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This article focuses on emerging trends conflicting current HIV prevention concepts. We address developments in Europe where similar HIV prevention strategies are applied. With epidemiological, time-staggered records from a European institution, we show how ineffective HIV prevention measures have turned out. The decision-makers responsible for these prevention concepts have ignored a multitude of individual motivations from people responsible for the spread of HIV. Both the legal classification of the messages of the prevention campaigns and the obligations of those affected by HIV concerning their social responsibility are analyzed. There are published requirements for updated, multisectoral prevention campaigns. They focus on the intensification of HIV testing concepts to reduce the proportion of late presenters and to link key populations of various kinds to medical and social care services. Four categories present relevant issues with the potential to combine them into suitable arrangements for new prevention concepts.

The paper sketches the history of the German savings and cooperative banks of the 19th century and that of modern microfinance in developing and transition countries of today and explores the parallels that exist between these two histories. One result is that the German savings and cooperative banks of the 19th century can rightly be regarded as precursors of modern microfinance. Another result, that also contains important practical and policy-relevant implications, is that the success of both the German popular banks of the 19th century and of a number of today’s microfinance institutions is due to a strategic shift undertaken quite early in their respective development: They have both abandoned their initial two-way specialization of offering only one type of financial services – either only loans or only deposit facilities – and of only addressing really poor people and very small businesses and instead adopted the role of genuine financial intermediaries, that offer loans and take clients’ ...

Here I discuss a series of in adequate decisions made by governments of, e.g., the European Union when designing strategies aimed at preventing the spread of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Although there have been minor successes in curbing the spread of HIV, here I focus on the multiple failings that have indirectly fostered the spread of HIV. I propose that a novel, programmatic set of strategies are needed to prevent the spread of HIV, which will be necessary to meet aims of the End of AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) project. I also discuss barriers to the End of AIDS project, including financial burdens and noncompliance, in particular of the “at-risk” termed population in resource rich countries, with current prevention strategies. The aim is (i) to foster supporting for the UNAIDS project by customized prevention concepts; and (ii) to raise awareness for the challenges yet to come, should the UNAIDS project fail.

The paper provides an overview and an economic analysis of the development of the corporate governance of German banks since the 1950s, highlighting peculiarities – as seen from the meanwhile prevailing standard model perspective – of the German case. These peculiarities refer to the specific German notion and legal-institutional regime of corporate governance in general as well as to the specific three-pillar structure of the German banking system. The most striking changes in the corporate governance of German banks during the past 50 years occurred in the case of the large shareholder-owned banks. For them, capital markets have become an important element of corporate governance, and their former orientation towards the interests of a broadly defined set of stakeholders has largely been replaced by a one-sided concentration on shareholders’ interests. In contrast, the corporate governance regimes of the smaller local public savings banks and the local cooperative banks have remained virtually unchanged. They acknowledge a broader horizon of stakeholder interests and put an emphasis on monitoring via the auditing divisions of the respective associations. The Great Financial Crisis, beginning in 2007, has led to a considerable reassessment in the academic and political debate on bank governance. On an international level, it has revived the older notion that, in view of their high leverage and their innate complexity, banks are “special” and bank corporate governance also – and needs to be seen in this light, not least because research indicates that banks with a strong and one-sided shareholder orientation – and thus with what appears to be the best corporate governance according to the standard model – have suffered most in the crisis. In the German case, the crisis has shown that the smaller local banks have survived the crisis much better than large private and public banks, whose funding strongly depends on wholesale markets. This may point to certain advantages of their governance and ownership regimes. But the differences in the performance during the crisis years may also, or even more so, be a consequence of the business models of large vs small banks than of their different governance regimes.

This chapter focuses on the new view of small and micro-business finance and presents the financial systems perspective, the commercial perspective and the institution-building perspective. It provides an orientation for donor institutions which, through their funding decisions, essentially determine the nature of the development projects in the field. The chapter describes the credit business of a target group-oriented financial institution. It also focuses on the choice of a credit technology and on the imperative of keeping costs low and achieving cost coverage which forces such institutions to adopt a special credit technology. The chapter explores the provision of deposit facilities to members of the target group and institution building using downscaling and upgrading strategies. As conventional banking technology is asset- and document-based, its applicability in the case of the target group of small and micro entrepreneurs is obviously quite limited. The advantage of the individual-based credit technology from the point of view of the borrower is lower transaction costs.

