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This paper studies the digital transformation process of one of Russia’s largest freight forwarding companies that was met with resistance from its middle management which put the entire change process in jeopardy. With the move to a digital platform business, the middle management had to follow enterprise-wide rules imposed by the underlying information system. Preferred treatment of hauliers as established by regional managers were no longer possible and it was this loss of autonomy that stood at the core of resistance among the firm’s middle management. The practice of such extra organizational networks is described in Russian bz the term ‘blat’. The blat originated during the Soviet Union and described a system of personal favors that ensured the functioning of society in times of scarcity. The paper describes eight instances of middle managers’ resistance who resisted the organisational change. Data was collected through interviews and document studies. We describe the circumstances that triggered resistance behaviour of each middle manager through their own words, the viewpoint of project managers and the company’s top management. Our findings describe how individual resistance was overcome and – in many instances – converted into support for the change agenda. The original value of our paper is that the company overcame the resistance and successfully implemented its change agenda and entered a period of economic growth. Although the change process had to overcome many obstacles, the result proved economically very successful. Today, the company is one of the top transportation firms in Russia.

Relational models theory provides an alternative framework to study group and intergroup processes. One of four models people use to constitute groups is communal sharing (CS). Ethnographic and experimental evidence suggests that CS is produced by concrete and symbolic enactments of connections between bodies (cuddling, touching, synchronicity, commensality). We tested the effect of commensality on CS and ingroup favouritism in four Experiments with 3-person groups (total n = 330) and found that commensality enhances emergent group communal sharing but does not enhance ingroup favouritism. In Experiment 1, sharing food enhanced ingroup communal sharing but in Experiment 2 this effect was not significant. In Experiments 3 and 4, sharing water enhanced communal sharing, but only when served from the same bottle, implying consubstantial assimilation. Ingroup favouritism was not enhanced by commensality in any experiment, even when explicitly presented as exclusively ingroup (Experiment 2), suggesting non-comparative group formation through ingroup commensality.

PurposeThis paper aims to report on a design intervention at the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) control room which resulted from a user-centred design approach intended to raise its usability.Design/methodology/approachAdapting a user-centred design approach, the observations and interviews revealed a number of weaknesses of the current control room design.FindingsWhile most suggestions would require larger restructuring, the designers intervened with simple solutions resulting in the improved handling of many pieces of hardware. This study suggests that such design interventions hold the possibility to majorly improve the efficiency of the control room and thereby raise the potential outcome of such highly capital intense installations.Originality/valueThereby, this paper has immediate relevance to the astronomical field and the corresponding advancements in electronics, engineering and technology development.

Molecular genetics & genomic medicine 5(6), 668-677 (2017). doi:10.1002/mgg3.324, Published by Wiley, Chichester [u.a.]

Background Extreme prematurity has been associated with exercise intolerance and reduced physical activity. We hypothesized that children with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) would be especially affected based on long-term lung function impairments. Therefore, the objective of this study was to compare exercise capacity and habitual physical activity between children born very and extremely preterm with and without BPD and term-born children. Methods Twenty-two school-aged children (aged 8 to 12 years) born with a gestational age

Older adults present with a complex array of medical disorders that present with or worsen comorbid psychiatric disorders. Additionally the treatment of these disorders can result in or worsen the comorbid psychiatric disorders. Poor clinical awareness, lack of assessment tools specifically designed for use among older adults, and the confusion in presentation of these medical disorders can result in under- or misdiagnosis of these conditions. Early diagnosis and prompt interventions can minimize the adverse outcomes from these medical disorders and improve the quality of life of older adults.

Determinacy of infinite two-player games is a topic of descriptive set theory that has triggered intensive research in theoretical computer science since 1957 when A. Church formulated his "synthesis problem" (regarding the construction of circuits with infinite behavior from logical specifications). In the first part of the lecture we review the fascinating development of the algorithmic theory of infinite games that was started by Church's problem, that enriched automata theory and related fields, and that led to interesting applications in verification and program synthesis. In the second part we turn to the question how to lift this theory from the case of the Cantor space (where a play is a sequence of bits) to the case of the Baire space (where a play is a sequence of natural numbers). While this step does not involve difficulties in classical descriptive set theory, the algorithmic approach raises non-trivial questions since it requires to consider automata that work over infinite alphabets. We present recent results (joint work with B. Brütsch) that provide a solution of Church's synthesis problem in this context, and we point to numerous questions that are still open.

