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Research museums are ideal ambassadors and disseminators for the Open Science movement. They also can create visibility for transformational changes in organization by acting as a 'show room' for Open Science practices, implementations and demonstrators. In 2020 the Museum für Naturkunde (MfN) – a research museum of the Leibniz Association - was given the unique chance to transform its scientific collections, buildings and exhibitions as part of the Zukunftsplan of the MfN funded by the German Bundestag. The project Collection Discovery and Development of the Zukunftsplan aims to build an open knowledge infrastructure for nature that promotes multi- perspective thinking and action. Within the ten-year project, the scientific collection at MfN will become an open research infrastructure, fully integrated into the European open knowledge landscape as a modern information hub designed to be both physically and virtually interoperable. This talk will give an overview of the ongoing transformation process at MfN and all its aspects promoting Open Science principles. It will highlight the successful approaches, as well as challenges in applying Open Science principles on organizational level. The aim is to spark a debate on how to tackle the transformation of entire organizations in a more pragmatic and transparent way.

Background: Novel intraoperative imaging techniques, namely, hyperspectral (HSI) and fluorescence imaging (FI), are promising with respect to reducing severe postoperative complications, thus increasing patient safety. Both tools have already been used to evaluate perfusion of the gastric conduit after esophagectomy and before anastomosis. To our knowledge, this is the first study evaluating both modalities simultaneously during esophagectomy. Methods: In our pilot study, 13 patients, who underwent Ivor Lewis esophagectomy and gastric conduit reconstruction, were analyzed prospectively. HSI and FI were recorded before establishing the anastomosis in order to determine its optimum position. Results: No anastomotic leak occurred during this pilot study. In five patients, the imaging methods resulted in a more peripheral adaptation of the anastomosis. There were no significant differences between the two imaging tools, and no adverse events due to the imaging methods or indocyanine green (ICG) injection occurred. Conclusions: Simultaneous intraoperative application of both modalities was feasible and not time consuming. They are complementary with regard to the ideal anastomotic position and may contribute to better surgical outcomes. The impact of their simultaneous application will be proven in consecutive prospective trials with a large patient cohort.

Currently, there is little evidence-based guidance on bacteriological aspects of thickeners or beverages for dysphagia patients in Germany that can be recommended to prevent aspiration pneumonia. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the lowest cell amount of E. coli on M9 agar media with beverages and thickeners.In the laboratory experiment 1 · 10The lowest E. coli cell amount was measured on water compared to beer, orange juice and all thickeners. A higher E. coli cell count was measured on maltodextrin-based thickeners than on potato starch-based and corn starch-based thickeners.In the present laboratory experiment, no individual risk factors for the development of aspiration pneumonia in humans were considered; however, initial bacteriological evidence for dysphagia patients could be collected. Due to the high growth of E. coli on maltodextrin, yeast, fructose and glucose, these ingredients should be used with caution by dysphagia patients. Further research on thickeners and beverages is needed to make a comprehensive recommendation for action in this aspect.HINTERGRUND: Gegenwärtig existieren in Deutschland für Dysphagiepatienten kaum Hinweise zu bakteriologischen Aspekten von Andickungsmitteln oder Getränken, die präventiv vor einer Aspirationspneumonie empfohlen werden können. Ziel dieser Studie war daher die Evaluierung der geringsten Zellzahl von E. coli auf M9-Agar-Nährmedien mit Getränken und Andickungsmitteln.In dem Laborexperiment wurden 1 · 10Auf Wasser wurde im Vergleich zu Bier, Orangensaft sowie zu allen Andickungsmitteln die geringste E. coli-Zellzahl gemessen. Es wurde eine höhere Zellzahl von E. coli auf Andickungsmitteln mit Maltodextrinbasis als auf Andickungsmitteln mit Kartoffel- und Maisstärkebasis gemessen.In dem vorliegenden Laborexperiment wurden keine individuellen Risikofaktoren für die Entwicklung einer Aspirationspneumonie beim Menschen berücksichtigt. Jedoch konnten erste bakteriologische Hinweise für Dysphagiepatienten gesammelt werden. Aufgrund des hohen Wachstums von E. coli auf Maltodextrin, Hefe, Fructose und Glucose sollten diese Inhaltsstoffe mit Vorsicht von Dysphagiepatienten verwendet werden. Es ist weitere Forschung zu Andickungsmitteln und Getränken notwendig, um eine umfassende Handlungsempfehlung diesbezüglich aussprechen zu können.