Over the past years, we have successfully applied adaptive optics (AO) in optical ground stations to improve the quality of satellite-to-ground laser communication links. In this paper, we present a design overview of the adaptive optics add-on to the ESA optical ground station (1 m telescope), including optics, components, and the reconstruction scheme. The system is suited to be operated with laser communication systems at 1064 nm or with one in the 1550 nm region. The wave-front sensor is a Shack-Hartmann-sensor (21 sub-apertures across the pupil), matched to a 24×24 actuator deformable mirror. The system is able to remove a large part of the turbulence-induced and static wave-front errors by using more than 90 degrees of freedom (“modes”). Due to a special high-speed infrared camera, the AO control loop is optimized for an update rate of 4 kHz in excess.

Extrachromosomal (ec) DNA in eukaryotic cells has been known for decades. The structures described range from linear double stranded (ds) DNA to circular dsDNA, distinct from mitochondrial (mt) DNA. The sizes of circular forms are described from some hundred base pairs (bp) up to more than 150 kbp. The number of molecules per cell ranges from several hundred to a thousand. Semi-quantitative determinations of circular dsDNA show proportions as high as several percentages of the total DNA per cell. These ecDNA fractions harbor sequences that are known to be present in chromosomal DNA (chrDNA) too. Sequencing projects on, for example the human genome, have to take into account the ecDNA sequences which are simultaneously ascertained; corrections cannot be performed retrospectively. Concerning the results of sequencings derived from extracted whole DNA: if the ecDNA fractions contained therein are not taken into account, erroneous conclusions at the chromosomal level may result.

Many countries use similar strategies in prevention campaigns, but despite that the spread of HIV is unabated. The basic messages of the current liberal prevention strategies aim to promote changes in individual behaviour so as to prevent HIV transmission. The strategies avoid any kind of regulation, prescription and controls, and trust solely on the readiness of the sexually active part of the general population, and in particular the “at-risk populations” to cooperate with those messages. However, only a small number of people have cooperated. The increase in the incidence of HIV over the past decade in the countries listed discloses the failures of the current prevention strategies. With respect to the goal of trying to influence those people prone to high-risk sexual lifestyles, and the injecting drug users, the prevention strategies have not had a meaningful effect in the long term. This is also reflected in the increase of other STIs such as hepatitis C, syphilis, and the human papilloma virus, which are worse when there is co-infection with HIV. The liberal prevention strategies turned out to be inadequate for the goal, and must be adjusted to real life situations to counteract their misuse. Meanwhile there are ample evidence-based measures which must be implemented into concerted efforts by complementing the current strategies with respect to a person-to-person bound infection. Medical care policies have to consider the non-adherence behaviour of those in need.

This paper discusses the effect of capital regulation on the risk taking behavior of commercial banks. We first theoretically show that capital regulation works differently in different market structures of banking sectors. In lowly concentrated markets, capital regulation is effective in mitigating risk taking behavior because banks’ franchise values are low and banks have incentives to pursue risky strategies in order to increase their franchise values. If franchise values are high, on the other hand, the effect of capital regulation on bank risk taking is ambiguous. We then test the model predictions on a cross-country sample including 421 commercial banks from 61 countries. We find that capital regulation is effective in mitigating risk taking only in markets with a low degree of concentration. The results remain robust after accounting for financial sector development, legal system efficiency, and for other country and bank-specific characteristics.

