Correction to: Integrative transcriptomics reveals genotypic impact on sugar beet storability

Plant Molecular Biology - In the above mentioned publication, part of Fig. 6B was distorted (extra diagonal lines appeared). The original article has been corrected and the proper version...     

An Automated System for Monitoring and Regulating the pH of Bicarbonate Buffers

The bicarbonate buffer is considered as the most biorelevant buffer system for the simulation of intestinal conditions. However, its use in dissolution testing of solid oral dosage forms is very limited. The reason for this is the thermodynamic instability of the solution containing hydrogen carbonate ions and carbonic acid. The spontaneous loss of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the solution results in an uncontrolled increase of the pH. In order to maintain the pH on the desired level, either a CO₂ loss must be completely avoided or the escaped CO₂ has to be replaced by quantitative substitution, i.e. feeding the solution with the respective amount of gas, which re-acidifies the buffer after dissociation. The present work aimed at the development of a device enabling an automatic pH monitoring and regulation of hydrogen carbonate buffers during dissolution tests.     

A non-parametric method for the reconstruction of age- and time-dependent incidence from the prevalence data of irreversible diseases with differential mortality.

A method is proposed for reconstructing the time and age dependence of incidence rates from successive age-prevalence cross sections taken from the sentinel surveys of irreversible diseases when there is an important difference in mortality between the infected and susceptible subpopulations. The prevalence information at different time-age points is used to generate a surface; the time-age variations along the life line profiles of this surface and the difference in mortality rates are used to reconstruct the time and age dependence of the incidence rate. Past attempts were based on specified parametric forms for the incidence or on the hypothesis of time-invariant forms for the age-prevalence cross sections. The proposed method makes no such assumptions and is thus capable of coping with rapidly evolving prevalence situations. In the simulations carried out, it is found to be resilient to important random noise components added to a prescribed incidence rate input. The method is also tested on a real data set of successive HIV age-prevalence cross sections from Burundi coupled to differential mortality data on HIV(+) and HIV(-) individuals. The often-made assumption that the incidence rate can be written as the product of a calendar time component and an age component is also examined. In this case, a pooling procedure is proposed to estimate the time and the age profiles of the incidence rate using the reconstructed incidence rates at all time-age points.     

Validation of density–elasticity relationships for finite element modeling of human pelvic bone by modal analysis

In total hip arthroplasty and particularly in revision surgery, computer assisted pre-operative prediction of the best possible anchorage strategy for implant fixation would be a great help to the surgeon. Computer simulation relies on validated numerical models. In the current study, three density–elasticity relationships (No. 1–3) from the literature for inhomogeneous material parameter assignment from CT data in automated finite element (FE) modeling of long bones were evaluated for their suitability for FE modeling of human pelvic bone. Numerical modal analysis was conducted on 10 FE models of hemipelvic bone specimens and compared to the gold standard provided by experimental modal analysis results from a previous in-vitro study on the same specimens. Overall, calculated resonance frequencies came out lower than measured values. Magnitude of mean relative deviation of numerical resonance frequencies with regard to measured values is lowest for the density–elasticity relationship No. 3 (−15.9%) and considerably higher for both density–elasticity relationships No. 1 (−41.1%) and No. 2 (−45.0%). Mean MAC values over all specimens amount to 77.8% (No. 1), 78.5% (No. 2), and 83.0% (No. 3). MAC results show, that mode shapes are only slightly influenced by material distribution. Calculated resonance frequencies are generally lower than measured values, which indicates, that numerical models lack stiffness. Even when using the best suited (No. 3) out of three investigated density–elasticity relationships, in FE modeling of pelvic bone a considerable underestimation of model stiffness has to be taken into account.     

Cytophysiological basis of disruptive pigmentary patterns in the leopard frog Rana pipiens. II. Wild type and mutant cell-specific patterns,

A new pattern index, I_p, is introduced and used to compare patterns of wild type, burnsi, and kandiyohi chromatophores in the leopard frog, Rana pipiens. Wild type chromatophores are hyperdispersed over distances within cellular contact, and it is concluded that this hyperdispersion results from contact-mediated negative interactions. The hyperdispersion is less strong in spot cells than interspot, and extends over larger areas in burnsi than in wild type epidermis. Over areas greater than chromatophore size, patterns are either random or clumped. Patterning of kandiyohi melanophores is clumped into aggregates small enough to be within the range of cellular contact, suggesting a lack of contact inhibition among these cells. The possible roles of cellular properties and the extracellular environment in pattern determination are discussed.     

Effective Part-Task Training as Evidence of Distinct Adaptive Processes with Different Time Scales

For some types of visuo-motor transformations like large visuo-motor rotations or the complex transformation of a sliding first-order lever, distinct adaptive processes have been hypothesized that produce a rapid, discrete approximation of the transformation and a slow, graded fine tuning, respectively. Here we investigate whether part-task training of only the second of these processes, namely the fine tuning, transfers to the subsequent performance in a condition with the full transformation of the sliding first-order lever. Therefore, we compared performance of three groups with different practice conditions during transfer to the full transformation. While two groups only practiced the fine tuning without the right-left inversion of the lever prior to transfer, a third group practiced the full lever transformation. Our results show a positive, but less than perfect transfer of the isolated practice of the fine tuning on performance with the full transformation. For the fine tuning itself, transfer was not reliably different from being perfect. The observation that the fine tuning can be acquired separately and added to the later adaptation to the left-right inversion of the lever supports the notion that these slow and fast processes progress rather independently. The additional finding that the preceding acquisition of the fine tuning also facilitates the subsequent rapid process could be due to generalized learning-to-learn or to a more precise assignment of movement errors to the process from which they originate.