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Propionibacterium acnes belongs to the cutaneous flora of humans and is rarely considered a pathogen in human diseases. It is a frequent contaminant in blood cultures; however, in some patients it has been identified as the causative agent of life-threatening infections. Within the last years we have observed an abrupt increase in severe P. acnes infections which prompted us to study in detail the clinical and microbiological features, risk factors, and outcomes of these cases. In a retrospective review of microbiological records of 905 Propionibacterium isolates from a five-year period (1990-95), 70 were identified from 20 patients with clinical and microbiological evidence of a P. acnes infection. The clinical syndromes included endocarditis (7 patients), post-craniotomy infections (6 patients), arthritis and spondylodiscitis (4 patients), endophthalmitis (2 patients) and pansinusitis (1 patient). The predominant predisposing conditions were previous surgery preceding the infection from 2 weeks to 4 years and implantation of foreign bodies such as prosthetic heart valves, intraocular lenses and ventriculo-peritoneal shunts. Therapy consisted of intravenous antibiotics in all cases and surgical procedures to remove infected tissue in eighteen patients. The outcome was favorable in sixteen patients (80 percent) who had a complete recovery. These data confirm the pathogenic potential of P. acnes in late post-surgical infections, in particular after implantation of a foreign body, and suggest a combined therapeutic approach with intravenous antibiotics and surgical removal of the infected tissue.

According to the inhibition theory of forgetting (Anderson, Journal of Memory and Language 49:415-445, 2003; Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 7:522-530, 2000), retrieval practice on a subset of target items leads to forgetting for the other, nontarget items, due to the fact that these other items interfere during the retrieval process and have to be inhibited in order to resolve the interference. In this account, retrieval-induced forgetting occurs only when competition takes place between target and nontarget items during target item practice, since only in such a case is inhibition of the nontarget items necessary. Strengthening of the target item without active retrieval should not lead to such an impairment. In two experiments, we investigated this assumption by using noncompetitive retrieval during the practice phase. We strengthened the cue-target item association during practice by recall of the category name instead of the target item, and thus eliminated competition between the different item types (as in Anderson et al., Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 7:522-530 2000). In contrast to the expectations of the inhibition theory, retrieval-induced forgetting occurred even without competition, and thus the present study does not support the retrieval specificity assumption.

The aim of the present thesis is to investigate whether the inhibition theory provides a better explanation for the retrieval-induced forgetting effect than the strength-based models. We examine the three main properties of the inhibition theory and conclude that inhibition is not necessary to explain retrieval-induced forgetting and hence forgetting can still be explained without recourse to the concept of inhibition.

Grey alder (Alnus incana (L.) Moench) wood was chosen for research. Carbonization (slow pyrolysis) of modified grey alder wood pellets is a standard pretreatment method for physical activation to obtain valuable high­quality granular activated carbon for cleaning of gaseous emissions. Relative ratios of the main carbonization products of lignocellulosic materials (charcoal, liquid condensate and uncondensable gases) are strongly influenced by the physical and chemical characteristics of the raw materials. It is very important to achieve high charcoal yields and retain the mechanical properties of the obtained activated carbons. Therefore, grey alder wood was upgraded by hydrothermal pretreatment and pelletization operations. The objective of the present study was to examine the effect of the hydrothermal pretreatment time on the thermal stability of granulated modified grey alder wood pellets carried out in a thermogravimetric/mass spectrometric (TG­MS) system and a thermogravimetric analysis apparatus (TGA)., Proceedings of the 18th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 3-7 May 2010, Lyon, France, pp. 1988-1993