In 50 patients who had a renal transplantation, treated with ciclosporin, regular monitoring of lymphocyte subpopulations was undertaken prospectively to assess its value with respect to cellular rejection, herpes virus infection, and ciclosporin overdosage. Herpes virus infection was characterized by inversion of the T4/T8 ratio below 1.0 (sensitivity 90%, specificity 88%), caused by proliferation of the T8 subpopulation, which--compared with the findings in patients with rejection crises--was significantly raised (P less than 0.001). But such rejection crises could not be predicted from the T4/T8 ratio. Ciclosporin had no effect on the ratio, total lymphocyte count in this group being higher (P less than 0.002) than in patients with rejection.

During the first six months after transplantation cytomegalovirus-(CMV-)specific serum IgM and IgG antibody titres were determined regularly with the Elisa technique in 25 renal transplant recipients and compared with results of the complement binding reaction (CBR). Active CMV infection was diagnosed in six patients: two primary infections and four reactivations. Titres of 1 : greater than 40 were considered positive. IgG titre increases of up to 1 : 20 000 and of 1 : 4000 for IgM were observed. IgM titres of 1 : greater than 200 are suspicious of active CMV infection, four-fold titre increases establish the diagnosis. Such IgM titres were accompanied by clinical symptoms of active CMV infection. The Elisa technique is a reliable method from the first week of disease for early demonstration of CMV infection. The prognostically relevant differentiation between primary CMV infection and reactivation of latent disease is possible using the IgG/IgM antibody titre relations. IgM titres indicate cure or persistence of infection. CBR with CMV antigen is of no use for diagnosis.

Incidence and course of herpes simplex infections was determined prospectively in 22 patients who had a kidney transplant and were treated with cyclosporin. In addition to clinical findings, serial studies were undertaken of throat washings for herpes simplex virus in cell culture, as well as of patient sera for herpes-specific IgG and IgM antibodies. There were 13 clinically manifest infections, 12 of them localized, while one had dissemination with necrotizing retinitis. Virus demonstration was successful in all cases in which virostatic drugs had not yet been used. Asymptomatic virus excretion was noted in three cases. Significant IgG titre rise occurred in six of the 13 cases, but a positive IgM titre in only two. Acyclovir proved to be an effective virostatic drug with few side effects. The outcome in the localized infections was favourable, but in the disseminated one residual defects remained.

In this paper we present the setup including optics and components, the reconstruction scheme and performance measurements of the adaptive optics (AO) system implemented at the 26 cm transportable optical ground station (TAOGS) which is presently located at the Observatorio del Teide, Tenerife. The system is used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of satellite to ground laser communications. It operates with coherent laser communication systems at 1064nm. The wavefront sensor is an 96-element Shack-Hartmann-sensor (11 sub-apertures across the pupil), matched to a 12x12 actuator ”Multi-DM” membrane deformable mirror (DM). The system is able to remove a large part of the turbulence-induced and static wavefront errors by using 90 degrees of freedom (”modes”). Due to a special high speed infrared camera, the control loop can run at speeds up to 10 kHz, depending on the received laser power.

The German corporate governance system has long been cited as the standard example of an insider-controlled and stakeholder-oriented system. We argue that despite important reforms and substantial changes of individual elements of the German corporate governance system, the main characteristics of the traditional German system as a whole are still in place. However, in our opinion the changing role of big universal banks in governance undermines the stability of the corporate governance system in Germany. Therefore a breakdown of the traditional system leading to a control vacuum or a fundamental change to a capital market-based system could be in the offing.

This article follows on from one in 2001, which dealt with the emergence of a network of microenterprise banks. The German consulting firm IPC has been involved with setting up microenterprise banks 'from scratch', first in Latin America in the early 1990s, and then in south-east Europe, and most recently in Africa. This article describes how IPC formed the investment company, IMI, owned by private and public shareholders, and has made investments in 18 microenterprise banks in the last six years. It argues that having the same shareholders within IMI makes it easier to apply the same business model consistently across all the banks and to transfer knowledge and resources between the banks.