Museums and their collections have specially customized databases in order to optimally gather and record their contents and associated metadata associated with their specimens. To share, exchange, and publish data, an appropriate data standard is essential. ABCD (Access to Biological Collection Data) is a standard for biological collection units, including living and preserved specimen, together with field observation data. Its extension, EFG (Extension for Geoscience), enables sharing and publishing data related to paleontological, mineralogical, and petrological objects. The standard is very granular and allows detailed descriptions, including information about the collection event itself, the holding institution, stratigraphy, chemical analysis, and host rock. The standard extension was developed in 2006 and has been used since then by different initiatives and applied for the publication of collection-related data in domain-specific and interdisciplinary portals.

The DINA Consortium (“DIgital information system for NAtural history data”, https://dina-project.net ) was formed in order to provide a framework for like-minded large natural history collection-holding institutions to collaborate through a distributed Open Source development model to produce a flexible and sustainable collection management system. Target collections include zoological, botanical, mycological, geological and paleontological collections, living collections, biodiversity inventories, observation records, and molecular data. DINA is funded by the participating member institutions. DINA Core Members are organizations or individuals who commit at least one half-time equivalent of resources to the development of the consortium goals, at least half of which should be available for code development. The DINA system is architected as a loosely-coupled set of several web-based modules. The conceptual basis for this modular ecosystem is a compilation of comprehensive guidelines for Web application programming interfaces (APIs) to guarantee the interoperability of its components. Thus, all DINA components can be modified or even replaced by other components without crashing the rest of the system as long as they are DINA compliant. Furthermore, the modularity enables the institutions to host only the components they need. DINA focuses on an Open Source software philosophy and on community-driven open development, so the contributors share their development resources and expertise outside of their own institutions. One of the overarching reasons to develop a new collection management system is the need to better model complex relationships between collection objects (typically specimens), research data and associated workflows. We will present the enhancements provided by the approach of the DINA system focussing on the flexibility to plug in compliant components and accommodate additional (meta-)data and specimen related research data with the help of a generic data module. Furthermore, we will discuss challenges in the governance of the development activities such as organizing the distributed code development of the core modules, the code review process and the choice of the software stack. These organizational challenges will be overcome with the help of a revised Memorandum of Understanding.

For the last 15 years, Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) has recognized two competing standards for organism occurrence data, ABCD (Access to Biological Collections Data; Holetschek et al. 2012) and DarwinCore (Wieczorek et al. 2012). These two representations emerged from contrasting strategies for mobilizing information about organism occurrences (also commonly called species occurrence data). ABCD was capable of representing details of more kinds of information, but was necessarily more complicated. DarwinCore, on the other hand, was simpler but more limited in its ability to represent data of different kinds and formats. TDWG endorsed both standards because the different projects and communities that generated them remained dedicated to their different strategies and tool sets, and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) developed the ability to integrate data published in either standard. Since their inceptions, DarwinCore and ABCD have become more similar. DarwinCore has gotten more complicated through the addition of terms and has begun to assign terms to classes. ABCD is now expressed in RDF (Resource Description Framework), potentially enabling re-use of terms with alternative structures among classes. At the same time, methodologies for conceptual modeling and representing complex scientific data have continued to evolve. In particular, a suite of modeling and data representation methods related to linked data and the semantic web, i.e., RDF, SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System), and OWL (web Ontology Language), promise to make it easier for us to reconcile shared concepts among different representations or schemas. A mapping between ABCD 2.1 and DarwinCore has existed since before 2005.*1 ABCD 3.0 and DarwinCore are both now represented in RDF. In addition, the BioCollections Ontology (BCO) covers many of the shared concepts and is derived from the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), an upper level ontology that has oriented many other biomedical ontologies. Reconciling ABCD and DarwinCore through alignment with BCO (in the OBO Foundry; Smith et al. 2007) would better connect TDWG standards to other domains in biology. We appreciate that many working scientists and data managers perceive ontologies as overly complicated. To mitigate the steep learning curve associated with ontologies, we expect to create simpler application profiles or schemas to guide and serve narrower communities of practice within the wider biodiversity domain. We also plan to integrate the current work of the Taxonomic Names and Concepts Interest Group and thereby eliminate the redundancy between DarwinCore and Taxonomic Concepts Transfer Schema (TCS; Kennedy et al. 2006). At the time of this writing, we have only agreements from the authors (i.e., conveners of relevant TDWG Interest Groups and other key stakeholders) to collaborate in pursuit of these common goals. In this presentation we will give a more detailed description of our objectives and products, the methods we are using to achieve them, and our progress to date.

