a melt trajectory model. For this purpose, we propose conventions for the determination of two different efficiencies that can be applied to both measured data and models. One definition of efficiency is related to the melting head only, while the other definition considers the melting probe as a whole. We also present methods to combine several sources of heat loss for probes with a circular cross-section, and to translate the geometry of probes with a non-circular cross-section to analyse them in the same way. The models were selected in a way that minimizes the need to make assumptions about unknown parameters of the probe or the ice environment.
The results indicate that currently used models do not yet reliably reproduce the performance of a probe under realistic conditions. Melting velocities and efficiencies are constantly overestimated by 15 to 50 % in the models, but qualitatively agree with the field test data. Hence, losses are observed, that are not yet covered and quantified by the available loss models. We find that the deviation increases with decreasing ice temperature. We suspect that this mismatch is mainly due to the too restrictive idealization of the probe model and the fact that the probe was not operated in an efficiency-optimized manner during the field tests. With respect to space mission engineering, we find that performance and efficiency models must be used with caution in unknown ice environments, as various ice parameters have a significant effect on the melting process. Some of these are difficult to estimate from afar.
Amino acid-based surfactants are valuable compounds for cosmetic formulations. The chemical synthesis of acyl-amino acids is conventionally performed by the Schotten-Baumann reaction using fatty acyl chlorides, but aminoacylases have also been investigated for use in biocatalytic synthesis with free fatty acids. Aminoacylases and their properties are diverse; they belong to different peptidase families and show differences in substrate specificity and biocatalytic potential. Bacterial aminoacylases capable of synthesis have been isolated from Burkholderia, Mycolicibacterium, and Streptomyces. Although several proteases and peptidases from S. griseus have been described, no aminoacylases from this species have been identified yet. In this study, we investigated two novel enzymes produced by S. griseus DSM 40236ᵀ . We identified and cloned the respective genes and recombinantly expressed an α-aminoacylase (EC 3.5.1.14), designated SgAA, and an ε-lysine acylase (EC 3.5.1.17), designated SgELA, in S. lividans TK23. The purified aminoacylase SgAA was biochemically characterized, focusing on its hydrolytic activity to determine temperature- and pH optima and stabilities. The aminoacylase could hydrolyze various acetyl-amino acids at the Nα -position with a broad specificity regarding the sidechain. Substrates with longer acyl chains, like lauroyl-amino acids, were hydrolyzed to a lesser extent. Purified aminoacylase SgELA specific for the hydrolysis of Nε -acetyl-L-lysine was unstable and lost its enzymatic activity upon storage for a longer period but could initially be characterized. The pH optimum of SgELA was pH 8.0. While synthesis of acyl-amino acids was not observed with SgELA, SgAA catalyzed the synthesis of lauroyl-methionine.
We present the production of 58mCo on a small, 13 MeV medical cyclotron utilizing a siphon style liquid target system. Different concentrated iron(III)-nitrate solutions of natural isotopic distribution were irradiated at varying initial pressures and subsequently separated by solid phase extraction chromatography. The radio cobalt (58m/gCo and 56Co) was successfully produced with saturation activities of (0.35 ± 0.03) MBq μA−1 for 58mCo with a separation recovery of (75 ± 2) % of cobalt after one separation step utilizing LN-resin.
This article describes an Internet of things (IoT) sensing device with a wireless interface which is powered by the energy-harvesting method of the Wiegand effect. The Wiegand effect, in contrast to continuous sources like photovoltaic or thermal harvesters, provides small amounts of energy discontinuously in pulsed mode. To enable an energy-self-sufficient operation of the sensing device with this pulsed energy source, the output energy of the Wiegand generator is maximized. This energy is used to power up the system and to acquire and process data like position, temperature or other resistively measurable quantities as well as transmit these data via an ultra-low-power ultra-wideband (UWB) data transmitter. A proof-of-concept system was built to prove the feasibility of the approach. The energy consumption of the system during start-up was analysed, traced back in detail to the individual components, compared to the generated energy and processed to identify further optimization options. Based on the proof of concept, an application prototype was developed.