Financial development and financial institution building are important prerequisites for economic growth. However, both the potential and the problems of institution building are still vastly underestimated by those who design and fund institution building projects. The paper first underlines the importance of financial development for economic growth, then describes the main elements of “serious” institution building: the lending technology, the methodological approaches, and the question of internal structure and corporate governance. Finally, it discusses three problems which institution building efforts have to cope with: inappropriate expectations on the part of donor and partner institutions regarding the problems and effects of institution building efforts, the lack of awareness of the importance of governance and ownership issues, and financial regulation that is too restrictive for microfinance operations. All three problems together explain why there are so few successful micro and small business institutions operating worldwide.

Financial systems of industrialised countries are usually classified as being either capital market- or bank-dominated. This paper tries to shed some light on the validity of this distinction. In order to do this, it analyses two specific roles of the financial sector vis-a-vis the enterprise sector: the role of financing or funding business and the role of capital markets and banks, respectively, in the context of corporate governance. Our analysis of the relevant findings in the literature shows that financing patterns are quite similar between countries, while corporate governance systems are quite dissimilar. The paper discusses how these divergent findings could be made compatible with existing theories and what implications they may have for the question of whether there is a tendency for corporate governance systems in different countries to become as similar as corporate financing patterns seem to be.

During the past decade, what has for a long time been called microfinance (henceforth MF) has changed in a fundamental way. The reality of MF has changed, the terminology has changed, the discourse about microfinance has changed, the reputation of MF with the general public has changed, and last but certainly not least the ethical foundations of MF have also begun to change.

Recently NGOs have begun to be regarded as ideal providers of credit to small and micro businesses. The paper investigates whether this claim is justified and how the co-operation between donor institutions and NGOs should be structured. It reports the main results of an empirical investigation of the financial efficiency of credit-granting NGOs. These results cast serious doubts on the ability of NGOs to be viable institutions and lead the authors to suggest an institution-building approach of co-operating with NGOs as a promising alternative. Such an approach requires that donors assume a much more active role than they have played up to now.

Background Highly infectious diseases (HIDs) are defined as being transmissible from person to person, causing life-threatening illnesses and presenting a serious public health hazard. The sampling, handling and transport of specimens from patients with HIDs present specific bio-safety concerns. Findings The European Network for HID project aimed to record, in a cross-sectional study, the infection control capabilities of referral centers for HIDs across Europe and assesses the level of achievement to previously published guidelines. In this paper, we report the current diagnostic capabilities and bio-safety measures applied to diagnostic procedures in these referral centers. Overall, 48 isolation facilities in 16 European countries were evaluated. Although 81% of these referral centers are located near a biosafety level 3 laboratory, 11% and 31% of them still performed their microbiological and routine diagnostic analyses, respectively, without bio-safety measures. Conclusions The discrepancies among the referral centers surveyed between the level of practices and the European Network of Infectious Diseases (EUNID) recommendations have multiple reasons of which the interest of the individuals in charge and the investment they put in preparedness to emerging outbreaks. Despite the fact that the less prepared centers can improve by just updating their practice and policies any support to help them to achieve an acceptable level of biosecurity is welcome.

We present the setup including optics and components, the reconstruction scheme and performance estimations of an Adaptive Optics (AO) system implemented at the 1m telescope of the ESA Optical Ground Station (OGS), Observatorio del Teide, Tenerife. The system will be used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of satellite to ground laser communications. It operates with coherent laser communication systems at 1064nm. The wavefront sensor is an 88-element Shack-Hartmann-sensor (11 subapertures across the pupil), matched to a 12×12 actuator "Multi-DM" membrane deformable mirror (DM). The system is able to remove a large part of the turbulence-induced and static wavefront errors by using more than 90 degrees of freedom ("modes"). Due to a special high speed infrared camera, the control loop can run at speeds up to 20 kHz, achieving a 0db bandwidth of about 500Hz, depending on the received laser power.

The paper gives an overview of optical communication activities performed by ESA in international and European intersatellite and satellite-to-ground link experiments and describes the evolution of laser communication technology. It introduces the design of a compact and high-speed adaptive optics system specific for laser communication, which - after testing in ESA's optical ground station (OGS) - will be implemented in small ground-based optical receiver stations for Earth observation satellite data. Finally, a novel homodyne BPSK detection scheme is presented, which may become an enabling technology for short distance coherent transmission through atmospheric turbulence.