Die Digitalisierung eroffnet neue Moglichkeiten, Sammlungen von Bibliotheken, Archiven und Museen offen zuganglich und erforschbar zu machen sowie miteinander zu vernetzen. In diesem Beitrag gibt das Naturkundemuseum Berlin, das sich als offenes, integriertes Forschungsmuseum versteht, auf dem Weg zu einer digitalen Strategie Einblicke in die Digitalisierung seiner Forschungs- und Sammlungsdaten. Vorgestellt und erortert werden Methoden und technische Losungen fur die Digitalisierung von Daten, die Bedeutung der Vernetzung von Sammlungen, Ansatze fur die Kommunikation der digitalen Datenarbeit an ein Publikum, die systematische Erschliesung neuer Nutzergruppen und Projekte zur digital unterstutzen Partizipation an Forschung.

The TDWG standard ABCD (Access to Biological Collections Data task group 2007) was aimed at harmonizing terminologies used for modelling biological collection information and is used as a comprehensive data format for transferring collection and observation data between software components. The project ABCD 3.0 (A community platform for the development and documentation of the ABCD standard for natural history collections) was financed by the German Research Council (DFG). It addressed the transformation of ABCD into a semantic web-compliant ontology by deconstructing the XML-schema into individually addressable RDF (Resource Description Framework) resources published via the TDWG Terms Wiki (https://terms.tdwg.org/wiki/ABCD_2). In a second step, informal properties and concept-relations described by the original ABCD-schema were transformed into a machine-readable ontology and revised (Güntsch et al. 2016). The project was successfully finished in January 2019. The ABCD 3 setup allows for the creation of standard-conforming application schemas. The XML variant of ABCD 3.0 was restructured, simplified and made more consistent in terms of element names and types as compared to version 2.x. The XML elements are connected to their semantic concepts using the W3C SAWSDL (Semantic Annotation for Web Services Description Language and XML Schema) standard. The creation of specialized applications schemas is encouraged, the first use case was the application schema for zoology. It will also be possible to generate application schemas that break the traditional unit-centric structure of ABCD. Further achievements of the project include creating a Wikibase instance as the editing platform, with related tools for maintenance queries, such as checking for inconsistencies in the ontology and automated export into RDF. This allows for fast iterations of new or updated versions, e.g. when additional mappings to other standards are done. The setup is agnostic to the data standard created, it can therefore also be used to create or model other standards. Mappings to other standards like Darwin Core (https://dwc.tdwg.org/) and Audubon Core (https://tdwg.github.io/ac/) are now machine readable as well. All XPaths (XML Paths) of ABCD 3.0 XML have been mapped to all variants of ABCD 2.06 and 2.1, which will ease transition to the new standard. The ABCD 3 Ontology will also be uploaded to the GFBio Terminology Server (Karam et al. 2016), where individual concepts can be easily searched or queried, allowing for better interactive modelling of ABCD concepts. ABCD documentation now adheres to TDWG’s Standards Documentation Standard (SDS, https://www.tdwg.org/standards/sds/) and is located at https://abcd.tdwg.org/. The new site is hosted on Github: https://github.com/tdwg/abcd/tree/gh-pages.

We developed a counterselectable deletion system for Thermus thermophilus HB27 based on cytosine deaminase (encoded by codA ) from Thermaerobacter marianensis DSM 12885 and the sensitivity of T. thermophilus HB27 to the antimetabolite 5-fluorocytosine (5-FC). The deletion vector comprises the pUC18 origin of replication, a thermostable kanamycin resistance marker functional in T. thermophilus HB27, and codA under the control of a constitutive putative trehalose promoter from T. thermophilus HB27. The functionality of the system was demonstrated by deletion of the bglT gene, encoding a β-glycosidase, and three carotenoid biosynthesis genes, CYP175A1 , crtY , and crtI , from the genome of T. thermophilus HB27.

