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Adoption of Modern Maize Varieties in India: Insights Based on Expert Elicitation Methodology
(2018)
ドイツで学んだ研究の方法と働き方
(2018)
After replanting apple (Malus domestica Borkh.) on the same site severe growth suppressions, and a decline in yield and fruit quality are observed in all apple producing areas worldwide. The causes of this complex phenomenon, called apple replant disease (ARD), are only poorly understood up to now which is in part due to inconsistencies in terms and methodologies. Therefore we suggest the following definition for ARD: ARD describes a harmfully disturbed physiological and morphological reaction of apple plants to soils that faced alterations in their (micro-) biome due to the previous apple cultures. The underlying interactions likely have multiple causes that extend beyond common analytical tools in microbial ecology. They are influenced by soil properties, faunal vectors, and trophic cascades, with genotype-specific effects on plant secondary metabolism, particularly phytoalexin biosynthesis. Yet, emerging tools allow to unravel the soil and rhizosphere (micro-) biome, to characterize alterations of habitat quality, and to decipher the plant reactions. Thereby, deep insights into the reactions taking place at the root rhizosphere interface will be gained. Counteractions are suggested, taking into account that culture management should emphasize on improving soil microbial and faunal diversity as well as habitat quality rather than focus on soil disinfection.
Companies investing in the occupied Palestinian territories are faced with a dilemma. Undoubtedly, the creation of jobs helps to put young Palestinians to work. Experience shows that especially young males are less likely to radicalise and commit crimes when having an occupation. However, negative press coverage due to the disputed status of the territory can force companies to withdraw. CSR activities can help to demonstrate that a company has a genuine interest in its employees and community at large. Our article looks into one particular case of an Israeli company that had to withdraw their operation due to public pressure, mainly Western media. We give recommendations how such failure could have been avoided by using the right kind of CSR activities that address the needs of the Palestinians.
Here, we present a miR mechanism which is active in the nucleus and is essential for the production of intron included, C-terminal truncated and biologically active proteins, like e.g. Vim3. We exemplified this mechanism by miRs, miR-15a and miR-498, which are overexpressed in clear cell renal carcinoma or oncocytoma. Both miRs directly interact with DNA in an intronic region, leading to transcriptional stop, and therefore repress the full length version of the pre-mRNA, resulting in intron included truncated proteins (Mxi-2 and Vim3). A computational survey shows that this miR:DNA interactions mechanism may be generally involved in regulating the human transcriptome, with putative interaction sites in intronic regions for over 1000 genes. In this work, an entirely new mechanism is revealed how miRs can repress full length protein translation, resulting in C-terminal truncated proteins.
One of the main aims of current social robotic research is to improve the robots’ abilities to interact with humans. In order to achieve an interaction similar to that among humans, robots should be able to communicate in an intuitive and natural way and appropriately interpret human affects during social interactions. Similarly to how humans are able to recognize emotions in other humans, machines are capable of extracting information from the various ways humans convey emotions-including facial expression, speech, gesture or text-and using this information for improved human computer interaction. This can be described as Affective Computing, an interdisciplinary field that expands into otherwise unrelated fields like psychology and cognitive science and involves the research and development of systems that can recognize and interpret human affects. To leverage these emotional capabilities by embedding them in humanoid robots is the foundation of the concept Affective Robots, which has the objective of making robots capable of sensing the user’s current mood and personality traits and adapt their behavior in the most appropriate manner based on that. In this paper, the emotion recognition capabilities of the humanoid robot Pepper are experimentally explored, based on the facial expressions for the so-called basic emotions, as well as how it performs in contrast to other state-of-the-art approaches with both expression databases compiled in academic environments and real subjects showing posed expressions as well as spontaneous emotional reactions. The experiments’ results show that the detection accuracy amongst the evaluated approaches differs substantially. The introduced experiments offer a general structure and approach for conducting such experimental evaluations. The paper further suggests that the most meaningful results are obtained by conducting experiments with real subjects expressing the emotions as spontaneous reactions.
Design and Analysis of an OFDM-Based Orthogonal Chaotic Vector Shift Keying Communication System
(2018)
We propose a new non-coherent multicarrier spread-spectrum system that combines orthogonal chaotic vector shift keying (OCVSK) and orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). The system enhances OCVSK by sending multiple groups of information sequences with the same orthogonal chaotic vector reference sequences over the selected subcarriers. Each group carries M information bits and is separated from other groups by orthogonal chaotic reference signals. We derive the information rate enhancement (IRE) and the energy saving enhancement (ESE) factors as well as the bit error rate theory of OFDM-OCVSK under additive white Gaussian noise and multipath Rayleigh fading channels and compare the results with conventional OCVSK systems. For large group numbers, the results show that the IRE and ESE factors approachM×100% andM/(M+1)×100%, respectively, and thus outperform OCVSK systems. The complexity analysis of the proposed scheme as compared with OFDM-DCSK shows a significant reduction in the number of complex multiplications required.