This valuable book discusses in detail, through a blend of theory and empirical research, the processes of innovation and the diffusion of new financial instruments.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, the foundations of modern and innovative financial systems developed over decades have suffered serious damage. This has triggered massive state interventions and has led authorities to revamp the regulatory structures and frameworks. While many voices have called for a return to more traditional approaches to banking and finance, no one has argued the merits of diversity. This book investigates the merits of a diverse banking system with a special focus on the performance and role of savings banks in selected European countries where they are still prominent (Austria, Germany and Spain) and where they have progressively disappeared (Belgium and Italy). The theoretical and empirical arguments that are developed in this book tend to support the view that it is economically and socially beneficial to have ‘dual bottom-line’ institutions, such as savings banks. For those who accept this premise, it would suggest that policy-makers should not take or support actions that could jeopardise this valuable element of the financial system in various countries in Europe and of the emerging integrated European financial system.

Public-private partnership (PPP) is a new term with clearly positive connotations. Who could be against drawing private sector initiative and capital into undertakings which have always been areas for public policy and service? And who would not approve of partnerships? However, beyond that, not much is clear at all, which inspires this paper. It is not always clear what a PPP really is, or, more specifically, what the precise meaning of the term is and what the specific institutional arrangements of a PPP are.

This introductory chapter starts by discussing the motivation for writing the book, which is that although Germany is often cited as the most prominent example of a country with a bank-based – as opposed to a market-oriented financial system – there has, until now, been no account of the many developments and changes that have occurred in the financial architecture of the country. Next, it summarises the questions to be asked from the modern literature on the development and design of financial systems. An outline is then given of the structure of the book, which is divided into four parts that (I) give an introduction to and overview of financial systems and the German financial system in particular (2 chapters), (II) look at the German financial sector and German corporate finance (7 chapters), (III) focus on regulation and corporate governance in Germany (5 chapters), and (IV) based on the previous chapters, take stock and look ahead (1 chapter). The final section outlines the appropriate audiences for the book.

A financial system can only perform its function of channelling funds from savers to investors if it offers sufficient assurance to the providers of the funds that they will reap the rewards which have been promised to them. To the extent that this assurance is not provided by contracts alone, potential financiers will want to monitor and influence managerial decisions. This is why corporate governance is an essential part of any financial system. It is almost obvious that providers of equity have a genuine interest in the functioning of corporate governance. However, corporate governance encompasses more than investor protection. Similar considerations also apply to other stakeholders who invest their resources in a firm and whose expectations of later receiving an appropriate return on their investment also depend on decisions at the level of the individual firm which would be extremely difficult to anticipate and prescribe in a set of complete contingent contracts. Lenders, especially long-term lenders, are one such group of stakeholders who may also want to play a role in corporate governance; employees, especially those with high skill levels and firm-specific knowledge, are another. The German corporate governance system is different from that of the Anglo-Saxon countries because it foresees the possibility, and even the necessity, to integrate lenders and employees in the governance of large corporations. The German corporate governance system is generally regarded as the standard example of an insider-controlled and stakeholder-oriented system. Moreover, only a few years ago it was a consistent system in the sense of being composed of complementary elements which fit together well. The first objective of this paper is to show why and in which respect these characterisations were once appropriate. However, the past decade has seen a wave of developments in the German corporate governance system, which make it worthwhile and indeed necessary to investigate whether German corporate governance has recently changed in a fundamental way. More specifically one can ask which elements and features of German corporate governance have in fact changed, why they have changed and whether those changes which did occur constitute a structural change which would have converted the old insider-controlled system into an outsider-controlled and shareholder-oriented system and/or would have deprived it of its former consistency. It is the second purpose of this paper to answer these questions.