Contains fulltext : 207610.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access) BACKGROUND: Assessment of minimal residual disease (MRD) is an integral component for response monitoring and treatment stratification in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). We aimed to evaluate the genomic ETV6-RUNX1 fusion sites as a single marker for MRD quantification. PROCEDURE: In a representative, uniformly treated cohort of pediatric relapsed ALL patients (n = 52), ETV6-RUNX1 fusion sites were compared to the current gold standard, immunoglobulin/T-cell receptor (Ig/TCR) gene rearrangements. RESULTS: Primer/probe sets designed to ETV6-RUNX1 fusions achieved significantly more frequent a sensitivity and a quantitative range of at least 10(-4) compared to the gold standard with 100% and 73% versus 76% and 47%, respectively. The breakpoint sequence was identical at diagnosis and relapse in all tested cases. There was a high degree of concordance between quantitative MRD results assessed using ETV6-RUNX1 and the highest Ig/TCR marker (Spearman's 0.899, P < .01) with differences >(1/2) log-step in only 6% of patients. A high proportion of ETV6-RUNX1-positive ALL relapses (40%) in our cohort showed a poor response to induction treatment at relapse, and therefore had an indication for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, demonstrating the need of accurate identification of this subgroup. CONCLUSIONS: ETV6-RUNX1 fusion sites are highly sensitive and reliable MRD markers. Our data confirm that they are unaffected by clonal evolution and selection during front-line and second-line chemotherapy in contrast to Ig/TCR rearrangements, which require several markers per patient to compensate for the observed loss of target clones. In future studies, the genomic ETV6-RUNX1 fusion can be used as single MRD marker.

Insgesamt vier Beratungsstellen an sechs Standorten arbeiten in Thüringen daran, Klarheit in den Dschungel der Anerkennung ausländischer Qualifikationen zu bringen. Die Beratenden der IBATs bieten hierfür eine passgenaue, individuelle Beratung und Begleitung auf höchstem Niveau. Seit 2010 ist die Fachberatung des Landesnetzwerkes Thüringen aktiv und setzt sich dafür ein, qualifikationsadäquate Beschäftigung zu ermöglichen, zur Fachkräftesicherung beizutragen und dafür zu sorgen, dass Anerkennungsverfahren gesetzeskonform und praxistauglich durchgeführt werden.

The DINA Consortium (“DIgital information system for NAtural history data”, https://dina-project.net, Fig. 1) was formed in order to provide a framework for like-minded large natural history collection-holding institutions to collaborate through a distributed Open Source development model to produce a flexible and sustainable collection management system. Target collections include zoological, botanical, mycological, geological and paleontological collections, living collections, biodiversity inventories, observation records, and molecular data. The DINA system is architected as a loosely-coupled set of several web-based modules. The conceptual basis for this modular ecosystem is a compilation of comprehensive guidelines for Web application programming interfaces (APIs) to guarantee the interoperability of its components. Thus, all DINA components can be modified or even replaced by other components without crashing the rest of the system as long as they are DINA compliant. Furthermore, the modularity enables the institutions to host only the components they need. DINA focuses on an Open Source software philosophy and on community-driven open development, so the contributors share their development resources and expertise outside of their own institutions. One of the overarching reasons to develop a new collection management system is the need to better model complex relationships between collection objects (typically specimens) involving their derivatives, preparations and storage. We will discuss enhancements made in the DINA data model to better represent these relationships and the influence it has on the management of these objects, and on the sharing of information. Technical detail of various components of the DINA system will be shown in other talks in this symposium followed by a discussion session.

With biodiversity research activities being increasingly shifted to the web, the need for a system of persistent and stable identifiers for physical collection objects becomes increasingly pressing. The Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities agreed on a common system of HTTP-URI-based stable identifiers which is now rolled out to its member organizations. The system follows Linked Open Data principles and implements redirection mechanisms to human-readable and machine-readable representations of specimens facilitating seamless integration into the growing semantic web. The implementation of stable identifiers across collection organizations is supported with open source provider software scripts, best practices documentations and recommendations for RDF metadata elements facilitating harmonized access to collection information in web portals. Database URL : http://cetaf.org/cetaf-stable-identifiers.

