The postmodern understanding of world and geography, as conceived by Soja (1989), facilitates the meeting of social geography with virtual media. This was academia's reaction to the changes occurring ...in the reality of our everyday lives, which is increasingly shaped and changed by all media. In addition, feature films considerably shape people's behaviour and their everyday perception of landscape. Landscape should be a part of the movie's geography since the roles of landscapes in feature films are diverse and lasting. Thus, the authors can isolate the following functions of landscapes in movies: landscape as setting, landscape as guarantor for credibility and authenticity, landscape as metaphor or symbol, landscape as myth, landscape as actor, landscape as location, and landscape as destination of location tourism. In order to analyze landscape in feature film, this essay takes up theoretical conceptions from English-speaking countries. Methodically it refers to ideas pertinent to the New Cultural Geography. The authors hope to open an additional chapter of geographic research in Germany with this article.
Micromonas (Peptostreptococcus) micros is frequently associated with periodontal disease as well as respiratory, gastrointestinal and female genitourinary tract infections, but only rarely has been ...reported as a pathogenic agent of prosthetic joint infections. Here we describe a case of a 63-year-old woman with prosthetic joint infection of total hip arthroplasty caused by the anaerobic species Micromonas micros, associated with tooth extraction. Samples obtained intraoperatively and from the oral cavity were positive for the presence of M. micros by culture and by real-time PCR. This case report indicates that infections of prosthetic joints can be associated with dental procedures and that sensitive molecular techniques are necessary for their routine diagnostic.
We present a novel combination of drop on demand (DoD) and extrusion-based bioprinting to generate high-precision patterns of cells inside large hydrogel volumes.Extrusion-based bioprinting has the ...great advantage of enabling a fast deposition of high viscous cell-loaded hydrogel with reasonable precision. Compromises between high shape fidelity and cell viability, as well as short process times often require many iterations of optimizing process parameters and varying compositions of the hydrogel. To limit the multitude of parameters during extrusion-based bioprinting, a method for rapid process assessment was developed. This enables to define limits for printing temperature, flow rate and nozzle size from basic rheological measurements with regard to the biological and mechanical requirements.The combination of extrusion-based bioprinting with DoD bioprinting allows for precise deposition of low viscous cell suspension and adjustable concentrations of crosslinking agent. Together, the technologies were used to print a bone replacement model by using the pre-defined process parameters. Adiposed-derived stem cells (ASC) prone to osteogenic differentiation were homogenously extruded in a cuboid structure of 10x10x5 mm. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) were printed as highly dense cell suspension lines inside the extruded hydrogel to allow a potential vascularization of the structure in vivo.
The incidence and time course of the immune response to Vero toxin–producing Escherichia coli (VTEC) other than O157 (O26, O55, O111, O128) were determined in 107 children with enteropathic hemolytic ...uremic syndrome (HUS) by ELISA and compared to antibody profiles of 125 healthy pediatric controls and 100 children with community-acquired uncomplicated diarrhea. Six of 8 HUS patients with non-O157 VTEC isolates exhibited a serologic response to the homologous lipopolysaccharide antigen similar to that of patients infected with E. coli O157. In addition, elevated IgM or IgG antibodies were demonstrated in 7 of 19 culture- and O157 serology–negative HUS patients. Serogroup-specific antibodies decreased below cutoff levels within several months after convalescence. Anti–non-O157 antibodies were found in 14% of the diarrheic controls. Unexpectedly, a high proportion (27/82) of anti–O157 lipopolysaccharide antibody–positive HUS samples reacted with LPS from E. coli O55:B5, suggesting shared epitopes with endemic VTEC O157 strains.
This paper deals with acoustophoretic particle focusing and its application to single-cell dispensing. Building on previous work, significant progress was achieved: 1) Effective acoustic field ...generation inside a microfluidic chip of a dispensing cartridge by a detachable piezoelectric actuator was successfully shown. This enables acoustophoretic focusing of particles prior to the nozzle of the single-use dispensing cartridge and ensures the reusability of the piezoelectric transducer. The frequency at which fluidic resonance occurs remains constant for several cartridges. 2) It was demonstrated by admittance measurements that the resonance spectrum of the piezoelectric actuator is largely independent of the dispensing cartridge. Additionally, measurement of chip vibrations and particle image velocimetry (PIV) were used to characterize the system. This allows for estimation of the particle focusing velocity for a specific system at different actuation frequencies. 3) Acoustophoretic focusing by the detachable actuator was shown to positively affect dispensing speed and bead loss compared to single-cell dispensing without focusing.
Ion mobility spectrometers (IMS) are measurement devices for fast and ultra-sensitive trace gas analysis. Most IMS employ radioactive electron sources, such as 3 H or 63 Ni, to provide free electrons ...with high kinetic energy at atmospheric pressure for initiating a chemical gas phase ionization of the analytes. The disadvantage of these radioactive materials are legal restrictions and the electron emission cannot be adjusted or turned off. Therefore, we developed a non-radioactive electron source and replaced the 3 H-source of our existing IMS, leading to comparable spectra. An advantage of our non-radioactive electron source is that it can operate in a fast pulsed mode. By optimizing the geometric parameters and developing fast control electronics, we can achieve short electron emission pulses with high intensities and adjustable pulse width down to a few nanoseconds. This allows to control the ionization process, which can enhance the analytical performance of the IMS. Furthermore, a miniaturized non-radioactive electron source is desirable, e.g. for hand-held IMS devices. Therefore, we developed an emission current control for field emitter cathodes and investigated their suitability for this application.
We examine outcomes of disclosure and enforcement regulation on properties of the German capital market. We find that overall, higher regulatory levels are positively as-sociated with long-term ...increased liquidity and valuation. When we investigate the interplay between disclosure and enforcement, our results suggest that the sustained regulatory eforts do not result in a virtuous cycle in which disclosure and enforcement strengthen each other. We identify a substitutional relationship in which high levels of enforcement subtract from the effects of additional disclosure regulations. This finding challenges the assumption that strong enforcement is a precondition for efective disclosure regulation.
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