Sensor-Model-Based Trajectory Optimization for UAVs to Enhance Detection Performance: An Optimal Control Approach and Experimental Results.

UAVs are widely used for aerial reconnaissance with imaging sensors. For this, a high detection performance (accuracy of object detection) is desired in order to increase mission success. However, different environmental conditions (negatively) affect sensory data acquisition and automated object detection.

On the role of data, statistics and decisions in a pandemic.

A pandemic poses particular challenges to decision-making because of the need to continuously adapt decisions to rapidly changing evidence and available data. For example, which countermeasures are appropriate at a particular stage of the pandemic? How can the severity of the pandemic be measured? What is the effect of vaccination in the population and which groups should be vaccinated first? The process of decision-making starts with data collection and modeling and continues to the dissemination of results and the subsequent decisions taken. The goal of this paper is to give an overview of this process and to provide recommendations for the different steps from a statistical perspective.

Expression of the Phosphatase Ppef2 Controls Survival and Function of CD8 Dendritic Cells.

Apoptotic cell death of Dendritic cells (DCs) is critical for immune homeostasis. Although intrinsic mechanisms controlling DC death have not been fully characterized up to now, experimentally enforced inhibition of DC-death causes various autoimmune diseases in model systems. We have generated mice deficient for (Ppef2), which is selectively expressed in CD8 DCs, but not in other related DC subtypes such as tissue CD103 DCs.

Innate Immune Signals Induce Anterograde Endosome Transport Promoting MHC Class I Cross-Presentation.

Both cross-presentation of antigens by dendritic cells, a key pathway triggering T cell immunity and immune tolerance, and survival of several pathogens residing in intracellular vacuoles are intimately linked to delayed maturation of vesicles containing internalized antigens and microbes. However, how early endosome or phagosome identity is maintained is incompletely understood. We show that Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and Fc receptor ligation induces interaction of the GTPase Rab14 with the kinesin KIF16b mediating plus-end-directed microtubule transport of endosomes.

[Big data in official statistics].

The concept of "big data" stands to change the face of official statistics over the coming years, having an impact on almost all aspects of data production. The tasks of future statisticians will not necessarily be to produce new data, but rather to identify and make use of existing data to adequately describe social and economic phenomena. Until big data can be used correctly in official statistics, a lot of questions need to be answered and problems solved: the quality of data, data protection, privacy, and the sustainable availability are some of the more pressing issues to be addressed.

miR-148a promotes plasma cell differentiation and targets the germinal center transcription factors Mitf and Bach2.

B cells undergo affinity maturation and class switch recombination of their immunoglobulin receptors during a germinal center (GC) reaction, before they differentiate into long-lived antibody-secreting plasma cells (PCs). Transcription factors such as Bach2 and Mitf are essential during this process, as they delay premature differentiation of GC B cells by repressing Blimp-1 and IRF4, two transcription factors required for terminal PC differentiation. Therefore, Bach2 and Mitf expression must be attenuated in activated B cells to allow terminal PC differentiation, but the precise mechanism remains enigmatic.