In the natural history community a high diversity of collection management systems exist. This enables institutions to choose from a large variety of systems, but this choice requires extensive effort to evaluate and commit to an appropriate system to cover all long-term requirements. As the different kinds of natural history data generated by a given domain and associated research-related data can typically not be handled within a single system, most institutions have several specialized software components and consequently have to cope with serious limitations in interacting and querying across the systems. This reality is costly and not sustainable. Further, even if a monolithic system would cover all needs, being dependent on only one software and vendor holds a relatively high risk in assuring long-term maintenance. The DINA consortium ("DIgital Information system for NAtural history data", https://dina-project.net) is attempting to address these challenges by using a distributed open-source development model across multiple institutions. The goal is to produce an open-source web-based information management system for natural history data developed and maintained in a community-driven approach by several large institutions with dedicated resources. DINA was founded in 2014 by six natural history collection institutions in Europe and North America and is open to new members. The DINA system is designed as a mesh of several web-based modules. The conceptual basis for this ecosystem is a compilation of comprehensive guidelines for application programming interfaces (APIs) to guarantee the interoperability of its components. Thus, all DINA components can be modified or even replaced by other components without crashing the rest of system as long as they are DINA compliant. Furthermore, the modularity enables the institutions to host only the components they need. DINA focuses on an open-source software philosophy and on community-driven open development, so the contributors share their development resources and expertise outside of their own institutions. Consequently, this approach reduces both, individual costs and risks, and increases the sustainability of the system. We will present an overview of DINA focusing on the open-source software philosophy, our current achievements, challenges and future developments.

The data schema ABCD (Access to Biological Collection Data version 2.06) is a standard for biological collection units, including living and preserved specimen, together with field observation data. Its extension EFG (Extension for Geosciences) is suitable for sharing and publishing data related to paleontological, mineralogical, and petrological objects. In addition to detailed object descriptions and collection events, ABCD EFG provides fine-grained data structures for information on stratigraphy, chemical analyses and host rock composition. The comprehensive EFG was developed in 2006. Since then it has been used by different initiatives, including the publication of collection-related data in domain-specific and interdisciplinary portals such as GBIF, GeoCASe, GFBio and Europeana. The TDWG Paleo Interest Group meeting 2017 will include a focus on the relationship between Darwin Core and ABCD EFG, and following that theme this presentation will give an introduction to the current state of ABCD EFG, its common use cases and an outlook towards the next version ABCD 3.0. We expect that the ABCD EFG terms are suitable for embedding elements into the Darwin Core Paleo Context. Thus, this talk will also initiate the discussion about the most important elements for further use cases from the paleobiological community.

The German Federation for Biological Data (GFBio; Diepenbroek et al. 2014) is implementing a national infrastructure for the preservation, integration, and publication of biological data collected in German research projects. GFBio is built upon an archive infrastructure comprised of nine data centers including PANGAEA and the major German Natural Science Collections (German Federation for Biological Data (GFBio) 2017a). Creating and running GFBio requires close collaborations within a highly interdisciplinary consortium. Bringing together expertise from collections, scientists in the relevant fields, biodiversity informaticians and computer scientists proved to be essential for designing and building this system. GFBio is currently in its second funding phase. Essential services, required for the operation of the future infrastructure, have been successfully implemented. The realized technologies and tools use globally accepted standards as well as innovative concepts e.g., for data visualisation or semantic integration. A portal (https://www.gfbio.org) provides a common point of access to all GFBio services: data submission, data discovery, data visualisation and analysis, a terminology service, and a help desk. In addition, archived research data is shared with international information infrastructures such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and the Biological Collection Access Service (BioCASE). As the data centers use different systems and thus internally build upon different data structures (German Federation for Biological Data (GFBio) 2017b), the search functionality integrated in the portal is an good example of the collaboration between teams of different expertise. Since the aim was to provide an integrated, faceted search, it was necessary to agree on common fields that can be used to feed the facets. Therefore, the GFBio data centers agreed on using ABCD 2.06 (Access to Biological Collection Data) as a common standard and specified thirty elements for data exchange. Here, it was essential to bring together (1) domain experts for defining which facets they consider useful for an effective search, (2) computer scientists for providing the implementation based on Elasticsearch (Elasticsearch 2017), (3) biodiversity informaticians for defining mappings between different standards and (4) data curators from the GFBio data centers and long-term repositories for negotiating the set of mandatory fields. The starting point for broader research data management workflows was derived from high-quality data provided via publishing pipelines established at each data center. With that, primary collection and research data are available with metadata and data units according to the ABCD community standard and are ready to be reused following the FAIR data principles (Wilkinson et al. 2016): Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Re-usable. Consequently, interdisciplinary cooperation is the GFBio data portal's measure of success.

