Early identification and treatment of schizophrenia may alleviate the symptoms, delay the onset and improve the outcome of psychosis. Thus, detection of individuals at risk during the prodromal phase is an important task. Universal approaches to screen the general population or healthy subjects at risk have not proven possible to-date. However, clinical criteria for detecting ultra-high risk individuals have been developed for specialized settings, with their implementation in interventional studies. This article examines the rationale for early detection and intervention of psychosis, along with a review of some of the current studies. These target prevention using psychological and/or pharmacological intervention strategies have demonstrated promising results in high risk individuals. The German Research Network on Schizophrenia (GRNS) is conducting two multicenter early intervention studies; one with early psychological intervention in subjects who manifest early prodromal symptoms; with the second trial applying clinical management and pharmacological early intervention in subjects experiencing late prodromal symptoms (high risk subjects). Despite the promising results, many of the current studies have small sample sizes with study durations of a short period. The full benefits of early detection and intervention should be revealed once larger and longer studies are conducted.

We prove that the continuous function${\rm{\hat \Omega }}:2^\omega \to $ that is defined via$X \mapsto \mathop \sum \limits_n 2^{ - K\left( {Xn} \right)} $ for all $X \in {2^\omega }$ is differentiable exactly at the Martin-Löf random reals with the derivative having value 0; that it is nowhere monotonic; and that $\mathop \smallint \nolimits _0^1{\rm{\hat{\Omega }}}\left( X \right)\,{\rm{d}}X$ is a left-c.e. $wtt$-complete real having effective Hausdorff dimension ${1 / 2}$.

We further investigate the algorithmic properties of ${\rm{\hat{\Omega }}}$. For example, we show that the maximal value of ${\rm{\hat{\Omega }}}$ must be random, the minimal value must be Turing complete, and that ${\rm{\hat{\Omega }}}\left( X \right) \oplus X{ \ge _T}\emptyset \prime$ for every X. We also obtain some machine-dependent results, including that for every $\varepsilon > 0$, there is a universal machine V such that ${{\rm{\hat{\Omega }}}_V}$ maps every real X having effective Hausdorff dimension greater than ε to a real of effective Hausdorff dimension 0 with the property that $X{ \le _{tt}}{{\rm{\hat{\Omega }}}_V}\left( X \right)$; and that there is a real X and a universal machine V such that ${{\rm{\Omega }}_V}\left( X \right)$ is rational.

Austria has a quite small cooperative sector, only about 10 to 15% of all Austrian wine is produced by wine cooperatives. The first wine cooperative was established in 1882 (Eisenstadt-Ruster-Weinproduzentenverein). An intense wave of cooperative establishment took place in Austria and Germany at the beginning of the 20th century, lasting through the 1960s, that was due to the unfortunate general socio-economic situation of vintners.

This paper presents the design and implementation of power amplifiers using high-power gallium nitride (GaN) high electronic mobility transistor (HEMT) powerbars and monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs). The first amplifier is a class AB implementation for worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) applications with emphasis on a low temperature cofired ceramics (LTCC) packaging solution. The second amplifier is a class S power amplifier using a high power GaN HEMT MMIC. For a 450 MHz continuous wave (CW) signal, the measured output power is 5.8 W and drain efficiency is 18.5%. Based on time domain simulations, loss mechanisms are identified and optimization steps are discussed.

In eukaryotic chromosomes, large blocks of satellite DNA are associated with regions of reduced meiotic recombination. No function of highly repeated, tandemly arranged DNA sequences has been identified so far at the cellular level, though the structural properties of satellite DNA are relatively well known. In studying the joint action of meiotic recombination, genetic drift and natural selection on the copy number of a family of highly repeated DNA (HRDNA), this paper looks at the structure–function debate for satellite DNA from the standpoint of molecular population genetics. It is shown that (i) HRDNA accumulates most probably in regions of near zero crossing over (heterochromatin), and that (ii), due to random genetic drift the effect of unequal crossover on copy numbers is stronger, the smaller the population size. As a consequence, highly repeated sequences are likely to persist longest (over evolutionary times) in small populations. The results are based on a fairly general class of models of unequal crossing over and natural selection which have been treated both analytically and by computer simulation.

A model of the evolutionary accumulation of highly repeated DNA (HRDNA) is proposed. The accumulation of HRDNA sequences, which are organized largely in tandem arrays and whose functional significance is obscure, is explained here as a consequence of the action of the forces of amplification (promoting increase in copy numbers) and unequal crossing over, random drift and natural selection (controlling copy numbers). This model provides a general framework (i) to study the chromosomal location of satellite DNAs present in the genomes of all higher eukaryotes, and (ii) to explain the significant variation in the amounts of satellites which is frequently found among closely related species, but only rarely within a species. A review of the relevant data is included and open questions are identified.

Asexual populations experiencing random genetic drift can accumulate an increasing number of deleterious mutations, a process called Muller's ratchet. We present here diffusion approximations for the rate at which Muller's ratchet advances in asexual haploid populations. The most important parameter of this process is n0 = N e−U/s, where N is population size, U the genomic mutation rate and s the selection coefficient. In a very large population, n0 is the equilibrium size of the mutation-free class. We examined the case n0 > 1 and developed one approximation for intermediate values of N and s and one for large values of N and s. For intermediate values, the expected time at which the ratchet advances increases linearly with n0. For large values, the time increases in a more or less exponential fashion with n0. In addition to n0, s is also an important determinant of the speed of the ratchet. If N and s are intermediate and n0 is fixed, we find that increasing s accelerates the ratchet. In contrast, for a given n0, but large N and s, increasing s slows the ratchet. Except when s is small, results based on our approximations fit well those from computer simulations.