Molecular Noise in Synaptic Communication.

In synaptic molecular communication (MC), the activation of postsynaptic receptors by neurotransmitter (NTs) is governed by a stochastic reaction-diffusion process. This randomness of synaptic MC contributes to the randomness of the electrochemical downstream signal in the postsynaptic cell, called postsynaptic membrane potential (PSP). Since the randomness of the PSP is relevant for neural computation and learning, characterizing the statistics of the PSP is critical.

Saturating Receiver and Receptor Competition in Synaptic DMC: Deterministic and Statistical Signal Models.

Synaptic communication is based on a biological Molecular Communication (MC) system which may serve as a blueprint for the design of synthetic MC systems. However, the physical modeling of synaptic MC is complicated by the possible saturation of the molecular receiver caused by the competition of neurotransmitters (NTs) for postsynaptic receptors. Receiver saturation renders the system behavior nonlinear in the number of released NTs and is commonly neglected in existing analytical models.

DARS2 protects against neuroinflammation and apoptotic neuronal loss, but is dispensable for myelin producing cells.

Although mitochondria are ubiquitous, each mitochondrial disease has surprisingly distinctly different pattern of tissue and organ involvement. Congruently, mutations in genes encoding for different mitochondrial tRNA synthetases result in the development of a very flamboyant group of diseases. Mutations in some of these genes, including aspartyl-tRNA synthetase (DARS2), lead to the onset of a white matter disease-leukoencephalopathy with brainstem and spinal cord involvement, and lactate elevation (LBSL) characterized by progressive spastic ataxia and characteristic leukoencephalopathy signature with multiple long-tract involvements.

Young age a predictor of weak reactivity in a rapid antibody test in infants infected with HIV.

In a resource-constrained African setting, children suspected of being infected with HIV are often screened with rapid antibody tests prior to definitive diagnosis with viral genome detection. It has previously been shown that a rapid antibody assay such as the Capillus HIV-1/HIV-2 test may have a high false-negative rate in infants. In this study CD(4) (+) count and percentage, HIV-1 viral load, antigen-specific reactivity, and age was explored as predictors of negative or low antibody reactivity by this assay.

A simple and inexpensive method for investigating microbiological, enzymatic, or inorganic catalysis using standard histology and microbiology laboratory equipment: assembly, mass transfer properties, hydrodynamic conditions and evaluation.

We introduce a generic, simple, and inexpensive method for performing microbiological, enzymatic, or inorganic catalysis with solids using standard histology and microbiology laboratory equipment. Histology cassettes were used to standardize hydrodynamic conditions and to protect the catalysts and their solid supports. Histology cassettes have the following advantages: they are readily available, inexpensive, solvent and acid resistant, automatable, and the slots in the cassette walls allow liquid to circulate freely.

Out-of-phase operating conditions, a hitherto unknown phenomenon in shaking bioreactors.

One of the important parameters in characterising fermentations of aerobic microorganisms is the specific power consumption. A new method has been introduced which enables the accurate determination of the power consumption in shaking bioreactors. It is based on torque measurements in the drive and the appropriate compensation of the friction losses.

Fate of 14C-labeled anthracene and hexadecane in compost-manured soil.

Experiments were carried out to evaluate the impact of the addition of ripe compost on the degradation of two 14C-labeled hydrocarbon model compounds (anthracene and hexadecane) in soil. The addition of mature compost (20% dry wt./dry wt) stimulated significantly the disappearance of the extractable fraction of both compounds.