In the project "Stadtnatur entdecken" (discovering nature in the city) a multidisciplinary team of specialists in biology, informatics, urban ecology and social sciences is looking into how to effectively communicate educational content on environmental topics to young adults and to allow them to contribute as citizen scientists. The mobile app "Naturblick" presents on experience of nature in an urban setting. Several tools are combined in the app that allows users to identify species. The team developed auditory and visual pattern recognition tools that will automatically identify sound recordings and photographs and multi-access identification keys for flora and fauna. There is a map function that will help explore nature in the users' immediate vicinity in Berlin, Germany, highlighting the diversity of species to be found. Users are able to share their observations and records. The project is designed to involve user participation and continuous improvement based on user feedback of both the content and technology.

Minimal residual disease (MRD) is of high prognostic value in risk stratification in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Flow cytometry (FCM) was shown to yield reliable results in MRD measurement. However, the interpretation of FCM data relies largely on operator skills and experience. While sample preparation, antibody panels, staining procedures and flow cytometric acquisition can be standardized, easily controlled and be made available worldwide, the availability of experienced operators represents the current bottleneck to a growing number of laboratories to the benefit of an increasing number of patients with leukaemia. Currently, international paediatric studies—throughout Europe, South America, to Australia—aim at stratifying the treatment according to the FCM-MRD methodology. The measurements are still operator-dependent leading to substantial costs regarding training and quality control. This article introduces a new European Union-funded project (AutoFLOW) aiming at the standardization and automation of FCM-MRD analysis by machine-learning technology.

The lecithotrophic larvae of all extant Thecideoidea (Brachiopoda) are brooded within specialised brood pouches. This is the first detailed histological investigation of the morphological structures involved in brooding in the two subfamilies of thecideoid brachiopods, Lacazellinae and Thecidellininae. Comparative descriptions of the brood pouches are presented for two lacazelline species, Lacazella caribbeanensis and Pajaudina atlantica , and two thecidellinine representatives, Minutella sp. and Thecidellina sp. In the highly complex brooding apparatus of female lacazellines, the larvae are attached to two specialised tentacles, which pass through the marsupial notch in the brachial bridge of the dorsal valve and extend into a median brood pouch, which is located in the inner mantle epithelium of the ventral valve. Female thecidellinines lack these structures and brood their larvae in two lateral brood pouches, which are located in cavities surrounded by the brachial lobes of the dorsal valve. Despite the morphological differences, the brood pouches of both Lacazellinae and Thecidellininae are derivatives of the lophophoral epithelium and, thus, are considered to be a homologous structure and synapomorphic character of these thecideoid subgroups.

Pseudomonas putida KT2440 strain was investigated for biosynthesis of the valuable xanthophyll zeaxanthin. A new plasmid was constructed harboring five carotenogenic genes from Pantoea ananatis and three genes from Escherichia coli under control of an L: -rhamnose-inducible promoter. Pseudomonas putida KT2440 wild type hardly tolerated the plasmids for carotenoid production. Mating experiments with E. coli S17-1 strains revealed that the carotenoid products are toxic to the Pseudomonas putida cells. Several carotenoid-tolerant transposon mutants could be isolated, and different gene targets for relief of carotenoid toxicity were identified. After optimization of cultivation conditions and product processing, 51 mg/l zeaxanthin could be produced, corresponding to a product yield of 7 mg zeaxanthin per gram cell dry weight. The effect of various additives on production of hydrophobic zeaxanthin was investigated as well. Particularly, the addition of lecithin during cell cultivation increased volumetric productivity of Pseudomonas putida by a factor of 4.7 (51 mg/l vs. 239 mg/l).

