TY - JOUR A1 - Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar A1 - Ogden, Richard T1 - “Chunking” spoken language BT - Introducing weak cesuras JF - Open linguistics N2 - In this introductory paper to the special issue on “Weak cesuras in talk-in-interaction”, we aim to guide the reader into current work on the “chunking” of naturally occurring talk. It is conducted in the methodological frameworks of Conversation Analysis and Interactional Linguistics – two approaches that consider the interactional aspect of humans talking with each other to be a crucial starting point for its analysis. In doing so, we will (1) lay out the background of this special issue (what is problematic about “chunking” talk-in-interaction, the characteristics of the methodological approach chosen by the contributors, the cesura model), (2) highlight what can be gained from such a revised understanding of “chunking” in talk-in-interaction by referring to previous work with this model as well as the findings of the contributions to this special issue, and (3) indicate further directions such work could take starting from papers in this special issue. We hope to induce a fruitful exchange on the phenomena discussed, across methodological divides. KW - Conversation Analysis KW - Interactional Linguistics KW - prosody KW - phonetics KW - intonation units KW - talk-in-interaction KW - syntax KW - kinetics Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2020-0173 SN - 2300-9969 VL - 7 IS - 1 SP - 531 EP - 548 PB - De Gruyter CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Nobari, Hadi A1 - Mahmoudzadeh Khalili, Sara A1 - Denche Zamorano, Angel Manuel A1 - Bowman, ‪Thomas G. A1 - Granacher, Urs T1 - Workload is associated with the occurrence of non-contact injuries in professional male soccer players: A pilot study JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Injuries in professional soccer are a significant concern for teams, and they are caused amongst others by high training load. This cohort study describes the relationship between workload parameters and the occurrence of non-contact injuries, during weeks with high and low workload in professional soccer players throughout the season. Twenty-one professional soccer players aged 28.3 ± 3.9 yrs. who competed in the Iranian Persian Gulf Pro League participated in this 48-week study. The external load was monitored using global positioning system (GPS, GPSPORTS Systems Pty Ltd) and the type of injury was documented daily by the team's medical staff. Odds ratio (OR) and relative risk (RR) were calculated for non-contact injuries for high- and low-load weeks according to acute (AW), chronic (CW), acute to chronic workload ratio (ACWR), and AW variation (Δ-Acute) values. By using Poisson distribution, the interval between previous and new injuries were estimated. Overall, 12 non-contact injuries occurred during high load and 9 during low load weeks. Based on the variables ACWR and Δ-AW, there was a significantly increased risk of sustaining non-contact injuries (p < 0.05) during high-load weeks for ACWR (OR: 4.67), and Δ-AW (OR: 4.07). Finally, the expected time between injuries was significantly shorter in high load weeks for ACWR [1.25 vs. 3.33, rate ratio time (RRT)] and Δ-AW (1.33 vs. 3.45, RRT) respectively, compared to low load weeks. The risk of sustaining injuries was significantly larger during high workload weeks for ACWR, and Δ-AW compared with low workload weeks. The observed high OR in high load weeks indicate that there is a significant relationship between workload and occurrence of non-contact injuries. The predicted time to new injuries is shorter in high load weeks compared to low load weeks. Therefore, the frequency of injuries is higher during high load weeks for ACWR and Δ-AW. ACWR and Δ-AW appear to be good indicators for estimating the injury risk, and the time interval between injuries. KW - ACWR KW - external load KW - football KW - prevention KW - performance KW - injury risk Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.925722 SN - 1664-1078 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Frontiers CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Richter, Eric A1 - Kunter, Mareike A1 - Marx, Alexandra A1 - Richter, Dirk T1 - Who participates in content-focused teacher professional development? BT - Evidence from a large scale study JF - Frontiers in education N2 - This study investigates the relationship between teacher quality and teachers’ engagement in professional development (PD) activities using data on 229 German secondary school mathematics teachers. We assessed different aspects of teacher quality (e.g. professional knowledge, instructional quality) using a variety of measures, including standardised tests of teachers’ content knowledge, to determine what characteristics are associated with high participation in PD. The results show that teachers with higher scores for teacher quality variables take part in more content-focused PD than teachers with lower scores for these variables. This suggests that teacher learning may be subject to a Matthew effect, whereby more proficient teachers benefit more from PD than less proficient teachers. KW - teacher learning KW - professional development KW - content knowledge KW - teacher quality KW - in-service training KW - Matthew effect KW - continuing education activities Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.722169 SN - 2504-284X IS - 6 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Raatz, Larissa A1 - Pirhofer-Walzl, Karin A1 - Müller, Marina E.H. A1 - Scherber, Christoph A1 - Joshi, Jasmin Radha T1 - Who is the culprit: Is pest infestation responsible for crop yield losses close to semi-natural habitats? JF - Ecology and Evolution N2 - Semi-natural habitats (SNHs) are becoming increasingly scarce in modern agricultural landscapes. This may reduce natural ecosystem services such as pest control with its putatively positive effect on crop production. In agreement with other studies, we recently reported wheat yield reductions at field borders which were linked to the type of SNH and the distance to the border. In this experimental landscape-wide study, we asked whether these yield losses have a biotic origin while analyzing fungal seed and fungal leaf pathogens, herbivory of cereal leaf beetles, and weed cover as hypothesized mediators between SNHs and yield. We established experimental winter wheat plots of a single variety within conventionally managed wheat fields at fixed distances either to a hedgerow or to an in-field kettle hole. For each plot, we recorded the fungal infection rate on seeds, fungal infection and herbivory rates on leaves, and weed cover. Using several generalized linear mixed-effects models as well as a structural equation model, we tested the effects of SNHs at a field scale (SNH type and distance to SNH) and at a landscape scale (percentage and diversity of SNHs within a 1000-m radius). In the dry year of 2016, we detected one putative biotic culprit: Weed cover was negatively associated with yield values at a 1-m and 5-m distance from the field border with a SNH. None of the fungal and insect pests, however, significantly affected yield, neither solely nor depending on type of or distance to a SNH. However, the pest groups themselves responded differently to SNH at the field scale and at the landscape scale. Our findings highlight that crop losses at field borders may be caused by biotic culprits; however, their negative impact seems weak and is putatively reduced by conventional farming practices. KW - arable weeds KW - cereal leaf beetle KW - fungal pathogens KW - herbivory KW - structural equation model KW - wheat Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8046 SN - 1467-6435 VL - 11 SP - 13232 EP - 13246 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Oxford ET - 19 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ladleif, Jan A1 - Weske, Mathias T1 - Which event happened first? BT - Deferred choice on blockchain using oracles JF - Frontiers in blockchain N2 - First come, first served: Critical choices between alternative actions are often made based on events external to an organization, and reacting promptly to their occurrence can be a major advantage over the competition. In Business Process Management (BPM), such deferred choices can be expressed in process models, and they are an important aspect of process engines. Blockchain-based process execution approaches are no exception to this, but are severely limited by the inherent properties of the platform: The isolated environment prevents direct access to external entities and data, and the non-continual runtime based entirely on atomic transactions impedes the monitoring and detection of events. In this paper we provide an in-depth examination of the semantics of deferred choice, and transfer them to environments such as the blockchain. We introduce and compare several oracle architectures able to satisfy certain requirements, and show that they can be implemented using state-of-the-art blockchain technology. KW - business processes KW - business process management KW - deferred choice KW - workflow patterns KW - blockchain KW - smart contracts KW - oracles KW - formal semantics Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fbloc.2021.758169 SN - 2624-7852 VL - 4 SP - 1 EP - 16 PB - Frontiers in Blockchain CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Scheffler, Christiane A1 - Hermanussen, Michael T1 - What does stunting tell us? JF - Human biology and public health N2 - Stunting is commonly linked with undernutrition. Yet, already after World War I, German pediatricians questioned this link and stated that no association exists between nutrition and height. Recent analyses within different populations of Low- and middle-income countries with high rates of stunted children failed to support the assumption that stunted children have a low BMI and skinfold sickness as signs of severe caloric deficiency. So, stunting is not a synonym of malnutrition. Parental education level has a positive influence on body height in stunted populations, e.g., in India and in Indonesia. Socially disadvantaged children tend to be shorter and lighter than children from affluent families. Humans are social mammals; they regulate growth similar to other social mammals. Also in humans, body height is strongly associated with the position within the social hierarchy, reflecting the personal and group-specific social, economic, political, and emotional environment. These non-nutritional impact factors on growth are summarized by the concept of SEPE (Social-Economic-Political-Emotional) factors. SEPE reflects on prestige, dominance-subordination, social identity, and ego motivation of individuals and social groups. KW - SEPE Factors KW - physical fitness KW - height in history KW - malnutrition Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.52905/hbph2022.3.36 SN - 2748-9957 VL - 2022 IS - 3 SP - 1 EP - 15 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - THES A1 - Zeppenfeld, Stefan T1 - Vom Gast zum Gastwirt? BT - Türkische Arbeitswelten in West-Berlin T2 - Geschichte der Gegenwart N2 - Die Arbeitsmigration zählt zu den prägenden gesellschaftlichen Wandlungsprozessen der deutschen Nachkriegsgeschichte. 14 Millionen »Gastarbeiter« kamen zwischen 1955 und 1973 in die Bundesrepublik, etwa 3 Millionen von ihnen kehrten nicht in ihre Heimatländer zurück. Vor allem Türkeistämmige blieben nach dem Anwerbestopp häufiger in Deutschland als die Arbeitskräfte aus anderen Ländern. Wie keine andere Stadt steht Berlin bis heute für die Einwanderung aus der Türkei. Stefan Zeppenfeld untersucht den Wandel der türkischen Arbeitswelten von ihren Anfängen in den 1960er Jahren bis zur Wiedervereinigung. Ausgehend von der »Gastarbeit« im industriellen Großbetrieb spürt er in seiner Studie am Beispiel West-Berlins dem Übergang in andere Branchen nach. Er zeigt, wie der öffentliche Dienst auch für Migrantinnen und Migranten attraktive Aufstiegsmöglichkeiten eröffnete, zeichnet den schwierigen Weg in die gewerbliche Selbstständigkeit nach und legt illegale Beschäftigungsformen als alternative Verdienstmöglichkeit offen. Damit bettet der Autor die Geschichte der türkischen Arbeitsmigration in die deutsche Zeitgeschichte ein. Y1 - 2021 SN - 978-3-8353-5022-9 IS - 26 PB - Wallstein-Verlag CY - Göttingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hecker, Pascal A1 - Steckhan, Nico A1 - Eyben, Florian A1 - Schuller, Björn Wolfgang A1 - Arnrich, Bert T1 - Voice Analysis for Neurological Disorder Recognition – A Systematic Review and Perspective on Emerging Trends JF - Frontiers in Digital Health N2 - Quantifying neurological disorders from voice is a rapidly growing field of research and holds promise for unobtrusive and large-scale disorder monitoring. The data recording setup and data analysis pipelines are both crucial aspects to effectively obtain relevant information from participants. Therefore, we performed a systematic review to provide a high-level overview of practices across various neurological disorders and highlight emerging trends. PRISMA-based literature searches were conducted through PubMed, Web of Science, and IEEE Xplore to identify publications in which original (i.e., newly recorded) datasets were collected. Disorders of interest were psychiatric as well as neurodegenerative disorders, such as bipolar disorder, depression, and stress, as well as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's disease, and speech impairments (aphasia, dysarthria, and dysphonia). Of the 43 retrieved studies, Parkinson's disease is represented most prominently with 19 discovered datasets. Free speech and read speech tasks are most commonly used across disorders. Besides popular feature extraction toolkits, many studies utilise custom-built feature sets. Correlations of acoustic features with psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders are presented. In terms of analysis, statistical analysis for significance of individual features is commonly used, as well as predictive modeling approaches, especially with support vector machines and a small number of artificial neural networks. An emerging trend and recommendation for future studies is to collect data in everyday life to facilitate longitudinal data collection and to capture the behavior of participants more naturally. Another emerging trend is to record additional modalities to voice, which can potentially increase analytical performance. KW - neurological disorders KW - voice KW - speech KW - everyday life KW - multiple modalities KW - machine learning KW - disorder recognition Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2022.842301 SN - 2673-253X PB - Frontiers Media SA CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pawassar, Christian Matthias A1 - Tiberius, Victor T1 - Virtual reality in health care BT - Bibliometric analysis JF - JMIR Serious Games N2 - Background: Research into the application of virtual reality technology in the health care sector has rapidly increased, resulting in a large body of research that is difficult to keep up with. Objective: We will provide an overview of the annual publication numbers in this field and the most productive and influential countries, journals, and authors, as well as the most used, most co-occurring, and most recent keywords. Methods: Based on a data set of 356 publications and 20,363 citations derived from Web of Science, we conducted a bibliometric analysis using BibExcel, HistCite, and VOSviewer. Results: The strongest growth in publications occurred in 2020, accounting for 29.49% of all publications so far. The most productive countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, and Spain; the most influential countries are the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The most productive journals are the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR), JMIR Serious Games, and the Games for Health Journal; the most influential journals are Patient Education and Counselling, Medical Education, and Quality of Life Research. The most productive authors are Riva, del Piccolo, and Schwebel; the most influential authors are Finset, del Piccolo, and Eide. The most frequently occurring keywords other than “virtual” and “reality” are “training,” “trial,” and “patients.” The most relevant research themes are communication, education, and novel treatments; the most recent research trends are fitness and exergames. Conclusions: The analysis shows that the field has left its infant state and its specialization is advancing, with a clear focus on patient usability. KW - virtual reality KW - healthcare KW - bibliometric analysis KW - literature review KW - citation analysis KW - VR KW - usability KW - review KW - health care Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.2196/32721 SN - 2291-9279 VL - 9 SP - 1 EP - 19 PB - JMIR Publications CY - Toronto, Kanada ET - 4 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Scheffler, Christiane A1 - Nguyen, Thi Hong A1 - Hermanussen, Michael T1 - Vietnamese migrants are as tall as they want to be JF - Human biology and public health N2 - Background: Members of the same social group tent to have the same body height. Migrants tend to adjust in height to their host communities. Objectives: Social-Economic-Political-Emotional (SEPE) factors influence growth. We hypothesized that Vietnamese young adult migrants in Germany (1) are taller than their parents, (2) are as tall as their German peers, and (3) are as tall as predicted by height expectation at age 13 years. Sample: The study was conducted in 30 male and 54 female Vietnamese migrants (mean age 26.23 years. SD=4.96) in Germany in 2020. Methods: Information on age, sex, body height, school and education, job, height and ethnicity of best friend, migration history and cultural identification, parental height and education, and recalled information on their personal height expectations at age 13 years were obtained by questionnaire. The data were analyzed by St. Nicolas House Analysis (SNHA) and multiple regression. Results: Vietnamese young adults are taller than their parents (females 3.85cm, males 7.44cm), but do not fully attain height of their German peers. The body height is positively associated with the height of best friend (p < 0.001), the height expectation at age 13 year (p < 0.001), and father’s height (p=0.001). Conclusion: Body height of Vietnamese migrants in Germany reflects competitive growth and strategic growth adjustments. The magnitude of this intergenerational trend supports the concept that human growth depends on SEPE factors. KW - body height KW - regulation of growth KW - migrants KW - Social-Economic-Political-Emotional (SEPE) factors Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.52905/hbph.v2.12 SN - 2748-9957 IS - 2 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kiemel, Katrin A1 - Gurke, Marie A1 - Paraskevopoulou, Sofia A1 - Havenstein, Katja A1 - Weithoff, Guntram A1 - Tiedemann, Ralph T1 - Variation in heat shock protein 40 kDa relates to divergence in thermotolerance among cryptic rotifer species JF - Scientific Reports N2 - Genetic divergence and the frequency of hybridization are central for defining species delimitations, especially among cryptic species where morphological differences are merely absent. Rotifers are known for their high cryptic diversity and therefore are ideal model organisms to investigate such patterns. Here, we used the recently resolved Brachionus calyciflorus species complex to investigate whether previously observed between species differences in thermotolerance and gene expression are also reflected in their genomic footprint. We identified a Heat Shock Protein gene (HSP 40 kDa) which exhibits cross species pronounced sequence variation. This gene exhibits species-specific fixed sites, alleles, and sites putatively under positive selection. These sites are located in protein binding regions involved in chaperoning and may therefore reflect adaptive diversification. By comparing three genetic markers (ITS, COI, HSP 40 kDa), we revealed hybridization events between the cryptic species. The low frequency of introgressive haplotypes/alleles suggest a tight, but not fully impermeable boundary between the cryptic species. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-27137-3 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 12 PB - Springer Nature CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schjeide, Brit-Maren A1 - Schenke, Maren A1 - Seeger, Bettina A1 - Püschel, Gerhard T1 - Validation of a novel double control quantitative copy number PCR method to quantify off-target transgene integration after CRISPR-induced DNA modification JF - Methods and protocols : M&Ps N2 - In order to improve a recently established cell-based assay to assess the potency of botulinum neurotoxin, neuroblastoma-derived SiMa cells and induced pluripotent stem-cells (iPSC) were modified to incorporate the coding sequence of a reporter luciferase into a genetic safe harbor utilizing CRISPR/Cas9. A novel method, the double-control quantitative copy number PCR (dc-qcnPCR), was developed to detect off-target integrations of donor DNA. The donor DNA insertion success rate and targeted insertion success rate were analyzed in clones of each cell type. The dc-qcnPCR reliably quantified the copy number in both cell lines. The probability of incorrect donor DNA integration was significantly increased in SiMa cells in comparison to the iPSCs. This can possibly be explained by the lower bundled relative gene expression of a number of double-strand repair genes (BRCA1, DNA2, EXO1, MCPH1, MRE11, and RAD51) in SiMa clones than in iPSC clones. The dc-qcnPCR offers an efficient and cost-effective method to detect off-target CRISPR/Cas9-induced donor DNA integrations. KW - CRISPR editing validation KW - copy number analyses KW - homology-directed repair KW - homologous recombination deficiency Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/mps5030043 SN - 2409-9279 VL - 5 IS - 3 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Brand, Ralf A1 - Nosrat, Sanaz A1 - Späth, Constantin A1 - Timme, Sinika T1 - Using COVID-19 Pandemic as a Prism: A Systematic Review of Methodological Approaches and the Quality of Empirical Studies on Physical Activity Behavior Change JF - Frontiers in Sports and Active Living N2 - Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of scientific endeavors. The goal of this systematic review is to evaluate the quality of the research on physical activity (PA) behavior change and its potential to contribute to policy-making processes in the early days of COVID-19 related restrictions. Methods: We conducted a systematic review of methodological quality of current research according to PRISMA guidelines using Pubmed and Web of Science, of articles on PA behavior change that were published within 365 days after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). Items from the JBI checklist and the AXIS tool were used for additional risk of bias assessment. Evidence mapping is used for better visualization of the main results. Conclusions about the significance of published articles are based on hypotheses on PA behavior change in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: Among the 1,903 identified articles, there were 36% opinion pieces, 53% empirical studies, and 9% reviews. Of the 332 studies included in the systematic review, 213 used self-report measures to recollect prepandemic behavior in often small convenience samples. Most focused changes in PA volume, whereas changes in PA types were rarely measured. The majority had methodological reporting flaws. Few had very large samples with objective measures using repeated measure design (pre and during the pandemic). In addition to the expected decline in PA duration, these studies show that many of those who were active prepandemic, continued to be active during the pandemic. Conclusions: Research responded quickly at the onset of the pandemic. However, most of the studies lacked robust methodology, and PA behavior change data lacked the accuracy needed to guide policy makers. To improve the field, we propose the implementation of longitudinal cohort studies by larger organizations such as WHO to ease access to data on PA behavior, and suggest those institutions set clear standards for this research. Researchers need to ensure a better fit between the measurement method and the construct being measured, and use both objective and subjective measures where appropriate to complement each other and provide a comprehensive picture of PA behavior. KW - meta-science KW - exercise KW - methods KW - quality KW - study designs KW - standards Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2022.864468 SN - 2624-9367 VL - 4 SP - 1 EP - 17 PB - Frontiers CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jones, Eppie R. A1 - González-Fortes, Gloria M. A1 - Connell, Sarah A1 - Siska, Veronika A1 - Eriksson, Anders A1 - Martiniano, Rui A1 - McLaughlin, Russell L. A1 - Llorente, Marcos Gallego A1 - Cassidy, Lara M. A1 - Gamba, Cristina A1 - Meshveliani, Tengiz A1 - Bar-Yosef, Ofer A1 - Mueller, Werner A1 - Belfer-Cohen, Anna A1 - Matskevich, Zinovi A1 - Jakeli, Nino A1 - Higham, Thomas F. G. A1 - Currat, Mathias A1 - Lordkipanidze, David A1 - Hofreiter, Michael A1 - Manica, Andrea A1 - Pinhasi, Ron A1 - Bradley, Daniel G. T1 - Upper Palaeolithic genomes reveal deep roots of modern Eurasians JF - Nature Communications N2 - We extend the scope of European palaeogenomics by sequencing the genomes of Late Upper Palaeolithic (13,300 years old, 1.4-fold coverage) and Mesolithic (9,700 years old, 15.4-fold) males from western Georgia in the Caucasus and a Late Upper Palaeolithic (13,700 years old, 9.5-fold) male from Switzerland. While we detect Late Palaeolithic-Mesolithic genomic continuity in both regions, we find that Caucasus hunter-gatherers (CHG) belong to a distinct ancient clade that split from western hunter-gatherers similar to 45 kya, shortly after the expansion of anatomically modern humans into Europe and from the ancestors of Neolithic farmers similar to 25 kya, around the Last Glacial Maximum. CHG genomes significantly contributed to the Yamnaya steppe herders who migrated into Europe similar to 3,000 BC, supporting a formative Caucasus influence on this important Early Bronze age culture. CHG left their imprint on modern populations from the Caucasus and also central and south Asia possibly marking the arrival of Indo-Aryan languages. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9912 SN - 2041-1723 VL - 6 PB - Nature Publishing Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stone, Kate A1 - Nicenboim, Bruno A1 - Vasishth, Shravan A1 - Rösler, Frank T1 - Understanding the effects of constraint and predictability in ERP JF - Neurobiology of Language N2 - Intuitively, strongly constraining contexts should lead to stronger probabilistic representations of sentences in memory. Encountering unexpected words could therefore be expected to trigger costlier shifts in these representations than expected words. However, psycholinguistic measures commonly used to study probabilistic processing, such as the N400 event-related potential (ERP) component, are sensitive to word predictability but not to contextual constraint. Some research suggests that constraint-related processing cost may be measurable via an ERP positivity following the N400, known as the anterior post-N400 positivity (PNP). The PNP is argued to reflect update of a sentence representation and to be distinct from the posterior P600, which reflects conflict detection and reanalysis. However, constraint-related PNP findings are inconsistent. We sought to conceptually replicate Federmeier et al. (2007) and Kuperberg et al. (2020), who observed that the PNP, but not the N400 or the P600, was affected by constraint at unexpected but plausible words. Using a pre-registered design and statistical approach maximising power, we demonstrated a dissociated effect of predictability and constraint: strong evidence for predictability but not constraint in the N400 window, and strong evidence for constraint but not predictability in the later window. However, the constraint effect was consistent with a P600 and not a PNP, suggesting increased conflict between a strong representation and unexpected input rather than greater update of the representation. We conclude that either a simple strong/weak constraint design is not always sufficient to elicit the PNP, or that previous PNP constraint findings could be an artifact of smaller sample size. KW - N400 KW - anterior PNP KW - posterior P600 KW - probabilistic processing KW - constraint KW - predictability KW - entropy Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1162/nol_a_00094 SN - 2641-4368 VL - 4 EP - 2 PB - MIT Press CY - Cambridge, MA, USA ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Veh, Georg A1 - Lützow, Natalie A1 - Kharlamova, Varvara A1 - Petrakov, Dmitry A1 - Hugonnet, Romain A1 - Korup, Oliver T1 - Trends, Breaks, and Biases in the Frequency of Reported Glacier Lake Outburst Floods JF - Earth's Future N2 - Thousands of glacier lakes have been forming behind natural dams in high mountains following glacier retreat since the early 20th century. Some of these lakes abruptly released pulses of water and sediment with disastrous downstream consequences. Yet it remains unclear whether the reported rise of these glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs) has been fueled by a warming atmosphere and enhanced meltwater production, or simply a growing research effort. Here we estimate trends and biases in GLOF reporting based on the largest global catalog of 1,997 dated glacier-related floods in six major mountain ranges from 1901 to 2017. We find that the positive trend in the number of reported GLOFs has decayed distinctly after a break in the 1970s, coinciding with independently detected trend changes in annual air temperatures and in the annual number of field-based glacier surveys (a proxy of scientific reporting). We observe that GLOF reports and glacier surveys decelerated, while temperature rise accelerated in the past five decades. Enhanced warming alone can thus hardly explain the annual number of reported GLOFs, suggesting that temperature-driven glacier lake formation, growth, and failure are weakly coupled, or that outbursts have been overlooked. Indeed, our analysis emphasizes a distinct geographic and temporal bias in GLOF reporting, and we project that between two to four out of five GLOFs on average might have gone unnoticed in the early to mid-20th century. We recommend that such biases should be considered, or better corrected for, when attributing the frequency of reported GLOFs to atmospheric warming. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EF002426 SN - 2328-4277 VL - 10 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Hoboken, New Jersey, United States ET - 3 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Prasad, Sushma A1 - Baier, Janina T1 - Tracking the impact of mid- to late Holocene climate change and anthropogenic activities on Lake Holzmaar using an updated Holocene chronology JF - Global and planetary change N2 - The mid- to late Holocene interval is characterised by a highly variable climate in response to a gradual change in orbital insolation. The seasonal impact of these changes on the Eifel Maar region is not yet well documented largely due to uncertainties about the completeness of this archive ("missing varves" in the well known Lake Holzmaar) and a limited understanding of the factors (e.g. temperature, precipitation) influencing the seasonality archived within the lamination/varves. In this study we approach these challenges from a different perspective. Using detailed microfacies investigations we: (1) demonstrate that the ambiguity about the "missing varves" is related to the climate induced complex biotic and abiotic laminations that led to mis-identification of varves; (2) use a combination of detailed microfacies investigations (varve structure, seasonality of biotic and abiotic signals), lamination quality, varve counts on multiple cores, published and new radiocarbon dates to develop a continuous master chronology based on the Bayesian modelling approach. The dates of major climate, volcanic, and archaeological event(s) determined using our model are in good agreement with the independently determined ages of the same events from other archives, confirming the accuracy of our age model; (3) test the sensitivity of the seasonal proxies to the available data on mid-Holocene changes in temperature and precipitation; (4) demonstrate that the changes in lake eutrophicity are correlative with temperature changes in NW Europe and probably triggered by solar variability; and (5) show that the early Iron Age onset of eutrophication in Lake Holzmaar was climate induced and began several decades before the impact of anthropogenic activity was seen in the form of intensified detrital erosion in the catchment area. Our work has implications for understanding the impact of climate change and anthropogenic activities on limnological systems. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - Lake Holzmaar KW - varves KW - microfacies KW - Bayesian modelling KW - Iron Age KW - Ulmener Maar Tephra Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2014.08.020 SN - 0921-8181 SN - 1872-6364 VL - 122 SP - 251 EP - 264 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Timme, Sinika A1 - Wolff, Wanja A1 - Englert, Chris A1 - Brand, Ralf T1 - Tracking Self-Control – Task Performance and Pupil Size in a Go/No-Go Inhibition Task JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - There is an ongoing debate about how to test and operationalize self-control. This limited understanding is in large part due to a variety of different tests and measures used to assess self-control, as well as the lack of empirical studies examining the temporal dynamics during the exertion of self-control. In order to track changes that occur over the course of exposure to a self-control task, we investigate and compare behavioral, subjective, and physiological indicators during the exertion of self-control. Participants completed both a task requiring inhibitory control (Go/No-Go task) and a control task (two-choice task). Behavioral performance and pupil size were measured during the tasks. Subjective vitality was measured before and after the tasks. While pupil size and subjective vitality showed similar trajectories in the two tasks, behavioral performance decreased in the inhibitory control-demanding task, but not in the control task. However, behavioral, subjective, and physiological measures were not significantly correlated. These results suggest that there is a disconnect between different measures of self-control with high intra- and interindividual variability. Theoretical and methodological implications for self-control theory and future empirical work are discussed. KW - self-control KW - response inhibition KW - psychophysiological KW - behavioral and self-report measures KW - pupil diameter Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.915016 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 13 PB - Frontiers CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Eckert, Silvia A1 - Herden, Jasmin A1 - Stift, Marc A1 - Durka, Walter A1 - Kleunen, Mark Van A1 - Joshi, Jasmin Radha T1 - Traces of Genetic but Not Epigenetic Adaptation in the Invasive Goldenrod Solidago canadensis Despite the Absence of Population Structure JF - Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution N2 - Biological invasions may result from multiple introductions, which might compensate for reduced gene pools caused by bottleneck events, but could also dilute adaptive processes. A previous common-garden experiment showed heritable latitudinal clines in fitness-related traits in the invasive goldenrod Solidago canadensis in Central Europe. These latitudinal clines remained stable even in plants chemically treated with zebularine to reduce epigenetic variation. However, despite the heritability of traits investigated, genetic isolation-by-distance was non-significant. Utilizing the same specimens, we applied a molecular analysis of (epi)genetic differentiation with standard and methylation-sensitive (MSAP) AFLPs. We tested whether this variation was spatially structured among populations and whether zebularine had altered epigenetic variation. Additionally, we used genome scans to mine for putative outlier loci susceptible to selection processes in the invaded range. Despite the absence of isolation-by-distance, we found spatial genetic neighborhoods among populations and two AFLP clusters differentiating northern and southern Solidago populations. Genetic and epigenetic diversity were significantly correlated, but not linked to phenotypic variation. Hence, no spatial epigenetic patterns were detected along the latitudinal gradient sampled. Applying genome-scan approaches (BAYESCAN, BAYESCENV, RDA, and LFMM), we found 51 genetic and epigenetic loci putatively responding to selection. One of these genetic loci was significantly more frequent in populations at the northern range. Also, one epigenetic locus was more frequent in populations in the southern range, but this pattern was lost under zebularine treatment. Our results point to some genetic, but not epigenetic adaptation processes along a large-scale latitudinal gradient of S. canadensis in its invasive range. KW - AFLP KW - MSAP KW - cytosine methylation KW - spatial autocorrelation KW - genome scan Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2022.856453 SN - 2296-701X VL - 10 SP - 1 EP - 17 PB - Frontiers CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sposini, Vittoria A1 - Krapf, Diego A1 - Marinari, Enzo A1 - Sunyer, Raimon A1 - Ritort, Felix A1 - Taheri, Fereydoon A1 - Selhuber-Unkel, Christine A1 - Benelli, Rebecca A1 - Weiss, Matthias A1 - Metzler, Ralf A1 - Oshanin, Gleb T1 - Towards a robust criterion of anomalous diffusion JF - Communications Physics N2 - Anomalous-diffusion, the departure of the spreading dynamics of diffusing particles from the traditional law of Brownian-motion, is a signature feature of a large number of complex soft-matter and biological systems. Anomalous-diffusion emerges due to a variety of physical mechanisms, e.g., trapping interactions or the viscoelasticity of the environment. However, sometimes systems dynamics are erroneously claimed to be anomalous, despite the fact that the true motion is Brownian—or vice versa. This ambiguity in establishing whether the dynamics as normal or anomalous can have far-reaching consequences, e.g., in predictions for reaction- or relaxation-laws. Demonstrating that a system exhibits normal- or anomalous-diffusion is highly desirable for a vast host of applications. Here, we present a criterion for anomalous-diffusion based on the method of power-spectral analysis of single trajectories. The robustness of this criterion is studied for trajectories of fractional-Brownian-motion, a ubiquitous stochastic process for the description of anomalous-diffusion, in the presence of two types of measurement errors. In particular, we find that our criterion is very robust for subdiffusion. Various tests on surrogate data in absence or presence of additional positional noise demonstrate the efficacy of this method in practical contexts. Finally, we provide a proof-of-concept based on diverse experiments exhibiting both normal and anomalous-diffusion. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-022-01079-8 SN - 2399-3650 VL - 5 PB - Springer Nature CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tofelde, Stefanie A1 - Bernhardt, Anne A1 - Guerit, Laure A1 - Romans, Brian W. T1 - Times Associated With Source-to-Sink Propagation of Environmental Signals During Landscape Transience JF - Frontiers in Earth Science N2 - Sediment archives in the terrestrial and marine realm are regularly analyzed to infer changes in climate, tectonic, or anthropogenic boundary conditions of the past. However, contradictory observations have been made regarding whether short period events are faithfully preserved in stratigraphic archives; for instance, in marine sediments offshore large river systems. On the one hand, short period events are hypothesized to be non-detectable in the signature of terrestrially derived sediments due to buffering during sediment transport along large river systems. On the other hand, several studies have detected signals of short period events in marine records offshore large river systems. We propose that this apparent discrepancy is related to the lack of a differentiation between different types of signals and the lack of distinction between river response times and signal propagation times. In this review, we (1) expand the definition of the term ‘signal’ and group signals in sub-categories related to hydraulic grain size characteristics, (2) clarify the different types of ‘times’ and suggest a precise and consistent terminology for future use, and (3) compile and discuss factors influencing the times of signal transfer along sediment routing systems and how those times vary with hydraulic grain size characteristics. Unraveling different types of signals and distinctive time periods related to signal propagation addresses the discrepancies mentioned above and allows a more comprehensive exploration of event preservation in stratigraphy – a prerequisite for reliable environmental reconstructions from terrestrially derived sedimentary records. KW - signal propagation KW - landscape transience KW - source-to-sink KW - stratigraphy KW - response time Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2021.628315 SN - 2296-6463 VL - 9 SP - 1 EP - 26 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Dordevic, Milos A1 - Hölzer, Sonja A1 - Russo, Augusta A1 - García Alanis, José Carlos A1 - Müller, Notger Germar T1 - The Role of the Precuneus in Human Spatial Updating in a Real Environment Setting—A cTBS Study JF - Life N2 - As we move through an environment, we update positions of our body relative to other objects, even when some objects temporarily or permanently leave our field of view—this ability is termed egocentric spatial updating and plays an important role in everyday life. Still, our knowledge about its representation in the brain is still scarce, with previous studies using virtual movements in virtual environments or patients with brain lesions suggesting that the precuneus might play an important role. However, whether this assumption is also true when healthy humans move in real environments where full body-based cues are available in addition to the visual cues typically used in many VR studies is unclear. Therefore, in this study we investigated the role of the precuneus in egocentric spatial updating in a real environment setting in 20 healthy young participants who underwent two conditions in a cross-over design: (a) stimulation, achieved through applying continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) to inhibit the precuneus and (b) sham condition (activated coil turned upside down). In both conditions, participants had to walk back with blindfolded eyes to objects they had previously memorized while walking with open eyes. Simplified trials (without spatial updating) were used as control condition, to make sure the participants were not affected by factors such as walking blindfolded, vestibular or working memory deficits. A significant interaction was found, with participants performing better in the sham condition compared to real stimulation, showing smaller errors both in distance and angle. The results of our study reveal evidence of an important role of the precuneus in a real-environment egocentric spatial updating; studies on larger samples are necessary to confirm and further investigate this finding. KW - precuneus KW - spatial updating KW - TMS KW - cTBS Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/life12081239 SN - 2075-1729 VL - 12 SP - 1 EP - 13 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 8 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tiedemann, Kim A1 - Iobbi-Nivol, Chantal A1 - Leimkühler, Silke T1 - The Role of the Nucleotides in the Insertion of the bis-Molybdopterin Guanine Dinucleotide Cofactor into apo-Molybdoenzymes JF - Molecules N2 - The role of the GMP nucleotides of the bis-molybdopterin guanine dinucleotide (bis-MGD) cofactor of the DMSO reductase family has long been a subject of discussion. The recent characterization of the bis-molybdopterin (bis-Mo-MPT) cofactor present in the E. coli YdhV protein, which differs from bis-MGD solely by the absence of the nucleotides, now enables studying the role of the nucleotides of bis-MGD and bis-MPT cofactors in Moco insertion and the activity of molybdoenzymes in direct comparison. Using the well-known E. coli TMAO reductase TorA as a model enzyme for cofactor insertion, we were able to show that the GMP nucleotides of bis-MGD are crucial for the insertion of the bis-MGD cofactor into apo-TorA. KW - bis-MGD KW - chaperone KW - molybdenum cofactor KW - TMAO reductase Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27092993 SN - 1420-3049 VL - 27 SP - 1 EP - 15 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 9 ER - TY - THES A1 - Radloff, Katrin T1 - The role of the fatty acid profile and its modulation by cytokines in the systemic inflammation in cancer cachexia T1 - O papel e a modulação do perfil de ácidos graxos por citocinas na inflamação da caquexia associada ao câncer T1 - Die Rolle des Fettsäure-Profils und dessen entzündungsbedingten Veränderungen in der Tumorkachexie N2 - Systemic inflammation is a hallmark of cancer cachexia. Among tumor-host interactions, the white adipose tissue (WAT) is an important contributor to inflammation as it suffers morphological reorganization and lipolysis, releasing free fatty acids (FA), bioactive lipid mediators (LM) and pro-inflammatory cytokines, which accentuate the activation of pro-inflammatory signaling pathways and the recruitment of immune cells to the tissue. This project aimed to investigate which inflammatory factors are involved in the local adipose tissue inflammation and what is the influence of such factors upon enzymes involved in FA or LM metabolism in healthy individuals (Control), weight stable gastro-intestinal cancer patients (WSC) and cachectic cancer patients (CC). The results demonstrated that the inflammatory signature of systemic inflammation is different from local adipose tissue inflammation. The systemic inflammation of the cachectic cancer patients was characterized by higher levels of circulating saturated fatty acids (SFA), tumor-necrosis-factor-α (TNF-α), interleukins IL-6, IL-8 and CRP while levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), especially n3-PUFAs, were lower in CC than in the other groups. In vitro and in adipose tissue explants, pro-inflammatory cytokines and SFAs were shown to increase the chemokines IL-8 and CXCL10 that were found to be augmented in adipose tissue inflammation in CC which was more profound in the visceral adipose tissue (VAT) than in subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT). Systemic inflammation was negatively associated with the expression of PUFA synthesizing enzymes, though gene and protein expression did hardly differ between groups. The effects of inflammatory factors on enzymes in the whole tissue could have been masked by differentiated modulation of the diverse cell types in the same tissue. In vitro experiments showed that the expression of FA-modifying enzymes such as desaturases and elongases in adipocytes and macrophages was regulated into opposing directions by TNF-α, IL-6, LPS or palmitate. The higher plasma concentration of the pro-resolving LM resolvin D1 in CC cannot compensate the overall inflammatory status and the results indicate that inflammatory cytokines interfere with synthesis pathways of pro-resolving LM. In summary, the data revealed a complex inter-tissue and inter-cellular crosstalk mediated by pro-inflammatory cytokines and lipid compounds enhancing inflammation in cancer cachexia by feed-forward mechanisms. N2 - Systemische Entzündung ist ein grundlegendes Merkmal der Tumorkachexie. Bei den entzündungstreibenden Wechselwirkungen zwischen Tumor und Wirt spielt das weiße Fettgewebe eine besondere Rolle, da es, bedingt durch morphologische Veränderungen und Lipolyse, freie Fettsäuren, bioaktive Lipidmediatoren (LM) und pro-inflammatorische Cytokine freisetzt. Diese verschiedenen Substanzen verstärken die Aktivierung entzündungsfördernder Signalwege und eine Rekrutierung von Immunzellen in das Gewebe. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit war es daher zu untersuchen, welche Faktoren an der Entwicklung der lokalen Fettgewebsentzündung beteiligt sind und wie diese Faktoren Syntheseenzyme von Fettsäuren und Lipidmediatoren beeinflussen könnten. Dazu wurden Plasma und Fettgewebeproben von gesunden Kontrollpersonen (Control) und normalgewichtigen (WSC) sowie kachektischen Magen-Darm-Krebs-Patienten (CC) untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass sich die inflammatorischen Charakteristiken der systemischen Entzündung von denen der lokalen Fettgewebsentzündung unterscheiden. Die systemische Entzündung war gekennzeichnet durch höhere Spiegel gesättigter Fettsäuren (SFA), Tumor-necrosis-factor alpha (TNF-α), Interleukin IL-6, IL-8 und C-reactive protein (CRP) während die Konzentrationen von mehrfachungesättigten Fettsäuren (PUFA) –besonders n3-Fettsäuren- geringer in CC waren als in den anderen Gruppen. In vitro und in ex vivo kultivierten Fettgewebssegmenten konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Inkubation mit pro-inflammatorischen Cytokinen und gesättigten Fettsäuren zu einem Anstieg der Chemokine IL-8 sowie CXCL10 führte. Erhöhte Spiegel dieser Moleküle wurden auch in der Fettgewebsentzündung bei kachektischen Patienten beobachtet, welche im viszeralen Fettgewebe ausgeprägter war als im subkutanen. Systemische Entzündungsmarker waren negativ mit der Expression PUFA-synthetisierender Enzyme assoziiert, obwohl sich Gesamt-mRNA-sowie Proteingehalt kaum zwischen den Studiengruppen unterschieden. Die Effekte von Entzündungsfaktoren auf diese Enzyme im Gesamtgewebe könnten durch eine differenzielle Modulierung in diversen Zelltypen des Gewebes maskiert sein. Denn in in vitro-Experimenten zeigte die Inkubation mit TNF-α, IL-6, LPS oder Palmitat, dass die GeneExpression von Fettsäure-modifizierenden Enzymen wie Desaturasen oder Elongasen in Adipozyten und Makrophagen in entgegengesetzte Richtungen reguliert wird. Die höhere Plasmakonzentration des entzündungslösenden LM Resolvin D1 in CC konnte dem inflammatorischen Zustand nicht entgegenwirken und die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass inflammatorische Cytokine in die Synthesewege von entzündungslösenden LM eingreifen. Zusammenfassend demonstrieren die Daten das komplexe Zusammenspiel zwischen verschiedenen Geweben und Zelltypen, in dem Cytokine und Lipidverbindungen aus dem Blutkreislauf die Entzündung der Tumorkachexie durch selbst-verstärkende Mechanismen vorantreiben. N2 - A inflamação sistêmica é uma das características que marcam o diagnóstico da caquexia associada ao câncer. Entre as interações tumor-hospedeiro, o tecido adiposo branco contribui à inflamação, uma vez que ele sofre uma reorganização morfológica e lipólise, liberando ácidos graxos livres (AGLs), mediadores lipídicos (LMs) e citocinas pró-inflamatórias, que acentuam a ativação de vias de sinalização pró-inflamatória e o recrutamento de células do sistema imunológico para o tecido. O objetivo deste projeto foi investigar quais fatores inflamatórios sistêmicos estão envolvidos na inflamação do tecido adiposo e qual é a influência desses fatores sobre as enzimas envolvidas no metabolismo dos AGs ou LMs em indivíduos saudáveis (Controle), pacientes com câncer gastrointestinal com peso estável (WSC) e pacientes com câncer e caquexia (CC). Os resultados demonstraram que a resposta inflamatória sistêmica é diferente da resposta encontrada no tecido adiposo. A inflamação sistêmica dos pacientes com câncer e caquexia (CC) foi caracterizada por níveis circulantes mais elevados de ácidos graxos saturados (SFAs), tumor-necrosis-factor-α (TNF-α), Interleukin IL-6, IL-8 e proteina C-reativa (PCR), enquanto os níveis de ácidos graxos poliinsaturados (PUFAs), especialmente n3-PUFAs, foram menores em CC que nos demais grupos. In vitro e em explantes de tecido adiposo, citocinas pró-inflamatórias e SFAs aumentaram a expressão das quimiocinas IL-8 e CXCL10. E tambêm observamos um aumento na expressão destas quimiocinas na inflamação do tecido adiposo no CC, que era mais profundo no tecido adiposo visceral (VAT) quando comparado ao tecido adiposo subcutâneo (SAT). A inflamação sistêmica foi negativamente associada com a expressão de enzimas sintetizadoras dos PUFAs, embora a expressão gênica e protéica mostraram somente pequenas diferencias entre os grupos. Os efeitos dos fatores inflamatórios sobre as enzimas no tecido adiposo podem ter sido mascarados pela modulação diferenciada dos diversos tipos celulares constituintes desse tecido. Experimentos in vitro mostraram que a expressão de enzimas que modificam os AGs, tais como as dessaturases e elongases em adipócitos e macrófagos, foram reguladas em direções opostas por TNF-α, IL-6, LPS e palmitato. Mesmo os pacientes CC demonstrando uma maior concentração plasmática da Resolvina D1, que é um mediador lipídico de resolução da inflamação, ainda assim, a inflamação sistêmica é maior nesses pacientes, e os resultados indicam que as citoquinas inflamatórias interferem com as vias de síntese das LMs da resolução. Concluímos que, os dados revelaram um crosstalk inter-tecidual e intercelular complexo mediado por citocinas pró-inflamatórias e compostos lipídicos que aumentam a inflamação na caquexia associada ao câncer por mecanismos autoregulação. KW - cancer cachexia KW - inflammation KW - adipose tissue KW - cytokines KW - chemokines KW - SFA KW - PUFA Y1 - 2018 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Baritello, Omar A1 - Salzwedel, Annett A1 - Sündermann, Simon A1 - Niebauer, Josef A1 - Völler, Heinz T1 - The Pandora's Box of frailty assessments: Which is the best for clinical purposes in TAVI patients? A critical review JF - Journal of Clinical Medicine N2 - Frailty assessment is recommended before elective transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) to determine post-interventional prognosis. Several studies have investigated frailty in TAVI-patients using numerous assessments; however, it remains unclear which is the most appropriate tool for clinical practice. Therefore, we evaluate which frailty assessment is mainly used and meaningful for ≤30-day and ≥1-year prognosis in TAVI patients. Randomized controlled or observational studies (prospective/retrospective) investigating all-cause mortality in older (≥70 years) TAVI patients were identified (PubMed; May 2020). In total, 79 studies investigating frailty with 49 different assessments were included. As single markers of frailty, mostly gait speed (23 studies) and serum albumin (16 studies) were used. Higher risk of 1-year mortality was predicted by slower gait speed (highest Hazard Ratios (HR): 14.71; 95% confidence interval (CI) 6.50–33.30) and lower serum albumin level (highest HR: 3.12; 95% CI 1.80–5.42). Composite indices (five items; seven studies) were associated with 30-day (highest Odds Ratio (OR): 15.30; 95% CI 2.71–86.10) and 1-year mortality (highest OR: 2.75; 95% CI 1.55–4.87). In conclusion, single markers of frailty, in particular gait speed, were widely used to predict 1-year mortality. Composite indices were appropriate, as well as a comprehensive assessment of frailty. View Full-Text KW - frailty tool KW - TAVI KW - older patients KW - elderly KW - cardiology KW - mortality Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm10194506 SN - 2077-0383 VL - 10 SP - 1 EP - 17 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 19 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heissel, Andreas A1 - Pietrek, Anou F. A1 - Kangas, Maria A1 - Van der Kaap-Deeder, Jolene A1 - Rapp, Michael Armin T1 - The Mediating Role of Rumination in the Relation between Basic Psychological Need Frustration and Depressive Symptoms JF - Journal of Clinical Medicine N2 - Research within the framework of Basic Psychological Need Theory (BPNT) finds strong associations between basic need frustration and depressive symptoms. This study examined the role of rumination as an underlying mechanism in the association between basic psychological need frustration and depressive symptoms. A cross-sectional sample of N = 221 adults (55.2% female, mean age = 27.95, range = 18–62, SD = 10.51) completed measures assessing their level of basic psychological need frustration, rumination, and depressive symptoms. Correlational analyses and multiple mediation models were conducted. Brooding partially mediated the relation between need frustration and depressive symptoms. BPNT and Response Styles Theory are compatible and can further advance knowledge about depression vulnerabilities. KW - psychopathology KW - elf-determination theory KW - response styles theory KW - frustration KW - depressive disorder KW - emotional regulation KW - rumination Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm12020395 SN - 2077-0383 VL - 12 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jafarnezhadgero, Amir Ali A1 - Noroozi, Raha A1 - Fakhri Mirzanag, Ehsan A1 - Granacher, Urs A1 - de Souza Castelo Oliveira, Anderson T1 - The Impact of COVID-19 and Muscle Fatigue on Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Running Kinetics in Female Recreational Runners JF - Frontiers in Physiology N2 - Background: There is evidence that fully recovered COVID-19 patients usually resume physical exercise, but do not perform at the same intensity level performed prior to infection. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 infection and recovery as well as muscle fatigue on cardiorespiratory fitness and running biomechanics in female recreational runners. Methods: Twenty-eight females were divided into a group of hospitalized and recovered COVID-19 patients (COV, n = 14, at least 14 days following recovery) and a group of healthy age-matched controls (CTR, n = 14). Ground reaction forces from stepping on a force plate while barefoot overground running at 3.3 m/s was measured before and after a fatiguing protocol. The fatigue protocol consisted of incrementally increasing running speed until reaching a score of 13 on the 6–20 Borg scale, followed by steady-state running until exhaustion. The effects of group and fatigue were assessed for steady-state running duration, steady-state running speed, ground contact time, vertical instantaneous loading rate and peak propulsion force. Results: COV runners completed only 56% of the running time achieved by the CTR (p < 0.0001), and at a 26% slower steady-state running speed (p < 0.0001). There were fatigue-related reductions in loading rate (p = 0.004) without group differences. Increased ground contact time (p = 0.002) and reduced peak propulsion force (p = 0.005) were found for COV when compared to CTR. Conclusion: Our results suggest that female runners who recovered from COVID-19 showed compromised running endurance and altered running kinetics in the form of longer stance periods and weaker propulsion forces. More research is needed in this area using larger sample sizes to confirm our study findings. KW - hospitalization KW - running mechanics KW - ground reaction forces KW - virus infection KW - COVID-19 Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2022.942589 SN - 1664-042X VL - 13 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - Frontiers CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ogunkola, Moses Olalekan A1 - Guiraudie-Capraz, Gaelle A1 - Féron, François A1 - Leimkühler, Silke T1 - The Human Mercaptopyruvate Sulfurtransferase TUM1 Is Involved in Moco Biosynthesis, Cytosolic tRNA Thiolation and Cellular Bioenergetics in Human Embryonic Kidney Cells JF - Biomolecules N2 - Sulfur is an important element that is incorporated into many biomolecules in humans. The incorporation and transfer of sulfur into biomolecules is, however, facilitated by a series of different sulfurtransferases. Among these sulfurtransferases is the human mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase (MPST) also designated as tRNA thiouridine modification protein (TUM1). The role of the human TUM1 protein has been suggested in a wide range of physiological processes in the cell among which are but not limited to involvement in Molybdenum cofactor (Moco) biosynthesis, cytosolic tRNA thiolation and generation of H2S as signaling molecule both in mitochondria and the cytosol. Previous interaction studies showed that TUM1 interacts with the L-cysteine desulfurase NFS1 and the Molybdenum cofactor biosynthesis protein 3 (MOCS3). Here, we show the roles of TUM1 in human cells using CRISPR/Cas9 genetically modified Human Embryonic Kidney cells. Here, we show that TUM1 is involved in the sulfur transfer for Molybdenum cofactor synthesis and tRNA thiomodification by spectrophotometric measurement of the activity of sulfite oxidase and liquid chromatography quantification of the level of sulfur-modified tRNA. Further, we show that TUM1 has a role in hydrogen sulfide production and cellular bioenergetics. KW - Moco biosynthesis KW - sulfite oxidase KW - cytosolic tRNA thiolation KW - 5-methoxycarbonylmethyl-2-thiouridine KW - H2S biosynthesis KW - cellular bioenergetics Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/biom13010144 SN - 2218-273X VL - 13 SP - 1 EP - 23 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 1 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Demske, Ulrike ED - Szczepaniak, Renata ED - Flick, Johanna T1 - The grammaticalization of the definite article in German BT - from demonstratives to weak definites T2 - Walking on the Grammaticalization Path of the Definite Article in German: Functional Main and Side Roads N2 - The present paper looks into the grammaticalization of the definite article in the history of German. Starting with the well-known emergence of the definite article from a demonstrative pronoun over the course of Old High German (750–1050), I will consider the rise of so-called weak definites in Early New High German (1350–1650) as a new piece of evidence for the grammaticalization process. Here, the subclass of possessive weak definites is of particular interest for the grammaticalization of the definite article in German, because of a word order change affecting the position of possessor phrases. As soon as the possessor systematically follows the head noun (except for proper names), we observe three alternatives for the prenominal determiner slot: it may remain empty, or it may be filled either by the indefinite or the definite article in Early New High German. In Present-Day German, the definite article is used in the unmarked case, thus pointing to a second stage in the grammaticalization process of the definite article in German, which has so far not been acknowledged in the literature. KW - grammaticalization KW - definite article KW - weak definites KW - Old High German KW - Early New High German KW - Present-Day German Y1 - 2020 SN - 978-9-027204943 SN - 978-9-027261564 SP - 43 EP - 73 PB - John Benjamins Publishing Company CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rose, Robert A1 - Groeger, Lars A1 - Hölzle, Katharina T1 - The Emergence of Shared Leadership in Innovation Labs JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Implementing innovation laboratories to leverage intrapreneurship are an increasingly popular organizational practice. A typical feature in these creative environments are semi-autonomous teams in which multiple members collectively exert leadership influence, thereby challenging traditional command-and-control conceptions of leadership. An extensive body of research on the team-centric concept of shared leadership has recognized the potential for pluralized leadership structures in enhancing team effectiveness; however, little empirical work has been conducted in organizational contexts in which creativity is key. This study set out to explore antecedents of shared leadership and its influence on team creativity in an innovation lab. Building on extant shared leadership and innovation research, we propose antecedents customary to creative teamwork, that is, experimental culture, task reflexivity, and voice. Multisource data were collected from 104 team members and 49 evaluations of 29 coaches nested in 21 teams working in a prototypical innovation lab. We identify factors specific to creative teamwork that facilitate the emergence of shared leadership by providing room for experimentation, encouraging team members to speak up in the creative process, and cultivating a reflective application of entrepreneurial thinking. We provide specific exemplary activities for innovation lab teams to increase levels of shared leadership. KW - innovation laboratories KW - intrapreneurship KW - team creativity KW - shared leadership KW - social network analysis Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.685167 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 12 SP - 1 EP - 13 PB - Frontiers in psychology CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - THES A1 - Rinne, Theresa Charlotte T1 - The effects of nutrients on bone stem cell function and regeneration N2 - Aging is associated with bone loss, which can lead to osteoporosis and high fracture risk. This coincides with the enhanced formation of bone marrow adipose tissue (BMAT), suggesting a negative effect of bone marrow adipocytes on skeletal health. Increased BMAT formation is also observed in pathologies such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis. However, a subset of bone marrow adipocytes forming the constitutive BMAT (cBMAT), arise early in life in the distal skeleton, contain high levels of unsaturated fatty acids and are thought to provide a physiological function. Regulated BMAT (rBMAT) forms during aging and obesity in proximal regions of the bone and contain a large proportion of saturated fatty acids. Paradoxically, BMAT accumulation is also enhanced during caloric restriction (CR), a life-span extending dietary intervention. This indicates, that different types of BMAT can form in response to opposing nutritional stimuli with potentially different functions. To this end, two types of nutritional interventions, CR and high fat diet (HFD), that are both described to induce BMAT accumulation were carried out. CR markedly increased BMAT formation in the proximal tibia and led to a higher proportion of unsaturated fatty acids, making it similar to the physiological cBMAT. Additionally, proximal and diaphyseal tibia regions displayed higher adiponectin expression. In aged mice, CR was associated with an improved trabecular bone structure. Taken together, these findings demonstrate, that the type of BMAT that forms during CR might provide beneficial effects for local bone stem/progenitor cells and metabolic health. The HFD intervention performed in this thesis showed no effect on BMAT accumulation and bone microstructure. RNA Seq analysis revealed alterations in the composition of the collagen-containing extracellular matrix (ECM). In order to investigate the effects of glucose homeostasis on osteogenesis, differentiation capacity of immortalized multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) and osteochondrogenic progenitor cells (OPCs) was analyzed. Insulin improved differentiation in both cell types, however, combination of with a high glucose concentration led to an impaired mineralization of the ECM. In the MSCs, this was accompanied by the formation of adipocytes, indicating negative effects of the adipocytes formed during hyperglycemic conditions on mineralization processes. However, the altered mineralization pattern and structure of the ECM was also observed in OPCs, which did not form any adipocytes, suggesting further negative effects of a hyperglycemic environment on osteogenic differentiation. In summary, the work provided in this thesis demonstrated that differentiation commitment of bone-resident stem cells can be altered through nutrient availability, specifically glucose. Surprisingly, both high nutrient supply, e.g. the hyperglycemic cell culture conditions, and low nutrient supply, e.g. CR, can induce adipogenic differentiation. However, while CR-induced adipocyte formation was associated with improved trabecular bone structure, adipocyte formation in a hyperglycemic cell-culture environment hampered mineralization. This thesis provides further evidence for the existence of different types of BMAT with specific functions. Y1 - 2024 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kasmi, Sofien A1 - Zouhal, Hassane A1 - Hammami, Raouf A1 - Clark, Cain Craig Truman A1 - Hackney, Anthony C. A1 - Hammami, Amri A1 - Chtara, Moktar A1 - Chortane, Sabri Gaied A1 - Ben Salah, Fatma Zohra A1 - Granacher, Urs A1 - Ben Ounis, Omar T1 - The Effects of Eccentric and Plyometric Training Programs and Their Combination on Stability and the Functional Performance in the Post-ACL-Surgical Rehabilitation Period of Elite Female Athletes JF - Frontiers in physiology N2 - Background: The standard method to treat physically active patients with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture is ligament reconstruction surgery. The rehabilitation training program is very important to improve functional performance in recreational athletes following ACL reconstruction. Objectives: The aims of this study were to compare the effects of three different training programs, eccentric training (ECC), plyometric training (PLYO), or combined eccentric and plyometric training (COMB), on dynamic balance (Y-BAL), the Lysholm Knee Scale (LKS), the return to sport index (RSI), and the leg symmetry index (LSI) for the single leg hop test for distance in elite female athletes after ACL surgery. Materials and Methods: Fourteen weeks after rehabilitation from surgery, 40 elite female athletes (20.3 ± 3.2 years), who had undergone an ACL reconstruction, participated in a short-term (6 weeks; two times a week) training study. All participants received the same rehabilitation protocol prior to the training study. Athletes were randomly assigned to three experimental groups, ECC (n = 10), PLYO (n = 10), and COMB (n = 10), and to a control group (CON: n = 10). Testing was conducted before and after the 6-week training programs and included the Y-BAL, LKS, and RSI. LSI was assessed after the 6-week training programs only. Results: Adherence rate was 100% across all groups and no training or test-related injuries were reported. No significant between-group baseline differences (pre-6-week training) were observed for any of the parameters. Significant group-by-time interactions were found for Y-BAL (p < 0.001, ES = 1.73), LKS (p < 0.001, ES = 0.76), and RSI (p < 0.001, ES = 1.39). Contrast analysis demonstrated that COMB yielded significantly greater improvements in Y-BAL, LKS, and RSI (all p < 0.001), in addition to significantly better performances in LSI (all p < 0.001), than CON, PLYO, and ECC, respectively. Conclusion: In conclusion, combined (eccentric/plyometric) training seems to represent the most effective training method as it exerts positive effects on both stability and functional performance in the post-ACL-surgical rehabilitation period of elite female athletes. KW - return-to-sport KW - anterior cruciate ligament KW - eccentric-plyometric KW - training KW - stability KW - functional performance Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.688385 SN - 1664-042X VL - 12 SP - 1 EP - 11 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mumm, Rebekka A1 - Hermanussen, Michael T1 - The dilemma of misclassifying weight in short and in historic population JF - Human biology and public health N2 - Background: Clinicians often refer anthropometric measures of a child to so-called “growth standards” and “growth references. Over 140 countries have meanwhile adopted WHO growth standards. Objectives: The present study was conducted to thoroughly examine the idea of growth standards as a common yardstick for all populations. Weight depends on height. We became interested in whether also weight-for-height depends on height. First, we studied the age-group effect on weight-for-height. Thereafter, we tested the applicability of weight-for-height references in short and in historic populations. Sample and Methods: We analyzed body height and body weight and weight-for-height of 3795 healthy boys and 3726 healthy girls aged 2 to 5 years measured in East-Germany between 1986 and 1990. We chose contemporary height and weight charts from Germany, the UK, and the WHO growth chart and compared these with three geographically commensurable growth charts from the end of the 19th century. Results: We analyzed body height and body weight and weight-for-height of 3795 healthy boys and 3726 healthy girls aged 2 to 5 years measured in East-Germany between 1986 and 1990. We chose contemporary height and weight charts from Germany, the UK, and the WHO growth chart and compared these with three geographically commensurable growth charts of the end of the 19th century. Conclusion: Weight-for-height depends on age and sex and apart from the nutritional state, reflects body proportion and body built particularly during infancy and early childhood. Populations with a relatively short average height are prone to high values of weight-for-height for arithmetic reasons independent of the nutritional state. KW - growth standards KW - growth references KW - body mass index KW - nutritional status Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.52905/hbph2021.3.28 SN - 2748-9957 VL - 2021 IS - 3, Summer School Supplement PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jara-Muñoz, Julius A1 - Melnick, Daniel A1 - Li, Shaoyang A1 - Socquet, Anne A1 - Cortés-Aranda, Joaquín A1 - Brill, Dominik A1 - Strecker, Manfred T1 - The cryptic seismic potential of the Pichilemu blind fault in Chile revealed by off-fault geomorphology JF - Nature Communications N2 - The first step towards assessing hazards in seismically active regions involves mapping capable faults and estimating their recurrence times. While the mapping of active faults is commonly based on distinct geologic and geomorphic features evident at the surface, mapping blind seismogenic faults is complicated by the absence of on-fault diagnostic features. Here we investigated the Pichilemu Fault in coastal Chile, unknown until it generated a Mw 7.0 earthquake in 2010. The lack of evident surface faulting suggests activity along a partly-hidden blind fault. We used off-fault deformed marine terraces to estimate a fault-slip rate of 0.52 ± 0.04 m/ka, which, when integrated with satellite geodesy suggests a 2.12 ± 0.2 ka recurrence time for Mw~7.0 normal-faulting earthquakes. We propose that extension in the Pichilemu region is associated with stress changes during megathrust earthquakes and accommodated by sporadic slip during upper-plate earthquakes, which has implications for assessing the seismic potential of cryptic faults along convergent margins and elsewhere. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30754-1 SN - 2041-1723 VL - 13 PB - Springer Nature CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Maaß, Ulrike A1 - Kühne, Franziska A1 - Heinze, Peter Eric A1 - Ay-Bryson, Destina Sevde A1 - Weck, Florian T1 - The concise measurement of clinical communication skills BT - Validation of a short scale JF - Frontiers in Psychiatry N2 - Objective: There is a lack of brief rating scales for the reliable assessment of psychotherapeutic skills, which do not require intensive rater training and/or a high level of expertise. Thus, the objective is to validate a 14-item version of the Clinical Communication Skills Scale (CCSS-S). Methods: Using a sample of N = 690 video-based ratings of role-plays with simulated patients, we calculated a confirmatory factor analysis and an exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM), assessed convergent validities, determined inter-rater reliabilities and compared these with those who were either psychology students, advanced psychotherapy trainees, or experts. Results: Correlations with other competence rating scales were high (rs > 0.86–0.89). The intraclass correlations ranged between moderate and good [ICC(2,2) = 0.65–0.80], with student raters yielding the lowest scores. The one-factor model only marginally replicated the data, but the internal consistencies were excellent (α = 0.91–95). The ESEM yielded a two-factor solution (Collaboration and Structuring and Exploration Skills). Conclusion: The CCSS-S is a brief and valid rating scale that reliably assesses basic communication skills, which is particularly useful for psychotherapy training using standardized role-plays. To ensure good inter-rater reliabilities, it is still advisable to employ raters with at least some clinical experience. Future studies should further investigate the one- or two-factor structure of the instrument. KW - standardized patient KW - treatment integrity KW - measurement KW - therapist competence KW - role-play KW - psychotherapy process Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.977324 SN - 1664-0640 VL - 13 PB - Frontiers CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Brahms, Markus A1 - Heinzel, Stephan A1 - Rapp, Michael Armin A1 - Mückstein, Marie A1 - Hortobágyi, Tibor A1 - Stelzel, Christine A1 - Granacher, Urs T1 - The acute effects of mental fatigue on balance performance in healthy young and older adults – A systematic review and meta-analysis JF - Acta Psychologica N2 - Cognitive resources contribute to balance control. There is evidence that mental fatigue reduces cognitive resources and impairs balance performance, particularly in older adults and when balance tasks are complex, for example when trying to walk or stand while concurrently performing a secondary cognitive task. We conducted a systematic literature search in PubMed (MEDLINE), Web of Science and Google Scholar to identify eligible studies and performed a random effects meta-analysis to quantify the effects of experimentally induced mental fatigue on balance performance in healthy adults. Subgroup analyses were computed for age (healthy young vs. healthy older adults) and balance task complexity (balance tasks with high complexity vs. balance tasks with low complexity) to examine the moderating effects of these factors on fatigue-mediated balance performance. We identified 7 eligible studies with 9 study groups and 206 participants. Analysis revealed that performing a prolonged cognitive task had a small but significant effect (SMDwm = −0.38) on subsequent balance performance in healthy young and older adults. However, age- and task-related differences in balance responses to fatigue could not be confirmed statistically. Overall, aggregation of the available literature indicates that mental fatigue generally reduces balance in healthy adults. However, interactions between cognitive resource reduction, aging and balance task complexity remain elusive. KW - Cognitive fatigue KW - Exertion KW - Tiredness KW - Postural control KW - Gait KW - Sway Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103540 SN - 1873-6297 VL - 225 SP - 1 EP - 13 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Dvornikov, Yury A1 - Leibman, Marina A1 - Heim, Birgit A1 - Bartsch, Annett A1 - Herzschuh, Ulrike A1 - Skorospekhova, Tatiana A1 - Fedorova, Irina A1 - Khomutov, Artem A1 - Widhalm, Barbara A1 - Gubarkov, Anatoly A1 - Rößler, Sebastian T1 - Terrestrial CDOM in lakes of Yamal Peninsula BT - Connection to lake and lake catchment properties JF - Remote Sensing N2 - In this study, we analyze interactions in lake and lake catchment systems of a continuous permafrost area. We assessed colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) absorption at 440 nm (a(440)(CDOM)) and absorption slope (S300-500) in lakes using field sampling and optical remote sensing data for an area of 350 km(2) in Central Yamal, Siberia. Applying a CDOM algorithm (ratio of green and red band reflectance) for two high spatial resolution multispectral GeoEye-1 and Worldview-2 satellite images, we were able to extrapolate the a()(CDOM) data from 18 lakes sampled in the field to 356 lakes in the study area (model R-2 = 0.79). Values of a(440)(CDOM) in 356 lakes varied from 0.48 to 8.35 m(-1) with a median of 1.43 m(-1). This a()(CDOM) dataset was used to relate lake CDOM to 17 lake and lake catchment parameters derived from optical and radar remote sensing data and from digital elevation model analysis in order to establish the parameters controlling CDOM in lakes on the Yamal Peninsula. Regression tree model and boosted regression tree analysis showed that the activity of cryogenic processes (thermocirques) in the lake shores and lake water level were the two most important controls, explaining 48.4% and 28.4% of lake CDOM, respectively (R-2 = 0.61). Activation of thermocirques led to a large input of terrestrial organic matter and sediments from catchments and thawed permafrost to lakes (n = 15, mean a(440)(CDOM) = 5.3 m(-1)). Large lakes on the floodplain with a connection to Mordy-Yakha River received more CDOM (n = 7, mean a(440)(CDOM) = 3.8 m(-1)) compared to lakes located on higher terraces. KW - CDOM KW - lakes KW - lake catchments KW - permafrost KW - Yamal KW - remote sensing data Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10020167 SN - 2072-4292 VL - 10 IS - 2 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mtilatila, Lucy Mphatso Ng'ombe A1 - Bronstert, Axel A1 - Vormoor, Klaus Josef T1 - Temporal evaluation and projections of meteorological droughts in the Greater Lake Malawi Basin, Southeast Africa JF - Frontiers in Water N2 - The study examined the potential future changes of drought characteristics in the Greater Lake Malawi Basin in Southeast Africa. This region strongly depends on water resources to generate electricity and food. Future projections (considering both moderate and high emission scenarios) of temperature and precipitation from an ensemble of 16 bias-corrected climate model combinations were blended with a scenario-neutral response surface approach to analyses changes in: (i) the meteorological conditions, (ii) the meteorological water balance, and (iii) selected drought characteristics such as drought intensity, drought months, and drought events, which were derived from the Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration Index. Changes were analyzed for a near-term (2021–2050) and far-term period (2071–2100) with reference to 1976–2005. The effect of bias-correction (i.e., empirical quantile mapping) on the ability of the climate model ensemble to reproduce observed drought characteristics as compared to raw climate projections was also investigated. Results suggest that the bias-correction improves the climate models in terms of reproducing temperature and precipitation statistics but not drought characteristics. Still, despite the differences in the internal structures and uncertainties that exist among the climate models, they all agree on an increase of meteorological droughts in the future in terms of higher drought intensity and longer events. Drought intensity is projected to increase between +25 and +50% during 2021–2050 and between +131 and +388% during 2071–2100. This translates into +3 to +5, and +7 to +8 more drought months per year during both periods, respectively. With longer lasting drought events, the number of drought events decreases. Projected droughts based on the high emission scenario are 1.7 times more severe than droughts based on the moderate scenario. That means that droughts in this region will likely become more severe in the coming decades. Despite the inherent high uncertainties of climate projections, the results provide a basis in planning and (water-)managing activities for climate change adaptation measures in Malawi. This is of particular relevance for water management issues referring hydro power generation and food production, both for rain-fed and irrigated agriculture. KW - meteorological drought KW - drought intensity KW - climate change KW - drought events KW - Lake Malawi KW - Shire River KW - drought projections KW - South-Eastern Africa Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/frwa.2022.1041452 SN - 2624-9375 SP - 1 EP - 16 PB - Frontiers Media S.A. CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ehlert, Antje A1 - Poltz, Nadine A1 - Quandte, Sabine A1 - Kohn-Henkel, Juliane A1 - Kucian, Karin A1 - Aster, Michael von A1 - Esser, Günter T1 - Taking a closer look: The relationship between pre-school domain general cognition and school mathematics achievement when controlling for intelligence JF - Journal of Intelligence N2 - Intelligence, as well as working memory and attention, affect the acquisition of mathematical competencies. This paper aimed to examine the influence of working memory and attention when taking different mathematical skills into account as a function of children’s intellectual ability. Overall, intelligence, working memory, attention and numerical skills were assessed twice in 1868 German pre-school children (t1, t2) and again at 2nd grade (t3). We defined three intellectual ability groups based on the results of intellectual assessment at t1 and t2. Group comparisons revealed significant differences between the three intellectual ability groups. Over time, children with low intellectual ability showed the lowest achievement in domain-general and numerical and mathematical skills compared to children of average intellectual ability. The highest achievement on the aforementioned variables was found for children of high intellectual ability. Additionally, path modelling revealed that, depending on the intellectual ability, different models of varying complexity could be generated. These models differed with regard to the relevance of the predictors (t2) and the future mathematical skills (t3). Causes and conclusions of these findings are discussed. KW - intellectual ability KW - intelligence KW - pre-school KW - mathematical development KW - school mathematics KW - longitudinal KW - numerical skills KW - working memory KW - attention Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence10030070 SN - 2079-3200 VL - 10 SP - 1 EP - 23 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 3 ER - TY - THES A1 - Zhang, Shuhao T1 - Synthesis and self-assembly of protein-polymer conjugates for the preparation of biocatalytically active membranes T1 - Synthese und Selbstassemblierung von Protein/Polymer-Konjugaten für die Herstellung einer biokatalytisch aktiven Membran N2 - This thesis covers the synthesis of conjugates of 2-Deoxy-D-ribose-5-phosphate aldolase (DERA) with suitable polymers and the subsequent immobilization of these conjugates in thin films via two different approaches. 2-Deoxy-D-ribose-5-phosphate aldolase (DERA) is a biocatalyst that is capable of converting acetaldehyde and a second aldehyde as acceptor into enantiomerically pure mono- and diyhydroxyaldehydes, which are important structural motifs in a number of pharmaceutically active compounds. Conjugation and immobilization renders the enzyme applicable for utilization in a continuously run biocatalytic process which avoids the common problem of product inhibition. Within this thesis, conjugates of DERA and poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAm) for immobilization via a self-assembly approach were synthesized and isolated, as well as conjugates with poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamide) (PDMAA) for a simplified and scalable spray-coating approach. For the DERA/PNIPAm-conjugates different synthesis routes were tested, including grafting-from and grafting-to, both being common methods for the conjugation. Furthermore, both lysines and cysteines were addressed for the conjugation in order to find optimum conjugation conditions. It turned out that conjugation via lysine causes severe activity loss as one lysine plays a key role in the catalyzing mechanism. The conjugation via the cysteines by a grafting-to approach using pyridyl disulfide (PDS) end-group functionalized polymers led to high conjugation efficiencies in the presence of polymer solubilizing NaSCN. The resulting conjugates maintained enzymatic activity and also gained high acetaldehyde tolerance which is necessary for their use later on in an industrial relevant process after their immobilization. The resulting DERA/PNIPAm conjugates exhibited enhanced interfacial activity at the air/water interface compared to the single components, which is an important pre-requisite for the immobilization via the self-assembly approach. Conjugates with longer polymer chains formed homogeneous films on silicon wafers and glass slides while the ones with short chains could only form isolated aggregates. On top of that, long chain conjugates showed better activity maintenance upon the immobilization. The crosslinking of conjugates, as well as their fixation on the support materials, are important for the mechanical stability of the films obtained from the self-assembly process. Therefore, in a second step, we introduced the UV-crosslinkable monomer DMMIBA to the PNIPAm polymers to be used for conjugation. The introduction of DMMIBA reduced the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of the polymer and thus the water solubility at ambient conditions, resulting in lower conjugation efficiencies and in turn slightly poorer acetaldehyde tolerance of the resulting conjugates. Unlike the DERA/PNIPAm, the conjugates from the copolymer P(NIPAM-co-DMMIBA) formed continuous, homogenous films only after the crosslinking step via UV-treatment. For a firm binding of the crosslinked films, a functionalization protocol for the model support material cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) and the final target support, PAN based membranes, was developed that introduces analogue UV-reactive groups to the support surface. The conjugates immobilized on the modified COC films maintained enzymatic activity and showed good mechanical stability after several cycles of activity assessment. Conjugates with longer polymer chains, however, showed a higher degree of crosslinking after the UV-treatment leading to a pronounced loss of activity. A porous PAN membrane onto which the conjugates were immobilized as well, was finally transferred to a dead end filtration membrane module to catalyze the aldol reaction of the industrially relevant mixture of acetaldehyde and hexanal in a continuous mode. Mono aldol product was detectable, but yields were comparably low and the operational stability needs to be further improved Another approach towards immobilization of DERA conjugates that was followed, was to generate the conjugates in situ by simply mixing enzyme and polymer and spray coat the mixture onto the membrane support. Compared to the previous approach, the focus was more put on simplicity and a possible scalability of the immobilization. Conjugates were thus only generated in-situ and not further isolated and characterized. For the conjugation, PDMAA equipped with N-2-thiolactone acrylamide (TlaAm) side chains was used, an amine-reactive comonomer that can react with the lysine residues of DERA, as well as with amino groups introduced to a desired support surface. Furthermore disulfide formation after hydrolysis of the Tla groups causes a crosslinking effect. The synthesized copolymer poly(N,N-Dimethylacrylamide-co-N-2-thiolactone acrylamide) (P(DMAA-co-TlaAm)) thus serves a multiple purpose including protein binding, crosslinking and binding to support materials. The mixture of DERA and polymer could be immobilized on the PAN support by spray-coating under partial maintenance of enzymatic activity. To improve the acetaldehyde tolerance, the polymer in used was further equipped with cysteine reactive PDS end-groups that had been used for the conjugation as described in the first part of the thesis. The generated conjugates indeed showed good acetaldehyde tolerance and were thus used to be coated onto PAN membrane supports. Post treatment with a basic aqueous solution of H2O2 was supposed to further crosslink the spray-coated film hydrolysis and oxidation of the thiolactone groups. However, a washing off of the material was observed. Optimization is thus still necessary. N2 - Die vorliegende Arbeit beschreibt die Synthese von Konjugaten aus 2-Deoxy-D-ribose-5-phosphat aldolase (DERA) und geeigneten Polymeren sowie deren nachfolgende Immobilisierung in dünnen Filmen mittels zwei verschiedener Herangehensweisen. DERA ist ein Biokatalysator, der in der Lage ist, Acetaldehyd mit einem weiteren Aldehyd zu enantiomerenreinen Mono- und Dihydroxyaldehyden zu verknüpfen. Diese Verbindungen sind wichtige Strukturmotive für eine Reihe von pharmazeutisch aktiven Verbindungen. Konjugation und Immobilisierung machen das Enzym nutzbar für den Einsatz in einem kontinuierlich betriebenen, biokatalytischen Prozess, welcher das bekannte Problem der Produktinhibierung umgeht. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurden einerseits Konjugate aus DERA und Poly(N-isopropylacrylamid) (PNIPAm) für die Immobilisierung mittels eines Selbstassemblierungsverfahrens synthetisiert und isoliert, sowie andererseits entsprechende Konjugate mit Poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamid) (PDMAA) für ein vereinfachtes und skalierbares Immobilisierungsverfahren mittels Sprühauftrag hergestellt. Für die DERA/PNIPAm-Konjugate wurden verschiedene Syntheserouten getestet, einschließlich grafting-from und grafting-to. Beide Methoden werden standardmäßig für entsprechende Konjugationen eingesetzt. Weiterhin wurden sowohl die Lysine als auch die Cysteine des Enzyms für die Konjugation herangezogen, um optimale Konjugationsbedingungen zu finden. Konjugation über die Lysine verursachte deutliche Aktivitätsverluste, da ein Lysin auch die Schlüsselrolle im katalytischen Mechanismus des Enzyms spielt. Die Konjugation über die Cysteine sowie einen grafting-to-Ansatz unter Nutzung eines entsprechenden Polymers mit cysteinreaktiver Pyridyldisulfid-Endgruppe (PDS) führte zu einer hohen Konjugationseffizienz, sofern polymersolubilisierendes NaSCN eingesetzt wurde. Die resultierenden Konjugate behielten ihre enzymatische Aktivität bei deutlich gesteigerter Toleranz gegenüber Acetaldehyd. Beide Aspekte sind wichtig für den Einsatz des Enzyms in einem industriell relevanten Prozess nach dem Immobilisierungsschritt. Die DERA/PNIPAm-Konjugate zeigten eine erhöhte Oberflächenaktivität im Vergleich zu den Einzelkomponenten, was eine wichtige Voraussetzung für die Immobilisierung über eine Selbstassemblierung darstellt. Konjugate mit relativ langen Polymerketten bildeten nach dem Selbstassemblierungsschritt homogene Filme auf Silizium-Wafern und Glass-Objektträgern während Konjugate mit kurzen Ketten nur isolierte Aggregate bildeten. Darüber hinaus zeigten die Konjugate mit längeren Ketten einen besseren Erhalt der Enzymaktivität im Zuge der Immobilisierung. Die nachträgliche Vernetzung der Konjugate, sowie ihre feste Anbindung an die Trägermaterialien sind wichtige Voraussetzungen für die mechanische Stabilität des aus dem Selbstassemblierungsschritt erhaltenen Films. Aus diesem Grund wurde in einem zweiten Schritt das UV-vernetzbare Monomer DMMIBA in das für die Konjugation vorgesehene, PNIPAm-basierte Polymer eingeführt. Die Einbindung von DMMIBA setzte die untere kritische Lösungstemperatur (LCST) und damit die Löslichkeit des Polymers in Wasser bei Raumtemperatur herab. Dies führte zu niedrigeren Konjugationseffizienzen und damit zu einer etwas schlechteren Acetaldehydtoleranz der resultierenden Konjugate. Anders als im Fall von DERA/PNIPAm, bildeten die mit P(NIPAM-co-DMMIBA) synthetisierten Konjugate einen homogenen Film nur nach Vernetzung mittels UV-Behandlung aus. Für eine feste Anbindung des vernetzten Films wurde ein Funktionalisierungsprotokoll für das Modell-Trägermaterial aus cycloolefinischem Copolymer (COC) und das letztliche Zielmaterial, PAN-basierte Membranen, entwickelt, welches analoge UV-reaktive Gruppen auf der Trägeroberfläche erzeugt. Die auf COC immobilisierten Konjugate bewahrten ihre Enzymaktivität und zeigten eine gute mechanische Stabilität nach mehreren Aktivitäts-Messzyklen. Der Einsatz von Konjugaten mit längeren Polymerketten führte jedoch zu Filmen mit zu hohem Vernetzungsgrad was einen deutlichen Aktivitätsverlust bedingte. Eine poröse, PAN-basierte Membran, auf welcher die Konjugate ebenso immobilisiert wurden, wurde schlussendlich in ein Dead-End-Filtrationsmodul überführt, um die Aldolreaktion eines industriell relevanten Gemisches aus Acetaldehyd und Hexanal in einem kontinuierlich betriebenen Verfahren durchzuführen. Es konnte Monoaldolprodukt detektiert werden, jedoch waren die Ausbeuten vergleichsweise niedrig, während sich die operative Stabilität als verbesserungswürdig erwies. Ein weiterer Immobilisierungsansatz für DERA-Konjugate, beinhaltete die in-situ-Generierung der Konjugate durch einfaches Vermischen von Enzym und Polymer gefolgt von unmittelbaren Auftrag des Materials auf ein Membranträgermaterial mittels Sprühen. Im Vergleich zum ersten Ansatz lag der Fokus hier mehr auf der Einfachheit und prinzipiellen Skalierbarkeit der Immobilisierung. Daher wurden die Konjugate hier nur in-situ erzeugt und nicht weiter isoliert sowie charakterisiert. Für die Konjugation wurde PDMAA herangezogen, welches mit Thiolactongruppen entlang der Seitenkette ausgerüstet ist. Die Thiolactongruppen sind reaktiv gegenüber Aminen und können daher sowohl mit den Lysineinheiten der DERA reagieren als auch mit Aminogruppen, die im Vorfeld auf dem Trägermaterial erzeugt wurden. Darüber hinaus können durch Hydrolyse der Thiolactoneinheiten sowie anschließender Ausbildung von Disulfidbrücken Vernetzungspunkte erzeugt werden. Das hergestellte Copolymer poly(N,N-Dimethylacrylamide-co-N-2-thiolactone acrylamide) (P(DMAA-co-TlaAm) übernimmt daher mehrere Aufgaben einschließlich Proteinbindung, Vernetzung und Anbindung an das Trägermaterial. Mischungen aus DERA und Polymer konnten durch Sprühauftrag auf funktionalisierten PAN-Trägermaterialien unter teilweisem Erhalt der Enzymaktivität immobilisiert werden. Um auch hier die Acetaldehydtoleranz zu verbessern, wurde das Polymer in einem zweiten Schritt wieder mit PDS-Endgruppen ausgerüstet, die schon zuvor im ersten Teil der Arbeit für die Konjugatsynthese mittels grafting-to herangezogen wurden. Die hergestellten Konjugate zeigten eine gute Acetaldehydtoleranz und wurden daher verwendet, um PAN-Membranen zu beschichten. Eine Nachbehandlung mittels einer basischen Wasserstoffperoxidlösung sollte den aufgesprühten Film vernetzen. Im Ergebnis wurde jedoch ein großer Teil des aufgebrachten Materials im Zuge dieses Schritts heruntergewaschen. Eine weitere Optimierung dieses Schritts ist daher noch notwendig. KW - 2-deoxy-D-ribose-5-phoshphate aldolase KW - enzyme immobilization KW - enzymatically active membrane KW - enzyme/polymer conjugate KW - self-assembly Y1 - 2019 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Evans, Myfanwy E. A1 - Hyde, Stephen T. T1 - Symmetric Tangling of Honeycomb Networks JF - Symmetry N2 - Symmetric, elegantly entangled structures are a curious mathematical construction that has found their way into the heart of the chemistry lab and the toolbox of constructive geometry. Of particular interest are those structures—knots, links and weavings—which are composed locally of simple twisted strands and are globally symmetric. This paper considers the symmetric tangling of multiple 2-periodic honeycomb networks. We do this using a constructive methodology borrowing elements of graph theory, low-dimensional topology and geometry. The result is a wide-ranging enumeration of symmetric tangled honeycomb networks, providing a foundation for their exploration in both the chemistry lab and the geometers toolbox. KW - tangles KW - knots KW - networks KW - periodic entanglement KW - molecular weaving KW - graphs Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/sym14091805 SN - 2073-8994 VL - 14 SP - 1 EP - 13 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 9 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Puschmann, Anne-Katrin A1 - Lin, Chiao-I A1 - Wippert, Pia-Maria T1 - Sustainability of a motor control exercise intervention BT - Analysis of long-term effects in a low back pain study JF - Frontiers in sports and active living N2 - Development of chronic pain after a low back pain episode is associated with increased pain sensitivity, altered pain processing mechanisms and the influence of psychosocial factors. Although there is some evidence that multimodal therapy (such as behavioral or motor control therapy) may be an important therapeutic strategy, its long-term effect on pain reduction and psychosocial load is still unclear. Prospective longitudinal designs providing information about the extent of such possible long-term effects are missing. This study aims to investigate the long-term effects of a homebased uni- and multidisciplinary motor control exercise program on low back pain intensity, disability and psychosocial variables. 