Die IMechE Railway Challenge wird jährlich in Stapleford, Großbritannien ausgetragen. Im Rahmen der Challenge entwickeln und bauen Studierende eine Lokomotive und vergleichen sich in verschiedenen Disziplinen, darunter eine automatisierte Zielbremsung, optimale Energierückgewinnung beim Bremsen und minimale Geräuschemissionen. Neben diesen und weiteren technischen Wettbewerbsdisziplinen treten die Fahrzeuge und die Teams auch in nicht-technischen Disziplinen wie einer Business Case Challenge an.
This study analyses the expected utilization of an urban distribution grid under high penetration of photovoltaic and e-mobility with charging infrastructure on a residential level. The grid utilization and the corresponding power flow are evaluated, while varying the control strategies and photovoltaic installed capacity in different scenarios. Four scenarios are used to analyze the impact of e-mobility. The individual mobility demand is modelled based on the largest German studies on mobility “Mobilität in Deutschland”, which is carried out every 5 years. To estimate the ramp-up of photovoltaic generation, a potential analysis of the roof surfaces in the supply area is carried out via an evaluation of an open solar potential study. The photovoltaic feed-in time series is derived individually for each installed system in a resolution of 15 min. The residential consumption is estimated using historical smart meter data, which are collected in London between 2012 and 2014. For a realistic charging demand, each residential household decides daily on the state of charge if their vehicle requires to be charged. The resulting charging time series depends on the underlying behavior scenario. Market prices and mobility demand are therefore used as scenario input parameters for a utility function based on the current state of charge to model individual behavior. The aggregated electricity demand is the starting point of the power flow calculation. The evaluation is carried out for an urban region with approximately 3100 residents. The analysis shows that increased penetration of photovoltaics combined with a flexible and adaptive charging strategy can maximize PV usage and reduce the need for congestion-related intervention by the grid operator by reducing the amount of kWh charged from the grid by 30% which reduces the average price of a charged kWh by 35% to 14 ct/kWh from 21.8 ct/kWh without PV optimization. The resulting grid congestions are managed by implementing an intelligent price or control signal. The analysis took place using data from a real German grid with 10 subgrids. The entire software can be adapted for the analysis of different distribution grids and is publicly available as an open-source software library on GitHub.
Subglacial environments on Earth offer important analogs to Ocean World targets in our solar system. These unique microbial ecosystems remain understudied due to the challenges of access through thick glacial ice (tens to hundreds of meters). Additionally, sub-ice collections must be conducted in a clean manner to ensure sample integrity for downstream microbiological and geochemical analyses. We describe the field-based cleaning of a melt probe that was used to collect brine samples from within a glacier conduit at Blood Falls, Antarctica, for geomicrobiological studies. We used a thermoelectric melting probe called the IceMole that was designed to be minimally invasive in that the logistical requirements in support of drilling operations were small and the probe could be cleaned, even in a remote field setting, so as to minimize potential contamination. In our study, the exterior bioburden on the IceMole was reduced to levels measured in most clean rooms, and below that of the ice surrounding our sampling target. Potential microbial contaminants were identified during the cleaning process; however, very few were detected in the final englacial sample collected with the IceMole and were present in extremely low abundances (∼0.063% of 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequences). This cleaning protocol can help minimize contamination when working in remote field locations, support microbiological sampling of terrestrial subglacial environments using melting probes, and help inform planetary protection challenges for Ocean World analog mission concepts.
Die Verfasser stellen in ihrem Beitrag die künftig in Kraft tretenden oder schon in Kraft getretenen Gesetzesvorhaben der europäischen Union vor. Vorab werde auf die abgelaufene Frist zur Anpassung von Standardvertragsklausel hingewiesen. Die Anpassung könne ggf. durch den Data Privacy Act der Kommission bewirkt werden, da dieser eine Angemessenheit suggeriere. Neben dem Digital Markets Act, der die Wahrung der Diskriminierungsfreiheit den Gatekeeper-Plattformen bezüglich der Bewerbung von Waren Dritter vorschreibt, sind ebenfalls der Digital Service Act und der Data Governance Act in Kraft getreten und werden künftig wirksam. Letzteres bezweckt den Datenaustausch von nicht-personenbezogenen Daten öffentlich-rechtlicher Datensätze, wobei anders als bei DSA, der die Verbraucherrechte durchsetzen möchte, mangels Verpflichtung die praktische Umsetzung ausbleiben werde. In der Entwurfsphase stecken der Artificial Intelligence Act, der Data Act, sowie der Cyber Resilience Act. Allen drei sei wegen dem weiten Anwendungsspielraum, der Bußgeldandrohung oder der Cyber-Bedrohungslage besondere praktische Relevanz beizumessen. Die Kommission weite durch diese Gesetzesvorhaben ihre Regelungsabsicht auch auf nicht-personenbezogene Daten und dem Datentransfer aus. Im Ergebnis werden die Unternehmen mit mehr Verpflichtungen konfrontiert, zu dessen Umsetzung ein funktionierendes Compliance-Management-System unabdingbar sei.