Mycophenolate mofetil, the morpholinoethylester of mycophenolic acid, is an immuno-suppressant used in combination with ciclosporin (cyclosporin) and corticosteroids to prevent organ rejection after heart and kidney transplantations. The drug seems also to be effective in dermal diseases after systemic administration. However, up to date mycophenolate mofetil can be only systemically administered and this is associated with several side effects such as nausea, leucopenia, sepsis, and diarrhoea. The aim of this study was to develop a topical formulation containing mycophenolate mofetil and to investigate in-vitro release and penetration into human skin ex-vivo. HPLC was applied to quantify mycophenolate mofetil after release studies from semisolid formulations using a dodecanol-collodion membrane as a lipophilic acceptor. Penetration studies with an amphiphilic cream using excised human breast skin were carried out in Franz-type diffusion cells. Mycophenolate mofetil and its active metabolite mycophenolic acid were detected by HPLC-MS after microsectioning in different skin layers. In this study the penetration of mycophenolate mofetil from an amphiphilic cream into excised human skin was shown. Additionally, the enzymatic hydrolysis of penetrated mycophenolate mofetil into mycophenolic acid was proven even under ex-vivo conditions. In-vivo a higher extent of metabolism ofmycophenolate mofetil to mycophenolic acid would be expected because of the complete enzyme activity. This topical formulation might be a promising alternative to the usual systemic administration of mycophenolate mofetil in the treatment of skin diseases such as psoriasis.

A widely recognized paper by Colin Mayer (1988) has led to a profound revision of academic thinking about financing patterns of corporations in different countries. Using flow-of-funds data instead of balance sheet data, Mayer and others who followed his lead found that internal financing is the dominant mode of financing in all countries, that financing patterns do not differ very much between countries and that those differences which still seem to exist are not at all consistent with the common conviction that financial systems can be classified as being either bank-based or capital market-based. This leads to a puzzle insofar as it calls into question the empirical foundation of the widely held belief that there is a correspondence between the financing patterns of corporations on the one side, and the structure of the financial sector and the prevailing corporate governance system in a given country on the other side. The present paper addresses this puzzle on a methodological and an empirical basis. It starts by comparing and analyzing various ways of measuring financial structure and financing patterns and by demonstrating that the surprising empirical results found by studies that relied on net flows are due to a hidden assumption. It then derives an alternative method of measuring financing patterns, which also uses flow-of-funds data, but avoids the questionable assumption. This measurement concept is then applied to patterns of corporate financing in Germany, Japan and the United States. The empirical results, which use an estimation technique for determining gross flows of funds in those cases in which empirical data are not available, are very much in line with the commonly held belief prior to Mayer's influential contribution and indicate that the financial systems of the three countries do indeed differ from one another in a substantial way, and moreover in a way which is largely in line with the general view of the differences between the financial systems of the countries covered in the present paper.

Within the frame of the Date Relay and Technology Mission Program the European Space Agency (ESA) is currently developing optical terminals for high data rate free space laser communication via inter-satellite and inter-orbit links. As a first application such an optical terminal will be embarked on the French low-Earth orbiting satellite SPOT 4. This terminal will communicate with a similar optical terminal on-board ESA's geostationary spacecraft ARTEMIS. It is planned to implement similar optical communication payloads also on ESA's Data Relay Satellite and other spacecraft in geostationary or low-earth orbits. For the purpose of in-orbit check-out of such payloads ESA is establishing an Optical Ground Station (OGS) at the Observatorio del Teide at Izana, Tenerife, Spain, in cooperation with the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canaries, La Laguna, and supported by the German Space Agency (Deutsche Agentur fur Raumfahrtangelegenheiten, Bonn. The selected OGS site provides excellent seeing conditions combined with high atmospheric transmission, which are important prerequisites for successful ground station operations. This paper describes the design of the OGS, highlights some design criteria and discusses the expected performance.

Optical instrumentation for space applications has to cope with a wide range of environmental loads on ground, during launch and in space. These loads in connection with long lifetimes in space and often demanding optical performance requirements are driving elements in the design of space optics. This paper will give an overview of the various environmental loads to be taken into account for space optics design. The associated degradation effects and their potential influences on the instrument performance budgets will be described. The consequences of these considerations for the optical instrument design concept and the selection of materials and technologies will be discussed.

