Basically all companies today go beyond the development of single products and offer set(s) of similar and related products. In marketing, one such set is often called a product line. Nevertheless, ...still today most products are not yet engineered as product lines, i.e., they are not yet derived from a single platform. In this paper, we explore the relation of these two forms of product lines. It is shown that under certain circumstances engineered and marketed software product line subsume different products. This paper shows how these two perspectives differ and why a difference in products between these perspectives may be appropriate from a company perspective. Finally, it is argued that activities currently subsumed under product management and scoping should be closely coordinated, allowing companies to optimize their product portfolios since decision-making is facilitated
ECH & CD is widely used in fusion plasmas. Gyrotrons are applied as power sources as they offer continuous wave operation at MW power level. This contribution reports on the status and plans of major ...projects of KIT towards high power gyrotrons, i.e. results from series production of the W7-X gyrotron, the development of the EU pre-prototype coaxial-cavity gyrotron, the 2 MW, 170 GHz CW coaxial cavity gyrotron for ITER and a frequency step-tunable gyrotron.
A panel of simple repetitive oligonucleotide probes has been designed and tested for multilocus DNA fingerprinting in some 200 fungal, plant and animal species as well as man. To date at least one of ...the probes has been found to be informative in each species. The human genome, however, has been the major target of many fingerprinting studies. Using the probe (CAC)5 or (GTG)5, individualization of all humans is possible except for monozygotic twins. Paternity analyses are now performed on a routine basis by the use of multilocus fingerprints, including also cases of deficiency, i.e. where one of the parents is not available for analysis. In forensic science stain analysis is feasible in all tissue remains containing nucleated cells. Depending on the degree of DNA degradation a variety of oligonucleotides are informative, and they have been proven useful in actual case work. Advantages in comparison to other methods including enzymatic DNA amplification techniques (PCR) are evident. Fingerprint patterns of tumors may be changed due to the gain or loss of chromosomes and/or intrachromosomal deletion and amplification events. Locus-specific probes were isolated from the human (CAC)5/(GTG)5 fingerprint with a varying degree of informativeness (monomorphic versus truly hypervariable markers). The feasibility of three different approaches for the isolation of hypervariable mono-locus probes was evaluated. Finally, one particular mixed simple (gt)n(ga)m repeat locus in the second intron of the HLA-DRB genes has been scrutinized to allow comparison of the extent of exon-encoded (protein-) polymorphisms versus intronic hypervariability of simple repeats: adjacent to a single gene sequence (e.g. HLA-DRB1*0401) many different length alleles were found. Group-specific structures of basic repeats were identified within the evolutionarily related DRB alleles. As a further application it is suggested here that due to the ubiquitous interspersion of their targets, short probes for simple repeat sequences are especially useful tools for ordering genomic cosmid, yeast artificial chromosome and phage banks.
Background: Phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) hamartoma tumor syndrome (PHTS) is caused by germ line mutations in the PTEN gene. Symptoms include cancer pre- disposition, immune deviations, and ...lipomas/lipomatosis. No causal standard therapy is available. We describe a therapeutic attempt with the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitor sirolimus for a PHTS patient suffering from thymus hyperplasia and lipomatosis. We furthermore assessed the in vitro effects of sirolimus and other inhibitors on lipoma cells of the patient.
Methods: The patient underwent clinical and blood examinations and whole-body magnetic resonance imaging to assess tumor sizes. Lipoma cells of the patient were incubated with inhibitors of the phosphoinositide3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT/ mTOR signaling pathway to analyze the effects on proliferation, adipocyte differentiation, and survival in vitro.
Results: Sirolimus treatment improved somatic growth and reduced thymus volume. These effects diminished over the treatment period of 19 mo. Sirolimus decreased lipoma cell proliferation and adipocyte differentiation in vitro but did not cause apoptosis. PI3K and AKT inhibitors induced apoptosis significantly.
Conclusion: Sirolimus treatment led to an improvement of the patient’s clinical status and a transient reduction of the thymus. Our in vitro findings point to PI3K and AKT inhibitors as potential treatment options for patients with severe forms of PHTS.
Little information is known concerning hemodynamic parameters of bypass grafts after open heart surgery during the postoperative period. As there is no easy to use bedside-method for monitoring, we ...developed a new implantable Doppler probe to measure blood flow velocity with a 20 MHz pulsed Doppler system. The accuracy of this method was proved in a circulatory model and in animal studies. Our conclusion is that the implantable pulsed Doppler system is a sensitive method for monitoring small vessel hemodynamics.
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