Background: Maternal uniparental disomy of chromosome 6 (upd(6)mat) is a rare finding and its clinical relevance is currently unclear. Based on clinical data from two new cases and patients from the literature, the pathogenetic significance of upd(6)mat is delineated. Methods: Own cases were molecularly characterized for isodisomic uniparental regions on chromosome 6. For further cases with upd(6)mat, a literature search was conducted and genetic and clinical data were ascertained. Results: Comparison of isodisomic regions between the new upd(6)mat cases and those from four reports did not reveal any common isodisomic region. Among the patients with available cytogenetic data, five had a normal karyotype in lymphocytes, whereas a trisomy 6 (mosaicism) was detected prenatally in four cases. A common clinical picture was not obvious in upd(6)mat, but intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and preterm delivery were frequent. Conclusion: A common upd(6)mat phenotype is not obvious, but placental dysfunction due to trisomy 6 mosaicism probably contributes to IUGR and preterm delivery. In fact, other clinical features observed in upd(6)mat patients might be caused by homozygosity of recessive mutations or by an undetected trisomy 6 cell line. Upd(6)mat itself is not associated with clinical features, and can rather be regarded as a biomarker. In case upd(6)mat is detected, the cause for the phenotype is identified indirectly, but the UPD is not the basic cause. OA gold

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Catechins are flavonoids with suggested health benefits, but are unstable during storage, processing and, after ingestion, during gut transit. We hypothesized that catechin glucosides, which occur in various plants, could be more stable than unsubstituted catechin, and additionally be deglucosylated in the gut and so act to deliver catechin in a form able to be absorbed. (+)-Catechin O-glucosides from various sources have been used in the course of this investigation. (+)-Catechin 3'-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (C3'G), (+)-catechin 5-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (C5G), and (+)-catechin 3-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (C3G) were chemically synthesized. (+)-Catechin 4'-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (C4'G) and (+)-catechin 7-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (C7G) were prepared enzymically using preparations from lentil and barley. In general, but with some exceptions, the (+)-catechin glucosides were more stable between pH 4 and 8 than (+)-catechin, with C3'G exhibiting greatest stability. The intestinal metabolism of (+)-catechin and all (+)-catechin glucosides in the gut was determined by perfusion of rat intestine in vivo. C3'G and C5G were extensively deglycosylated in the gut, and C3'G showed greatest apparent "absorption" as calculated by the difference between effluent and influent. The results show the potential of catechin glucosides, especially C3'G, as more stable prescursors of catechin.

ERCIM news 2016(107), 11-12 (2016). special issue: "Machine Learning / Guest editors: Sander Bohte (CWI ) and Hung Son Nguyen (University of Warsaw)", Published by European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics, Sophia-Antipolis

Pemberton, Kelly. Women Mystics and Sufi Shrines in India. 233 pp. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2010.

In this report, the program, research issues, and results of Dagstuhl Seminar 15061 "Non-Zero-Sum-Games and Control" are described. The area of non-zero-sum games is addressed in a wide range of topics: multi-player games, partial-observation games, quantitative game models, and - as a special focus - connections with control engineering (supervisory control).

The higher direct image sheaves of families of Hermite-Einstein vector bundles on compact Kähler manifolds are investigated. On the complement of a proper analytic subset of the base these sheaves induce holomorphic vector bundles which carry a natural hermitian metric. These metrics are generalizations of the Weil-Petersson metric on the base and fiberwise they are induced by the L2 inner products of harmonic forms. The curvatures of these metrics are computed and connections to moduli spaces of stable bundles are discussed. The main tool is the Hodge theory in holomorphic vector bundles over compact Kähler manifolds., Die höheren direkten Bildgarben von Familien von Hermite-Einstein-Vektorbündeln auf kompakten Kählermannigfaltigkeiten werden untersucht. Außerhalb einer echten analytischen Teilmenge der Basis induzieren diese Garben holomorphe Vektorbündel, die eine natürliche hermitesche Metrik tragen. Diese Metriken sind Verallgemeinerungen der Weil-Petersson-Metrik der Basis und werden faserweise von den L2-Skalarprodukten harmonischer Formen induziert. Es werden die Krümmungen dieser Metriken berechnet und Bezüge zu Modulräumen stabiler Vektorbündel diskutiert. Dabei ist das Hauptwerkzeug die Hodge-Theorie in holomorphen Vektorbündeln über kompakten Kählermannigfaltigkeiten.

