University of Kiel

About: University of Kiel is a education organization based out in Kiel, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Transplantation. The organization has 27816 authors who have published 57114 publications receiving 2061802 citations. The organization is also known as: Christian Albrechts University & Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel.

The clock gene Per2 influences the glutamatergic system and modulates alcohol consumption.

Abstract: Period (Per) genes are involved in regulation of the circadian clock and are thought to modulate several brain functions. We demonstrate that Per2Brdm1 mutant mice, which have a deletion in the PAS domain of the Per2 protein, show alterations in the glutamatergic system. Lowered expression of the glutamate transporter Eaat1 is observed in these animals, leading to reduced uptake of glutamate by astrocytes. As a consequence, glutamate levels increase in the extracellular space of Per2Brdm1 mutant mouse brains. This is accompanied by increased alcohol intake in these animals. In humans, variations of the PER2 gene are associated with regulation of alcohol consumption. Acamprosate, a drug used to prevent craving and relapse in alcoholic patients is thought to act by dampening a hyper-glutamatergic state. This drug reduced augmented glutamate levels and normalized increased alcohol consumption in Per2Brdm1 mutant mice. Collectively, these data establish glutamate as a link between dysfunction of the circadian clock gene Per2 and enhanced alcohol intake.

Century-scale events in monsoonal climate over the past 24,000 years

Abstract: BOTH the marine sediment record and numerical modelling of the atmospheric summer circulation over the northern Indian Ocean and southeast Asia have shown that the monsoonal climate exhibits a direct but nonlinear response to the intensity of solar insolation during summer, with a time lag of several thousand years1,2. Here we present evidence from a high-resolution record of oxygen isotopes and carbonate spanning the past 24,000 calendar years that the response of the southwest monsoon over the Arabian Sea to long-term, gradual insolation changes occurred in several distinct events of less than 300 years duration, at 14,300, 13,500, 13,060, 9,900, 8,800 and 7,30014C yr BP. Thus, during this transitional period from glacial to post-glacial conditions the slow solar forcing seems to have induced very rapid changes in local climate. We speculate that the rapid response may be related to albedo changes in Asia.

Sequence and Haplotype Analysis Supports HLA-C as the Psoriasis Susceptibility 1 Gene

Abstract: Previous studies have narrowed the interval containing PSORS1, the psoriasis-susceptibility locus in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), to an ∼300-kb region containing HLA-C and at least 10 other genes. In an effort to identify the PSORS1 gene, we cloned and completely sequenced this region from both chromosomes of five individuals. Two of the sequenced haplotypes were associated with psoriasis (risk), and the other eight were clearly unassociated (nonrisk). Comparison of sequence of the two risk haplotypes identified a 298-kb region of homology, extending from just telomeric of HLA-B to the HCG22 gene, which was flanked by clearly nonhomologous regions. Similar haplotypes cloned from unrelated individuals had nearly identical sequence. Combinatorial analysis of exonic variations in the known genes of the candidate interval revealed that HCG27, PSORS1C3, OTF3, TCF19, HCR, STG, and HCG22 bore no alleles unique to risk haplotypes among the 10 sequenced haplotypes. SPR1 and SEEK1 both had messenger RNA alleles specific to risk haplotypes, but only HLA-C and CDSN yielded protein alleles unique to risk. The risk alleles of HLA-C and CDSN (HLA-Cw6 and CDSN*TTC) were genotyped in 678 families with early-onset psoriasis; 620 of these families were also typed for 34 microsatellite markers spanning the PSORS1 interval. Recombinant haplotypes retaining HLA-Cw6 but lacking CDSN*TTC were significantly associated with psoriasis, whereas recombinants retaining CDSN*TTC but lacking HLA-Cw6 were not associated, despite good statistical power. By grouping recombinants with similar breakpoints, the most telomeric quarter of the 298-kb candidate interval could be excluded with high confidence. These results strongly suggest that HLA-Cw6 is the PSORS1 risk allele that confers susceptibility to early-onset psoriasis.

PSPLIB - a project scheduling problem library

Abstract: We present a set of benchmark instances for the evaluation of Solution procedures for single- and multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problems. The instances have been systematically generated by the Standard project generator ProGen. They are characterized by the input-parameters of ProGen. The entire benchmark set including its detailed characterization and the best solutions known so-far are available on a public ftp-site. Hence, researchers can download the benchmark sets they need for the evaluation of their algorithms. Additionally, they can make available new results. Depending on the progress made in the field, the instance library will be continously enlarged and new results will be made accessible. This should be a valuable and driving source for further improvements in the area of project type scheduling.

A competitive genetic algorithm for resource-constrained project scheduling

Abstract: In this paper we consider the resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) with makespan minimization as objective. We propose a new genetic algorithm approach to solve this problem. Subsequently, we compare it to two genetic algorithm concepts from the literature. While our approach makes use of a permutation based genetic encoding that contains problem-specific knowledge, the other two procedures employ a priority value based and a priority rule based representation, respectively. Then we present the results of our thorough computational study for which standard sets of project instances have been used. The outcome reveals that our procedure is the most promising genetic algorithm to solve the RCPSP. Finally, we show that our genetic algorithm yields better results than several heuristic procedures presented in the literature. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 45: 733–750, 1998