14 months after completion of a multicenter study comparing uni- and multidisciplinary exercise interventions, a sample of one study center (n = 154) was assessed once more. Participants filled in questionnaires regarding their low back pain symptoms (characteristic pain intensity and related disability), stress and vital exhaustion (short version of the Maastricht Vital Exhaustion Questionnaire), anxiety and depression experiences (the Hospital and Anxiety Depression Scale), and pain-related cognitions (the Fear Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire). Repeated measures mixed ANCOVAs were calculated to determine the long-term effects of the interventions on characteristic pain intensity and disability as well as on the psychosocial variables. Fifty four percent of the sub-sample responded to the questionnaires (n = 84). Longitudinal analyses revealed a significant long-term effect of the exercise intervention on pain disability. The multidisciplinary group missed statistical significance yet showed a medium sized long-term effect. The groups did not differ in their changes of the psychosocial variables of interest. There was evidence of long-term effects of the interventions on pain-related disability, but there was no effect on the other variables of interest. This may be partially explained by participant's low comorbidities at baseline. Results are important regarding costless homebased alternatives for back pain patients and prevention tasks. Furthermore, this study closes the gap of missing long-term effect analysis in this field. KW - MiSpEx KW - low back pain KW - long-term effects KW - multidisciplinary intervention KW - sustainability Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2021.659982 SN - 2624-9367 VL - 3 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schmidt, Lena Katharina A1 - Francke, Till A1 - Rottler, Erwin A1 - Blume, Theresa A1 - Schöber, Johannes A1 - Bronstert, Axel T1 - Suspended sediment and discharge dynamics in a glaciated alpine environment BT - identifying crucial areas and time periods on several spatial and temporal scales in the Ötztal, Austria JF - Earth surface dynamics N2 - Glaciated high-alpine areas are fundamentally altered by climate change, with well-known implications for hydrology, e.g., due to glacier retreat, longer snow-free periods, and more frequent and intense summer rainstorms. While knowledge on how these hydrological changes will propagate to suspended sediment dynamics is still scarce, it is needed to inform mitigation and adaptation strategies. To understand the processes and source areas most relevant to sediment dynamics, we analyzed discharge and sediment dynamics in high temporal resolution as well as their patterns on several spatial scales, which to date few studies have done. We used a nested catchment setup in the Upper Ötztal in Tyrol, Austria, where high-resolution (15 min) time series of discharge and suspended sediment concentrations are available for up to 15 years (2006–2020). The catchments of the gauges in Vent, Sölden and Tumpen range from 100 to almost 800 km2 with 10 % to 30 % glacier cover and span an elevation range of 930 to 3772 m a.s.l. We analyzed discharge and suspended sediment yields (SSY), their distribution in space, their seasonality and spatial differences therein, and the relative importance of short-term events. We complemented our analysis by linking the observations to satellite-based snow cover maps, glacier inventories, mass balances and precipitation data. Our results indicate that the areas above 2500 m a.s.l., characterized by glacier tongues and the most recently deglaciated areas, are crucial for sediment generation in all sub-catchments. This notion is supported by the synchronous spring onset of sediment export at the three gauges, which coincides with snowmelt above 2500 m but lags behind spring discharge onsets. This points at a limitation of suspended sediment supply as long as the areas above 2500 m are snow-covered. The positive correlation of annual SSY with glacier cover (among catchments) and glacier mass balances (within a catchment) further supports the importance of the glacier-dominated areas. The analysis of short-term events showed that summer precipitation events were associated with peak sediment concentrations and yields but on average accounted for only 21 % of the annual SSY in the headwaters. These results indicate that under current conditions, thermally induced sediment export (through snow and glacier melt) is dominant in the study area. Our results extend the scientific knowledge on current hydro-sedimentological conditions in glaciated high-alpine areas and provide a baseline for studies on projected future changes in hydro-sedimentological system dynamics. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-10-653-2022 SN - 2196-632X SN - 2196-6311 VL - 10 IS - 3 SP - 653 EP - 669 PB - Copernicus Publications CY - Göttingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Scheffler, Christiane A1 - Hermanussen, Michael T1 - Stunting does not impair physical fitness in Indonesian school children JF - Human biology and public health N2 - Background: Physical fitness is decreased in malnourished children and adults. Poor appearance and muscular flaccidity are among the first signs of malnutrition. Malnutrition is often associated with stunting. Objectives: We test the hypotheses that stunted children of low social strata are physically less fit than children of high social strata. Sample: We investigated 354 school girls and 369 school boys aged 5.83 to 13.83 (mean 9.54) years from three different social strata in Kupang (West-Timor, Indonesia) in 2020. Methods: We measured height, weight, and elbow breadth, calculated standard deviation (SDS) of height and weight according to CDC references, and the Frame index as an indicator of long-term physical fitness, and we tested physical fitness in standing long jump and hand grip strength. Results: Children of low social strata are physically fittest. They jump longer distances, and they have higher values in the Frame index. No association exists between height SDS and physical fitness, neither in respect to standing long jump, nor to hand grip strength. Conclusion: Stunting does not impair physical fitness in Indonesian school children. Our results support the concept that SEPE (social-economic-political-emotional) factors are involved in the regulation of human growth. KW - stunting KW - standing long jump KW - handgrip strength KW - SEPE KW - frame index Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.52905/hbph.v2.19 SN - 2748-9957 IS - 2 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bornhorst, Dorothee A1 - Abdelilah-Seyfried, Salim T1 - Strong as a Hippo’s Heart: Biomechanical Hippo Signaling During Zebrafish Cardiac Development JF - Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology N2 - The heart is comprised of multiple tissues that contribute to its physiological functions. During development, the growth of myocardium and endocardium is coupled and morphogenetic processes within these separate tissue layers are integrated. Here, we discuss the roles of mechanosensitive Hippo signaling in growth and morphogenesis of the zebrafish heart. Hippo signaling is involved in defining numbers of cardiac progenitor cells derived from the secondary heart field, in restricting the growth of the epicardium, and in guiding trabeculation and outflow tract formation. Recent work also shows that myocardial chamber dimensions serve as a blueprint for Hippo signaling-dependent growth of the endocardium. Evidently, Hippo pathway components act at the crossroads of various signaling pathways involved in embryonic zebrafish heart development. Elucidating how biomechanical Hippo signaling guides heart morphogenesis has direct implications for our understanding of cardiac physiology and pathophysiology. KW - Hippo signaling KW - Yap1/Wwtr1 (Taz) KW - cardiac development KW - mechanobiology KW - endocardium KW - myocardium KW - zebrafish KW - intra-organ-communication Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2021.731101 SN - 2296-634X VL - 9 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Block, Andrea A1 - Bonaventura, Klaus A1 - Grahn, Patricia A1 - Bestgen, Felix A1 - Wippert, Pia-Maria T1 - Stress management in pre-and postoperative care amongst practitioners and patients in cardiac catheterization laboratory: a study protocol JF - Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine N2 - Background: As the number of cardiac diseases continuously increases within the last years in modern society, so does cardiac treatment, especially cardiac catheterization. The procedure of a cardiac catheterization is challenging for both patients and practitioners. Several potential stressors of psychological or physical nature can occur during the procedure. The objective of the study is to develop and implement a stress management intervention for both practitioners and patients that aims to reduce the psychological and physical strain of a cardiac catheterization. Methods: The clinical study (DRKS00026624) includes two randomized controlled intervention trials with parallel groups, for patients with elective cardiac catheterization and practitioners at the catheterization lab, in two clinic sites of the Ernst-von-Bergmann clinic network in Brandenburg, Germany. Both groups received different interventions for stress management. The intervention for patients comprises a psychoeducational video with different stress management technics and additional a standardized medical information about the cardiac catheterization examination. The control condition includes the in hospitals practiced medical patient education before the examination (usual care). Primary and secondary outcomes are measured by physiological parameters and validated questionnaires, the day before (M1) and after (M2) the cardiac catheterization and at a postal follow-up 6 months later (M3). It is expected that people with standardized information and psychoeducation show reduced complications during cardiac catheterization procedures, better pre- and post-operative wellbeing, regeneration, mood and lower stress levels over time. The intervention for practitioners includes a Mindfulness-based stress reduction program (MBSR) over 8 weeks supervised by an experienced MBSR practitioner directly at the clinic site and an operative guideline. It is expected that practitioners with intervention show improved perceived and chronic stress, occupational health, physical and mental function, higher effort-reward balance, regeneration and quality of life. Primary and secondary outcomes are measured by physiological parameters (heart rate variability, saliva cortisol) and validated questionnaires and will be assessed before (M1) and after (M2) the MBSR intervention and at a postal follow-up 6 months later (M3). Physiological biomarkers in practitioners will be assessed before (M1) and after intervention (M2) on two work days and a two days off. Intervention effects in both groups (practitioners and patients) will be evaluated separately using multivariate variance analysis. Discussion: This study evaluates the effectiveness of two stress management intervention programs for patients and practitioners within cardiac catheter laboratory. Study will disclose strains during a cardiac catheterization affecting both patients and practitioners. For practitioners it may contribute to improved working conditions and occupational safety, preservation of earning capacity, avoidance of participation restrictions and loss of performance. In both groups less anxiety, stress and complications before and during the procedures can be expected. The study may add knowledge how to eliminate stressful exposures and to contribute to more (psychological) security, less output losses and exhaustion during work. The evolved stress management guidelines, training manuals and the standardized patient education should be transferred into clinical routines KW - stress management KW - mindfulness-based stress reduction KW - psychoeducation KW - standardized patient information KW - stress intervention KW - distress KW - study protocol KW - cardiac catheterization (CC) Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fcvm.2022.830256 SN - 2297-055X VL - 9 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - Frontiers CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gäbler, Martijn A1 - Berberyan, Hermine S. A1 - Prieske, Olaf A1 - Elferink-Gemser, Marije Titia A1 - Hortobágyi, Tibor A1 - Warnke, Torsten A1 - Granacher, Urs T1 - Strength Training Intensity and Volume Affect Performance of Young Kayakers/Canoeists JF - Frontiers in physiology N2 - Purpose: The aim of this study was to compare the effects of moderate intensity, low volume (MILV) vs. low intensity, high volume (LIHV) strength training on sport-specific performance, measures of muscular fitness, and skeletal muscle mass in young kayakers and canoeists. Methods: Semi-elite young kayakers and canoeists (N = 40, 13 ± 0.8 years, 11 girls) performed either MILV (70–80% 1-RM, 6–12 repetitions per set) or LIHV (30–40% 1-RM, 60–120 repetitions per set) strength training for one season. Linear mixed-effects models were used to compare effects of training condition on changes over time in 250 and 2,000 m time trials, handgrip strength, underhand shot throw, average bench pull power over 2 min, and skeletal muscle mass. Both between- and within-subject designs were used for analysis. An alpha of 0.05 was used to determine statistical significance. Results: Between- and within-subject analyses showed that monthly changes were greater in LIHV vs. MILV for the 2,000 m time trial (between: 9.16 s, SE = 2.70, p < 0.01; within: 2,000 m: 13.90 s, SE = 5.02, p = 0.01) and bench pull average power (between: 0.021 W⋅kg–1, SE = 0.008, p = 0.02; within: 0.010 W⋅kg–1, SE = 0.009, p > 0.05). Training conditions did not affect other outcomes. Conclusion: Young sprint kayakers and canoeists benefit from LIHV more than MILV strength training in terms of 2,000 m performance and muscular endurance (i.e., 2 min bench pull power). KW - youth sports KW - water sports KW - exercise test KW - athletic performance KW - anthropometry Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.686744 SN - 1664-042X VL - 12 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Xu, Pengbo A1 - Zhou, Tian A1 - Metzler, Ralf A1 - Deng, Weihua T1 - Stochastic harmonic trapping of a Lévy walk BT - transport and first-passage dynamics under soft resetting strategies JF - New journal of physics : the open-access journal for physics / Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft ; IOP, Institute of Physics N2 - We introduce and study a Lévy walk (LW) model of particle spreading with a finite propagation speed combined with soft resets, stochastically occurring periods in which an harmonic external potential is switched on and forces the particle towards a specific position. Soft resets avoid instantaneous relocation of particles that in certain physical settings may be considered unphysical. Moreover, soft resets do not have a specific resetting point but lead the particle towards a resetting point by a restoring Hookean force. Depending on the exact choice for the LW waiting time density and the probability density of the periods when the harmonic potential is switched on, we demonstrate a rich emerging response behaviour including ballistic motion and superdiffusion. When the confinement periods of the soft-reset events are dominant, we observe a particle localisation with an associated non-equilibrium steady state. In this case the stationary particle probability density function turns out to acquire multimodal states. Our derivations are based on Markov chain ideas and LWs with multiple internal states, an approach that may be useful and flexible for the investigation of other generalised random walks with soft and hard resets. The spreading efficiency of soft-rest LWs is characterised by the first-passage time statistic. KW - diffusion KW - anomalous diffusion KW - stochastic resetting KW - Levy walks Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ac5282 SN - 1367-2630 VL - 24 IS - 3 SP - 1 EP - 28 PB - Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft CY - Bad Honnef ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wilbert, Jürgen A1 - Börnert-Ringleb, Moritz A1 - Lüke, Timo T1 - Statistical Power of Piecewise Regression Analyses of Single-Case Experimental Studies Addressing Behavior Problems JF - Frontiers in Education N2 - In intervention research, single-case experimental designs are an important way to gain insights into the causes of individual changes that yield high internal validity. They are commonly applied to examine the effectiveness of classroom-based interventions to reduce problem behavior in schools. At the same time, there is no consensus on good design characteristics of single-case experimental designs when dealing with behavioral problems in schools. Moreover, specific challenges arise concerning appropriate approaches to analyzing behavioral data. Our study addresses the interplay between the test power of piecewise regression analysis and important design specifications of single-case research designs. Here, we focus on the influence of the following specifications of single-case research designs: number of measurement times, the initial frequency of the behavior, intervention effect, and data trend. We conducted a Monte-Carlo study. First, simulated datasets were created with specific design conditions based on reviews of published single-case intervention studies. Following, data were analyzed using piecewise Poisson-regression models, and the influence of specific design specifications on the test power was investigated. Our results indicate that piecewise regressions have a high potential of adequately identifying the effects of interventions for single-case studies. At the same time, test power is strongly related to the specific design specifications of the single-case study: Few measurement times, especially in phase A, and low initial frequencies of the behavior make it impossible to detect even large intervention effects. Research designs with a high number of measurement times show robust power. The insights gained are highly relevant for researchers in the field, as decisions during the early stage of conceptualizing and planning single-case experimental design studies may impact the chance to identify an existing intervention effect during the research process correctly. KW - single-case design KW - single case analysis KW - Monte-Carlo simulation KW - behavior problems KW - special education KW - research design KW - single-case experimental design Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2022.917944 SN - 2504-284X VL - 7 SP - 1 EP - 13 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Liu, Qingting A1 - Zhou, Yuan A1 - Fettke, Jörg T1 - Starch granule size and morphology of Arabidopsis thaliana starch-related mutants analyzed during diurnal rhythm and development JF - Molecules : a journal of synthetic chemistry and natural product chemistry / Molecular Diversity Preservation International N2 - Transitory starch plays a central role in the life cycle of plants. Many aspects of this important metabolism remain unknown; however, starch granules provide insight into this persistent metabolic process. Therefore, monitoring alterations in starch granules with high temporal resolution provides one significant avenue to improve understanding. Here, a previously established method that combines LCSM and safranin-O staining for in vivo imaging of transitory starch granules in leaves of Arabidopsis thaliana was employed to demonstrate, for the first time, the alterations in starch granule size and morphology that occur both throughout the day and during leaf aging. Several starch-related mutants were included, which revealed differences among the generated granules. In ptst2 and sex1-8, the starch granules in old leaves were much larger than those in young leaves; however, the typical flattened discoid morphology was maintained. In ss4 and dpe2/phs1/ss4, the morphology of starch granules in young leaves was altered, with a more rounded shape observed. With leaf development, the starch granules became spherical exclusively in dpe2/phs1/ss4. Thus, the presented data provide new insights to contribute to the understanding of starch granule morphogenesis. KW - starch metabolism KW - starch granule KW - starch granule size KW - starch granule morphology KW - LCSM KW - Arabidopsis thaliana Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules26195859 SN - 1420-3049 VL - 26 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 19 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zurell, Damaris A1 - König, Christian A1 - Malchow, Anne-Kathleen A1 - Kapitza, Simon A1 - Bocedi, Greta A1 - Travis, Justin M. J. A1 - Fandos, Guillermo T1 - Spatially explicit models for decision-making in animal conservation and restoration JF - Ecography : pattern and diversity in ecology / Nordic Ecologic Society Oikos N2 - Models are useful tools for understanding and predicting ecological patterns and processes. Under ongoing climate and biodiversity change, they can greatly facilitate decision-making in conservation and restoration and help designing adequate management strategies for an uncertain future. Here, we review the use of spatially explicit models for decision support and to identify key gaps in current modelling in conservation and restoration. Of 650 reviewed publications, 217 publications had a clear management application and were included in our quantitative analyses. Overall, modelling studies were biased towards static models (79%), towards the species and population level (80%) and towards conservation (rather than restoration) applications (71%). Correlative niche models were the most widely used model type. Dynamic models as well as the gene-to-individual level and the community-to-ecosystem level were underrepresented, and explicit cost optimisation approaches were only used in 10% of the studies. We present a new model typology for selecting models for animal conservation and restoration, characterising model types according to organisational levels, biological processes of interest and desired management applications. This typology will help to more closely link models to management goals. Additionally, future efforts need to overcome important challenges related to data integration, model integration and decision-making. We conclude with five key recommendations, suggesting that wider usage of spatially explicit models for decision support can be achieved by 1) developing a toolbox with multiple, easier-to-use methods, 2) improving calibration and validation of dynamic modelling approaches and 3) developing best-practise guidelines for applying these models. Further, more robust decision-making can be achieved by 4) combining multiple modelling approaches to assess uncertainty, and 5) placing models at the core of adaptive management. These efforts must be accompanied by long-term funding for modelling and monitoring, and improved communication between research and practise to ensure optimal conservation and restoration outcomes. KW - adaptive management KW - biodiversity conservation KW - cost optimisation KW - ecosystem restoration KW - global change KW - predictive models Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.05787 SN - 1600-0587 IS - 4 SP - 1 EP - 16 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Miklashevsky, Alex A1 - Fischer, Martin H. A1 - Lindemann, Oliver T1 - Spatial-numerical associations without a motor response? Grip force says ‘Yes’ JF - Acta Psychologica N2 - In numerical processing, the functional role of Spatial-Numerical Associations (SNAs, such as the association of smaller numbers with left space and larger numbers with right space, the Mental Number Line hypothesis) is debated. Most studies demonstrate SNAs with lateralized responses, and there is little evidence that SNAs appear when no response is required. We recorded passive holding grip forces in no-go trials during number processing. In Experiment 1, participants performed a surface numerical decision task (“Is it a number or a letter?”). In Experiment 2, we used a deeper semantic task (“Is this number larger or smaller than five?”). Despite instruction to keep their grip force constant, participants' spontaneous grip force changed in both experiments: Smaller numbers led to larger force increase in the left than in the right hand in the numerical decision task (500–700 ms after stimulus onset). In the semantic task, smaller numbers again led to larger force increase in the left hand, and larger numbers increased the right-hand holding force. This effect appeared earlier (180 ms) and lasted longer (until 580 ms after stimulus onset). This is the first demonstration of SNAs with passive holding force. Our result suggests that (1) explicit motor response is not a prerequisite for SNAs to appear, and (2) the timing and strength of SNAs are task-dependent. (216 words). KW - SNARC KW - Mental number line KW - Number processing KW - Embodied cognition KW - Grip force KW - Motor system Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103791 SN - 1873-6297 VL - 231 SP - 1 EP - 17 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - THES A1 - Friese, Viviane A. T1 - Solvato-, vapo, mechanochromic and luminescent behavior of Rhodium, Platinum and Gold complexes and their coordination polymers Y1 - 2016 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heistermann, Maik A1 - Bogena, Heye A1 - Francke, Till A1 - Güntner, Andreas A1 - Jakobi, Jannis A1 - Rasche, Daniel A1 - Schrön, Martin A1 - Döpper, Veronika A1 - Fersch, Benjamin A1 - Groh, Jannis A1 - Patil, Amol A1 - Pütz, Thomas A1 - Reich, Marvin A1 - Zacharias, Steffen A1 - Zengerle, Carmen A1 - Oswald, Sascha Eric T1 - Soil moisture observation in a forested headwater catchment: combining a dense cosmic-ray neutron sensor network with roving and hydrogravimetry at the TERENO site Wüstebach JF - Earth System Science Data (ESSD) N2 - Cosmic-ray neutron sensing (CRNS) has become an effective method to measure soil moisture at a horizontal scale of hundreds of metres and a depth of decimetres. Recent studies proposed operating CRNS in a network with overlapping footprints in order to cover root-zone water dynamics at the small catchment scale and, at the same time, to represent spatial heterogeneity. In a joint field campaign from September to November 2020 (JFC-2020), five German research institutions deployed 15 CRNS sensors in the 0.4 km2 Wüstebach catchment (Eifel mountains, Germany). The catchment is dominantly forested (but includes a substantial fraction of open vegetation) and features a topographically distinct catchment boundary. In addition to the dense CRNS coverage, the campaign featured a unique combination of additional instruments and techniques: hydro-gravimetry (to detect water storage dynamics also below the root zone); ground-based and, for the first time, airborne CRNS roving; an extensive wireless soil sensor network, supplemented by manual measurements; and six weighable lysimeters. Together with comprehensive data from the long-term local research infrastructure, the published data set (available at https://doi.org/10.23728/b2share.756ca0485800474e9dc7f5949c63b872; Heistermann et al., 2022) will be a valuable asset in various research contexts: to advance the retrieval of landscape water storage from CRNS, wireless soil sensor networks, or hydrogravimetry; to identify scale-specific combinations of sensors and methods to represent soil moisture variability; to improve the understanding and simulation of land–atmosphere exchange as well as hydrological and hydrogeological processes at the hillslope and the catchment scale; and to support the retrieval of soil water content from airborne and spaceborne remote sensing platforms. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-2501-2022 SN - 1866-3516 VL - 14 SP - 2501 EP - 2519 PB - Copernicus CY - Katlenburg-Lindau ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Agne, Stefanie A1 - Preick, Michaela A1 - Straube, Nicolas A1 - Hofreiter, Michael T1 - Simultaneous Barcode Sequencing of Diverse Museum Collection Specimens Using a Mixed RNA Bait Set JF - Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution N2 - A growing number of publications presenting results from sequencing natural history collection specimens reflect the importance of DNA sequence information from such samples. Ancient DNA extraction and library preparation methods in combination with target gene capture are a way of unlocking archival DNA, including from formalin-fixed wet-collection material. Here we report on an experiment, in which we used an RNA bait set containing baits from a wide taxonomic range of species for DNA hybridisation capture of nuclear and mitochondrial targets for analysing natural history collection specimens. The bait set used consists of 2,492 mitochondrial and 530 nuclear RNA baits and comprises specific barcode loci of diverse animal groups including both invertebrates and vertebrates. The baits allowed to capture DNA sequence information of target barcode loci from 84% of the 37 samples tested, with nuclear markers being captured more frequently and consensus sequences of these being more complete compared to mitochondrial markers. Samples from dry material had a higher rate of success than wet-collection specimens, although target sequence information could be captured from 50% of formalin-fixed samples. Our study illustrates how efforts to obtain barcode sequence information from natural history collection specimens may be combined and are a way of implementing barcoding inventories of scientific collection material. KW - target capture KW - type specimens KW - molecular species identification KW - museum specimens KW - cross-species capture Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2022.909846 SN - 2296-701X VL - 10 PB - Frontiers Media S.A. CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Vogel, Johannes A1 - Paton, Eva Nora A1 - Aich, Valentin T1 - Seasonal ecosystem vulnerability to climatic anomalies in the Mediterranean JF - Biogeosciences N2 - Mediterranean ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to climate change and the associated increase in climate anomalies. This study investigates extreme ecosystem responses evoked by climatic drivers in the Mediterranean Basin for the time span 1999–2019 with a specific focus on seasonal variations as the seasonal timing of climatic anomalies is considered essential for impact and vulnerability assessment. A bivariate vulnerability analysis is performed for each month of the year to quantify which combinations of the drivers temperature (obtained from ERA5-Land) and soil moisture (obtained from ESA CCI and ERA5-Land) lead to extreme reductions in ecosystem productivity using the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (FAPAR; obtained from the Copernicus Global Land Service) as a proxy. The bivariate analysis clearly showed that, in many cases, it is not just one but a combination of both drivers that causes ecosystem vulnerability. The overall pattern shows that Mediterranean ecosystems are prone to three soil moisture regimes during the yearly cycle: they are vulnerable to hot and dry conditions from May to July, to cold and dry conditions from August to October, and to cold conditions from November to April, illustrating the shift from a soil-moisture-limited regime in summer to an energy-limited regime in winter. In late spring, a month with significant vulnerability to hot conditions only often precedes the next stage of vulnerability to both hot and dry conditions, suggesting that high temperatures lead to critically low soil moisture levels with a certain time lag. In the eastern Mediterranean, the period of vulnerability to hot and dry conditions within the year is much longer than in the western Mediterranean. Our results show that it is crucial to account for both spatial and temporal variability to adequately assess ecosystem vulnerability. The seasonal vulnerability approach presented in this study helps to provide detailed insights regarding the specific phenological stage of the year in which ecosystem vulnerability to a certain climatic condition occurs. How to cite. Vogel, J., Paton, E., and Aich, V.: Seasonal ecosystem vulnerability to climatic anomalies in the Mediterranean, Biogeosciences, 18, 5903–5927, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-5903-2021, 2021. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-5903-2021 SN - 1726-4189 VL - 18 SP - 5903 EP - 5927 PB - Copernicus CY - Göttingen ET - 22 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schlör, Anja A1 - Hirschberg, Stefan A1 - Ben Amor, Ghada A1 - Meister, Toni Luise A1 - Arora, Prerna A1 - Pöhlmann, Stefan A1 - Hoffmann, Markus A1 - Pfänder, Stephanie A1 - Eddin, Omar Kamal A1 - Kamhieh-Milz, Julian A1 - Hanack, Katja T1 - SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing camelid heavy-chain-only antibodies as powerful tools for diagnostic and therapeutic applications JF - Frontiers in Immunology N2 - Introduction: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic situation caused by SARS-CoV-2 and variants of concern such as B.1.617.2 (Delta) and recently, B.1.1.529 (Omicron) is posing multiple challenges to humanity. The rapid evolution of the virus requires adaptation of diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Objectives: In this study, we describe camelid heavy-chain-only antibodies (hcAb) as useful tools for novel in vitro diagnostic assays and for therapeutic applications due to their neutralizing capacity. Methods: Five antibody candidates were selected out of a naïve camelid library by phage display and expressed as full length IgG2 antibodies. The antibodies were characterized by Western blot, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, surface plasmon resonance with regard to their specificity to the recombinant SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein and to SARS-CoV-2 virus-like particles. Neutralization assays were performed with authentic SARS-CoV-2 and pseudotyped viruses (wildtype and Omicron). Results: All antibodies efficiently detect recombinant SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein and SARS-CoV-2 virus-like particles in different ELISA setups. The best combination was shown with hcAb B10 as catcher antibody and HRP-conjugated hcAb A7.2 as the detection antibody. Further, four out of five antibodies potently neutralized authentic wildtype SARS-CoV-2 and particles pseudotyped with the SARS-CoV-2 Spike proteins of the wildtype and Omicron variant, sublineage BA.1 at concentrations between 0.1 and 0.35 ng/mL (ND50). Conclusion: Collectively, we report novel camelid hcAbs suitable for diagnostics and potential therapy. KW - camelid heavy-chain-only antibodies KW - single domain antibodies KW - nanobodies KW - SARS-CoV-2 KW - neutralization KW - Omicron Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2022.930975 SN - 1664-3224 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - Frontiers Media SA CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wang, Wei A1 - Cherstvy, Andrey G. A1 - Metzler, Ralf A1 - Sokolov, Igor M. T1 - Restoring ergodicity of stochastically reset anomalous-diffusion processes JF - Physical Review Research N2 - How do different reset protocols affect ergodicity of a diffusion process in single-particle-tracking experiments? We here address the problem of resetting of an arbitrary stochastic anomalous-diffusion process (ADP) from the general mathematical points of view and assess ergodicity of such reset ADPs for an arbitrary resetting protocol. The process of stochastic resetting describes the events of the instantaneous restart of a particle’s motion via randomly distributed returns to a preset initial position (or a set of those). The waiting times of such resetting events obey the Poissonian, Gamma, or more generic distributions with specified conditions regarding the existence of moments. Within these general approaches, we derive general analytical results and support them by computer simulations for the behavior of the reset mean-squared displacement (MSD), the new reset increment-MSD (iMSD), and the mean reset time-averaged MSD (TAMSD). For parental nonreset ADPs with the MSD(t)∝ tμ we find a generic behavior and a switch of the short-time growth of the reset iMSD and mean reset TAMSDs from ∝ _μ for subdiffusive to ∝ _1 for superdiffusive reset ADPs. The critical condition for a reset ADP that recovers its ergodicity is found to be more general than that for the nonequilibrium stationary state, where obviously the iMSD and the mean TAMSD are equal. The consideration of the new statistical quantifier, the iMSD—as compared to the standard MSD—restores the ergodicity of an arbitrary reset ADP in all situations when the μth moment of the waiting-time distribution of resetting events is finite. Potential applications of these new resetting results are, inter alia, in the area of biophysical and soft-matter systems. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.013161 SN - 2643-1564 VL - 4 SP - 013161-1 EP - 013161-13 PB - American Physical Society CY - College Park, Maryland, United States ET - 1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Puerto Valencia, Laura Maria A1 - Arampatzis, Adamantios A1 - Beck, Heidrun A1 - Dreinhöfer, Karsten E. A1 - Drießlein, Drießlein A1 - Mau, Wilfried A1 - Zimmer, Julia-Marie A1 - Schäfer, Michael A1 - Steinfeldt, Friedemann A1 - Wippert, Pia-Maria T1 - RENaBack: Low back pain patients in rehabilitation: Study Protocol for a Multicenter, Randomized Controlled Trial JF - Trials N2 - Background Millions of people in Germany suffer from chronic pain, in which course and intensity are multifactorial. Besides physical injuries, certain psychosocial risk factors are involved in the disease process. The national health care guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of non-specific low back pain recommend the screening of psychosocial risk factors as early as possible, to be able to adapt the therapy to patient needs (e.g., unimodal or multimodal). However, such a procedure has been difficult to implement in practice and has not yet been integrated into the rehabilitation care structures across the country. Methods The aim of this study is to implement an individualized therapy and aftercare program within the rehabilitation offer of the German Pension Insurance in the area of orthopedics and to examine its success and sustainability in comparison to the previous standard aftercare program. The study is a multicenter randomized controlled trial including 1204 patients from six orthopedic rehabilitation clinics. A 2:1 allocation ratio to intervention (individualized and home-based rehabilitation aftercare) versus the control group (regular outpatient rehabilitation aftercare) is set. Upon admission to the rehabilitation clinic, participants in the intervention group will be screened according to their psychosocial risk profile. They could then receive either unimodal or multimodal, together with an individualized training program. The program is instructed in the clinic (approximately 3 weeks) and will continue independently at home afterwards for 3 months. The success of the program is examined by means of a total of four surveys. The co-primary outcomes are the Characteristic Pain Intensity and Disability Score assessed by the German version of the Chronic Pain Grade questionnaire (CPG). Discussion An improvement in terms of pain, work ability, patient compliance, and acceptance in our intervention program compared to the standard aftercare is expected. The study contributes to provide individualized care also to patients living far away from clinical centers. Trial registration DRKS, DRKS00020373. Registered on 15 April 2020 KW - Chronic low back pain KW - Aftercare KW - Individualized therapy KW - Randomized controlled trial KW - Rehabilitation Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-021-05823-3 SN - 1745-6215 SP - 1 EP - 18 PB - Springer Nature / BMC CY - Heidelberg ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Smith, Taylor A1 - Zotta, Ruxandra-Maria A1 - Boulton, Chris A. A1 - Lenton, Timothy M. A1 - Dorigo, Wouter A1 - Boers, Niklas T1 - Reliability of resilience estimation based on multi-instrument time series JF - Earth System Dynamics N2 - Many widely used observational data sets are comprised of several overlapping instrument records. While data inter-calibration techniques often yield continuous and reliable data for trend analysis, less attention is generally paid to maintaining higher-order statistics such as variance and autocorrelation. A growing body of work uses these metrics to quantify the stability or resilience of a system under study and potentially to anticipate an approaching critical transition in the system. Exploring the degree to which changes in resilience indicators such as the variance or autocorrelation can be attributed to non-stationary characteristics of the measurement process – rather than actual changes in the dynamical properties of the system – is important in this context. In this work we use both synthetic and empirical data to explore how changes in the noise structure of a data set are propagated into the commonly used resilience metrics lag-one autocorrelation and variance. We focus on examples from remotely sensed vegetation indicators such as vegetation optical depth and the normalized difference vegetation index from different satellite sources. We find that time series resulting from mixing signals from sensors with varied uncertainties and covering overlapping time spans can lead to biases in inferred resilience changes. These biases are typically more pronounced when resilience metrics are aggregated (for example, by land-cover type or region), whereas estimates for individual time series remain reliable at reasonable sensor signal-to-noise ratios. Our work provides guidelines for the treatment and aggregation of multi-instrument data in studies of critical transitions and resilience. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-173-2023 SN - 2190-4987 VL - 14 SP - 173 EP - 183 PB - Copernicus Publications CY - Göttingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Aloui, Ali A1 - Tayech, Amel A1 - Arbi Mejri, Mohamed A1 - Makhlouf, Issam A1 - Clark, Cain C. T. A1 - Granacher, Urs A1 - Zouhal, Hassane A1 - Ben Abderrahman, Abderraouf T1 - Reliability and Validity of a New Taekwondo-Specific Change-of-Direction Speed Test With Striking Techniques in Elite Taekwondo Athletes: A Pilot Study JF - Frontiers in Physiology N2 - The purpose of this study was to examine the test-retest reliability, and convergent and discriminative validity of a new taekwondo-specific change-of-direction (COD) speed test with striking techniques (TST) in elite taekwondo athletes. Twenty (10 males and 10 females) elite (athletes who compete at national level) and top-elite (athletes who compete at national and international level) taekwondo athletes with an average training background of 8.9 ± 1.3 years of systematic taekwondo training participated in this study. During the two-week test-retest period, various generic performance tests measuring COD speed, balance, speed, and jump performance were carried out during the first week and as a retest during the second week. Three TST trials were conducted with each athlete and the best trial was used for further analyses. The relevant performance measure derived from the TST was the time with striking penalty (TST-TSP). TST-TSP performances amounted to 10.57 ± 1.08 s for males and 11.74 ± 1.34 s for females. The reliability analysis of the TST performance was conducted after logarithmic transformation, in order to address the problem of heteroscedasticity. In both groups, the TST demonstrated a high relative test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficients and 90% compatibility limits were 0.80 and 0.47 to 0.93, respectively). For absolute reliability, the TST’s typical error of measurement (TEM), 90% compatibility limits, and magnitudes were 4.6%, 3.4 to 7.7, for males, and 5.4%, 3.9 to 9.0, for females. The homogeneous sample of taekwondo athletes meant that the TST’s TEM exceeded the usual smallest important change (SIC) with 0.2 effect size in the two groups. The new test showed mostly very large correlations with linear sprint speed (r = 0.71 to 0.85) and dynamic balance (r = −0.71 and −0.74), large correlations with COD speed (r = 0.57 to 0.60) and vertical jump performance (r = −0.50 to −0.65), and moderate correlations with horizontal jump performance (r = −0.34 to −0.45) and static balance (r = −0.39 to −0.44). Top-elite athletes showed better TST performances than elite counterparts. Receiver operating characteristic analysis indicated that the TST effectively discriminated between top-elite and elite taekwondo athletes. In conclusion, the TST is a valid, and sensitive test to evaluate the COD speed with taekwondo specific skills, and reliable when considering ICC and TEM. Although the usefulness of the TST is questioned to detect small performance changes in the present population, the TST can detect moderate changes in taekwondo-specific COD speed. KW - taekwondo-specific testing KW - sport-specific performance KW - striking combat sports KW - sensitivity KW - taekwondo electronic scoring system Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2022.774546 SN - 1664-042X VL - 13 SP - 1 EP - 15 PB - Frontiers CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - THES A1 - Mubeen, Umarah T1 - Regulation of central carbon and nitrogen metabolism by Target of Rapamycin (TOR) kinase in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii T1 - Regulation des zentralen Kohlen- und Stickstoff Stoffwechsels durch die Target of Rapamycin Kinase in der Grünalge Chlamydomonas reinhardtii N2 - The highly conserved protein complex containing the Target of Rapamycin (TOR) kinase is known to integrate intra- and extra-cellular stimuli controlling nutrient allocation and cellular growth. This thesis describes three studies aimed to understand how TOR signaling pathway influences carbon and nitrogen metabolism in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. The first study presents a time-resolved analysis of the molecular and physiological features across the diurnal cycle. The inhibition of TOR leads to 50% reduction in growth followed by nonlinear delays in the cell cycle progression. The metabolomics analysis showed that the growth repression is mainly driven by differential carbon partitioning between anabolic and catabolic processes. Furthermore, the high accumulation of nitrogen-containing compounds indicated that TOR kinase controls the carbon to nitrogen balance of the cell, which is responsible for biomass accumulation, growth and cell cycle progression. In the second study the cause of the high accumulation of amino acids is explained. For this purpose, the effect of TOR inhibition on Chlamydomonas was examined under different growth regimes using stable 13C- and 15N-isotope labeling. The data clearly showed that an increased nitrogen uptake is induced within minutes after the inhibition of TOR. Interestingly, this increased N-influx is accompanied by increased activities of nitrogen assimilating enzymes. Accordingly, it was concluded that TOR inhibition induces de-novo amino acid synthesis in Chlamydomonas. The recognition of this novel process opened an array of questions regarding potential links between central metabolism and TOR signaling. Therefore a detailed phosphoproteomics study was conducted to identify the potential substrates of TOR pathway regulating central metabolism. Interestingly, some of the key enzymes involved in carbon metabolism as well as amino acid synthesis exhibited significant changes in the phosphosite intensities immediately after TOR inhibition. Altogether, these studies provide a) detailed insights to metabolic response of Chlamydomonas to TOR inhibition, b) identification of a novel process causing rapid upshifts in amino acid levels upon TOR inhibition and c) finally highlight potential targets of TOR signaling regulating changes in central metabolism. Further biochemical and molecular investigations could confirm these observations and advance the understanding of growth signaling in microalgae. N2 - Target of Rapamycin (TOR) ist das Zentralprotein eines hochkonservierten Proteinkomplexes, welcher Nährstoff- und Energie Ressourcen für zelluläre Wachstumsprozesse kontengiert. Diese Doktorarbeit beschreibt anhand dreier Studien, wie TOR zu diesem Zweck, in der Grünalge Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, den zentralen Stoffwechsel reguliert. Die erste Studie untersucht dazu das zeitaufgelöste Verhalten von Biomolekülen im Tagesverlauf synchronisiert wachsender Algen. Dabei konnte gezeigt werden, das der TOR Inhibitor Rapamycin das Wachstum um 50% reduziert und den Zellzyklus verzögert. Die Zellzyklus Verzögerung scheint dabei hauptsächlich durch veränderte Stoffwechselprozesse erklärt zu sein. Hierbei konnte gezeigt werden, dass TOR vor allem stickstoffhaltige Stoffwechselprodukte (z.B. Aminosäuren) kontrolliert, welche die Grundlage für Biomasseproduktion, Wachstum und den Zellzyklus bilden. Im Rahmen der zweiten Studie konnte dann der molekulare Mechanismus der Akkumulation der zellulären Aminosäuren aufgeklärt werden. Zu diesem Zweck wurden Fütterungsstudien mit 13C- und 15N-Isotopen durchgeführt. Die Ergebnisse dieser Fütterung konnten klar zeigen, dass die Inhibition von TOR zur verstärkten Aufnahme von Stickstoff in die Zelle und dessen Assimilierung in Aminosäuren führt. Die Aufdeckung dieses neuen, von TOR gesteuerten Prozesses eröffnete somit die Frage, wie die Signalkaskade von TOR zu den Enzymen der Aminosäuresynthese verläuft. Detaillierte phosphoproteomische Studien sollten dieser Frage nachgehen und Zielprotein der TOR Kinase zu identifizieren und regulierte Stoffwechselprozesses zu finden. Dabei stellte sich heraus, dass sowohl verschiedene Enzyme der Aminosäuresynthese als auch Enzyme des zentralen Stoffwechsels innerhalb weniger Minuten stark verändert wurden. Zusammenfassend kann man festhalten das die vorliegende Arbeit detaillierte Stoffwechselanalysen des Stoffwechsels nach einer TOR Inhibition aufdeckt. Hierbei ein neuer Mechanismus zur Regulation der Aminosäuresynthese, nach TOR Inhibition gezeigt werden konnte, welche durch systemische Regulation der Phosphorylierungsmuster zellulärer Proteine kontrolliert wird. Zusätzliche molekulare und biochemische Studien konnten weiterhin zeigen, dass wie TOR das zelluläre Wachstum der photosynthetischen Grünalge kontrolliert und somit steuert. KW - Target of Rapamycin kinase KW - Growth signaling KW - metabolism KW - phosphoproteomics KW - Chlamydomonas KW - Target of Rapamycin kinase KW - Wachstumssignale KW - Stoffwechsel KW - Phosphoproteomik KW - Chlamydomonas Y1 - 2018 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pérez Chaparro, Camilo Germán Alberto A1 - Schuch, Felipe Barreto A1 - Zech, Philipp A1 - Kangas, Maria A1 - Rapp, Michael Armin A1 - Heißel, Andreas T1 - Recreational exercising and self-reported cardiometabolic diseases in German people living with HIV BT - A cross-sectional study JF - International journal of environmental research and public health : IJERPH / Molecular Diversity Preservation International N2 - Exercise is known for its beneficial effects on preventing cardiometabolic diseases (CMDs) in the general population. People living with the human immunodeficiency virus (PLWH) are prone to sedentarism, thus raising their already elevated risk of developing CMDs in comparison to individuals without HIV. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to determine if exercise is associated with reduced risk of self-reported CMDs in a German HIV-positive sample (n = 446). Participants completed a self-report survey to assess exercise levels, date of HIV diagnosis, CD4 cell count, antiretroviral therapy, and CMDs. Participants were classified into exercising or sedentary conditions. Generalized linear models with Poisson regression were conducted to assess the prevalence ratio (PR) of PLWH reporting a CMD. Exercising PLWH were less likely to report a heart arrhythmia for every increase in exercise duration (PR: 0.20: 95% CI: 0.10–0.62, p < 0.01) and diabetes mellitus for every increase in exercise session per week (PR: 0.40: 95% CI: 0.10–1, p < 0.01). Exercise frequency and duration are associated with a decreased risk of reporting arrhythmia and diabetes mellitus in PLWH. Further studies are needed to elucidate the mechanisms underlying exercise as a protective factor for CMDs in PLWH. KW - HIV KW - exercise KW - cardiovascular diseases KW - metabolic disease KW - sedentary Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182111579 SN - 1660-4601 VL - 18 IS - 21 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rosenblum, Michael A1 - Pikovskij, Arkadij A1 - Kühn, Andrea A. A1 - Busch, Johannes Leon T1 - Real-time estimation of phase and amplitude with application to neural data JF - Scientific reports N2 - Computation of the instantaneous phase and amplitude via the Hilbert Transform is a powerful tool of data analysis. This approach finds many applications in various science and engineering branches but is not proper for causal estimation because it requires knowledge of the signal’s past and future. However, several problems require real-time estimation of phase and amplitude; an illustrative example is phase-locked or amplitude-dependent stimulation in neuroscience. In this paper, we discuss and compare three causal algorithms that do not rely on the Hilbert Transform but exploit well-known physical phenomena, the synchronization and the resonance. After testing the algorithms on a synthetic data set, we illustrate their performance computing phase and amplitude for the accelerometer tremor measurements and a Parkinsonian patient’s beta-band brain activity. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-97560-5 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 11 PB - Springer Nature CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fischer, Melanie A1 - Brettin, Jana A1 - Roessner, Sigrid A1 - Walz, Ariane A1 - Fort, Monique A1 - Korup, Oliver T1 - Rare flood scenarios for a rapidly growing high-mountain city: Pokhara, Nepal JF - Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences N2 - Pokhara (ca. 850 m a.s.l.), Nepal's second-largest city, lies at the foot of the Higher Himalayas and has more than tripled its population in the past 3 decades. Construction materials are in high demand in rapidly expanding built-up areas, and several informal settlements cater to unregulated sand and gravel mining in the Pokhara Valley's main river, the Seti Khola. This river is fed by the Sabche glacier below Annapurna III (7555 m a.s.l.), some 35 km upstream of the city, and traverses one of the steepest topographic gradients in the Himalayas. In May 2012 a sudden flood caused >70 fatalities and intense damage along this river and rekindled concerns about flood risk management. We estimate the flow dynamics and inundation depths of flood scenarios using the hydrodynamic model HEC-RAS (Hydrologic Engineering Center’s River Analysis System). We simulate the potential impacts of peak discharges from 1000 to 10 000 m3 s−1 on land cover based on high-resolution Maxar satellite imagery and OpenStreetMap data (buildings and road network). We also trace the dynamics of two informal settlements near Kaseri and Yamdi with high potential flood impact from RapidEye, PlanetScope, and Google Earth imagery of the past 2 decades. Our hydrodynamic simulations highlight several sites of potential hydraulic ponding that would largely affect these informal settlements and sites of sand and gravel mining. These built-up areas grew between 3- and 20-fold, thus likely raising local flood exposure well beyond changes in flood hazard. Besides these drastic local changes, about 1 % of Pokhara's built-up urban area and essential rural road network is in the highest-hazard zones highlighted by our flood simulations. Our results stress the need to adapt early-warning strategies for locally differing hydrological and geomorphic conditions in this rapidly growing urban watershed. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-3105-2022 SN - 1684-9981 VL - 22 SP - 3105 EP - 3123 PB - Copernicus Publications CY - Katlenburg-Lindau ET - 9 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wippert, Pia-Maria A1 - Niederer, Daniel A1 - Drießlein, David A1 - Beck, Heidrun A1 - Banzer, Winfried Eberhard A1 - Schneider, Christian A1 - Schiltenwolf, Marcus A1 - Mayer, Frank T1 - Psychosocial Moderators and Mediators of Sensorimotor Exercise in Low Back Pain: A Randomized Multicenter Controlled Trial JF - Frontiers in Psychiatry N2 - The effects of exercise interventions on unspecific chronic low back pain (CLBP) have been investigated in many studies, but the results are inconclusive regarding exercise types, efficiency, and sustainability. This may be because the influence of psychosocial factors on exercise induced adaptation regarding CLBP is neglected. Therefore, this study assessed psychosocial characteristics, which moderate and mediate the effects of sensorimotor exercise on LBP. A single-blind 3-arm multicenter randomized controlled trial was conducted for 12-weeks. Three exercise groups, sensorimotor exercise (SMT), sensorimotor and behavioral training (SMT-BT), and regular routines (CG) were randomly assigned to 662 volunteers. Primary outcomes (pain intensity and disability) and psychosocial characteristics were assessed at baseline (M1) and follow-up (3/6/12/24 weeks, M2-M5). Multiple regression models were used to analyze whether psychosocial characteristics are moderators of the relationship between exercise and pain, meaning that psychosocial factors and exercise interact. Causal mediation analysis were conducted to analyze, whether psychosocial characteristics mediate the exercise effect on pain. A total of 453 participants with intermittent pain (mean age = 39.5 ± 12.2 years, f = 62%) completed the training. It was shown, that depressive symptomatology (at M4, M5), vital exhaustion (at M4), and perceived social support (at M5) are significant moderators of the relationship between exercise and the reduction of pain intensity. Further depressive mood (at M4), social-satisfaction (at M4), and anxiety (at M5 SMT) significantly moderate the exercise effect on pain disability. The amount of moderation was of clinical relevance. In contrast, there were no psychosocial variables which mediated exercise effects on pain. In conclusion it was shown, that psychosocial variables can be moderators in the relationship between sensorimotor exercise induced adaptation on CLBP which may explain conflicting results in the past regarding the merit of exercise interventions in CLBP. Results suggest further an early identification of psychosocial risk factors by diagnostic tools, which may essential support the planning of personalized exercise therapy. Level of Evidence: Level I. Clinical Trial Registration: DRKS00004977, LOE: I, MiSpEx: grant-number: 080102A/11-14. https://www.drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do?navigationId=trial.HTML&TRIAL_ID=DRKS00004977. KW - low-back-pain KW - motor-control-exercise KW - multidisciplinary-therapy KW - MiSpEx-network KW - yellow flags Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.629474 SN - 1664-0640 VL - 12 SP - 1 EP - 16 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ramirez-Campillo, Rodrigo A1 - Moran, Jason A1 - Oliver, Jonathan L. A1 - Pedley, Jason S. A1 - Lloyd, Rhodri S. A1 - Granacher, Urs T1 - Programming Plyometric-Jump Training in Soccer: A Review JF - Sports N2 - The aim of this review was to describe and summarize the scientific literature on programming parameters related to jump or plyometric training in male and female soccer players of different ages and fitness levels. A literature search was conducted in the electronic databases PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus using keywords related to the main topic of this study (e.g., “ballistic” and “plyometric”). According to the PICOS framework, the population for the review was restricted to soccer players, involved in jump or plyometric training. Among 7556 identified studies, 90 were eligible for inclusion. Only 12 studies were found for females. Most studies (n = 52) were conducted with youth male players. Moreover, only 35 studies determined the effectiveness of a given jump training programming factor. Based on the limited available research, it seems that a dose of 7 weeks (1–2 sessions per week), with ~80 jumps (specific of combined types) per session, using near-maximal or maximal intensity, with adequate recovery between repetitions (<15 s), sets (≥30 s) and sessions (≥24–48 h), using progressive overload and taper strategies, using appropriate surfaces (e.g., grass), and applied in a well-rested state, when combined with other training methods, would increase the outcome of effective and safe plyometric-jump training interventions aimed at improving soccer players physical fitness. In conclusion, jump training is an effective and easy-to-administer training approach for youth, adult, male and female soccer players. However, optimal programming for plyometric-jump training in soccer is yet to be determined in future research. KW - human physical conditioning KW - exercise KW - resistance training KW - muscle strength KW - plyometric exercise KW - musculoskeletal and neural physiological phenomena KW - movement KW - sports KW - football KW - youth sport Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/sports10060094 SN - 2075-4663 VL - 10 SP - 1 EP - 20 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 6 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kwarikunda, Diana A1 - Schiefele, Ulrich A1 - Muwonge, Charles Magoba A1 - Ssenyonga, Joseph T1 - Profiles of learners based on their cognitive and metacognitive learning strategy use: occurrence and relations with gender, intrinsic motivation, and perceived autonomy support JF - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications N2 - For life-long learning, an effective learning strategy repertoire is particularly important during acquisition of knowledge in lower secondary school—an educational level characterized with transition into more autonomous learning environments with increased complex academic demands. Using latent profile analysis, we explored the occurrence of different secondary school learner profiles depending on their various combinations of cognitive and metacognitive learning strategy use, as well as their differences in perceived autonomy support, intrinsic motivation, and gender. Data were collected from 576 ninth grade students in Uganda using self-report questionnaires. Four learner profiles were identified: competent strategy user, struggling user, surface-level learner, and deep-level learner profiles. Gender differences were noted in students’ use of elaboration and organization strategies to learn Physics, in favor of girls. In terms of profile memberships, significant differences in gender, intrinsic motivation and perceived autonomy support were also noted. Girls were 2.4–2.7 times more likely than boys to be members of the competent strategy user and surface-level learner profiles. Additionally, higher levels of intrinsic motivation predicted an increased likelihood membership into the deep-level learner profile, while higher levels of perceived teacher autonomy predicted an increased likelihood membership into the competent strategy user profile as compared to other profiles. Further, implications of the findings were discussed. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01322-1 SN - 2055-1045 VL - 9 PB - Springer Nature ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Haase, Jennifer A1 - Hanel, Paul H. P. T1 - Priming creativity: Doing math reduces creativity and happiness whereas playing short online games enhance them JF - Frontiers in Education N2 - Creative thinking is an indispensable cognitive skill that is becoming increasingly important. In the present research, we tested the impact of games on creativity and emotions in a between-subject online experiment with four conditions (N = 658). (1) participants played a simple puzzle game that allowed many solutions (priming divergent thinking); (2) participants played a short game that required one fitting solution (priming convergent thinking); (3) participants performed mental arithmetic; (4) passive control condition. Results show that divergent and convergent creativity were higher after playing games and lower after mental arithmetic. Positive emotions did not function as a mediator, even though they were also heightened after playing the games and lower after mental arithmetic. However, contrary to previous research, we found no direct effect of emotions, creative self-efficacy, and growth- vs. fixed on creative performance. We discuss practical implications for digital learning and application settings. KW - creativity KW - priming KW - enhancement KW - math KW - games KW - happiness Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2022.976459 SN - 2504-284X PB - Frontiers CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kotthoff, Lisa A1 - Lisec, Jan A1 - Schwerdtle, Tanja A1 - Koch, Matthias T1 - Prediction of transformation products of monensin by electrochemistry compared to microsomal assay and hydrolysis JF - Molecules N2 - The knowledge of transformation pathways and identification of transformation products (TPs) of veterinary drugs is important for animal health, food, and environmental matters. The active agent Monensin (MON) belongs to the ionophore antibiotics and is widely used as a veterinary drug against coccidiosis in broiler farming. However, no electrochemically (EC) generated TPs of MON have been described so far. In this study, the online coupling of EC and mass spectrometry (MS) was used for the generation of oxidative TPs. EC-conditions were optimized with respect to working electrode material, solvent, modifier, and potential polarity. Subsequent LC/HRMS (liquid chromatography/high resolution mass spectrometry) and MS/MS experiments were performed to identify the structures of derived TPs by a suspected target analysis. The obtained EC-results were compared to TPs observed in metabolism tests with microsomes and hydrolysis experiments of MON. Five previously undescribed TPs of MON were identified in our EC/MS based study and one TP, which was already known from literature and found by a microsomal assay, could be confirmed. Two and three further TPs were found as products in microsomal tests and following hydrolysis, respectively. We found decarboxylation, O-demethylation and acid-catalyzed ring-opening reactions to be the major mechanisms of MON transformation. KW - transformation products KW - monensin KW - veterinary drugs KW - electrochemistry KW - hydrolysis KW - LC/HRMS Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules24152732 SN - 1420-3049 VL - 24 IS - 15 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Steinfath, Matthias A1 - Gärtner, Tanja A1 - Lisec, Jan A1 - Meyer, Rhonda Christiane A1 - Altmann, Thomas A1 - Willmitzer, Lothar A1 - Selbig, Joachim T1 - Prediction of hybrid biomass in Arabidopsis thaliana by selected parental SNP and metabolic markers JF - Theoretical and applied genetics : TAG ; international journal of plant breeding research N2 - A recombinant inbred line (RIL) population, derived from two Arabidopsis thaliana accessions, and the corresponding testcrosses with these two original accessions were used for the development and validation of machine learning models to predict the biomass of hybrids. Genetic and metabolic information of the RILs served as predictors. Feature selection reduced the number of variables (genetic and metabolic markers) in the models by more than 80% without impairing the predictive power. Thus, potential biomarkers have been revealed. Metabolites were shown to bear information on inherited macroscopic phenotypes. This proof of concept could be interesting for breeders. The example population exhibits substantial mid-parent biomass heterosis. The results of feature selection could therefore be used to shed light on the origin of heterosis. In this respect, mainly dominance effects were detected. KW - Quantitative Trait Locus KW - feature selection KW - Partial Little Square KW - recombinant inbred line KW - Quantitative Trait Locus analysis Y1 - 2009 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00122-009-1191-2 SN - 0040-5752 SN - 1432-2242 VL - 120 SP - 239 EP - 247 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Prasse, Paul A1 - Iversen, Pascal A1 - Lienhard, Matthias A1 - Thedinga, Kristina A1 - Herwig, Ralf A1 - Scheffer, Tobias T1 - Pre-Training on In Vitro and Fine-Tuning on Patient-Derived Data Improves Deep Neural Networks for Anti-Cancer Drug-Sensitivity Prediction JF - MDPI N2 - Large-scale databases that report the inhibitory capacities of many combinations of candidate drug compounds and cultivated cancer cell lines have driven the development of preclinical drug-sensitivity models based on machine learning. However, cultivated cell lines have devolved from human cancer cells over years or even decades under selective pressure in culture conditions. Moreover, models that have been trained on in vitro data cannot account for interactions with other types of cells. Drug-response data that are based on patient-derived cell cultures, xenografts, and organoids, on the other hand, are not available in the quantities that are needed to train high-capacity machine-learning models. We found that pre-training deep neural network models of drug sensitivity on in vitro drug-sensitivity databases before fine-tuning the model parameters on patient-derived data improves the models’ accuracy and improves the biological plausibility of the features, compared to training only on patient-derived data. From our experiments, we can conclude that pre-trained models outperform models that have been trained on the target domains in the vast majority of cases. KW - deep neural networks KW - drug-sensitivity prediction KW - anti-cancer drugs Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers14163950 SN - 2072-6694 VL - 14 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 16 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rösler, Antonia A1 - Gasparatos, Nikolaos A1 - Hermanussen, Michael A1 - Scheffler, Christiane T1 - Practicability and user-friendliness of height measurements by proof of concept APP using Augmented Reality, in 22 healthy children JF - Human biology and public health N2 - Background: Child growth is a dynamic process. When measured at short intervals, children’s growth shows characteristic patterns that can be of great importance for clinical purposes. Objective: To study whether measuring height on a daily basis using an APP is practicable and user-friendly. Methods: Recruitment took place via Snowball Sampling. Thirteen out of 14 contacted families signed up for a study period of 12 weeks with altogether 22 healthy children aged 3 to 13 years (response rate 93%). The study started with a visit to the family home for the setup of the measurement site, conventional height measuring and initial training of the new measurement process. Follow-up appointments were made at four, eight and 12 weeks. The children’s height was measured at daily intervals at their family homes over a period of three months. Results: The parents altogether recorded 1704 height measurements and meticulously documented practicability and problems when using the device. A 93% response rate in recruitment was achieved by maintaining a high motivation within the families. Contact with the principal investigator was permanently available, including open communication, personal training and attendance during the appointments at the family homes. Conclusion: Measuring height by photographic display is interesting for children and parents and can be used for height measurements at home. A positive response rate of 13 out of 14 families with altogether 22 children highlights feasible recruitment and the high convenience and user-friendliness of daily APP-supported height measurements. Daily APP measurements appear to be a promising new tool for longitudinal growth studies. KW - body height KW - guideline KW - augmented reality KW - daily home-made measurements KW - iPhone KW - APP Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.52905/hbph2022.2.48 SN - 2748-9957 VL - 2022 IS - 2 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Cajar, Anke A1 - Engbert, Ralf A1 - Laubrock, Jochen T1 - Potsdam Eye-Movement Corpus for Scene Memorization and Search With Color and Spatial-Frequency Filtering JF - Frontiers in psychology / Frontiers Research Foundation KW - eye movements KW - corpus dataset KW - scene viewing KW - object search KW - scene memorization KW - spatial frequencies KW - color KW - central and peripheral vision Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.850482 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 13 SP - 1 EP - 7 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fernandez-Fernandez, Jaime A1 - Granacher, Urs A1 - Martinez-Martin, Isidoro A1 - Garcia-Tormo, José Vicente A1 - Herrero-Molleda, Alba A1 - Barbado, David A1 - García López, Juan T1 - Physical fitness and throwing speed in U13 versus U15 male handball players JF - BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation N2 - Background The aim of this study was to analyze the shoulder functional profile (rotation range of motion [ROM] and strength), upper and lower body performance, and throwing speed of U13 versus U15 male handball players, and to establish the relationship between these measures of physical fitness and throwing speed. Methods One-hundred and nineteen young male handball players (under (U)-13 (U13) [n = 85]) and U15 [n = 34]) volunteered to participate in this study. The participating athletes had a mean background of sytematic handball training of 5.5 ± 2.8 years and they exercised on average 540 ± 10.1 min per week including sport-specific team handball training and strength and conditioning programs. Players were tested for passive shoulder range-of-motion (ROM) for both internal (IR) and external rotation (ER) and isometric strength (i.e., IR and ER) of the dominant/non-dominant shoulders, overhead medicine ball throw (OMB), hip isometric abductor (ABD) and adductor (ADD) strength, hip ROM, jumps (countermovement jump [CMJ] and triple leg-hop [3H] for distance), linear sprint test, modified 505 change-of-direction (COD) test and handball throwing speed (7 m [HT7] and 9 m [HT9]). Results U15 players outperformed U13 in upper (i.e., HT7 and HT9 speed, OMB, absolute IR and ER strength of the dominant and non-dominant sides; Cohen’s d: 0.76–2.13) and lower body (i.e., CMJ, 3H, 20-m sprint and COD, hip ABD and ADD; d: 0.70–2.33) performance measures. Regarding shoulder ROM outcomes, a lower IR ROM was found of the dominant side in the U15 group compared to the U13 and a higher ER ROM on both sides in U15 (d: 0.76–1.04). It seems that primarily anthropometric characteristics (i.e., body height, body mass) and upper body strength/power (OMB distance) are the most important factors that explain the throw speed variance in male handball players, particularly in U13. Conclusions Findings from this study imply that regular performance monitoring is important for performance development and for minimizing injury risk of the shoulder in both age categories of young male handball players. Besides measures of physical fitness, anthropometric data should be recorded because handball throwing performance is related to these measures. KW - Overhead athletes KW - Shoulder KW - Injury risk KW - Sport-specific performance Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s13102-022-00507-0 SN - 1758-2555 VL - 14 PB - Springer CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zühlke, Martin A1 - Meiling, Till Thomas A1 - Roder, Phillip A1 - Riebe, Daniel A1 - Beitz, Toralf A1 - Bald, Ilko A1 - Löhmannsröben, Hans-Gerd A1 - Janßen, Traute A1 - Erhard, Marcel A1 - Repp, Alexander T1 - Photodynamic inactivation of E. coli bacteria via carbon nanodots JF - ACS omega / American Chemical Society N2 - The increasing development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria has been a major problem for years, both in human and veterinary medicine. Prophylactic measures, such as the use of vaccines, are of great importance in reducing the use of antibiotics in livestock. These vaccines are mainly produced based on formaldehyde inactivation. However, the latter damages the recognition elements of the bacterial proteins and thus could reduce the immune response in the animal. An alternative inactivation method developed in this work is based on gentle photodynamic inactivation using carbon nanodots (CNDs) at excitation wavelengths λex > 290 nm. The photodynamic inactivation was characterized on the nonvirulent laboratory strain Escherichia coli K12 using synthesized CNDs. For a gentle inactivation, the CNDs must be absorbed into the cytoplasm of the E. coli cell. Thus, the inactivation through photoinduced formation of reactive oxygen species only takes place inside the bacterium, which means that the outer membrane is neither damaged nor altered. The loading of the CNDs into E. coli was examined using fluorescence microscopy. Complete loading of the bacterial cells could be achieved in less than 10 min. These studies revealed a reversible uptake process allowing the recovery and reuse of the CNDs after irradiation and before the administration of the vaccine. The success of photodynamic inactivation was verified by viability assays on agar. In a homemade flow photoreactor, the fastest successful irradiation of the bacteria could be carried out in 34 s. Therefore, the photodynamic inactivation based on CNDs is very effective. The membrane integrity of the bacteria after irradiation was verified by slide agglutination and atomic force microscopy. The method developed for the laboratory strain E. coli K12 could then be successfully applied to the important avian pathogens Bordetella avium and Ornithobacterium rhinotracheale to aid the development of novel vaccines. KW - Bacteria KW - Genetics KW - Fluorescence KW - Photodynamics KW - Irradiation Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.1c01700 SN - 2470-1343 VL - 6 IS - 37 SP - 23742 EP - 23749 PB - ACS Publications CY - Washington, DC ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Clegg, Mark R. A1 - Wacker, Alexander A1 - Spijkerman, Elly T1 - Phenotypic Diversity and Plasticity of Photoresponse Across an Environmentally Contrasting Family of Phytoflagellates JF - Frontiers in plant science : FPLS N2 - Organisms often employ ecophysiological strategies to exploit environmental conditions and ensure bio-energetic success. However, the many complexities involved in the differential expression and flexibility of these strategies are rarely fully understood. Therefore, for the first time, using a three-part cross-disciplinary laboratory experimental analysis, we investigated the diversity and plasticity of photoresponsive traits employed by one family of environmentally contrasting, ecologically important phytoflagellates. The results demonstrated an extensive inter-species phenotypic diversity of behavioural, physiological, and compositional photoresponse across the Chlamydomonadaceae, and a multifaceted intra-species phenotypic plasticity, involving a broad range of beneficial photoacclimation strategies, often attributable to environmental predisposition and phylogenetic differentiation. Deceptively diverse and sophisticated strong (population and individual cell) behavioural photoresponses were observed, with divergence from a general preference for low light (and flexibility) dictated by intra-familial differences in typical habitat (salinity and trophy) and phylogeny. Notably, contrasting lower, narrow, and flexible compared with higher, broad, and stable preferences were observed in freshwater vs. brackish and marine species. Complex diversity and plasticity in physiological and compositional photoresponses were also discovered. Metabolic characteristics (such as growth rates, respiratory costs and photosynthetic capacity, efficiency, compensation and saturation points) varied elaborately with species, typical habitat (often varying more in eutrophic species, such as Chlamydomonas reinhardtii), and culture irradiance (adjusting to optimise energy acquisition and suggesting some propensity for low light). Considerable variations in intracellular pigment and biochemical composition were also recorded. Photosynthetic and accessory pigments (such as chlorophyll a, xanthophyll-cycle components, chlorophyll a:b and chlorophyll a:carotenoid ratios, fatty acid content and saturation ratios) varied with phylogeny and typical habitat (to attune photosystem ratios in different trophic conditions and to optimise shade adaptation, photoprotection, and thylakoid architecture, particularly in freshwater environments), and changed with irradiance (as reaction and harvesting centres adjusted to modulate absorption and quantum yield). The complex, concomitant nature of the results also advocated an integrative approach in future investigations. Overall, these nuanced, diverse, and flexible photoresponsive traits will greatly contribute to the functional ecology of these organisms, addressing environmental heterogeneity and potentially shaping individual fitness, spatial and temporal distribution, prevalence, and ecosystem dynamics. KW - photoresponse KW - behaviour KW - physiology KW - composition KW - photosynthesis KW - acclimation KW - Chlamydomonas KW - ecophysiology Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.707541 SN - 1664-462X IS - 12 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stiegler, Jonas A1 - Lins, Alisa A1 - Dammhahn, Melanie A1 - Kramer-Schadt, Stephanie A1 - Ortmann, Sylvia A1 - Blaum, Niels T1 - Personality drives activity and space use in a mammalian herbivore JF - Movement Ecology N2 - Background Animal personality has emerged as a key concept in behavioral ecology. While many studies have demonstrated the influence of personality traits on behavioral patterns, its quantification, especially in wild animal populations, remains a challenge. Only a few studies have established a link between personality and recurring movements within home ranges, although these small-scale movements are of key importance for identifying ecological interactions and forming individual niches. In this regard, differences in space use among individuals might reflect different exploration styles between behavioral types along the shy-bold continuum. Methods We assessed among-individual differences in behavior in the European hare (Lepus europaeus), a characteristic mammalian herbivore in agricultural landscapes using a standardized box emergence test for captive and wild hares. We determined an individuals’ degree of boldness by measuring the latencies of behavioral responses in repeated emergence tests in captivity. During capture events of wild hares, we conducted a single emergence test and recorded behavioral responses proven to be stable over time in captive hares. Applying repeated novel environment tests in a near-natural enclosure, we further quantified aspects of exploration and activity in captive hares. Finally, we investigated whether and how this among-individual behavioral variation is related to general activity and space use in a wild hare population. Wild and captive hares were treated similarly and GPS-collared with internal accelerometers prior to release to the wild or the outdoor enclosure, respectively. General activity was quantified as overall dynamic body acceleration (ODBA) obtained from accelerometers. Finally, we tested whether boldness explained variation in (i) ODBA in both settings and (ii) variation in home ranges and core areas across different time scales of GPS-collared hares in a wild population. Results We found three behavioral responses to be consistent over time in captive hares. ODBA was positively related to boldness (i.e., short latencies to make first contact with the new environment) in both captive and wild hares. Space use in wild hares also varied with boldness, with shy individuals having smaller core areas and larger home ranges than bold conspecifics (yet in some of the parameter space, this association was just marginally significant). Conclusions Against our prediction, shy individuals occupied relatively large home ranges but with small core areas. We suggest that this space use pattern is due to them avoiding risky, and energy-demanding competition for valuable resources. Carefully validated, activity measurements (ODBA) from accelerometers provide a valuable tool to quantify aspects of animal personality along the shy-bold continuum remotely. Without directly observing—and possibly disturbing—focal individuals, this approach allows measuring variability in animal personality, especially in species that are difficult to assess with experiments. Considering that accelerometers are often already built into GPS units, we recommend activating them at least during the initial days of tracking to estimate individual variation in general activity and, if possible, match them with a simple novelty experiment. Furthermore, information on individual behavioral types will help to facilitate mechanistic understanding of processes that drive spatial and ecological dynamics in heterogeneous landscapes. KW - Animal personality KW - Movement ecology KW - Inter-individual differences KW - ODBA KW - Energy expenditure KW - European hare Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s40462-022-00333-6 SN - 2051-3933 VL - 10 PB - BioMed Central (BMC), Springer Nature CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Deeken, Friederike A1 - Reichert, Markus A1 - Zech, Hilmar A1 - Wenzel, Julia A1 - Wedemeyer, Friederike A1 - Aguilera, Alvaro A1 - Aslan, Acelya A1 - Bach, Patrick A1 - Bahr, Nadja Samia A1 - Ebrahimi, Claudia A1 - Fischbach, Pascale Christine A1 - Ganz, Marvin A1 - Garbusow, Maria A1 - Großkopf, Charlotte M. A1 - Heigert, Marie A1 - Hentschel, Angela A1 - Karl, Damian A1 - Pelz, Patricia A1 - Pinger, Mathieu A1 - Riemerschmid, Carlotta A1 - Rosenthal, Annika A1 - Steffen, Johannes A1 - Strehle, Jens A1 - Weiss,, Franziska A1 - Wieder, Gesine A1 - Wieland, Alfred A1 - Zaiser, Judith A1 - Zimmermann, Sina A1 - Walter, Henrik A1 - Lenz, Bernd A1 - Deserno, Lorenz A1 - Smolka, Michael N. A1 - Liu, Shuyan A1 - Ebner-Priemer, Ulrich Walter A1 - Heinz, Andreas A1 - Rapp, Michael Armin T1 - Patterns of Alcohol Consumption Among Individuals With Alcohol Use Disorder During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Lockdowns in Germany JF - JAMA Network Open N2 - Importance Alcohol consumption (AC) leads to death and disability worldwide. Ongoing discussions on potential negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on AC need to be informed by real-world evidence. Objective To examine whether lockdown measures are associated with AC and consumption-related temporal and psychological within-person mechanisms. Design, Setting, and Participants This quantitative, intensive, longitudinal cohort study recruited 1743 participants from 3 sites from February 20, 2020, to February 28, 2021. Data were provided before and within the second lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany: before lockdown (October 2 to November 1, 2020); light lockdown (November 2 to December 15, 2020); and hard lockdown (December 16, 2020, to February 28, 2021). Main Outcomes and Measures Daily ratings of AC (main outcome) captured during 3 lockdown phases (main variable) and temporal (weekends and holidays) and psychological (social isolation and drinking intention) correlates. Results Of the 1743 screened participants, 189 (119 [63.0%] male; median [IQR] age, 37 [27.5-52.0] years) with at least 2 alcohol use disorder (AUD) criteria according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fifth Edition) yet without the need for medically supervised alcohol withdrawal were included. These individuals provided 14 694 smartphone ratings from October 2020 through February 2021. Multilevel modeling revealed significantly higher AC (grams of alcohol per day) on weekend days vs weekdays (β = 11.39; 95% CI, 10.00-12.77; P < .001). Alcohol consumption was above the overall average on Christmas (β = 26.82; 95% CI, 21.87-31.77; P < .001) and New Year’s Eve (β = 66.88; 95% CI, 59.22-74.54; P < .001). During the hard lockdown, perceived social isolation was significantly higher (β = 0.12; 95% CI, 0.06-0.15; P < .001), but AC was significantly lower (β = −5.45; 95% CI, −8.00 to −2.90; P = .001). Independent of lockdown, intention to drink less alcohol was associated with lower AC (β = −11.10; 95% CI, −13.63 to −8.58; P < .001). Notably, differences in AC between weekend and weekdays decreased both during the hard lockdown (β = −6.14; 95% CI, −9.96 to −2.31; P = .002) and in participants with severe AUD (β = −6.26; 95% CI, −10.18 to −2.34; P = .002). Conclusions and Relevance This 5-month cohort study found no immediate negative associations of lockdown measures with overall AC. Rather, weekend-weekday and holiday AC patterns exceeded lockdown effects. Differences in AC between weekend days and weekdays evinced that weekend drinking cycles decreased as a function of AUD severity and lockdown measures, indicating a potential mechanism of losing and regaining control. This finding suggests that temporal patterns and drinking intention constitute promising targets for prevention and intervention, even in high-risk individuals. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.24641 SN - 2574-3805 VL - 5 SP - 1 EP - 11 PB - JAMA Network / American Medical Association CY - Chicago, Illinois, USA ET - 8 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Perkins, Anita A1 - Rose, Andrew A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter A1 - Rojas-Jimenez, Keilor Osvaldo A1 - Barroso Prescott, Selva Kiri A1 - Oakes, Joanne M. T1 - Oxic and Anoxic Organic Polymer Degradation Potential of Endophytic Fungi From the Marine Macroalga, Ecklonia radiata JF - Frontiers in Microbiology N2 - Cellulose and chitin are the most abundant polymeric, organic carbon source globally. Thus, microbes degrading these polymers significantly influence global carbon cycling and greenhouse gas production. Fungi are recognized as important for cellulose decomposition in terrestrial environments, but are far less studied in marine environments, where bacterial organic matter degradation pathways tend to receive more attention. In this study, we investigated the potential of fungi to degrade kelp detritus, which is a major source of cellulose in marine systems. Given that kelp detritus can be transported considerable distances in the marine environment, we were specifically interested in the capability of endophytic fungi, which are transported with detritus, to ultimately contribute to kelp detritus degradation. We isolated 10 species and two strains of endophytic fungi from the kelp Ecklonia radiata. We then used a dye decolorization assay to assess their ability to degrade organic polymers (lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose) under both oxic and anoxic conditions and compared their degradation ability with common terrestrial fungi. Under oxic conditions, there was evidence that Ascomycota isolates produced cellulose-degrading extracellular enzymes (associated with manganese peroxidase and sulfur-containing lignin peroxidase), while Mucoromycota isolates appeared to produce both lignin and cellulose-degrading extracellular enzymes, and all Basidiomycota isolates produced lignin-degrading enzymes (associated with laccase and lignin peroxidase). Under anoxic conditions, only three kelp endophytes degraded cellulose. We concluded that kelp fungal endophytes can contribute to cellulose degradation in both oxic and anoxic environments. Thus, endophytic kelp fungi may play a significant role in marine carbon cycling via polymeric organic matter degradation. KW - kelp KW - fungi KW - endophytes KW - carbon cycling KW - extracellular enzymes KW - cellulose polymeric organic matter Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2021.726138 SN - 1664-302X VL - 12 SP - 1 EP - 13 PB - Frontiers in microbiology CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ye, Fangyuan A1 - Zhang, Shuo A1 - Warby, Jonathan A1 - Wu, Jiawei A1 - Gutierrez-Partida, Emilio A1 - Lang, Felix A1 - Shah, Sahil A1 - Saglamkaya, Elifnaz A1 - Sun, Bowen A1 - Zu, Fengshuo A1 - Shoai, Safa A1 - Wang, Haifeng A1 - Stiller, Burkhard A1 - Neher, Dieter A1 - Zhu, Wei-Hong A1 - Stolterfoht, Martin A1 - Wu, Yongzhen T1 - Overcoming C₆₀-induced interfacial recombination in inverted perovskite solar cells by electron-transporting carborane JF - Nature Communications N2 - Inverted perovskite solar cells still suffer from significant non-radiative recombination losses at the perovskite surface and across the perovskite/C₆₀ interface, limiting the future development of perovskite-based single- and multi-junction photovoltaics. Therefore, more effective inter- or transport layers are urgently required. To tackle these recombination losses, we introduce ortho-carborane as an interlayer material that has a spherical molecular structure and a three-dimensional aromaticity. Based on a variety of experimental techniques, we show that ortho-carborane decorated with phenylamino groups effectively passivates the perovskite surface and essentially eliminates the non-radiative recombination loss across the perovskite/C₆₀ interface with high thermal stability. We further demonstrate the potential of carborane as an electron transport material, facilitating electron extraction while blocking holes from the interface. The resulting inverted perovskite solar cells deliver a power conversion efficiency of over 23% with a low non-radiative voltage loss of 110 mV, and retain >97% of the initial efficiency after 400 h of maximum power point tracking. Overall, the designed carborane based interlayer simultaneously enables passivation, electron-transport and hole-blocking and paves the way toward more efficient and stable perovskite solar cells. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34203-x SN - 2041-1723 VL - 13 PB - Springer Nature CY - London ER - TY - THES A1 - Ruiz Rodriguez, Janete Lorena T1 - Osmotic pressure effects on collagen mimetic peptides N2 - Collagen is the most abundant protein in mammals. In many tissues, collagen molecules assemble to form a hierarchical structure. In the smallest supramolecular unit, named fibril, each molecule is displaced in the axial direction with respect to its neighbors. This staggering creates a periodic gap and overlap regions, where the gap regions exhibit 20% less density. These fibril-forming collagens play an essential role in the strength of connective tissues. Despite much effort, directed at understanding collagen function and regulation, the influence of the chemical environment on the local structural and mechanical properties remains poorly understood. Recent studies, aimed at elucidating the effect of osmotic pressure, showed that collagen contracts upon water removal. This observation highlights the importance of water for the stabilization and mechanics of the collagen molecule. Using collagen mimetic peptides (CMPs), which fold into triple helical structures reminiscent of natural collagen, the primary goal of this work was to investigate the effect of the osmotic pressure on specific collagen-mimetic sequences. CMPs were used as the model system as they provide sequence control, which is essential for discriminating local from global structural changes and for relating the observed effects to existing knowledge about the full-length collagen molecule. Of specific interest was the structure of individual collagen triple helices as well as their organization into self-assembled higher order structures. These key structural features were monitored with infrared spectroscopy (IR) and synchrotron X-ray scattering, while varying the osmotic pressure. For controlling the osmotic pressure, CMP powder samples were incubated in air of defined relative humidity, ranging from dry conditions to highly “humid”. In addition, to obtain more biologically relevant conditions, the CMPs were measured in ultrapure water and in solutions containing small molecule osmolytes. Using the sequences (Pro-Pro-Gly)10, (Pro-Hyp-Gly)10 and (Hyp-Hyp-Gly)10, it was shown that CMPs with different degrees of proline hydroxylation (Hyp = hydroxyproline) exhibit a sequence-specific response to osmotic pressure. IR spectroscopy revealed that osmotic pressure changes affect the strength of the triple helix stabilizing, interchain hydrogen bond and that the extent of this change depends on the degree of hydroxylation. X-ray scattering experiments further showed that changes in osmotic pressure affect both the molecular length as well as the higher order organization of CMPs. Starting from a pseudo-hexagonal packing in the dry state, all three CMPs showed isotropic swelling when increasing the water content to approximately 1.2 water molecules per amino acid, again to different extents depending on the degree of hydroxylation. When increasing the water content further, this pseudo-hexagonal arrangement breaks down. In the fully hydrated state, each CMP is characterized by its own specific and more complex packing geometry. While these changes in the lateral packing arrangement suggest swelling upon hydration, an overall decrease of the molecular length (i.e. contraction) was observed in the axial direction. Also for this structural feature, a strong dependency on the specific amino acid sequence was found. Interestingly, the observed contraction is the opposite of what has been reported for natural collagen. As (Pro-Pro-Gly)n, (Pro-Hyp-Gly)n and (Hyp-Hyp-Gly)n repeat units are found in collagen with a relatively high abundance, this suggests that other collagen sequence fragments need to respond to hydration in the opposite way to obtain a net elongation of the full-length collagen molecule. To test this hypothesis, sequences predicted to be sensitive to osmotic pressure were considered. One such sequence, consisting of two repeat units (Ala-Arg-Gly-Ser-Asp-Gly), was inserted as a guest into a (Pro-Pro-Gly) host. When compared to the canonical CMP sequences investigated earlier, the lateral helix packing follows a similar trend with increasing hydration; however, the host-guest CMP axially elongates with increasing water content. This behavior is more similar to what has been found for natural collagen and suggests that different sequences do determine the molecular length of collagen sequences differently. Interestingly, the canonical sequences are more abundant in the overlap region while the guest sequence is found in the gap region. This allows to speculate that sequences in the gap and overlap regions possess a specifically fine-tuned local response to osmotic pressure changes. Clearly, more experiments with additional sequences are needed to confirm this. In conclusion, the results obtained in this work indicate a highly sequence specific interaction between collagen and water. Osmotic pressure-induced conformational changes mostly originate from local geometries and bonding patterns and affect both the structure of individual triple helices as well as higher order assemblies. One key remaining question is how these conformational changes affect the local mechanical properties of the collagen molecule. As a first step, the stiffness (persistence length) of full-length collagen was determined using atomic force microscopy. In the future, experimental strategies need to be developed that allow for investigating the mechanical properties of specific collagen sequences, e.g. performing single-molecule force spectroscopy of CMPs. Y1 - 2019 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hauffe, Robert A1 - Rath, Michaela A1 - Agyapong, Wilson A1 - Jonas, Wenke A1 - Vogel, Heike A1 - Schulz, Tim Julius A1 - Schwarz, Maria A1 - Kipp, Anna Patricia A1 - Blüher, Matthias A1 - Kleinridders, André T1 - Obesity Hinders the Protective Effect of Selenite Supplementation on Insulin Signaling JF - Antioxidants N2 - The intake of high-fat diets (HFDs) containing large amounts of saturated long-chain fatty acids leads to obesity, oxidative stress, inflammation, and insulin resistance. The trace element selenium, as a crucial part of antioxidative selenoproteins, can protect against the development of diet-induced insulin resistance in white adipose tissue (WAT) by increasing glutathione peroxidase 3 (GPx3) and insulin receptor (IR) expression. Whether selenite (Se) can attenuate insulin resistance in established lipotoxic and obese conditions is unclear. We confirm that GPX3 mRNA expression in adipose tissue correlates with BMI in humans. Cultivating 3T3-L1 pre-adipocytes in palmitate-containing medium followed by Se treatment attenuates insulin resistance with enhanced GPx3 and IR expression and adipocyte differentiation. However, feeding obese mice a selenium-enriched high-fat diet (SRHFD) only resulted in a modest increase in overall selenoprotein gene expression in WAT in mice with unaltered body weight development, glucose tolerance, and insulin resistance. While Se supplementation improved adipocyte morphology, it did not alter WAT insulin sensitivity. However, mice fed a SRHFD exhibited increased insulin content in the pancreas. Overall, while selenite protects against palmitate-induced insulin resistance in vitro, obesity impedes the effect of selenite on insulin action and adipose tissue metabolism in vivo. KW - selenite KW - insulin KW - adipose tissue KW - obesity KW - insulin resistance Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox11050862 SN - 2076-3921 VL - 11 SP - 1 EP - 16 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 5 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hermanussen, Michael A1 - Scheffler, Christiane T1 - Nutrition, size, and tempo JF - Human biology and public health N2 - Nutrition is a prerequisite, but not a regulator of growth. Growth is defined as increase in size over time. The understanding of growth includes an understanding of the binary concept of physical time and individual tempo. Excess food causes tempo acceleration. Food restriction delays tempo. Tempo reflects the pace of life. It is a dynamic physical response to a broad spectrum of social, economic, political, and emotional (SEPE) factors and can affect life expectancy. Variations in tempo create distortions of the z-score patterns of height and weight. Illness or intermediate food shortage lead to intermediate halts in development and create short dips in the z-score patterns. Children who develop throughout life at delayed pace usually run at lower z-scores for height and weight, and show a characteristic adolescent trough; children who develop throughout life at faster than average pace usually run at higher z-scores and show a characteristic adolescent peak in their z-score patterns. During adolescence, almost half of the height variance is due to tempo variation. There is not one tempo for the whole body. Different organ systems grow and mature at different pace. KW - food access KW - physical time KW - SEPS factors KW - pace of life KW - catch-up-growth Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.52905/hbph2022.3.37 SN - 2748-9957 VL - 2022 IS - 3 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Czarnecka, Malgorzata A1 - Weichelt, Ulrike A1 - Rödiger, Stefan A1 - Hanack, Katja T1 - Novel Anti Double-Stranded Nucleic Acids Full-Length Recombinant Camelid Heavy-Chain Antibody for the Detection of miRNA JF - International Journal of Molecular Sciences N2 - The discovery that certain diseases have specific miRNA signatures which correspond to disease progression opens a new biomarker category. The detection of these small non-coding RNAs is performed routinely using body fluids or tissues with real-time PCR, next-generation sequencing, or amplification-based miRNA assays. Antibody-based detection systems allow an easy onset handling compared to PCR or sequencing and can be considered as alternative methods to support miRNA diagnostic in the future. In this study, we describe the generation of a camelid heavy-chain-only antibody specifically recognizing miRNAs to establish an antibody-based detection method. The generation of nucleic acid-specific binders is a challenge. We selected camelid binders via phage display, expressed them as VHH as well as full-length antibodies, and characterized the binding to several miRNAs from a signature specific for dilated cardiomyopathy. The described workflow can be used to create miRNA-specific binders and establish antibody-based detection methods to provide an additional way to analyze disease-specific miRNA signatures. KW - antibody KW - camelid antibody KW - heavy-chain-only antibody KW - miRNA KW - nucleic acids KW - novel biomarkers Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms23116275 SN - 1422-0067 VL - 23 SP - 1 EP - 18 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 11 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rösler, Antonia A1 - Scheffler, Christiane A1 - Hermanussen, Michael T1 - No evidence of growth impairment after forced migration in Polish school children after World War II JF - Human biology and public health N2 - Background: Migration is omnipresent. It can come hand in hand with emotional stress which is known to influence the growth of children. Objective: The aim of this study was to analyse whether type of migration (forced or voluntary) and the geographic direction had influenced the growth of Polish children after World War II. Sample and Methods: A sub dataset of 2,208 individuals between the ages of 2-20, created from data of the 2nd Polish Anthropological Survey carried out in 1966–1969, including anthropometrical data and social and demographic information based on questionnaire, was used to analyse migration effects. Results: No association could be found between the direction of migration and the height of the children. The confidence intervals of the means of all classified migration categories overlap significantly and the effect size of the influence of migration category on height is ds=.140, which is too low to see any effects, even if there were one. Conclusion: Neither forced nor voluntary migration in Poland after World War II led to a change in height in children of migrating families. KW - nutrition KW - stunting KW - socioeconomy KW - education KW - secular changes KW - pubertal timing Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.52905/hbph2023.1.68 SN - 2748-9957 VL - 1 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Novine, Masiar A1 - Mattsson, Cecilie Cordua A1 - Groth, Detlef T1 - Network reconstruction based on synthetic data generated by a Monte Carlo approach JF - Human biology and public health N2 - Background: Network models are useful tools for researchers to simplify and understand investigated systems. Yet, the assessment of methods for network construction is often uncertain. Random resampling simulations can aid to assess methods, provided synthetic data exists for reliable network construction. Objectives: We implemented a new Monte Carlo algorithm to create simulated data for network reconstruction, tested the influence of adjusted parameters and used simulations to select a method for network model estimation based on real-world data. We hypothesized, that reconstructs based on Monte Carlo data are scored at least as good compared to a benchmark. Methods: Simulated data was generated in R using the Monte Carlo algorithm of the mcgraph package. Benchmark data was created by the huge package. Networks were reconstructed using six estimator functions and scored by four classification metrics. For compatibility tests of mean score differences, Welch’s t-test was used. Network model estimation based on real-world data was done by stepwise selection. Samples: Simulated data was generated based on 640 input graphs of various types and sizes. The real-world dataset consisted of 67 medieval skeletons of females and males from the region of Refshale (Lolland) and Nordby (Jutland) in Denmark. Results: Results after t-tests and determining confidence intervals (CI95%) show, that evaluation scores for network reconstructs based on the mcgraph package were at least as good compared to the benchmark huge. The results even indicate slightly better scores on average for the mcgraph package. Conclusion: The results confirmed our objective and suggested that Monte Carlo data can keep up with the benchmark in the applied test framework. The algorithm offers the feature to use (weighted) un- and directed graphs and might be useful for assessing methods for network construction. KW - Monte Carlo method KW - network reconstruction KW - mcgraph KW - random sampling KW - linear enamel hypoplasia Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.52905/hbph2021.3.26 SN - 2748-9957 VL - 2021 IS - 3, Summer School Supplement PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Marggraf, Lara Christin A1 - Lindecke, Oliver A1 - Voigt, Christian C. A1 - Pētersons, Gunārs A1 - Voigt-Heucke, Silke Luise T1 - Nathusius’ bats, Pipistrellus nathusii, bypass mating opportunities of their own species, but respond to foraging heterospecifics on migratory transit flights JF - Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution N2 - In late summer, migratory bats of the temperate zone face the challenge of accomplishing two energy-demanding tasks almost at the same time: migration and mating. Both require information and involve search efforts, such as localizing prey or finding potential mates. In non-migrating bat species, playback studies showed that listening to vocalizations of other bats, both con-and heterospecifics, may help a recipient bat to find foraging patches and mating sites. However, we are still unaware of the degree to which migrating bats depend on con-or heterospecific vocalizations for identifying potential feeding or mating opportunities during nightly transit flights. Here, we investigated the vocal responses of Nathusius’ pipistrelle bats, Pipistrellus nathusii, to simulated feeding and courtship aggregations at a coastal migration corridor. We presented migrating bats either feeding buzzes or courtship calls of their own or a heterospecific migratory species, the common noctule, Nyctalus noctula. We expected that during migratory transit flights, simulated feeding opportunities would be particularly attractive to bats, as well as simulated mating opportunities which may indicate suitable roosts for a stopover. However, we found that when compared to the natural silence of both pre-and post-playback phases, bats called indifferently during the playback of conspecific feeding sounds, whereas P. nathusii echolocation call activity increased during simulated feeding of N. noctula. In contrast, the call activity of P. nathusii decreased during the playback of conspecific courtship calls, while no response could be detected when heterospecific call types were broadcasted. Our results suggest that while on migratory transits, P. nathusii circumnavigate conspecific mating aggregations, possibly to save time or to reduce the risks associated with social interactions where aggression due to territoriality might be expected. This avoidance behavior could be a result of optimization strategies by P. nathusii when performing long-distance migratory flights, and it could also explain the lack of a response to simulated conspecific feeding. However, the observed increase of activity in response to simulated feeding of N. noctula, suggests that P. nathusii individuals may be eavesdropping on other aerial hawking insectivorous species during migration, especially if these occupy a slightly different foraging niche. KW - playback KW - phonotaxis KW - bats KW - acoustic communication KW - animal migration KW - eavesdropping KW - echolocation KW - Pipistrellus nathusii Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2022.908560 SN - 2296-701X SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - Frontiers CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - THES A1 - Störmann, Florian Konstantin T1 - Multifunctional Microballoons for the active and passive control of fluid-flows N2 - Functional materials, also called "Smart Materials", are described by their ability to fulfill a desired task through targeted interaction with its environment. Due to this functional integration, such materials are of increased interest, especially in areas where the increasing micronization of components is required. Modern manufacturing processes (e.g. microfluidics) and the availability of a wide variety of functional materials (e.g. shape memory materials) now enable the production of particle-based switching components. This category includes micropumps and microvalves, whose basic function is the active control of liquid flows. One approach in realizing those microcomponents as pursued by this work, enables variable size-switching of water-filled microballoons by implementing a stimulus-sensitive switching motif in the capsule's membrane shell, while being under the influence of a constant driving force. The switching motif with its gatekeeper function has a critical influence on one or more material parameters, which modulate the capsule's resistance against the driving force in microballoon expansion process. The advantage of this concept is that even non-variable analyte conditions, such as concentration levels of ions, can be capitalized to generate external force fields that, under the control of the membrane, cause an inflation of the microballoon by an osmotically driven water influx. In case of osmotic pressure gradients as the driving force for the capsule expansion, material parameters associated with the gatekeeper function are specifically the permeability and the mechanical stiffness of the shell material. While a modulation of the shell permeability could be utilized to kinetically impede the water influx on large time scales, a modulation of the shell's mechanical stiffness even might be utilized to completely prevent the capsule inflation due to a possible non-deformability beneath a certain threshold pressure. In polymer networks, which are a suitable material class for the demanded capsule shell because of their excellent elasticity, both the permeability and the mechanical properties are strongly influenced by the crystallinity of the material. Since the permeability is effectively reduced with increasing crystallinity, while the mechanical stiffness is simultaneously greatly increased, both effects point in the same direction in terms of their functional relationship. For this reason and due to a reversible and contactless modulation of the membrane crystallinity by heat input, crystallites may be suitable switching motifs for controlling the capsule expansion. As second design element of reversible expandable microballoons, the capsule geometry, defined by an aqueous core enveloped by the temperature-sensitive polymer network membrane, should allow an osmotic pressure gradient across the membrane layer. The strength of the inflation pressure and the associated inflation velocity upon membrane melting should be controlled by the salt concentration within the aqueous core, while a turn in the osmotic gradient should furthermore allow the reversible process of capsule deflation. Therefore, it should be possible to build either microvalves and micropumps, while their intended action of either pumping or valving is determined by their state of expansion and the direction of the osmotic pressure gradient.. Microballoons of approximately 300 µm in diameter were formed via droplet-based microfluidics from double-emulsion templates (w/o/w). The elastomeric capsule membrane was formed by photo-crosslinking of methacrylate (MA) functionalized oligo(ε-caprolactone) precursors (≈ 3.8 MA-arms, Mn ≈ 12000 g mol-1) within the organic medium layer (o) via UV-exposure after droplet-formation. After removal of the toluene/chloroform mixture by slow extraction via the continuous aqueous phase, the capsules solidified under the development of a characteristic "mushroom"-like shape at specific experimental conditions (e.g. λ = 308 nm, 57 mJ·s-1·cm-2, 16 min). It could be furthermore shown that in dependency to the process parameters: oligomer concentration and curing-time also spherical capsules were accessible. Long curing-times and high oligomer concentrations at a fixed light-intensity favored the formation of "mushroom"-like capsules, whereas the contrary led to spherical shaped capsules. A comparative study on thin polymer network films of same composition and equal treatment proved a correlation between the film's crosslink density and their contraction capability, while stronger crosslinked polymer networks showed a stronger contraction after solvent removal. In combination with observations during capsule solidification via light-microscopy, where a continuous shaping from almost spherical crosslinked templates to "mushroom"-shaped and solidified capsules was stated, the following mechanism was proposed. In case of low oligomer contents and short curing-times, the contraction of the capsule shell during solvent removal is strongly diminished due to a low degree of crosslinking. Therefore, the solidifying shell could freely collapse onto the aqueous core. In the other case, high oligomer concentrations and long curing-times will favor the formation of highly crosslinked capsule membranes with a strong contraction capability. Due to an observed decentered location of the aqueous core within the swollen polymer network, an uneven radial stress along the capsule's circumference is exerted to the incompressible core. This lead to an uneven contraction during solvent removal and a directed flow of the core fluid into the direction of the minimal stress vector. In consequence, the initially thicker spherical cap contracts, whereas the opposing thinner spherical cap get stretched. The "mushroom"-shape over some advantages over their spherical shaped counterparts, why they were selected for the further experiments. Besides the necessity of a high density of crosslinking for the purpose of extraordinary elasticity and toughness, the form-anisotropy promotes a faster microballoon expandability due to a partial reduction of the membrane thickness. Additionally, pre-stretched regions of thin thickness might provide a better resistance against inflation pressure than spherical but non-stretched capsules of equal membrane thickness. The resulting "mushroom"-shaped microcapsules exhibited a melting point of Tm ≈ 50 - 60 °C and a degree of crystallinity of Xc ≈ 29 - 38 % depending on the membrane thickness and internal salt content, which is slightly lower than for the non-crosslinked oligomer and reasoned by a limited chain mobility upon crosslinking. Nonetheless, the melting transition of the polymer network was associated with a strong drop in its mechanical stiffness, which was shown to have a strong influence on the osmotic driven expansion of the microcapsules. Capsules that were subjected to osmotic pressures between 1.5 and 4.7 MPa did not expand if the temperature was well below the melting point of the capsule's membrane, i.e. at room temperature. In contrast, a continuous expansion, while approaching asymptotically to a final capsule size, was observed if the temperature exceeded the melting point, i.e. 60 °C. Microballoons, which were kept for 56 days at ∆Π = 1.5 MPa and room temperature, did not change significantly in diameter, why the impact of the mechanical stiffness on the expansion behavior is considered to be the greater than the influence of the shell permeability. The time-resolved expansion behavior of the microballoons above their Tm was subsequently modeled, using difusion equations that were corrected for shape anisotropy and elastic restoring forces. A shape-related and expansion dependent pre-factor was used to dynamically address the influence of the shell thickness differences along the circumference on the inflation velocity, whereas the microballoon's elastic contraction upon inflation was rendered by the inclusion of a hyperelastic constitutive model. An important finding resulting from this model was the pronounced increase in inflation velocity compared to hypothetical capsules with a homogeneous shell thickness, which stresses the benefit of employing shape anisotropic balloon-like capsules in this study. Furthermore, the model was able to predict the finite expandability on basis of entropy-elastic recovery forces and strain-hardening effects. A comparison of six different microballoons with different shell thicknesses and internal salt contents showed the linear relationship between the volumetric expansion, the shell thickness and the applied osmotic pressure, as represented by the model. As the proposed model facilitates the prediction of the expansion kinetics depending on the membranes mechanical and diffusional characteristics, it might be a screening tool for future material selections. In course of the microballoon expansion process, capsules of intermediate diameters could be isolated by recrystallization of the membrane, which is mainly caused by a restoration of the membrane's mechanical stiffness and is otherwise difficult to achieve with other stimuli-sensitive systems. The capsule's crystallinity of intermediate expansion states was nearly unchanged, whereas the lamellar crystal size tends to decreased with the expansion ratio. Therefore, it was assumed that the elastic modulus was only minimally altered and might increased due to the networks segment-chain extension. In addition to the volume increase achieved by inflation, a turn in the osmotic gradient also facilitated the reversible deflation, which was shown in inflation/deflation cycles. These both characteristics of the introduced microballoons are important parameter regarding the realization of micropumps and microvalves. The fixation of expanded microcapsules via recrystallization enabled the storage of entropy-elastic strain-energy, which could be utilized for pumping actions in non-aqueous media. Here, the pumping velocity depended on both, the type of surrounding medium and the applied temperature. Surrounding media that supported the fast transport of pumped liquid showed an accelerated deflation, while high temperatures further accelerate the pumping velocity. Very fast rejection of the incorporated payload was furthermore realized with pierced expanded microballoons, which were subjected to temperatures above their Tm. The possible fixation of intermediate particle sizes provide opportunities for vent constructions that allowed the precise adjustment of specific flow-rates and multiple valve openings and closings. A valve construction was realized by the insertion of a single or multiple microballoons in a microfluidic channel. A complete and a partial closing of the microballoon-valves was demonstrated as a function of the heating period. In this context, a difference between the inflation and deflation velocity was stated, summarizing slower expansion kinetics. Overall, microballoons, which presented both on-demand pumping and reversible valving by a temperature-triggered change in the capsule's volume, might be suitable components that help to design fully integrated LOC devices, due to the implementation of the control switch and controllable inflation/deflation kinetics. In comparison to other state of the art stimuli-sensitive materials, one has to highlight the microballoons capability of stabilizing almost continuously intermediate capsule sizes by simple recrystallization of the microballoon's membrane. N2 - Funktionsmaterialien, auch "Smart Materials" genannt, werden durch ihre Fähigkeit, durch die gezielte Interaktion mit seiner Umgebung eine gewünschte Aufgabe zu erfüllen, beschrieben. Aufgrund dieser Funktionsintegration sind solche Materialien vor allem in Bereichen, in denen die zunehmende Mikronisierung von Bauteilen benötigt wird, von gesteigerten Interesse. Moderne Fertigungsverfahren (z..B. Mikrofluidik) und die Verfügbarkeit verschiedenster Funktionsmaterialien (z.B. Formgedächtnismaterialien) ermöglichen heutzutage die Herstellung partikelbasierter Schaltkomponenten. In diese Kategorie fallen unter anderem Mikropumpen und Mikroventile, deren grundsätzliche Funktion die aktive Steuerung von Flüssigkeitsströmen ist. Ein Ansatz zur Realisierung solcher Mikroschalter, der von dieser Arbeit verfolgt wurde, basiert auf wassergefüllten Mikroballons mit einem integrierten stimuli-sensitiven Schaltelement, welche unter dem Einfluss einer konstanten Antriebskraft eine Gröÿenänderung erfahren. Das Schaltmotiv als kontrollierende Instanz entscheidet dabei über die Auswirkung der einwirkenden Kraft auf die Gröÿenänderung durch ihren Einfluss auf einen oder mehrere Materialparameter. Dies ermöglicht die Ausnutzung nicht-variabler Analytbedingungen, wie zum Beispiel Ionenkonzentrationsunterschiede, zur Erzeugung von Kraftfeldern, welche eine Expansion der Mikroballons durch Osmose hervorrufen. Materialparameter welche mit osmotischen Volumenströmen assoziiert sind und diese steuern, sind im Speziellen die Permeabilität und die mechanische Steifigkeit der Kapselmembran. Durch eine Verringerung der Permeabilität kann die Expansionsgeschwindigkeit der Kapseln kinetisch gehemmt und zu langen Zeitperioden hin verschoben werden, wohingegen eine Verstärkung der mechanischen Steifigkeit die Expansion der Kapseln komplett unterbinden kann, indem der angelegte osmotische Druck unterhalb des zur Dehnung notwendigen Schwellendruck liegt.. In Verbindung mit Polymernetzwerken, welche aufgrund ihrer herausragenden Elastizität und Zähfestigkeit eine geeignete Materialklasse für die Herstellung der Kapselmembran darstellen, sind sowohl die Permeabilität als auch die mechanische Steifigkeit mit der Kristallinität des Materials assoziiert. Grundsätzlich kann festgestellt werden, dass die Permeabilität mit der Kristallinität sinkt, wohingegen die Steifigkeit mit ihr steigt. Die Expansion der Kapseln sollte demnach in Abhängigkeit der Kristallinität des Hüllmaterials ermöglicht