Search

Hintergrund: Die PACIFIC-Studie ist eine nicht-interventionelle Studie mit bis zu 5.500 Patienten in 211 Zentren in Deutschland, Schweiz und den Niederlanden. Die Patienten werden in allen zugelassenen Indikationen von Ranibizumab 24 Monate nachbeobachtet. Hier präsentieren wir eine Zwischenanalyse[zum vollständigen Text gelangen Sie über die oben angegebene URL], 92. Versammlung des Vereins Rhein-Mainischer Augenärzte

Monitoring of soil aggregate breakdown remains, even at the micro-plot scale, a challenge. Remote sensing has shown its potential to assess many different soil properties and is a fast and non-destructive method to investigate soil susceptibility to water erosion. We designed an outdoor experiment to monitor soil aggregates breakdown under natural rainfall at a micro-plot scale using a regular camera. Five soils susceptible to detachment (silty loam with various organic matter content, loam and sandy loam) were photographed once per day. We collected images and rainfall data from November 2014 until February 2015. Considering that the soil surface roughness causes shadow cast, the blue/red band ratio is used to observe the soil aggregates changes. In addition, a Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) is used to extract the image texture entropy which reflects the process of soil aggregates breakdown. In our research the entropy calculated at 135 degrees along the direction of shadows gives best results. Our results show that both entropy and shadow index follow the wetting and drying cycles with a decrease due to a rain event. This decrease is small due to low rainfall intensity ( -1 ) for the entire period that the experiment ran. However, the biggest rain event of 20 mmday -1 resulted in a decrease in entropy, meaning that sufficient rainfall energy was present to trigger the soil aggregates break down. This research concludes that both entropy and shadow index obtained with a regular camera enable the monitoring of soil aggregate breakdown at a high spatial resolution.

The polyphosphates β-Sr(PO3)2 and BaCa(PO3)4 were doped with Eu2+, BaCa(PO3)4 was structurally characterised for the first time. Both phosphors were analysed by fluorescence spectroscopy. β-Sr(PO3)2:Eu and BaCa(PO3)4:Eu were found to emit blue light at 424 nm and 418 nm, respectively, with a broader emission band compared with α-Sr(PO3)2:Eu. Both phosphors can be excited at 330 nm, i.e. an UV-LED emission. The crystal structure of BaCa(PO3)4 has been determined based on single-crystal data [P21/n, Z = 4, a = 723.00(11), b = 917.05(19), c = 1524.7(2) pm, β = 90.995(12)°, R1 = 0.050, wR2 = 0.099, 1748 reflections, 164 parameters]. BaCa(PO3)4 is not homeotypic with β-Sr(PO3)2 and α-Sr(PO3)2 but isotypic with BaCd(PO3)4. The vibrational spectra of BaCa(PO3)4 are also presented and discussed. (© Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2009)

Many neuropathological and experimental studies suggest that the degeneration of dopaminergic terminals and axons precedes the demise of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra, which finally results in the clinical symptoms of Parkinson disease (PD). The mechanisms underlying this early axonal degeneration are, however, still poorly understood. Here, we examined the effects of overexpression of human wildtype alpha-synuclein (alpha Syn-WT), a protein associated with PD, and its mutant variants alpha Syn-A30P and -A53T on neurite morphology and functional parameters in rat primary midbrain neurons (PMN). Moreover, axonal degeneration after overexpression of alpha Syn-WT and -A30P was analyzed by live imaging in the rat optic nerve in vivo. We found that overexpression of alpha Syn-WT and of its mutants A30P and A53T impaired neurite outgrowth of PMN and affected neurite branching assessed by Sholl analysis in a variant-dependent manner. Surprisingly, the number of primary neurites per neuron was increased in neurons transfected with alpha Syn. Axonal vesicle transport was examined by live imaging of PMN co-transfected with EGFP-labeled synaptophysin. Overexpression of all alpha Syn variants significantly decreased the number of motile vesicles and decelerated vesicle transport compared with control. Macroautophagic flux in PMN was enhanced by alpha Syn-WT and -A53T but not by alpha Syn-A30P. Correspondingly, colocalization of alpha Syn and the autophagy marker LC3 was reduced for alpha Syn-A30P compared with the other alpha Syn variants. The number of mitochondria colocalizing with LC3 as a marker for mitophagy did not differ among the groups. In the rat optic nerve, both alpha Syn-WT and -A30P accelerated kinetics of acute axonal degeneration following crush lesion as analyzed by in vivo live imaging. We conclude that alpha Syn overexpression impairs neurite outgrowth and augments axonal degeneration, whereas axonal vesicle transport and autophagy are severely altered.