With the creation of a German Network of Competence Optical Technologies ( Kompetenznetze Optische Technologien), or Optecnet, the ministry has already initiated the necessary infrastructure to promote further growth.
A network of competence for medical education (Kompetenznetz Lehre in der Medizin Baden-Wuerttemberg) connects the 5 medical schools Freiburg, Heidelberg, Mannheim, Tuebingen, and Ulm.
Initiatives at the national level, like the United States' $500 million National Nanotechnology Initiative announced last month by President Clinton or Germany's Centers of Competence Network, " Nanonet," emphasize the strategic significance of the new technologies.
This study was funded by the German Research Council (DFG grant CH 1516/2-1 and HI 1789/3-3) and the Competence Network of Heart Failure funded by the Integrated Research and Treatment Center (IFB) of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research BMBFFederal Ministry of Education and Research BMBF
The network of regulatory interactions controlling competence development contains a core module, an autostimulatory positive feedback loop in which ComK proteins, synthesized from the comK gene, promote their own production.
CMW is principal investigator of the TDM database (conception and design) and chair of the "Competence Network of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry".
Individuals from Germany (680 cases and 137 controls) were recruited by the Competence Network of Dementia and Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn.
WK is a vice chair of the German competence network of obesity and is supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Council), Bonn, Germany, and German Ministry of Research and Education BMBFF).
According to the positive results of those studies the usage of probiotics for maintenance of remission is recommended in the updated guideline for Diagnosis and Therapy of Ulcerative Colitis by the German Society of Digestive and Metabolic Disease and the Competence Network of IBD [ 19].
This work was supported by grants from the 'Center for Nutritional Medicine Tübingenn - Hohenheim (7A I; to SCB) and the Competence Network of Obesity, group 'Obesity and GI tract', funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (FKZ: 01GI0843).
Such harmonisation can be enhanced by communication across networks of experts, such as the 'Australasian Child and Adolescent Obesity Research Network' (ACAORN; http://www.acaorn.med.usyd.edu.au/) and the German competence network of obesity (Kompetenznetz Adipositas) of the German ministry of Research and Education (http://kn-adipositas.de/knadipositas/default.aspx).aspx