oder unterbunden werden können, weswegen sich Kristallite als temperatur-sensitive Schaltmotive eignen sollten. Das zweite Designelement von reversibel expandierbaren Mikroballons wird durch die Kapselgeometrie beschrieben, welche sowohl einen wässrigen Kern als auch eine elastomere, semi-permeable Membran aufweist. Diese Kompartimentierung ermöglicht zum einen die Generierung eines osmotischen Druckgradientens zwischen Kapselkern und Umgebung und zum anderen die Erzeugung einer dünnen und umspannenden Polymermembran. Der osmotische Druck als auch die hiermit einhergehende Expansionsgeschwindigkeit nach Aufschmelzen der Kapselmembran sollte durch das Einstellen des Salzgehaltes des Partikelkerns möglich sein. Eine reversible Kapselschrumpfung nach erfolgter Expansion sollte durch Änderungen des äußeren Salzgehaltes zugänglich sein. Auf Basis dieses Konzepts sollten demnach reversibel schaltbare Mikropumpen und Mikroventile realisierbar sein, wobei die Art ihrer Funktion sowohl von ihrem Expansionszustand als auch von der Richtung des osmotischen Druckgradienten abhängt. Die templat-basierte Erzeugung von Mikroballons mit einem Durchmesser von ca. 300 µm erfolgte aus (w/o/w) Doppelemulsionströpfchen mittels Mikrofluidik. Die elastomere Kapselmembran wurde durch Photovernetzung von Methacrylat funktionalisierten oligo(ϵ-caprolacton) Vorläufern (≈ 3.8 MA-Arme, Mn ≈ 12000 g mol-1) aus der organischen Phase (o) und nach Abschluss der Tröpfchenformierung erzeugt. Nach Verfestigung der Kapselmembran durch langsames extrahieren des Lösungsmittelgemisches (Toluol/Chloroform) über die kontinuierliche wässrige Phase, wurden unter bestimmten Reaktionsbedingungen während der Photovernetzung (e.g. λ = 308 nm, 57 mJ·s-1·cm-2, 16 min) formanisotrope "pilzförmige" Mikrokapseln erhalten. Es wurde festgestellt, dass über die Syntheseparameter der Oligomerkonzentration und Belichtungszeit, die Formgebung zwischen kugelförmigen und "pilzförmigen" Kapseln gesteuert werden konnte. Im Fall von niedrigen Oligomerkonzentrationen und kurzen Belichtungszeiten wurden kugelförmige Mikrokapseln und ansonsten "pilzförmige" Kapseln erzeugt. In einer vergleichenden Studie an dünnen Polymernetzwerkfilmen gleicher Zusammensetzung und Behandlung konnte ein Zusammenhang zwischen den beiden Syntheseparametern und der Kontraktilität der Filme bestätigt werden, wobei im Falle höherer Oligomerkonzentrationen und längeren Belichtungszeiten eine stärkere Kontraktion der Filme nach Abdampfen des Lösungsmittelgemisches beobachtet werden konnte. Zusammen mit Beobachtungen eines kontinuierlichen Ausprägens der "Pilzform" von initial annähernd kugelförmigen Kapseln im Laufe des Verfestigungsprozesses mittels Lichtmikroskopie wird folgender Mechanismus der Formausprägung vorgeschlagen. Kapseln mit niedriger Vernetzungsdichte zeigen nur eine geringe Kontraktilität, wodurch das Polymernetzwerk nach Extraktion des Lösungsmittelgemisches frei auf der Kernoberfläche kollabieren kann. Stark vernetzte Kapseln weisen hingegen eine sehr starke Schrumpfung infolge des Lösungsmittelverlustes auf. Aufgrund der nicht mittigen Positionierung des wässrigen Kerns mit Abschluss der Tröpfchenbildung und der darauf ausgebildeten inhomogenen Schichtdickenverteilung ergeben sich unterschiedlich starke radiale Spannungsunterschiede entlang der Membran. Bereiche großer Materialstärke kontrahieren infolge stärker und sorgen für eine Verformung des inkompressiblen wässrigen Kerns in Richtung dünnerer Membransegmente, welche daraufhin gedehnt werden. Nach Abschluss der Membranverfestigung liegen demnach entspannte und stark vorgedehnte Membransegmente vor, die aufgrund der Kristallisation konserviert werden. Die "Pilzform" bietet hinsichtlich der Expansionseigenschaften der Mikroballons einige Vorteile gegenüber ihrem kugelförmigen Pendant, weswegen diese für die weiteren Experimente verwendet wurden. Neben den Anforderung hoher Vernetzungsdichten zum Zwecke der geforderten Elastizität, wird durch die Formanisotropie und der damit verbundenen Schichtdickenunterschiede die Expansionsgeschwindigkeit der Kapseln gesteigert. Weiterhin könnte die Vorstreckung der dünnen Membranschichten eine zusätzliche Stabilität gegenüber dem angelegten osmotischen Drucks aufweisen und somit ein ungewolltes Expandieren unterhalb der Schmelztemperatur erschweren. Die resultierenden "pilzförmigen" Mikroballons wiesen je nach eingestellter Schichtdicke und innerer Salzkonzentration, einen Schmelzpunkt von Tm ≈ 50 - 60 °C und einen Kristallisationsgrad von Xc ≈ 29 - 38 % auf, welche verglichen mit dem unvernetzten PCL Homopolymer geringfügig kleiner waren. Dies liegt zum einen an der erhöhten Anzahl von Kettenenden und zum anderen an der eingeschränkten Kettenmobilität infolge der Oligomervernetzung. Es konnte jedoch weiterhin eine starke Verringerung der mechanischen Steifigkeit nach dem Überschreiten der Schmelztemperatur beobachtet werden. Der große Einfluss der Temperatur auf die Expansion der Mikroballons konnte für mehrere Kapseln bestätigt werden. Kapseln welche einem osmotischen Druck von 1.5 bis 4.7 MPa ausgesetzt waren zeigten keine Größenveränderung bei Raumtemperatur, d.h. weit unterhalb der Schmelztemperatur. Im Gegensatz hierzu wurde eine starke Volumenzunahme aller Kapseln nach dem Überschreiten der Schmelztemperatur, bei 60 °C festgestellt. Mikroballons welche für 56 Tage einem osmotischen Druck von 1.5 MPa bei Raumtemperatur ausgesetzt waren zeigten keine signifikanten Volumenänderungen, weswegen insbesondere der Effekt der mechanischen Erweichung ausschlaggebend für das Schaltprinzip gemacht werden kann. Das zeitaufgelöste Expansionsverhalten der Mikroballons oberhalb ihres Schmelzpunktes wurde daraufhin unter Verwendung von Diffusionsgleichungen, welche für die Formanisotropie und elastische Rückstellkräfte korrigiert wurden, modelliert. Ein formabhängiger Vorfaktor, der die Expansionsgeschwindigkeit in Abhängigkeit der Schichtdickenunterschiede und des Expansionszustandes beschreibt, wurde ebenso eingeführt wie ein Term zur Beschreibung der mechanischen Rückstellkräfte auf Basis eines hyperelastischen Materialmodells. Das Model ermöglichte zum einen eine Beschreibung der endlichen Expandierfähigkeit aufgrund entropie-elastischer Rückstellkräfte sowie aufgrund von Kaltverfestigungen, und zum anderen eine deutliche Beschleunigung des Expandiervorganges aufgrund der Kapselanisotropie. Der Vergleich sechs unterschiedlicher Kapseln mit unterschiedlichen Schichtdicken und inneren Salzgehalten zeigte zudem, in Übereinstimmung mit dem Modell, eine lineare Abhängigkeit von Schichtdicke, osmotischen Druck und der Volumenzunahme. Die mit dem Modell einhergehende Vorhersagemöglichkeit der Expansionskinetik hinsichtlich der mechanischen und diffusionsbedingten Materialcharakteristika stellen somit möglicherweise eine Hilfestellung dar, eine zukünftige Materialauswahl zu treffen. Weiterhin konnte gezeigt werden, dass durch Rekristallisation der Kapselmembran und der damit verbundenen Wiederherstellung der mechanischen Steifigkeit, intermediäre Kapselgrößen isoliert werden konnten, was nach besten Wissen des Standes-der-Technik andernfalls nur schwer zu erreichen ist. Ungeachtet des Expansionsgrades konnten nur geringe Änderungen der Kristallinität festgestellt werden, wohingegen die Kristallgröße mit zunehmender Expansion abnahm. Diesbezüglich wird angenommen dass der Elastizitätsmodulus nur geringfügigen Veränderungen unterliegt oder sogar aufgrund einer Kettenversteifung tendenziell zunimmt. Zusätzlich der Betrachtung einer Volumenzunahme, konnte durch die Änderung des Druckgradienten ebenfalls ein Schrumpfen der Kapseln erreicht werden. Die Reversibilität dieses Prozesses wurde in Expansions/Deflations-Zyklen bestätigt und ist eine wichtige Eigenschaft der Mikroballons hinsichtlich ihrer Verwendung als Mikropumpe und Mikroventil. Die Fixierung expandierter Mikrokapseln durch Rekristallisierung der Membran ermöglichte weiterhin eine Pumpfunktion in nicht-wässrigen Medien. Dabei konnte festgestellt werden, dass die Pumpleistung sowohl von dem umgebenden Medium als auch von der applizierten Temperatur abhingen. Medien, die einen schnellen Abtransport der freigesetzten Flüssigkeit ermöglichten, als auch hohe Temperaturen steigerten hierbei die Pumpleistung. Mikroballons mit einer sehr großen Auswurfleistung konnten durch das Einbringen einer Öffnung in die Membran erzeugt werden. Die Fixierung intermediärer Kapselgrößen ermöglichte Ventilkonstruktionen, welche eine präzise Flussrateneinstellung und ein vielfaches öffnen und Schließen des Ventils ermöglichte. Diese Konstruktionen wurden durch das Einbringen eines oder mehrerer Mikroballons realisiert. Ein teilweises und vollkommenes Schließen dieser Mikroballon-basierten Ventilen wurde mit einem periodischen Versuchsaufbau in Abhängigkeit der Heizperiode gezeigt. Dabei wurden unterschiedliche Expansions- und Deflationskinetiken mit einem schnelleren Schrumpfverhalten bestätigt. Zusammenfassend wurden Mikroballons entwickelt, welche sowohl eine "on-demand" Pumpfunktion als auch eine reversible Ventilfunktion aufweisen. Die Implementierung des Schaltmotives in die Partikelmembran sowie die kontrollierbaren Expansions/Deflationskinetiken machen die Mikroballons gegebenenfalls zu geeigneten Komponenten für hochintegrierbare LOC-Systeme. Im Vergleich zu anderen Stimuli-sensitiven Materialien ist die Möglichkeit der nahezu kontinuierlichen Stabilisierung von intermediärer Partikelgrößen hervorzuheben. Dieses Verhalten wird dabei durch Wechselspiel zwischen Materialeigenschaften und Kapselgeometrie erzeugt. KW - microcapsules KW - expansion KW - stimuli-sensitivity KW - microfluidics KW - polymer network KW - Mikrokapseln KW - expandierbar KW - Stimuli-Sensitivität KW - Mikrofluidik KW - Polymernetzwerk Y1 - 2023 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fischer, Martin A1 - Winter, Bodo A1 - Felisatti, Arianna A1 - Myachykov, Andriy A1 - Jeglinski-Mende, Melinda A. A1 - Shaki, Samuel T1 - More Instructions Make Fewer Subtractions JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Research on problem solving offers insights into how humans process task-related information and which strategies they use (Newell and Simon, 1972; Öllinger et al., 2014). Problem solving can be defined as the search for possible changes in one's mind (Kahneman, 2003). In a recent study, Adams et al. (2021) assessed whether the predominant problem solving strategy when making changes involves adding or subtracting elements. In order to do this, they used several examples of simple problems, such as editing text or making visual patterns symmetrical, either in naturalistic settings or on-line. The essence of the authors' findings is a strong preference to add rather than subtract elements across a diverse range of problems, including the stabilizing of artifacts, creating symmetrical patterns, or editing texts. More specifically, they succeeded in demonstrating that “participants were less likely to identify advantageous subtractive changes when the task did not (vs. did) cue them to consider subtraction, when they had only one opportunity (vs. several) to recognize the shortcomings of an additive search strategy or when they were under a higher (vs. lower) cognitive load” (Adams et al., 2021, p. 258). Addition and subtraction are generally defined as de-contextualized mathematical operations using abstract symbols (Russell, 1903/1938). Nevertheless, understanding of both symbols and operations is informed by everyday activities, such as making or breaking objects (Lakoff and Núñez, 2000; Fischer and Shaki, 2018). The universal attribution of “addition bias” or “subtraction neglect” to problem solving activities is perhaps a convenient shorthand but it overlooks influential framing effects beyond those already acknowledged in the report and the accompanying commentary (Meyvis and Yoon, 2021). Most importantly, while Adams et al.'s study addresses an important issue, their very method of verbally instructing participants, together with lack of control over several known biases, might render their findings less than conclusive. Below, we discuss our concerns that emerged from the identified biases, namely those regarding the instructions and the experimental materials. Moreover, we refer to research from mathematical cognition that provides new insights into Adams et al.'s findings. KW - problem solving KW - addition KW - subtraction KW - cognitive bias KW - SNARC Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.720616 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 12 SP - 1 EP - 3 PB - Frontiers Media SA CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Scheck-Wenderoth, Magdalena A1 - Cacace, Mauro A1 - Maystrenko, Yuriy Petrovich A1 - Cherubini, Yvonne A1 - Noack, Vera A1 - Kaiser, Bjoern Onno A1 - Sippel, Judith A1 - Bjoern, Lewerenz T1 - Models of heat transport in the Central European Basin System: Effective mechanisms at different scales JF - Marine and petroleum geology N2 - Understanding heat transport in sedimentary basins requires an assessment of the regional 3D heat distribution and of the main physical mechanisms responsible for the transport of heat. We review results from different 3D numerical simulations of heat transport based on 3D basin models of the Central European Basin System (CEBS). Therefore we compare differently detailed 3D structural models of the area, previously published individually, to assess the influence of (1) different configurations of the deeper lithosphere, (2) the mechanism of heat transport considered and (3) large faults dissecting the sedimentary succession on the resulting thermal field and groundwater flow. Based on this comparison we propose a modelling strategy linking the regional and lithosphere-scale to the sub-basin and basin-fill scale and appropriately considering the effective heat transport processes. We find that conduction as the dominant mechanism of heat transport in sedimentary basins is controlled by the distribution of thermal conductivities, compositional and thickness variations of both the conductive and radiogenic crystalline crust as well as the insulating sediments and by variations in the depth to the thermal lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary. Variations of these factors cause thermal anomalies of specific wavelength and must be accounted for in regional thermal studies. In addition advective heat transport also exerts control on the thermal field on the regional scale. In contrast, convective heat transport and heat transport along faults is only locally important and needs to be considered for exploration on the reservoir scale. The general applicability of the proposed workflow makes it of interest for a broad range of application in geosciences including oil and gas exploration, geothermal utilization or carbon capture and sequestration issues. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - 3D thermal model KW - Geothermal field KW - Sedimentary basin KW - Heat transport by conduction KW - Advection and convection KW - Central European Basin System Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpetgeo.2014.03.009 SN - 0264-8172 SN - 1873-4073 VL - 55 SP - 315 EP - 331 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mientus, Lukas A1 - Hume, Anne A1 - Wulff, Peter A1 - Meiners, Antoinette A1 - Borowski, Andreas T1 - Modelling STEM teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge in the framework of the refined consensus model BT - A systematic literature review JF - Education Sciences : open access journal N2 - Science education researchers have developed a refined understanding of the structure of science teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), but how to develop applicable and situation-adequate PCK remains largely unclear. A potential problem lies in the diverse conceptualisations of the PCK used in PCK research. This study sought to systematize existing science education research on PCK through the lens of the recently proposed refined consensus model (RCM) of PCK. In this review, the studies’ approaches to investigating PCK and selected findings were characterised and synthesised as an overview comparing research before and after the publication of the RCM. We found that the studies largely employed a qualitative case-study methodology that included specific PCK models and tools. However, in recent years, the studies focused increasingly on quantitative aspects. Furthermore, results of the reviewed studies can mostly be integrated into the RCM. We argue that the RCM can function as a meaningful theoretical lens for conceptualizing links between teaching practice and PCK development by proposing pedagogical reasoning as a mechanism and/or explanation for PCK development in the context of teaching practice. KW - pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) KW - refined consensus model (RCM) KW - pedagogical reasoning KW - teaching practice KW - science teaching KW - literature review Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12060385 SN - 2227-7102 VL - 12 SP - 1 EP - 25 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 6 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schraplau, Anne A1 - Block, Andrea A1 - Häusler, Andreas A1 - Wippert, Pia-Maria A1 - Rapp, Michael A. A1 - Völler, Heinz A1 - Bonaventura, Klaus A1 - Mayer, Frank T1 - Mobile diagnostics and consultation for the prevention of the metabolic syndrome and its secondary diseases in Brandenburg—study protocol of a regional prospective cohort study BT - the Mobile Brandenburg Cohort JF - Pilot and Feasibility Studies N2 - Background The metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a risk cluster for a number of secondary diseases. The implementation of prevention programs requires early detection of individuals at risk. However, access to health care providers is limited in structurally weak regions. Brandenburg, a rural federal state in Germany, has an especially high MetS prevalence and disease burden. This study aims to validate and test the feasibility of a setup for mobile diagnostics of MetS and its secondary diseases, to evaluate the MetS prevalence and its association with moderating factors in Brandenburg and to identify new ways of early prevention, while establishing a “Mobile Brandenburg Cohort” to reveal new causes and risk factors for MetS. Methods In a pilot study, setups for mobile diagnostics of MetS and secondary diseases will be developed and validated. A van will be equipped as an examination room using point-of-care blood analyzers and by mobilizing standard methods. In study part A, these mobile diagnostic units will be placed at different locations in Brandenburg to locally recruit 5000 participants aged 40-70 years. They will be examined for MetS and advice on nutrition and physical activity will be provided. Questionnaires will be used to evaluate sociodemographics, stress perception, and physical activity. In study part B, participants with MetS, but without known secondary diseases, will receive a detailed mobile medical examination, including MetS diagnostics, medical history, clinical examinations, and instrumental diagnostics for internal, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and cognitive disorders. Participants will receive advice on nutrition and an exercise program will be demonstrated on site. People unable to participate in these mobile examinations will be interviewed by telephone. If necessary, participants will be referred to general practitioners for further diagnosis. Discussion The mobile diagnostics approach enables early detection of individuals at risk, and their targeted referral to local health care providers. Evaluation of the MetS prevalence, its relation to risk-increasing factors, and the “Mobile Brandenburg Cohort” create a unique database for further longitudinal studies on the implementation of home-based prevention programs to reduce mortality, especially in rural regions. Trial registration German Clinical Trials Register, DRKS00022764; registered 07 October 2020—retrospectively registered. KW - Metabolic syndrome KW - Mobile diagnostics KW - Prevention KW - Nutrition KW - Physical activity KW - Rural health Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s40814-021-00898-w SN - 2055-5784 VL - 7 SP - 1 EP - 11 PB - BioMed Central (Springer Nature) CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Giraudier, Manon A1 - Ventura-Bort, Carlos A1 - Wendt, Julia A1 - Lischke, Alexander A1 - Weymar, Mathias T1 - Memory advantage for untrustworthy faces: Replication across lab- and web-based studies JF - PLoS ONE N2 - The Covid-19 pandemic imposed new constraints on empirical research and forced researchers to transfer from traditional laboratory research to the online environment. This study tested the validity of a web-based episodic memory paradigm by comparing participants’ memory performance for trustworthy and untrustworthy facial stimuli in a supervised laboratory setting and an unsupervised web setting. Consistent with previous results, we observed enhanced episodic memory for untrustworthy compared to trustworthy faces. Most importantly, this memory bias was comparable in the online and the laboratory experiment, suggesting that web-based procedures are a promising tool for memory research. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264034 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 17 SP - 1 EP - 11 PB - PLoS ONE CY - San Francisco, California, US ET - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kaboth-Bahr, Stefanie A1 - Bahr, André A1 - Stepanek, Christian A1 - Catunda, Maria Carolina Amorim A1 - Karas, Cyrus A1 - Ziegler, Martin A1 - García-Gallardo, Ángela A1 - Grunert, Patrick T1 - Mediterranean heat injection to the North Atlantic delayed the intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciations JF - Communications Earth & Environment N2 - The intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciations at the end of the Pliocene epoch marks one of the most substantial climatic shifts of the Cenozoic. Despite global cooling, sea surface temperatures in the high latitude North Atlantic Ocean rose between 2.9–2.7 million years ago. Here we present sedimentary geochemical proxy data from the Gulf of Cadiz to reconstruct the variability of Mediterranean Outflow Water, an important heat source to the North Atlantic. We find evidence for enhanced production of Mediterranean Outflow from the mid-Pliocene to the late Pliocene which we infer could have driven a sub-surface heat channel into the high-latitude North Atlantic. We then use Earth System Models to constrain the impact of enhanced Mediterranean Outflow production on the northward heat transport in the North Atlantic. In accord with the proxy data, the numerical model results support the formation of a sub-surface channel that pumped heat from the subtropics into the high latitude North Atlantic. We further suggest that this mechanism could have delayed ice sheet growth at the end of the Pliocene. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-021-00232-5 SN - 2662-4435 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Springer Nature CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - EL-Ashker, Said A1 - Chaabene, Helmi A1 - Prieske, Olaf T1 - Maximal isokinetic elbow and knee flexor–extensor strength measures in combat sports athletes: the role of movement velocity and limb side JF - BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation N2 - Background Maximal isokinetic strength ratios of joint flexors and extensors are important parameters to indicate the level of muscular balance at the joint. Further, in combat sports athletes, upper and lower limb muscle strength is affected by the type of sport. Thus, this study aimed to examine the differences in maximal isokinetic strength of the flexors and extensors and the corresponding flexor–extensor strength ratios of the elbows and knees in combat sports athletes. Method Forty male participants (age = 22.3 ± 2.5 years) from four different combat sports (amateur boxing, taekwondo, karate, and judo; n = 10 per sport) were tested for eccentric peak torque of the elbow/knee flexors (EF/KF) and concentric peak torque of the elbow/knee extensors (EE/KE) at three different angular velocities (60, 120, and 180°/s) on the dominant and non-dominant side using an isokinetic device. Results Analyses revealed significant, large-sized group × velocity × limb interactions for EF, EE, and EF–EE ratio, KF, KE, and KF–KE ratio (p ≤ 0.03; 0.91 ≤ d ≤ 1.75). Post-hoc analyses indicated that amateur boxers displayed the largest EE strength values on the non-dominant side at ≤ 120°/s and the dominant side at ≥ 120°/s (p < 0.03; 1.21 ≤ d ≤ 1.59). The largest EF–EE strength ratios were observed on amateur boxers’ and judokas’ non-dominant side at ≥ 120°/s (p < 0.04; 1.36 ≤ d ≤ 2.44). Further, we found lower KF–KE strength measures in karate (p < 0.04; 1.12 ≤ d ≤ 6.22) and judo athletes (p ≤ 0.03; 1.60 ≤ d ≤ 5.31) particularly on the non-dominant side. Conclusions The present findings indicated combat sport-specific differences in maximal isokinetic strength measures of EF, EE, KF, and KE particularly in favor of amateur boxers on the non-dominant side. KW - Dynamometry KW - Martial arts KW - Hamstring-quadriceps ratio KW - Eccentric muscle action KW - Injury Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s13102-022-00432-2 SN - 1758-2555 VL - 13 PB - Springer Nature CY - London ER - TY - THES A1 - Swart, Corné T1 - Managing protein activity in A. thaliana BT - A proteomic approach to understanding SUMOylation as well as the regulation of carbohydrate metabolism Y1 - 2017 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schäfer, Marjänn Helena A1 - Kakularam, Kumar Reddy A1 - Reisch, Florian A1 - Rothe, Michael A1 - Stehling, Sabine A1 - Heydeck, Dagmar A1 - Püschel, Gerhard Paul A1 - Kuhn, Hartmut T1 - Male Knock-in Mice Expressing an Arachidonic Acid Lipoxygenase 15B (Alox15B) with Humanized Reaction Specificity Are Prematurely Growth Arrested When Aging JF - Biomedicines N2 - Mammalian arachidonic acid lipoxygenases (ALOXs) have been implicated in cell differentiation and in the pathogenesis of inflammation. The mouse genome involves seven functional Alox genes and the encoded enzymes share a high degree of amino acid conservation with their human orthologs. There are, however, functional differences between mouse and human ALOX orthologs. Human ALOX15B oxygenates arachidonic acid exclusively to its 15-hydroperoxy derivative (15S-HpETE), whereas 8S-HpETE is dominantly formed by mouse Alox15b. The structural basis for this functional difference has been explored and in vitro mutagenesis humanized the reaction specificity of the mouse enzyme. To explore whether this mutagenesis strategy may also humanize the reaction specificity of mouse Alox15b in vivo, we created Alox15b knock-in mice expressing the arachidonic acid 15-lipoxygenating Tyr603Asp+His604Val double mutant instead of the 8-lipoxygenating wildtype enzyme. These mice are fertile, display slightly modified plasma oxylipidomes and develop normally up to an age of 24 weeks. At later developmental stages, male Alox15b-KI mice gain significantly less body weight than outbred wildtype controls, but this effect was not observed for female individuals. To explore the possible reasons for the observed gender-specific growth arrest, we determined the basic hematological parameters and found that aged male Alox15b-KI mice exhibited significantly attenuated red blood cell parameters (erythrocyte counts, hematocrit, hemoglobin). Here again, these differences were not observed in female individuals. These data suggest that humanization of the reaction specificity of mouse Alox15b impairs the functionality of the hematopoietic system in males, which is paralleled by a premature growth arrest. KW - eicosanoids KW - lipid peroxidation KW - oxidative stress KW - polyenoic fatty acids KW - erythropoiesis Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines10061379 SN - 2227-9059 VL - 10 SP - 1 EP - 22 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 6 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Püschel, Gerhard A1 - Klauder, Julia A1 - Henkel-Oberländer, Janin T1 - Macrophages, low-grade inflammation, insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia BT - A mutual ambiguous relationship in the development of metabolic diseases JF - Journal of Clinical Medicine : open access journal N2 - Metabolic derangement with poor glycemic control accompanying overweight and obesity is associated with chronic low-grade inflammation and hyperinsulinemia. Macrophages, which present a very heterogeneous population of cells, play a key role in the maintenance of normal tissue homeostasis, but functional alterations in the resident macrophage pool as well as newly recruited monocyte-derived macrophages are important drivers in the development of low-grade inflammation. While metabolic dysfunction, insulin resistance and tissue damage may trigger or advance pro-inflammatory responses in macrophages, the inflammation itself contributes to the development of insulin resistance and the resulting hyperinsulinemia. Macrophages express insulin receptors whose downstream signaling networks share a number of knots with the signaling pathways of pattern recognition and cytokine receptors, which shape macrophage polarity. The shared knots allow insulin to enhance or attenuate both pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory macrophage responses. This supposedly physiological function may be impaired by hyperinsulinemia or insulin resistance in macrophages. This review discusses the mutual ambiguous relationship of low-grade inflammation, insulin resistance, hyperinsulinemia and the insulin-dependent modulation of macrophage activity with a focus on adipose tissue and liver. KW - NAFLD/MAFLD KW - type 2 diabetes KW - obesity KW - vicious cycle KW - TLR signaling KW - M1/M2 differentiation KW - Akt pathway Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm11154358 SN - 2077-0383 VL - 11 IS - 15 SP - 1 EP - 30 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mumm, Rebekka A1 - Scheffler, Christiane A1 - Hermanussen, Michael T1 - Locally structured correlation (LSC) plots describe inhomogeneity in normally distributed correlated bivariate variables JF - Archives of Public Health N2 - Background The association between bivariate variables may not necessarily be homogeneous throughout the whole range of the variables. We present a new technique to describe inhomogeneity in the association of bivariate variables. Methods We consider the correlation of two normally distributed random variables. The 45° diagonal through the origin of coordinates represents the line on which all points would lie if the two variables completely agreed. If the two variables do not completely agree, the points will scatter on both sides of the diagonal and form a cloud. In case of a high association between the variables, the band width of this cloud will be narrow, in case of a low association, the band width will be wide. The band width directly relates to the magnitude of the correlation coefficient. We then determine the Euclidean distances between the diagonal and each point of the bivariate correlation, and rotate the coordinate system clockwise by 45°. The standard deviation of all Euclidean distances, named “global standard deviation”, reflects the band width of all points along the former diagonal. Calculating moving averages of the standard deviation along the former diagonal results in “locally structured standard deviations” and reflect patterns of “locally structured correlations (LSC)”. LSC highlight inhomogeneity of bivariate correlations. We exemplify this technique by analyzing the association between body mass index (BMI) and hip circumference (HC) in 6313 healthy East German adults aged 18 to 70 years. Results The correlation between BMI and HC in healthy adults is not homogeneous. LSC is able to identify regions where the predictive power of the bivariate correlation between BMI and HC increases or decreases, and highlights in our example that slim people have a higher association between BMI and HC than obese people. Conclusion Locally structured correlations (LSC) identify regions of higher or lower than average correlation between two normally distributed variables. KW - Standard deviation KW - Locally structured standard deviation KW - Locally structured correlation KW - Variance Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s13690-021-00748-4 SN - 0778-7367 SN - 2049-3258 VL - 80 PB - Springer Nature BMC CY - Bruxelles ER -