This article intends to investigate the role played by different kinds of birds in the narrative scheme of the mediaeval love romance (premākhyān or mathnawī), a literary genre used by Indian Sufi poets aimed at conveying an esoteric message through the allegorical language of war and love. Although the principal actors of these poems are human, the functional role played by different animals such as birds (e.g. parrot, peacock, red-finch etc.) appears both as symbolically illustrative and intrinsically didactic. Works such as the Padmāvat of Malik Muhammad Jayasi and the Madhumālatī of Sayyid Manjhan Rajgiri are credited with successfully charging the adopted imagery and figurative language of their native Indian environment with the sophisticated teachings of Islamic esotericism (Sufism). The role of birds emerging from these works will be illustrated by and compared against their description in the literary productions of the Deccan where the mathnawi, an important literary genre imported from Persia, featured as one of the predominant expressions of early Urdu literature. The aim of the investigation is to show how through the channel of animal characters, the cross-cultural symbiosis operated in the Indo-Islamic environment appears through the language of symbolism that demonstrates the potential of unification inherent in the realm of imagination.

We reviewed the output of research and innovation cooperation between Russia and the US, including publications and patents, in the four prospective areas of energy efficiency and renewable energy during 2007-2011. Joint US-Russia research groups appear to focus primarily on hydrogen energy (fuel cells), followed by solar photovoltaics. The upcoming areas of smart grid and biofuels were left out entirely both from research and innovation collaboration. Russian patents in green energy technologies registered in the US are very low in comparison to those from Japan, Korea, and China.

Chicoric acid (ChA) and caftaric acid (CafA) were identified as bioactive components of chicory and have been ascribed a number of health benefits. This study investigated the hydrolysis of ChA and CafA with enzymes and a probiotic bacterium Lactobacillus johnsonii (La1). Esterase from Aspergillus japonicus (24 U/mg) hydrolyzed 100% of ChA (5 mM) and CafA (5 mM) after 3 h, at pH 7.0 and 37 °C. Under the same reaction conditions, 100% hydrolysis of ChA and CafA was achieved with a spray-dried preparation of La1. The addition of La1 (100 mg/mL, 3.3 E9 cfu/g) to CafA solution in a gastrointestinal model (GI model) resulted in 65% hydrolysis of CafA. This model simulates the physicochemical conditions of the human gastrointestinal tract. No hydrolysis of CafA was observed after passage through the GI model in the absence of La1. The results of this study support the hypothesis that ChA and CafA are degraded by gut microflora before absorption and metabolization.

Ein der Biologie zugrunde liegender Prozess ist die Fortpflanzung. Einzeller wachsen dazu heran und teilen sich. Grundlage hierfür sind ausreichend Nahrung und Ressourcen, um die eigene Masse und alle Zellbestandteile, insbesondere die DNS, zu verdoppeln. Fehler bei der Wachstumsregulation oder der DNS-Verdopplung können schwerwiegende Folgen haben und stehen beim Menschen im Zusammenhang z.B. mit Krebs. In dieser Arbeit werden mathematische Modelle für die Mechanismen zur Wachstumsregulierung und DNS-Verdopplung in der Bäckerhefe, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, vorgestellt. Modellierung kann entscheident zum Verstehen von komplexen, dynamischen Systemen beitragen. Wir haben ein Modell für Einzellerwachstum entwickelt und leiten das Wachstumsverhalten von Zellkulturen von diesem Modell, mittels einer hierfür programmierten Software, ab. Außerdem haben wir ein Model für die Verdopplung der DNS entwickelt, um Auswirkungen verschiedener Aktivierungsmuster auf die Replikation zu testen. Zusätzlich wurde die Verlängerung entstehender DNS Stränge, Elongation, mit einem detaillierten, stochastischen Modell untersucht. Wir haben unsere Ergebnisse zur DNS-Verdopplung mit einer abschließenden Untersuchung ergänzt, die funktionelle Beziehungen von Genen aufzeigt, welche sich in der Nähe von Aktivierungsstellen der Verdopplung befinden. Folgende Einsichten in die komplexe Koordination von Wachstum und Teilung wurden gewonnen: (i) Wachstumskontrolle ist eine inhärente Eigenschaft von Hefezellpopulationen, welche weder Signale noch Messmechanismen benötigt, (ii) DNS Verdopplung ist robuster in kleinen Chromosomen mit hoher Dichte an Aktivierungsstellen, (iii) Elongation ist weitgehend uniform, weicht aber an genau definierten Stellen signifikant ab und (iv) katabole Gene häufen sich nahe der frühen Aktivierungsstellen und anabole Gene nahe der späten. Unsere Ergebnisse tragen zum Verständniss von zellulären Mechanismen zur Wachstumskontrolle und DNS-Verdopplung bei. One of the most fundamental processes in biology is reproduction. To achieve this, single cellular organisms grow, proliferate and divide. The prerequisite for this is acquiring sufficient resources to double size and cellular components, most importantly the DNA. Defects in either sufficient gain in size or chromosomal doubling can be severe for the organism and have been related to diseases in humans, such as cancer. Therefore, the cell has developed sophisticated regulatory mechanisms to control the orderly fashion of growth and duplication. We have developed mathematical models to study systemic properties of size control and DNA replication in the premier eukaryotic model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Modeling can help understanding the complex nature of dynamic systems. We provide a single cell model to explore size control. We deduced population behavior from the single cell model through multi-cell simulations using a tailor-made software. Also, we implemented an algorithm that simulates the DNA replication process to test the impact of different replication activation patterns. Additionally, elongation dynamics were assessed with a fine-grained stochastic model for the replication machinery motion. We complemented our analysis of DNA replication by studying the functional association of genes and replication origins. Our systems-level analysis reveals novel insights into the coordination of growth and division, namely that (i) size regulation is an intrinsic property of yeast cell populations and not due to signaling or size sensing, (ii) DNA replication is more robust in small chromosomes with high origin density, (iii) the elongation process is strongly biased at distinct locations in the genome and (iv) catabolic genes are over-represented near early origins and anabolic genes near late origins. Our results contribute to explaining mechanisms of size control and DNA replication.