Species diversity of Recent thecidellinine brachiopods in the Pacific was long believed to be low, as only three species have been described so far. Newly available material from Lizard Island and Yonge Reef in the northern Great Barrier Reef, Coral Sea, SW Pacific was investigated by scanning electron microscopy and revealed a new thecidellinine species, Thecidellina insolita n. sp. In addition a brief description of another thecidellinine, Thecidellina sp., and one lacazelline species, Ospreyella sp., is provided. The descriptions offered here are the first record of Recent thecideide brachiopods from Lizard Island and its surroundings, though not from the Great Barrier Reef as a whole. This study documents the case that not only representatives of different lacazelline and thecidellinine genera, but also congeneric species co-occur in the same region. Moreover comparison with taxonomic descriptions provided for the genus Thecidellina from the West Pacific as a whole suggests that thecidellinine species diversity is highly underestimated and Thecidellina maxilla, a widespread species in the West Pacific, is more likely to represent a species-complex. (© 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Cardiac contractility modulation (CCM) is a treatment option for patients with systolic ventricular dysfunction, independent of QRS duration, moderate to severe systolic heart failure and symptoms despite optimal medical therapy. In contrast to cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) which has been an established therapy in patients with wide QRS and ventricular asynchrony, CCM can enhance cardiac contractility in patients independent of QRS duration. Whereas inotropic drugs increase oxygen demand, CCM works without additional myocardial oxygen need and without reference to asynchrony. Non-excitatory signals applied during the absolute refractory period have been shown to enhance the strength of left ventricular contraction in animals and humans with heart failure probably due to normalization of myocardial gene expression. Several multicenter studies have demonstrated safety and efficacy of CCM in patients with medically refractory heart failure. We describe the specific technical aspects and conditions in clinical application of CCM.

Compilation of a checklist of Recent thecideoid brachiopods from the Indian Ocean and Red Sea indicates that members of this superfamily are represented by a small number of species. The subfamily Lacazellinae is represented by Ospreyella maldiviana from the Maldive Islands but the presence of Lacazella cannot yet be confirmed in the Indian Ocean as the holotype of Lacazella mauritiana from Mauritius is lost. The subfamily Thecidellininae is represented by Thecidellina blochmanni from Christmas Island in the eastern Indian Ocean and the Red Sea while a new species T. europa is here described from Europa Island in the Mozambique Channel. The subfamily Minutellinae is represented by Minutella minuta from Samper Bank and Walters Bank in the south-western Indian Ocean and in the Red Sea. Since the holotype of Thecidellina blochmanni from Flying Fish Cove, Christmas Island is also lost, this species is re-described and illustrated mainly from topotypes in the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, from which a suggested neotype has been selected.

For the first time thecideide brachiopods have been discovered in the Indonesian Archipelago. All specimens were collected in a water depth of 30 m from an old shipwreck, the "Mutiara", which represents a remarkable habitat for these cryptic brachiopods despite its artificial nature. The thecidellinine species Minutella cf. minuta and the lacazelline species Ospreyella mutiara n. sp. are described and illustrated comprehensively, including their shell ontogeny. The inclusion of the new species O. mutiara in the genus Ospreyella Lüter and Wörheide, 2003 is based on results of an integrated approach combining morphological, ontogenetic and genetic studies. Relevant morphological characters diagnostic for Ospreyella are established. In addition, all Recent lacazelline brachiopod genera are confirmed as valid taxa using molecular methods. The small body size of 0. mutiara and the weakly developed brachidium in comparison to other Ospreyella species as a consequence of heterochrony is discussed in more detail. O. mutiara is the first species of the exclusively gonochoristic genus Ospreyella for which hermaphroditism is now documented.

Der demographische Wandel hat Auswirkungen auf die Erwerbsbevolkerung und damit auch auf den deutschen Arbeitsmarkt: Das inlandische Erwerbspersonenpotenzial schrumpft tendenziell, was in einigen Berufen, Branchen und Regionen bereits jetzt zu Fachkrafteengpassen fuhrt. Eine Moglichkeit, um dem entgegen zu wirken, besteht in der besseren Ausschopfung des Potenzials der bisher vielfach ungenutzten Berufsqualifikationen aus dem Ausland, die bereits in Deutschland lebende Menschen mit Migrationshintergrund besitzen (vgl. Fohrbeck, 2012, S. 6f.). Diese Personen sind haufig nicht oder nicht qualifikationsadaquat in den deutschen Arbeitsmarkt integriert, sie sind uberdurchschnittlich oft arbeitslos und haben allgemein ein hoheres Arbeitslosigkeitsrisiko (vgl. Statistisches Bundesamt, 2013).