A test system for performance verification of diffractive optical components was designed. The principle of the test methods is to measure the light intensity distribution in the near-field by scanning it with a pinhole detector while illuminating the element with a plane wave. Contrary to other performance verification methods, the scanning methodallows high flexibility in the characterization of diffractive optical elements and allows also the determination of thediffraction efficiency. 1. INTRODUCTION Diffractive optical elements (DOEs), and their combination with conventional components -Hybrid Optics-, offer veryinteresting and new possibilities for optical system design due to their design flexibility. The miniaturization potentialof such type of optics and its compactness make this technology particularly interesting for space applications1. Someof the potential applications of DOEs in space are beam shaping of high-power laser diode arrays2, athermalized hybrid I ,3 or beam shaping elements allowing to reduce the complexity of laser communication terminal tracking

Samples of 20 types of optical glass (both normal and radiation hardened crowns and flints, and fused silica), were subjected to both gamma (Co60) and proton radiation in air to simulate the dose expected over a 10 year lifetime in geostationary orbit. The samples were all 2 mm thick optically flat disks and were characterized before and after irradiation by spectral transmittance (250-800 nm) and wavefront error (approximately 630 nm) measurements. The geometry of the gamma irradiation was such that the outer area of each sample disk was covered by an annular lead shield giving a dose step of 50% of the nominal between the center and edge. This unique configuration gave rise to 'aperture imprinting' in some of the samples after Co60 irradiation, which was manifested as both a visible change in the coloration densities and a clear step in the measured interferograms from center to edge. The spectral transmission properties were much as expected from previously published work, with significant coloration and transmission loss in the near UV and the visible for the non cerium doped samples. The results of the tests are presented in summary form, conclusions are drawn with regard to the selection of optical glasses for application in space borne instrumentation, and recommendations for future work in this field are made.

A total of 30-50% of all renal transplant recipients undergo infections caused by human cytomegalovirus. With the introduction of ganciclovir and foscarnet for specific antiviral therapy there is an increasing demand for diagnostic tools that allow the early and rapid identification of CMV as the causative agent of the observed disease. We and others previously showed the direct detection of pp65 antigen in peripheral blood leukocytes to be an excellent marker for active cytomegalovirus infection. In order to establish whether the detection of CMV DNA by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) supplies further information in this regard, we compared both methods. In 41 renal transplant patients the PCR assay yielded a sensitivity of 100% compared with 87.5% of the antigenemia assay. Specificities reached 67% and 92.5%, respectively. In 5 patients without both serological signs of infection and antigenemia, CMV DNA was also found. The duration of CMV DNA detection in PBL during active infection was significantly longer than antigenemia. Even after successful treatment of symptomatic CMV disease, DNA was present for a period of weeks without any relapse of disease. In contrast, antigenemia disappeared after antiviral therapy and reappeared only in one patient with relapse of CMV disease. We conclude that PCR offers no advantages over antigen detection in monitoring for CMV infections after renal transplantation.

Hybrid optics -- the combination of conventional lens elements and diffractive optical elements (DOE) -- offers new possibilities for optical system design due to its technological flexibility: the specific manufacturing processes allow fabrication of any arbitrary optical element surface shapes and it becomes possible to combine different optical functions in one single element. Furthermore, the technologies used are compatible with semiconductor manufacturing processes, which is a prerequisite for the development of highly integrated optronic devices. Since such aspects are very interesting for the design of space optical systems, a research project was initiated to investigate in detail the potential of hybrid optics for space applications. This paper presents some results of this project and describes the design, manufacture, and testing of a hybrid optical element for use in the visible, as an example.

The Civil Liability Convention of 1969 and the Fund Convention of 1971 were amended at an International Conference on Liability and Compensation for Damage in Connection with the Carriage of Certain Substances by Sea held in London from 30 April to 25 May 1984. The changes in the Conventions, their implication and the arguments leading to the alterations are discussed. An assessment is made of the importance of the decisions taken at the Diplomatic Conference and the consequences for persons claiming for pollution damage.