Objective: Pulmonary angiogenesis is a prerequisite for lung development. Angiopoietin-2 (Ang2) destabilizes endothelial cells through its endothelial receptor TIE-2, enabling vascular sprouting. Ang1 stabilizes new blood vessels. Soluble TIE-2 (sTIE-2) modulates these effects. We hypothesized that histological funisitis is associated with alterations of Ang2 in airways and of the systemic angiopoietin-TIE-2 homeostasis in very low birth weight (VLBW) infants, contributing to pulmonary morbidity and mortality. Methods: We measured Ang2 in tracheobronchial aspirate fluid (TAF) of 42 VLBW

Seminar: 10501 - Advances and Applications of Automata on Words and Trees. The aim of the seminar was to discuss and systematize the recent fast progress in automata theory and to identify important directions for future research. For this, the seminar brought together more than 40 researchers from automata theory and related fields of applications. We had 19 talks of 30 minutes and 5 one-hour lectures leaving ample room for discussions. In the following we describe the topics in more detail.

From 12.12.2010 to 17.12.2010, the Dagstuhl Seminar 10501 "Advances and Applications of Automata on Words and Trees" was held in Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz Center for Informatics. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available.

Die homogene Kompressionszündung von hochsiedenden, zündwilligen Kraftstoffen wie handelsüblichem Diesel neigt zu einer frühen Zündung und bei hoher Last zu hohen Druckanstiegsraten, sowie Ruß- und Stickoxidemissionen. Sämtliche dieser Nachteile können durch die zusätzliche Einbringung von Wasser gemildert werden, wie experimentell und numerisch gezeigt wurde. Eine getrennte Wasser-Einspritzung senkt besonders effektiv den Druckanstieg, sowie die Rußemissionen. Emulsionen haben durch die höhere räumliche Übereinstimmung von Kraftstoff und Wasser Vorteile bei der Verschleppung der Zündung sowie Reduktion der Stickoxidemissionen. The homogeneous charge compression ignition of diesel fuel tends to an early ignition as well as high pressure rise rates, soot and NOx-emissions at high load. The addition of water acts in a positive way to all of these shortcomings as demonstrated experimentally and numerically. The seperate water injection shows advantages in reducing the pressure rise rates as well as the soot emissions. In contrast, emulsions delay ignition and reduce NOx-emissions more effective due to the better overlapping of fuel and water.

The aim of the seminar was to discuss and systematize the recent fast progress in automata theory and to identify important directions for future research. For this, the seminar brought together more than 40 researchers from automata theory and related fields of applications. We had 19 talks of 30 minutes and 5 one-hour lectures leaving ample room for discussions. In the following we describe the topics in more detail.

From 12.12.2010 to 17.12.2010, the Dagstuhl Seminar 10501 ``Advances and Applications of Automata on Words and Trees'' was held in Schloss Dagstuhl~--~Leibniz Center for Informatics. During the seminar, several participants presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available.