A method for detecting and approximating fault lines or surfaces, respectively, or decision curves in two and three dimensions with guaranteed accuracy is presented. Reformulated as a classification problem, our method starts from a set of scattered points along with the corresponding classification algorithm to construct a representation of a decision curve by points with prescribed maximal distance to the true decision curve. Hereby, our algorithm ensures that the representing point set covers the decision curve in its entire extent and features local refinement based on the geometric properties of the decision curve. We demonstrate applications of our method to problems related to the detection of faults, to multi-criteria decision aid and, in combination with Kirsch’s factorization method, to solving an inverse acoustic scattering problem. In all applications we considered in this work, our method requires significantly less pointwise classifications than previously employed algorithms.
Today’s society is undergoing a paradigm shift driven by the megatrend of sustainability. This undeniably affects all areas of Western life. This paper aims to find out how the luxury industry is dealing with this change and what adjustments are made by the companies. For this purpose, interviews were conducted with managers from the luxury industry, in which they were asked about specific measures taken by their companies as well as trends in the industry. In a subsequent evaluation, the trends in the luxury industry were summarized for the areas of ecological, social, and economic sustainability. It was found that the area of environmental sustainability is significantly more focused than the other sub-areas. Furthermore, the need for a customer survey to validate the industry-based measures was identified.
To gain insight on chemical sterilization processes, the influence of temperature (up to 70 °C), intense green light, and hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) concentration (up to 30% in aqueous solution) on microbial spore inactivation is evaluated by in-situ Raman spectroscopy with an optical trap. Bacillus atrophaeus is utilized as a model organism. Individual spores are isolated and their chemical makeup is monitored under dynamically changing conditions (temperature, light, and H₂O₂ concentration) to mimic industrially relevant process parameters for sterilization in the field of aseptic food processing. While isolated spores in water are highly stable, even at elevated temperatures of 70 °C, exposure to H₂O₂ leads to a loss of spore integrity characterized by the release of the key spore biomarker dipicolinic acid (DPA) in a concentration-dependent manner, which indicates damage to the inner membrane of the spore. Intensive light or heat, both of which accelerate the decomposition of H₂O₂ into reactive oxygen species (ROS), drastically shorten the spore lifetime, suggesting the formation of ROS as a rate-limiting step during sterilization. It is concluded that Raman spectroscopy can deliver mechanistic insight into the mode of action of H₂O₂-based sterilization and reveal the individual contributions of different sterilization methods acting in tandem.
Muscle function is compromised by gravitational unloading in space affecting overall musculoskeletal health. Astronauts perform daily exercise programmes to mitigate these effects but knowing which muscles to target would optimise effectiveness. Accurate inflight assessment to inform exercise programmes is critical due to lack of technologies suitable for spaceflight. Changes in mechanical properties indicate muscle health status and can be measured rapidly and non-invasively using novel technology. A hand-held MyotonPRO device enabled monitoring of muscle health for the first time in spaceflight (> 180 days). Greater/maintained stiffness indicated countermeasures were effective. Tissue stiffness was preserved in the majority of muscles (neck, shoulder, back, thigh) but Tibialis Anterior (foot lever muscle) stiffness decreased inflight vs. preflight (p < 0.0001; mean difference 149 N/m) in all 12 crewmembers. The calf muscles showed opposing effects, Gastrocnemius increasing in stiffness Soleus decreasing. Selective stiffness decrements indicate lack of preservation despite daily inflight countermeasures. This calls for more targeted exercises for lower leg muscles with vital roles as ankle joint stabilizers and in gait. Muscle stiffness is a digital biomarker for risk monitoring during future planetary explorations (Moon, Mars), for healthcare management in challenging environments or clinical disorders in people on Earth, to enable effective tailored exercise programmes.