In 2018, in the US alone, it is estimated that 268,670 people will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and that 41,400 will die from it. Since breast cancers often become resistant to therapies, and certain breast cancers lack therapeutic targets, new approaches are urgently required. A cell-stress response pathway, the unfolded protein response (UPR), has emerged as a promising target for the development of novel breast cancer treatments. This pathway is activated in response to a disturbance in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) homeostasis but has diverse physiological and disease-specific functions. In breast cancer, UPR signalling promotes a malignant phenotype and can confer tumours with resistance to widely used therapies. Here, we review several roles for UPR signalling in breast cancer, highlighting UPR-mediated therapy resistance and the potential for targeting the UPR alone or in combination with existing therapies.
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) lacks targeted therapies and has a worse prognosis than other breast cancer subtypes, underscoring an urgent need for new therapeutic targets and strategies. IRE1 is an endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress sensor, whose activation is predominantly linked to the resolution of ER stress and, in the case of severe stress, to cell death. Here we demonstrate that constitutive IRE1 RNase activity contributes to basal production of pro-tumorigenic factors IL-6, IL-8, CXCL1, GM-CSF, and TGFβ2 in TNBC cells. We further show that the chemotherapeutic drug, paclitaxel, enhances IRE1 RNase activity and this contributes to paclitaxel-mediated expansion of tumor-initiating cells. In a xenograft mouse model of TNBC, inhibition of IRE1 RNase activity increases paclitaxel-mediated tumor suppression and delays tumor relapse post therapy. We therefore conclude that inclusion of IRE1 RNase inhibition in therapeutic strategies can enhance the effectiveness of current chemotherapeutics.
A Method for the Sustainable Documentation of Operations Processes in Parcel Distribution Centers
(2018)
There is often no common understanding on operational processes in logistics companies as they are not properly documented. Hence, people execute the same process differently and training is conducted by experienced operators on an ad-hoc basis. Furthermore, continuous process improvement is hampered as neither the ideal process nor current issues in as-is processes are visible. A major reason for the missing documentation is the complexity of existing business process modelling languages. Modelling experts are required for initially describing the processes and also for updating the models after process changes. Furthermore, operations people are usually not used to read complex process models in EPCs or BPMN diagrams. In order to overcome these limitations, a domain-specific modelling language which facilitates maintaining up-to-date process models has been designed with a large logistics company in Germany. The paper at hand briefly describes this language and illustrates the method on how to apply it in operations environments.
Through the “Act to Strengthen the Non-financial Reporting by Corporations in their Management and Group Management Reports” (Gesetz zur Stärkung der nichtfinanziellen Berichterstattung der Unternehmen in ihren Lage- und Konzernlageberichten) (CSR Directive Transposition Act, „CSR-RUG“) of 11 April 2017[1], the German Bundestag implemented Directive 2014/95/EU (“CSR Directive”)[2] into German law. Following the European impetus, the CSR-RUG enriches the traditional repertoire of forms of action under environmental law by a further instrument. Already the regulatory context gives an idea of its atypical nature: The centrepiece of the CSR-RUG is the amendment of and addition to the Third Book of the German Commercial Code (Handelsgesetzbuch, “HGB”), which deals with the “trading books” of undertakings, i.e., accounting and reporting requirements. Since the reporting year 2017, large capital market-oriented corporations must report extensively within the framework of their annual management reports on their activities and effects in certain areas of “Corporate Social Responsibility”. This also includes environmental matters. The transparency and publicity this entails is intended to generate positive stimuli for more responsible, sustained and not least of all environmentally friendly entrepreneurial action.
Following a brief presentation of the European legal bases and their implementation in Germany (I.), we will classify the provisions within the underlying concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (II.) and analyse and systemise the governance effects of non-financial reporting (III.). A few remarks on selected aspects of the chosen approach and its implementation (IV.) as well as an outlook summarising our conclusions (V.) will complete this article. By detailing the German approach to transposing the CSR Directive, this paper intends to provide an example of the challenges member state legislators face when complying with modern governance concepts such as Corporate Social Responsibility by way of non-financial reporting obligations.
[1] Federal Law Gazette, Part I 2017, 802 et seq.
[2] Directive 2014/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council 22 October 2014 amending Directive 2013/34/EU as regards disclosure of non-financial and diversity information by certain large undertakings and groups, OJ EU No. L 330, p. 1.