The BioCASe Monitor Service (BMS) is a web-based tool for coordinators of distributed data networks that provide information to web-portals and data aggregators via the BioCASe Provider Software. Building on common standards and protocols, it has three main purposes: (1) monitoring provider's progress in data provision, (2) facilitating checks of data mappings with a focus on the structure, plausibility and completeness, and (3) verifying compliance of provided data for transformation into other target schemas. Herein two use cases, GBIF-D and OpenUp!, are presented in which the BMS is being applied for monitoring the progress in data provision and performing quality checks on the ABCD (Access to Biological Collection Data) schema mapping. However, the BMS can potentially be used with any conceptual data schema and protocols for querying web services. Through flexible configuration options it is highly adaptable to specific requirements and needs. Thus, the BMS can be easily implemented into coordination workflows and reporting duties within other distributed data network projects.

Carotenoid cleavage oxygenases are nonheme iron enzymes that specifically cleave carbon-carbon double bonds of carotenoids. Their apocarotenoid cleavage products serve as important signaling molecules that are involved in various biological processes. A database search revealed the presence of putative carotenoid cleavage oxygenase genes in the genomes of Sphingopyxis alaskensis RB2256 and Plesiocystis pacifica SIR-1. The four genes sala_1698, sala_1008, ppsir1_15490 and ppsir1_17230 were cloned and heterologously expressed in carotenoid-producing Escherichia coli JM109 strains. Two of the four encoded proteins exhibited carotenoid cleavage activity. S. alaskensis RB2256 carotenoid cleavage oxygenase (SaCCO), which is encoded by sala_1698, was shown to cleave acyclic and monocyclic substrates. Coexpression of sala_1698 in carotenoid-producing E. coli JM109 strains revealed cleavage activity for lycopene, hydroxylycopene, and dihydroxylycopene. The monocyclic substrate apo-8'-carotenal was cleaved in vitro by purified SaCCO at the 9'/10' and 11'/12' double bonds. The second enzyme, P. pacifica SIR-1 carotenoid cleavage oxygenase (PpCCO), is encoded by ppsir1_15490. PpCCO-mediated carotenoid cleavage requires the presence of either hydroxy or keto groups. PpCCO cleaved zeaxanthin, hydroxylycopene, and dihydroxylycopene, and also the C(50) carotenoids decaprenoxanthin, sarprenoxanthin and sarcinaxanthin, in carotenoid-producing E. coli JM109 strains. Whole cells of E. coli JM109 overexpressing ppsir1_15490mut, a mutant of ppsir1_15490 with enhanced gene expression, were applied for the conversion of carotenoids. Analysis of the carotenoid cleavage products revealed a single cleavage site at the 13'/14' double bond for astaxanthin, and two cleavage sites at the 11'/12' or 13'/14' double bond for zeaxanthin, nostoxanthin, and canthaxanthin.

Background Autoantibodies against self-antigens have been associated not only with autoimmune diseases, but also with cancer and are even found in healthy individuals. The mechanism causing the autoantibody response remains elusive for the majority of the immunogenic antigens. To deepen the understanding of autoantibody responses, we ask whether natural-occurring, autoimmunity-associated and tumor-associated antigens have structural or biological features related to the immune response. To this end, we have carried out the most comprehensive in-silicio study of different groups of autoantigens including large antigen sets identified by our groups combined with publicly available antigen sets. Results We found evidence for an enrichment of genes with a larger exon length increasing the probability of the occurrence of potential immunogenic features such as mutations, SNPs, immunogenic sequence patterns and structural epitopes, or alternative splicing events. While SNPs seem to play a more central role in autoimmunity, somatic mutations seem to be stronger enriched in tumor-associated antigens. In addition, antigens of autoimmune diseases are different from other antigen sets in that they appear preferentially secreted, have frequently an extracellular location, and they are enriched in pathways associated with the immune system. Furthermore, for autoantibodies in general, we found enrichment of sequence-based properties including coiled-coils motifs, ELR motifs, and Zinc finger DNA-binding motifs. Moreover, we found enrichment of proteins binding to proteins or nucleic acids including RNA and enrichment of proteins that are part of ribosome or spliceosome. Both, homologies to proteins of other species and an enrichment of ancient protein domains indicate that immunogenic proteins are evolutionary conserved and that mimicry might play a central role. Conclusions Our results provide evidence that proteins which i) are evolutionary conserved, ii) show specific sequence motifs, and iii) are part of cellular structures show an increased likelihood to become autoimmunogenic.