The aim of the present meta-analysis was to find out the impact of MIF -173 G > C polymorphism on risk of tuberculosis (TB). We conducted a search of case–control studies on the associations of -173 G > C variant of MIF with susceptibility to tuberculosis in PubMed, ISI Web of Science, and Scopus. We extracted the data from eligible studies and achieved a meta-analysis to examine the relationship between MIF -173 G > C polymorphism and the risk of TB. Odds ratios (ORs) with the corresponding ...

Anacardium microcarpum Ducke (Anacardiaceae) is a native species of Brazil used in folk medicine for the treatment of several illnesses although its antioxidant activity has been reported in vitro, there is no evidence of this effect in an in vivo model. Here, we investigated the potential protective effect of hydroalcoholic extract (AMHE), methanol (AMMF) and acetate (AMAF) fraction of A. microcarpum against paraquat toxicity on survivorship, locomotor performance, antioxidant enzymes activi...

Oral tolerance (OT) towards antigens encountered in the gut is a vital immune function of gut immunity. Experimental models can demonstrate OT efficacy by feeding of a protein followed by peripheral immunization and measuring the specific antibody titer. We had previously shown that exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), a xenobiotic high-affinity aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR)-ligand, destabilized OT against ovalbumin (OVA) in mice. AhR is involved in the developm...

This thesis deals with the development of novel material models that capture the evolution of microstructures. The analysis of microstructures is essential for the description of metallic material properties, which are considered in this thesis. Depending on the underlying application, microstructures are analysed on the technological relevant macroscale or on the materials science relevant microscale. Independent of the underlying scale, mechanical and thermal loadings are the most dominatin...

In this paper we present a new method for determining optimal designs for enzyme inhibition kinetic models, which are used to model the influence of the concentration of a substrate and an inhibition on the velocity of a reaction. The approach uses a nonlinear transformation of the vector of predictors such that the model in the new coordinates is given by an incomplete response surface model. Although there exist no explicit solutions of the optimal design problem for incomplete respons...

We derive tests of stationarity for continuous univariate time series by combining changepoint tests sensitive to changes in the contemporary distribution with tests sensitive to changes in the serial dependence. Rank-based cumulative sum tests based on the empirical distribution function and on the empirical autocopula at a given lag are considered first. The combination of their dependent p-values relies on a joint dependent multiplier bootstrap of the two underlying statistics. Condit...

In recent years there has been a booming and unguided ‘modern’ residential housing investments in most of the villages on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. This was a phenomenon which motivated me to conduct this study in order to investigate the motives behind such investments, including the spatial and environmental challenges contribute by such investments. The idea is to conserve the nature in the villages on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, including the mountain and its forest...

Zur Untersuchung der Regulation von NK-Zellen wurden in der vorliegenden Arbeit Signalkaskaden in Schneiderzellen nachgebaut. Dafür wurden bekannte Komponenten von Signalkaskaden aus NK-Zellen transient in Schneiderzellen co-transfiziert und die Phosphorylierung von kritischen Signalmolekülen untersucht. Mit Hilfe dieses Ansatzes konnten wir in Schneiderzellen eine Signalkaskade mit 3 essentiellen Komponenten nachbilden. Ein Adaptermolekül das ein ITAM-Motiv enthält war ausreichend SYK zu akt...

Pharmacologically active substances have been applied in medicine for at least 5300 years.Ever since, mankind has tried to enlarge the assortment of bio-active substances, in order to fight diseases and ultimately maintain health and quality of life. For thousands of years, but especially in the last century, drug discovery has been the scientific key driver for the progression of medicine. One process that attracts notable attention due to its high potential for the development of new drugs...

Die Dissertation User-Aware Performance Evaluation and Optimization of Parallel Job Schedulers beschäftigt sich mit der realitätsnahen, dynamischen Simulation und Optimierung von Lastsituationen in parallelen Rechensystemen unter Berücksichtigung von Feedback-Effekten zwischen Performance und Nutzerverhalten. Die Besonderheit solcher Systeme liegt in der geteilten Nutzung durch mehrere Anwender, was zu einer Einschr änkung der Verfügbarkeit von Ressourcen führt. Sollten nicht alle Rechenanfra...

The multi–object filtering problem is a generalization of the well–known single– object filtering problem. In essence, multi–object filtering is concerned with the joint estimation of the unknown and time–varying number of objects and the state of each of these objects. The filtering problem becomes particular challenging when the number of objects cannot be inferred from the collected observations and when no association between an observation and an object is possible. A rather new and pr...

Autophagy is a vital catabolic process involved in the degradation of cellular components, which plays an important role in cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. Due to their high complexity, the pathways regulating autophagy have not been fully elucidated. The development of specific autophagy modulators and the identification of their cellular targets can provide valuable insight into the regulation of this process and, ultimately, its role in disease. Herein, a potent inhibitor of star...

In both Germany and Taiwan are facing the situation of growing ageing population and low fertility rate, besides, with the weakness of the household structure and the traditional care model has been changed, the comprehensive care system is urgently needed. With the mentioned demographic and social change, the long- term care service is regarded as a social right. It is widely accepted by the sociologists that the individuals and their families have to take responsibility to a regarded person...

This dissertation presents a fully implicit, monolithic finite element solution scheme to effectively solve the governing set of differential algebraic equations of incompressible poroelastodynamics. Thereby, a two-dimensional, biphasic, saturated porous medium model with intrinsically coupled and incompressible solid and fluid constituents is considered. Our schemes are based on some well-accepted CFD techniques, originally developed for the efficient simulation of incompressible flow proble...

Kooperation gilt als ein probates Mittel für Unternehmen, um Netzwerkeffekte zu heben und so Herausforderungen besser meistern zu können. Im Ruhrgebiet hat kooperatives Vorgehen durchaus Tradition, gleichzeitig ist das „Revier“ eine Region, der es an Herausforderungen nicht mangelt – beispielsweise bei der Bewältigung des wirtschaftlichen Strukturwandels, des demografischen Wandels und damit einher gehender sozialer Verwerfungen. Kommunalen Wohnungsunternehmen kommt in Bezug auf diese Herausf...

We study combinatorial problems with ellipsoidal uncertainty in the objective function concerning their theoretical and practical solvability. Ellipsoidal uncertainty is a natural model when the coefficients are normally distributed random variables. Robust versions of typical combinatorial problems can be very hard to solve compared to their linear versions. Complexity and approaches differ fundamentally depending on whether uncorrelated or correlated uncertainty occurs. We distinguish betw...

The paper presents a goal-oriented error control based on the dual weighted residual method (DWR) for the finite cell method (FCM), which is characterized by an enclosing domain covering the domain of the problem. The error identity derived by the DWR method allows for a combined treatment of the discretization and quadrature error introduced by the FCM. We present an adaptive strategy with the aim to balance these two error contributions. Its performance is demonstrated for some two-dimension...